I
wrote this to Kathy on a day in April when she arrived after I was there.
Dear
Kathy,
Mom seemed to be in the mood she was in a couple of weeks ago, when we managed
to get her to the cafeteria, but she kept telling us to “show some
intelligence” so that people wouldn’t be jealous of her or kill
her.
She and I were both very tired, or I would
have stuck around longer after your arrival and maybe we could have read still
more in the book. Suzy said that she got Mom out of a similar emotional
state by having her read it. This time Mom was too tired to read, but she
got into it a little bit when I was reading to her. She just didn’t want
me to read too loudly because she didn’t want the others to be jealous.
When I first got there, she was in the room alone and lying on her bed, and she
beckoned me over so she could tell me something. She projected her
voice fairly loudly for those listening in through the various bugged devices
(which she called “broadcasting”) and said, “Mostly, I think this is a pretty
nice place.”
Then when I went closer, she
whispered, “I think they’re going to kill us.”
She told me several times that she
thought they’d killed Kay or Kay had committed suicide or was otherwise dead
because she hadn’t seen her all day.
I told her that I’d seen Kay when I
came through the door.
“Did she seem to be alive?”
Mom asked, and I said yes.
I noticed that Mom had addressed the envelope I’d hand-delivered her card in on
Easter. It didn’t have her Aegis address, but it had something like “To
the Family’s ‘Mom’” and a few other things. I forgot to mention this the other day, but on the sheet I gave
her of the affirmation (?) Ada recites, Mom had added her own comments.
She’d also added comment to the visitors’ book. I don’t remember what she
wrote in the visitors’ book, but on the sheet with “The Peace of God is my one
goal” she’d written this:
I
think this is the 17th of April. Somewhere there is a longer
letter to all.
Later
all are innocent except for me.
I
am probably going to hell despite my craving for God’s forgiveness that would
not include my sin.
Nadine
My
computer can’t do this, but she’d underlined all and me three
times. I wonder what she imagines her sin is/was.
Mom ate well! She didn’t think the sandwich I’d made was quite up to
standard (and she was right; it had the same ingredients but didn’t hold
together the way the Delis get them to do), but she ate it as if she were
really hungry and she had a piece of a magic cookie bar. I asked someone
to bring us milk, and they did.
The only thing new I noticed this time was that she didn’t know some of the
things that she had (I think) stored in her long-term memory. In one
section of Contrary to Popular Belief, there are some famous quotes with
info on who really said them. When I asked about the survival of the
fittest, no name came to her mind. The same with “Give me liberty,
or give me death” (which, by the way, the books fails to mention is usually
attributed to Patrick Henry). She knew a couple, but I was
surprised that she didn’t remember them all, so that was new.
When Kay finally came back to the room, Mom seemed to take it pretty well,
didn’t she! She didn’t say, “I thought you were dead!”
Of course, that may have been
because Kay had her own message to deliver.
“Something terrible is about to
happen, so you’d better get out.”
Carol, who’d joined us for a tiny bit of Magic
Cookie Bar, wanted to get it all put away, and Kay said, “Something terrible is
about to happen, and you’re worried about that?”
Then she said something about the bed having
electricity.
Ada came to me and said, “These
people are acting like they’re nuts!”
I told her I thought they were having an
anxiety attack. (One each?)
Ada said she wasn’t sure she could
take it, and she left.
I think it’s good that Mom is willing to leave the room even if it’s because of
Kay. Mom would just be a lot more comfortable if she could control us
better and get us to show some intelligence.
(Did you notice how she hit her head
with the book after I told Carol something that didn’t show intelligence?)
I forgot to mention that when Mom was in a great state on Easter, she asked me
to get her some note cards so she could thank people for their messages.
I brought some Monet cards and I bought her some postcard stamps (29cents) as
well as some regular ones.
How did she do after I left today? I wish we could get her out in that
beautiful garden. But she didn’t even feel that we could be in the sitting
room without causing resentment.
“Lucky us who have so much when they
have so little.”
Love,
Tina
PS
That eye continues to fall. Once again, I called the Med Tech. What
happens when we aren’t there?
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