Happy 74th Birthday Mom
Today is mom’s 74th Birthday.
Wow!
I spoke to her a number of times today. Left a singing Echo message before sunrise. Then I called her later in the morning to say hi. We had a good conversation, she is pretty good today. Then I called her 45 minutes later just to be silly, and we had a good laugh. Then I called her 5 minutes later and we had a good talk. In the process I was checking to see if she would remember the previous calls, just checking up on her. It is a thing I do. She did remember from call to call. She couldn’t always do that, and a lot of things now still never make it to memory.
But we had fun. She really likes her Echo, she will tell you about it every time you call. Even if the calls are all on the same day. 😉
I could tell that she was doing a lot of thinking back, reminiscing. I guess with Alzheimer’s that is the path you take.
She has always been one to compare people across generations. She uses it as a way of framing her life. You know, “Oh, you get your sense of humor from your grandfather”, or “That Xander is James‘s little Michael. Typical family stuff. We talked like that for a long while, or she talked and I agreed with her along the way.
I think most of the time she is sort of just sitting there with her thoughts. And I wonder what those thoughts are. I wonder if she sees the world at all like she did before, or if her memories have moved and reshaped to bring her to where she is. If you ask anyone in the family, they will tell you the thoughts have moved, reshaped and even appeared out of nowhere. Nature hates a vacuum and when your mind starts losing a hold on the ones that were there, I guess maybe it has to create something to put in their place. It can be really frustrating for the people around them, I guess it probably is for them too.
I am glad that her mind has moved in a happy way, she is genuinely happy, or at least that is what I believe. It is nice to talk with her about love and joy. It is nice to share love and joy with her.
She told me the nicest thing today when we were almost done with our talking. Mom said, “You know, your spirit is a lot like mine.” Well let me tell you, that is about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you Mom, Happy Birthday.
74, that is just hard to believe.
