"I have been so so blessed!" were the words that came out of my Mom's mouth last week as she stood at her kitchen sink doing their dishes. Dishes is one thing that she can still do pretty well, although I believe the dishes aren't placed as orderly as they used to be. I listened with a special intensity as she seemed to talk out of her normal brain for just a few minutes. She went on to say, "You gotta hand it to your Dad (lately she calls my Dad "that guy that is staying with her.") for putting up with a lady that has no memory! You know, I am so lucky to still have full use of my physical body. I'm not in bed suffering from some physical ailment. I have been so blessed! I had a good mother, a good Dad, a great family, and have had so many wonderful opportunities in my life!" I agreed with her and we continued to talk about all the places she has traveled in the world, about all the great opportunities she has had and about many of the things she has accomplished. It was good to hear her say those things and I hope she can hang on to those memories!
A few days ago on the phone, after talking to my Dad, my Mom got on the phone and said, "How are you Mardi? I've missed you. How are things going at your house?" We talked for a few minutes about our little outing that we are going to have tomorrow . . . and again, I felt like, for just a few minutes, that I am catching glimpses of the real her . . her old, happy self! I love it!
Unfortunately that clarity is so unusual these days! Her insight seems to be going by the week and by the day. I haven't been around her a whole lot lately as I've been getting my kids ready to go back to school and all the busyness that comes with that! I've heard though from my Dad, and mostly from my older sister Paige, that she seems to be losing that insight that she has held onto for so long. Things that have been so commonly understood are now becoming odd things to her. For example, they were watching a show on tv the other day, my sister said, and there were two people, a man and woman, that started kissing. She asked what they were doing and why they would do that? My Dad has also mentioned to me a few times lately that her insight is definitely going!
My sister Katie and I -- my younger sister that just moved back into town after being in Hawaii for the last 5 years -- are going to try and get together at my parent's house about once a week to organize all of the photos that my Mom has taken over the years. Up until about the last 5 years, my Mom has always been a HUGE picture taker. For those of you who know her can probably picture her with her camera up to her eye, with her pinky finger standing straight up. I find that I'm a lot like her in this regard . . . I love taking photos too! I remember my Mom taking her camera everywhere we went! They have albums and albums of probably thousands of photos, and fortunately most of them have the dates and names of the people written on the back of them, which will definitely make our job easier. My sister and I are going to take all the photos out of the albums, organize them by year and family, get rid of some, and digitize the best ones for all the family. Katie and I got together for our first "session" last Friday for a few hours and my Mom sat at the table to help us. Her "helping" us makes the job a little harder as she kept picking up photos from the different piles and asking questions about them . . . but it's alright! It's always good to spend time with her, regardless! Bless her heart! She kept asking us if she could get copies of these photos and wondered how much she owed us for them. Every once in a while, too, she would look around the room and say, "we are home, aren't we?" She was getting so into our conversation about these photos that I think she honestly would temporarily forget where she was.
I still am not sure if my Mom's eyesight is just getting really poor or if she can't process people's faces when she looks at these photos. Maybe it's just her close up vision that's not good? She didn't seem to know who anyone was in any of the photos! We would tell her who was in each photo and she seemed to enjoy the time remembering certain people and talking about them.
Flashing back to 4 years ago . . .
July 23, 2010
A few common phrases said by my Mom lately . . . . .
"Will you play a song for me in my funeral?" It bothers me that she's thinking about her funeral already!
"The mosquitoes love me . . . they think I’m delicious!" I think she has always been one to get a lot of mosquito bites, and this is something I have heard her say often.
"You need to get in your own pictures! Have you been in any of your own photos?" Whenever I am taking photos of her or anyone else, without fail she asks if I have been in any of my photos. She always insists that she take a photo of me with my camera.
The last 4 or so months, I have been asking her questions about her life in this Memory Book . . . I'm so glad I’m doing this. She loves talking about these memories and they are things she can mostly remember. Trying to come up with one of her friends or ward member’s names is difficult, but talking about her grade school friends is like it was yesterday!
Here are a few of the memories from that Memory Book:
- Me: "How did you get to school?"
- My Mom: I walked to and from elementary school each day with Marie Kibbe (sp?), my next door neighbor . . and with Elaine Rich Anderson. We used to waltz to school and we laughed all the way!"
- Me: "Did you ever skip school?"
- My Mom: "No, not in elementary school for sure! I was a down-the-line kind of kid and didn't skip school. I guess you could say I was 'pure'."
- Me: "What school activities, sports, or clubs did you participate in?"
- My Mom: "I did cheerleading every year from 10th through 12th grade. I was a JV cheerleader the first year and then a Varsity the last 2 years. And then I was in dance club my senior year."
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