Cycle and recycle

The Ozaukee Interurban Trail

Hard to figure out the cycles of my mom. She was dressed up tonight, nice white blouse over a green top, a little makeup on, big silver earrings. She seemed stiff and frozen in her way, but her mind was pretty good.

I noticed that the table that had been covered with flowers and plants on Sunday, Mother's Day, now just held one arrangement. Through stops and starts, she said she'd brought the big hibiscus I'd given her out to the common lounge and set it on a side table so others could enjoy it, too, but somehow it had disappeared. She thought it had been stolen. She was quite upset. I talked to BTY, the worker, and she said they'd gone room to room, and it was nowhere, and that the administrator, JG, had even written a note about it. BTY just shrugged. "We don't know what happened."

I was kind of miffed about this. Not at the loss of the plant, but that someone would take it. Mom leaves her door unlocked around the clock -- half the time it's yawning open. She should close it -- I close it when I come -- but if there's a geriatric crime spree and she had to lock it and unlock it, it would add a quantum leap of complexity to her life: not being able to work the lock, a key she'd be losing, locking herself out by accident. A nightmare.

We went out to eat at Beans & Barley. She got a strawberry smoothie -- but didn't like it and only drank a little. (I had more!) She got tunafish on toast, and I got the fishcake sandwich. The order took about, oh, 15, maybe 20 minutes to arrive, and about halfway into that, she said, "Boy, they're really slow here," and made periodic followup complaints. Imagine a long car ride. I don't know if time passes more slowly for her, or what it is. Probably I'm boring company -- but this has happened even with the walking party of D, her erstwhile best friend.

But all in all, a civil outing.

I had dreaded coming because of the strange horrors at the end of Sunday's visit, and her followup calls. After "Where are you, where am I supposed to be," she'd called again, completely bereft, like she was drowning. The carpet, the table and chairs, the room, the very air unrecognizable.

She called later that same night. "It's better now," she said. "I was real, real quiet. I didn't talk to anybody the rest of the day." She said she did a puzzle with another person or two, but even then didn't talk -- as though not talking was a way of holding onto a reserve of sanity. "I think I can handle it," she said.

Then Monday, with a more confident voice, "I'm better now." She said she had talked to the nurse, and to a social worker, and went for a swim. She missed a pill, "and they were furious at me." Now the residents were involved in a game -- usually it's a sort of high-minded trivia -- with Brennan, the college kid who volunteers, who everybody loves.

But tonight, Wednesday night, all that confusion, just gone.

*

Julie and I head to Michigan for a week on Saturday. Sister L will come for a few days next week, and I'll have a week and a half without Mom. She'll have a tough weekend, I think, but I can't meet every need, every day, every minute.