Cottage cheese

The Cranberry bike rack

Mom called this morning saying she felt lost. She was on her cell, which she only uses with help, and I could hear an aide in the background. She wanted to call my sister for her birthday, but didn't seem to know how to do it, and after a few rounds of deepening confusion, I had her put the aide on the phone, and told her where the key phone numbers were posted -- right by the bed, in big print -- and asked her to tell my mom I'd be there at 3.

So I went by bike. On the bike, it's easier not to worry about her, and I had a good ride. She was waiting in her room -- standing, putzing -- and when I said, "Mom?" she turned to me and said, "Oh good! You're here!"

The first thing she said was, "I'm feeling lost," and "All of my friends are gone." I took a guess, "Dar? Carol?" She said Yes. They are hanging out together, doing things together, and Mom can't keep up. "I feel jealous," she said.

She wandered to the dining room while I looked over her papers, and when I found her, she introduced me to the aides, "This is my son, Jon," her hand outstretched at Jon. Jon the new dishwasher on the "The Price is Right." Of course, every time I come I am reintroduced, sometimes as her brother. Once, even, she called me Nels. But to the aides, this is a mild case, and they just say, "We know Jon," and smile.

When a resident wandered up to meet a friend, Mom gave her big, used-car-salesman smile and introduced herself. "I'm Mary." The woman, E, knew her, had met her when Mom moved in. But to Mom, this was all new material, and when the conversation ended and Mom still stood there smiling, I took her arm and said, "Let's go downstairs."

We bought the cottage-cheese cups topped with raspberries and granola. Mom said it needed something, something like syrup, so I went up to the counter and got a little cup of pancake syrup. We poured it into our cottage cheese and it tasted a lot better.