Happy Valentine's Day

Ok, so I started writing on Valentine's Day, even though now it's passed.  Tonight I had the most bizarre experience.  I was on a childhood friend's Facebook page and found another childhood friend - started looking at her pictures and thought 'when did we get to be this old?'  I remember her as a 8 year old twerpy kid.  Now she looks like a 40 something year old mother with a kid.

I wonder if that's how Mom experiences people and memories.  Like it was yesterday.  She seems to be more in her hallucinatory/delusional world.  She shares a little with me.  Today she said the kids were supposed to come over, but they ended up not.  Mom said the neighborhood kids seem to know she has ice cream and will come over - it makes her happy.  I wonder if they are memories from long ago and surfacing as reality.

Dementia is what it is.  Grief. Sadness. Bizarre giddiness. Exhausting. Gratitude for the moment.

How could she be so much worse than 6 months ago?  Hell, 2 months ago? My conversations with her are shorter and more frequent.  Sometimes we talk for 20 minutes, but more often these days we talk for about 5 minutes or so.  She calls me between 2-4 times a day now.  I try to grab the phone every time she calls as there is this fear in the back of my head that one day....

Our conversations are about the shawl she is making me.  The next day she is making me a blanket.  She asks me what colors my rooms are, what color I would like the shawl, the blanket to be.  We talk about the food I like to eat, what movies I want to see, the weather - how warm or cold it is, if the sun is shining or if it's snowing.

I treasure each conversation with her, each voicemail she leaves.  I've saved a few voicemails, you know the ones - she says something to make me laugh and then says 'Love you'.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Back at ya Voyageur!