Years ago, if I made a trip east to visit my mother, tail-ended by a planned rendezvous with a potential paramour, I would have spent the entire time with my mother largely in a state of anticipation about the encounter. Now, although there a pleasant flutter in my stomach as I look forward to 5:00 today and Garris-in-the-flesh, I'm have been where I always seem to be these days, firmly rooted in the present. The more the hyper, juggler extraordinaire with the razor-sharp memory that my Mom was recedes, the more she becomes unbearably sweet and vulnerable.
In the morning, I go into her bedroom and she takes my hairy forearm against her face, almost as if to caress a blankie. Such intimacy would have freaked me out in the past, but now as the role reversal takes root, I am more inclined to feel the parental indulgence and affection for a needy child.
Yesterday we went down on the train to see her two best friends, retired expatriate French teachers all. We had a wonderful lunch, and as they sat down to do the NYTimes Crossword puzzle, I borrowed the car and spent a hour with my childhood friend Claudia, who was back visiting her parents in a nearby town. We had a delightful time and when I got back, I cracked the last of the unsolved clues in the puzzle.
This morning I helped her sort through mail. One of the hallmarks of my mother's condition (I still can't get myself to say "Alzheimer's" ) is a reduced capacity to analyze. You know how you sort through crap in the mail and in a split second know what's junk, what's important and what's in between? My mother tends to take every piece of paper seriously, always afraid she will throw out something urgent. A previously routine task has become fraught with implication.
Something very interesting just happened as I typed this. Another resident, the type I thought my mother would be like--energetic and funny and extroverted--just walked in and asked me to remove a tick from her ear with tweezers. Of course I complied. We then had a lovely conversation. I'm going to see if I can make her my Mom's new best friend.
A very busy 48 hours head. Probably won't see you until Wednesday.
MCO 2008
You know how people say to other people, "I know that I don't fully understand your pain, but I totally sympathize with how difficult this must be for you?" Well, I don't have to say it here because I totally get it. There is something childlike in my mother's dependence on me and yet she is fiercely stubborn and will occassionally anounce, like a petulant 2-year-old, "Let me do it myself!" My mother and I went through her mail during my visit on Saturday and she was as you describe with your mother, afraid that every scrap of paper held some important information that she had missed.
Enjoy your time with Garris. Relax and bask in the joy of being with someone who is totally into you.