Friday,
July 22, 2011
Dear
Suzy and Kathy,
Just talked to Karl, who said Dana’s
operation couldn’t have gone better. It
went just perfectly—exactly as they hoped!
That the best news.
But the news about Mom isn’t
bad. She seemed agitated when I saw her
this morning, but there were some good moments in the 50 minutes or so that I
was with her.
When I arrived, she said this was a
bad time for me to be there because everyone hated her. When I asked her why, she said because she’d
colored these pictures, which she showed me.
I told her they were beautiful, and she said, “That’s why.” She asked an aide to keep them for her, and
then we went to her room.
“But you know who may be in there,
so we’ll have to be very quiet.”
“Kay?” I asked, and Mom said, “Yes,”
but Kay wasn’t there.
Mom asked me where she had put the
pictures she’d colored, and I told her she’d given them to the aide.
“Did you see me do it?” she asked,
and I told her yes.
Mom surprised me by being willing to
go out to the garden in spite of her concern that she should be going to the
bathroom.
(I think I forgot to tell you that
on Tuesday she had on four diaper panties.)
She went to the bathroom at the
corner after the 4,3,2,1 # exit, and then we went outside, but she wasn’t sure
where she was.
I showed her the pictures I’d taken
on Tuesday, and she said, “I can’t remember their coming to our house.”
We read an article from the SF Chronicle—something about parent as
teachers, the only upbeat article I could find in the whole Friday paper! We also read something about a writer on the
editorial board and the journalism prize she’d just won, and Mom said, “I’d
better get busy with the board.” She
also wanted to withdraw a couple of hundred dollars out of the bank to support
the cause. We read an article about
peace demonstrators on Memorial Day, too.
Maybe that’s when she wanted to make the financial contribution. But she wasn’t sure of the date.
“Is it September?” “Is it August?”
She was pretty close!
I was wondering about an old picture
in which I’m wearing a pretty mauve and white scarf Mom brought me back from
Alaska (I think), and when I asked her, “Do you know when you went to Alaska?”
she said, “I don’t know anything about time.”
When we were in the garden, a woman
named Georgia came out. She said her
mother Mary was new to Aegis, and I thought maybe it was the Mary we know and
love. It wasn’t. This was a very, very new Mary, not the one
with the sister she’s always planning her getaway with. After we met Mary, Mom wanted to go back
in. I gave her a lot of choices—sitting
room, her room, Other—but she chose going in the dining room, where she sat at
the table with Frank and hid the two pictures I’d given her under the place
mat.
She said, “They don’t want to look
at pictures.”
She also told me that I could
go. I told her I’d be back
tomorrow. She didn’t look overjoyed, but
she didn’t tell me not to come either.
Then I returned to SF and the
Downtown Library, where I looked up an article from 2001 and, after about an
hour, realized I was missing my car key!
I retraced my steps, checked with the librarians and security, and
decided to return to the car before calling Triple A. But there at the foot of the parking meter
was my key.
So…considering that, and Mom’s not
refusing to see me ever again, and the great outcome of Dana’s operation…I
think this has been a good day.
And how are YOU two doing?
Love,
Tina
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