Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner

We had a mass visit of the sisters last weekend, and it was great. Lots of face time for Mom, including a couple of swims. She tries harder, stays in the game longer when visitors come to town.

I went over Wednesday for a short-ish visit to let her know we'd have dinner in the fancy restaurant Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. A woman turned as we passed and said, "Your mother is wonderful. She was a great beauty." I wasn't sure how she knew this, since she'd only known her the last two years. On the other hand, in the land of the geriatrics, where most of us are headed, maybe you acquire the ability to read the young person inside the old one before you.

So we went to the fancy restaurant. She is impatient with slow service -- that is to say, normal service -- so I came armed with a folder full of things to look over -- Dad's obit, clippings from the old Albert Lea newspaper about her father at the church, her recitals, her father's retirement, etc., and one about a visit home to Albert Lea with Sister K in 1987.

"The O's are members of Zion Lutheran Church where M is active on the Christian Service Board and in a circle. ... she keeps busy almost full-time working with host families and foreign students at the University of Michigan, is on the Shelter for the Homeless Board and Social Service Neighborhood Center Board, as well as being a member of the Church Women United Friendship Circle" -- what she called her "black and white club."

Yeah, she was busy.

She listened to everything, looked at the pictures, and yet hardly moved. And when her dinner came -- salmon, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots -- she only picked at it and sat frozen. She whispered something, and I went around the table to hear her better.

"I can't eat all this and I don't know what to do."

"Just eat what you can, Mom."

But she was overwhelmed. It wasn't just the food; it was the crowded dining room full of well-dressed people, big families, lots of kids. "I can't face it," she said. So we had a little pie and then we left.

Upstairs I tried one more time. I showed her a YouTube video of the St. Olaf Choir singing "What Wondrous Love." She liked that -- and then she had to lay down.

Julie had gone to do Thanksgiving with her mother, and she and I met after our parent-service at a resort in Elkhorn Lake for a night of decompression.

I'm thankful for it all.

No solace

What it really looks like

We're still in mourning here. I wanted a better sermon today, so I went to my regular church, arranging with aides for Mom to get to chapel, and when Julie and I got to her at lunchtime, she hadn't been to chapel, which frustrates her and pisses me off. So much depends on the aide you get -- when you can find one -- and it's a real crapshoot.

We took her to the Bistro for lunch, and Julie had to dissect the omelet we got her, and still she would hold it in her mouth and gum at it, digesting it with saliva. Finally she had to go to the bathroom, but first fussed and fussed about wanting to save the ruins of her leftovers, so we found a container and scraped it all into it, and then, as we left, I threw it out.

She asks questions that trail off into inaudible nonsense, and even if she gets it out, it is a question about arrangements, like who's driving and where we'll be staying. When I get ready to go, she insists she'll come home with me, and asks what it is I have to do -- which is really to ask what could be more important than staying there with her?

Last night she said her mother would want to go to church with her, and was shocked when I told her her mother had died 35 years ago. "My mother is dead? Nobody told me! I didn't know! I didn't know!"

It is sad, pathetic, and exhausting. Today I really wanted to quit. I think, though, she might live another decade, with just enough presence of mind to keep me coming back.

Brave New World

                                                       Wednesday morning in America