A picture of mom and me taken in 2015 popped up on Facebook the other day. It’s a great picture of her - I remember having dinner with her that night and how happy she was that we were there. Not so long ago, but just thinking about everything that’s happened since that picture was taken makes it seem more like ten years rather than four.
In April of 2015, I was still eight months away from my Bachelor’s degree; it had been a very long road but now that I was hitting the home stretch, I was loving every minute of it. I even loved Statistics because it was a challenge. A HUGE challenge. I had recently been dealing with worse things and, as long as I gave those tough classes whatever amount of time it took to get it right, I could prove to myself that I was capable of just about anything. And, at that particular time in my life, controlling the outcome of something was extremely satisfying and strangely comforting.
In April of 2015, I was still able to talk to my mom about my classes and what the family was up to and have a semi-conversation about what she was doing with her day. She was still able to remember that I was in school and she would tell me often how proud she was of me for going back. I would write on her notepad what time I would be there next and, without fail, she would be at the front door waiting for me. If I was even a few minutes late, she would call me to make sure I was still coming.
I remember getting irritated at little things she would do like the four or five calls leading up to my visits, which were at least every other day, just to confirm when I was going to be there. Sometimes there would be several calls in a row in the middle of the night telling me “there’s something going on here that I don’t like”. She could never be specific but I’m guessing what she didn’t like was the staff telling her to go back to bed since she had, and still has, a habit of wandering the halls at night. I never expressed my irritation to her but people who know me may have heard a word or two.
Four years ago, we could still talk about my dad and our memories of him, she still remembered her friends from Illinois, and we could still laugh about certain silly things that had happened in the past. Mom still asked about my children, Leah and Logan, and made sure she had birthday and Christmas cards to give them. However, even then she didn’t call my son Logan by his name; she had been calling him “grandson” rather than his name for a couple of years prior. When she started doing that I thought it was strange but, in hindsight, I think I knew what was happening - the pieces of memory that fall away are so odd, so random.
Now, four years later, mom doesn’t always know who I am but she does tell me how much she appreciates what I do for her. She no longer remembers she has grandchildren, even when I show her pictures, although she always comments and seems to enjoy looking at them. She has asked me on more than one occasion if I am married and when I tell her “yes and it’s been almost thirty-one years”, she smiles and says “good for you”. If I take her to get her nails done, she forgets what we did within minutes but she does tell me that we had a good day.
Now, we have the same conversation every time we’re together; “How are you?”, “Is everything ok at home?”, “Are you going on any trips soon?”, and “When are you going to take me out of here?” - I answer, ask her a few questions that I hope she knows the answer to, and the loop is repeated.
Mom and me April 2015
A lot has changed. She doesn’t call anymore and she stopped waiting for me at the door a long time ago. She doesn’t look the same and the light that used to be in her eyes doesn’t show up as often. But she still laughs at my stories and enjoys the occasional outing. I know it could be so much worse and I do appreciate that she’s pretty easy to deal with but, no matter how you look at it, it’s not where either of us ever wanted to be.