Mom was up in the geri chair when we came in, and we had a couple of hours of time with her. First, the medical - her cough isn't gone, but hasn't gotten any worse. She's on a 7-day course of antibiotics, so I guess this is to be expected. She's still compulsively moving her right hand. No big changes at present. On to the personal.
Once we got past the "how are you" sorts of questions, I was recounting what people have told us over the phone, and the basics of their lives as we know them. Mom answered a lot, but it is harder and harder to understand her. She also still gives half an answer and stops, so I play multiple choice with suggested ends of sentences. This is a very time-consuming way to hold a conversation, but we manage. This time, after she'd contributed perhaps a dozen lines of conversation in an hour, she flattered me with one very complete thought: "You've done a lot of research."
It became clear that throughout the exchange she did not know I was her son. So I spent the next half hour convincing her that I'm Dan.
Then we called around to friends/family again... after she talked to Vivien and Meryl, we connected with the English relatives. At that point Mom seemed to lose steam in mid-call.
So, I went back to the old standby - I hauled the guitar in.
She seemed both agitated and tired, so I played soft songs, with the hope she'd get some sleep. She did, and we left once she was soundly snoozing.
It's hard to measure her mental decline, because she'd been nearly incommunicado by the time she left New Jersey. Now she's willing to converse but less and less able. Perhaps back in NJ she wasn't able, because she had undiagnosed infections. Perhaps it was her response to "sometimes-visitors." I don't know.
I do know that she's still absent and present day-by-day. What is hard to measure is the degree to which her presence is an illusion of my own making. She's familiar with the idea that "Dan is a musician," so the music goes a much longer way to establishing my identity than talking for an hour.
All of us who've seen her since the stroke know she's not the Estelle we knew, and hasn't been since the day she went to the hospital. The various stages of decline seem to me like markers on a path away from us. On her better days, it's as if sometimes she turns around toward us and waves, but each time from a little bit greater distance. Sometimes she surprises us and comes back toward us a step or two. So what are we to do? I suppose follow he as far as we can, and continue to wave back at her, from whatever distance.
Please pardon my morose woolgathering this time, gentle reader. May the last hours of Hannukah, or "boxing day" for our Christian friends, treat you well.
Love,
Dan/Laura
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