The Mentally Impaired Correct Me, and They're Right!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 

Dear Suzy,

                When I arrived at 12:10, Mom was at the table eating with Franz and Joy, but she didn’t have her teeth in.  She said she couldn’t find them, so I volunteered to look, and as you did last night, I found them in the bathroom in the container just where they should be when they’re not in her mouth.  I told her where they were, and she left the room and put them in. 

            “My gums are sending me a message that my dentures aren’t very comfortable,” she told me later.

            What a shame Mom can’t be comfortable and beautiful.  It’s so disconcerting to see her without teeth, but it seems sad that she has to be uncomfortable as well as terrified and lost.

                We had a nice lunch, and Franz, who usually looks brain dead, seemed to brighten up when I mentioned to Mom that  I was going to Germany.  It turns out he’s from Hamburg!

                Mom ate very well and asked for seconds.  She shared her second tuna sandwich with Franz.  Joy wasn’t eating (even though I think of her as a big eater.) 

                Mom was lucid and bright.  We went back to her room, where Kay was in the bathroom.  Mom didn’t know that I, not realizing she was there,  started to go in, which made Kay furious. 

            Ada joined us and we three sat in a little circle—me on the bed, Mom and Ada each in a chair, until Kay came out and scolded us all.  It’s Ada she particularly dislikes, and we’d taken a brief tour of the room that Ada shares with Doris to use the bathroom when Mom couldn’t use her own.  Doris was on the bed, and her name was written on several drawers, but once we were back in Mom and Kay’s room, Ada had no recollection of Doris’s being her roommate. 

            “I just keep my room for my children,” Ada said, and Mom asked her how she managed that. 

            Mom later referred to the “cell” she shared with Kay, and said that she didn’t take Kay’s tirades personally, but she still had to deal with them and her “and she’s a little nuts.” 

            Mom said she hadn’t heard from Kathy recently, but she assumed she still had “a niche” in the house.

                The hour I spent with Mom was pretty good except for the stress that Mom feels because Kay was being difficult, and when we went out into the sitting room, Carolyn told us to be quiet.

                If I remember anything else, I’ll let you know.

            Oh, how could I forget?!  Both Ada and Mom corrected my pronunciation, and they were both right.  Ada corrected soot when I pronounced it like suit instead of foot, and Mom corrected Pepys when I pronounced it with two syllables.