Smiling, sorta

Happy New Year, everybody. We gathered the whole fam damly for once. Sans Blaise, who had to stay home and work.

We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with Mom. She got the seafood platter swimming in fluids -- it must have a real name -- and she ate very well -- shrimp, scallops, salmon -- and then tucked into the cherry-topped fudgey chocolate cake and ate half of a huge piece, and it was great to see her eat with real hunger. She stayed with conversation pretty well -- she gets up for visitors -- and we all had a good time. Sunday, then, she and I went to chapel and opened some of her gifts and cards, and got a call from a Sister.

She'd been begging me to bring Dad's funeral program, so about a week ago I brought it and we went through it line by line. Read the biography; the hymns (I spoke about one line of each); the liturgy; the readings (including the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want"); and the sermon, by John Rollefson, titled "Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak," which I thought was apt enough.

Aside from conversation one-on-one, there is nothing that engages her like the well-worn groove of worship of any kind. Add to that the subject of Dad, and she was rapt. She's fixated lately on those who have died -- her parents, her husband, two of her brothers -- and they keep coming up, rotating through her mind. Sometimes they are dead, but mostly they are still alive. She calls me Nels about half the time, or "Daddy," or her father. She says things like "Where's Orla?" or "Where's my mother? When will she come?" And when I say, "Your mother died, Mom," she is shocked every time.

The Sisters, Julie and I have at various times discussed this. Is it better to inform her, or to let her think what she will? It's hard for me to let her believe something that's wrong, but maybe she believes it anyway, no matter what she's told. But then sometimes I think I say what's true for myself, not at all for her. Facts are facts -- this is what I believe. Though why I should need to insist on this, I'm not entirely sure.

Too much motherlove

Huh. Jolly.

Arrived at Mom's place last night at the end of Singalong, in time to hear her say, "That's enough now. Let's stop."

She has some intolerant tendencies.

I took her to her room.

I had told her I would come over, but not said exactly when, and she seemed perturbed that it was so late, and I didn't help matters by saying I wouldn't stay long. "Oh, no, Jon. It's late. You can't leave. You stay with me now tonight." It was, maybe, 7:15 p.m., and it did seem like midnight.

I suggested we read devotions, but she had no patience for it. The terms of the visit were suddenly the entire subject matter of the visit. She asked me if I'd eaten, and I said I had, though I hadn't, and her thoughts toggled between me staying the night and her coming home with me and the matter of me eating and who had a car and who would drive.

I helped her in the bathroom, and then we discussed whether she wanted to lay down, but she was agitated and seemed not in the mood for that, so I took her out to the penalty box -- against her wishes. She said she didn't want to talk to them, and she got her feet to the floor and pushed back. What do you want? I asked. What do you want?

She couldn't say, but she wanted me to stay.

When we reached the corner, I left her for a couple minutes to get my jacket out of her room, and what I got back she'd formulated her final gambit: "How about you stay a couple hours longer and we both go together."

I said I had to go, and gave her a peck on the forehead. She watched me as I went to the elevator, her eyes furious.

*

What I feel, lately, is sad. The fluctuating emotions of visit after visit -- how I feel, how she feels -- are all part of an enveloping sadness that just has no end. Anger, joy, frustration, even moments of laughter -- it all goes in there.

Meanwhile, downstairs ...