I
had wanted to put on Jonathan’s tribute to Mom.
He sent me such a nice one today—“The Top 10 Ways ‘La Ville-Lumière’ Aspires to be Like Tina Martin, The
World’s Greatest Mom.” But I haven’t
found the one he wrote for Mom, so I’ll post that on another day.
for Mom After
Life Still Life
Three weeks after Mom’s death I got
the bag I kept in the trunk for her and brought it up.
It
sat up for a week.
Then, Thanksgiving Day I needed it
for transport of two salads, the dressing, pine nuts, avocadoes—the last minute
things—and La Crema Chardonnay. So I
dumped out the bag I kept for visits to see her.
The Creek Alzheimer’s & Dementia
Care big bag we got on the “Walk to End Alzheimer’s Funding” just weeks before
Alzheimer’s ended in Mom’s brain, which didn’t get the oxygen it needed to go
on after she choked on her dinner.
Inside it was a black and orange
Giants bag.
Some Mom’s (brand) Iced Lemonade
cookies that weren’t all that good. Better
were the Magic Cookie Bars and other things I made for her. So there!
A paper plate and napkins to serve
her and “friends,” the other residents in Aegis care.
Two small boxes of facial tissues,
the kind to fit the system that she had--one to use for new, one for the used.
The purple “Walk to End Alzheimer’s
water bottle (stainless steel, not plastic)
Women’s Wit the 16-month calendar
that turned out to contain her final days.
(“It takes a long time to grow an
old friend” on the cover.)
One
day I tried to read aloud quotations from this Women’s Wit collected here, but Mom
protested, “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve read these?”A little short
with long-term memory, she.
A mini Whitman’s Assorted Chocolates
box I got her in memory for the Whitman Sampler that made me dream back in
Blackfoot, Idaho—Someday I’d have one! (Some day I did, but See’s was better
then.)
The Sunday paper from September 25th
because I thought she’d like to read an article or two, and she could underline
and make margin notes the way we like to do.
Was the 49 mile SF Food Tour just
for me?
The October issue of the Funny Times (with How to Make a Satan
Sandwich: debt ceiling, fiscal pickle,
supply-side baloney, devil in the details. cold cuts to college grants, colder
cuts to seniors,)
A flyer for The Daisy Field by Amy Sutton about a little foster girl caring for
an urban flower garden and the old woman in the senior care facility across the
way—that would be Mom?
A to-do plastic folder with some
things I never did the to-do for.
And then Unlikely Friendships: 47
Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom, from which we read occasionally
until the last few weeks when lying down on the bed together seemed better.
Lying there and singing show tunes
she could play on the piano, “Bali Hai May Call You.”
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