It snowed yesterday and today. Both days Mom commented all day long about how pretty the snow was and how unusual it is for us to have snow—in her memory, she had never seen snow like this since moving here from Michigan ten years ago. (And, believe me, there have been snows like this since I moved here in 2008.) She walked over to John’s house tonight to watch TV with him. When she came back, she was convinced that all the snow had fallen in the time since she went over to his house.
Mom loves to do acrostic puzzles. The end result of an acrostic is a saying or quotation created from the answers. She said with delight tonight that the puzzle’s answers yielded a definition. Unless I misunderstood her, she was commenting on the very nature of an acrostic.
Today, one of the recurring comments was that she didn’t have anything to do. One of the variations brought a smile to me: “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
I’m feeling sad tonight as I see her deterioration continue. Today she was tired after only playing a roll or two on the player piano, a far cry from the woman who used to haul several loads of brush a day. She tried to unload the dishwasher but didn’t know where the dishes went. She thought it was morning in the afternoon and thought it was autumn in the evening. When she is with me, she does not remember that John has a job in Seattle. When she is with John, she thinks I am gone for several months helping with my grandson in Oklahoma.
It has been a long week. But the rhododendron we never got around to planting last spring and which now sits on the desk in her bedroom is in bloom. It reminds me that there can be unexpected beauty even in the winter of life. I just have to open my eyes to see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment