In a sentence…
By phone today, in kindness, one of my mom’s neighbors said, “Your dad must have been the nurturing parent.” That’s given me Great pause. Neither of my parents were the epitome of the gooy, sticky nurturing parent. I felt supported most of the time. Sometimes I felt both my parents overreacted, and recall examples of […]
E/L Ranch
After my mom’s sophomore, junior, and possibly senior years of college, she worked at the E/L Ranch in Montana (read: E Bar L). Every time we’re together she tells an E/L story. They’re good. She describes it as a culmination of her girlhood fantasy of being a cowboy. Not an easy desire to fulfill for […]
Quiet Time
Mom seems to be doing well. She seems content. This is huge as part of her personality trends toward being irascible, large & in charge and generally schoolmarm-ish . I hear from one of my deep sources that she’s helping another neighbor out who is unable to drive due to a medical situation. It’s SO […]
Passport
Our family friend, Tim, let me know that a memorial gathering for his son is tentatively happening in early March, in Canada. My first concern about attending was my mother’s passport. She and I talked about it two weeks ago, and she assured me her passport was up to date. I was dubious. My parents […]
A letter from the Editor
My mother wrote my husband a long letter in which she asserts my mother-in-law refuses to accept any help in caring for my father-in-law, suggests my father-in-law is at the brink of needing assisted living or nursing care and grossly mis-remembers, to my husband, where the last month of my father’s life was spent. It […]
Securities
We all have things that make us feel secure. Funny things that make little or no sense when spied through the glass of logic. My husband needs a box of Kleenex in every room of the house to feel secure. Some rooms are complicated or really big, requiring two boxes. Including the garage and bathrooms, […]
Marriage Date
One of my jobs is “Protector of Critical Documents.” Yes, the job title sounds a tad grandiose, but as documents come to the surface and disappear again, in both of my mom’s homes, not unlike gossamer jelly fish in a swirling current, I have learned the importance of securing these sheaths of paper before they […]
Birthday 2013
Today my husband and I picked up a spare bed at my mom’s Mainland home. With our younger children recently moved out in a definitive sort of way, and taking their furniture with them, we find ourselves short on things like spare beds. Who woulda thunk it? I asked mom, while discussing possible timing for […]
The Chimney
On New Year’s Eve mom called to say “Hi” and see what we were getting up to for the evening. She then told me the fireplace was working again. She hadn’t told me it wasn’t working, so I asked her about the problem. She said the inversion layer during the prior two days had been […]
Dementia Dance - Travels with Mom 