~Upstream and Down~

She's my mother, but since she's moved to River Court assisted living two years ago, she doesn't look like the mother I remember. She's gained weight, probably too much, but after the lean days when my father died and she stopped eating regularly, she looks pleasingly plump. Just not familiar. She still remembers me. She knows my voice on the phone-- usually-- but I've taken to identifying myself just in case. "Hi, Mom. It's me. Ruthie." She knows me when I walk into her room, but if I passed her on the street, unexpectedly out of context, would she? Her short-term memory is shot. She knows this, admits it with a rueful shake of her head, a slight chuckle. "I let others do the talking," she says. "I can't get in trouble that way." It makes for a tough hour on my part when I visit. Keeping a conversation going is my forte, but I do need a return volley now and then. She responds and waits for my next comment. I write car...

Nancy Reagan told Diane Sawyer in a recent interview, "If anything, I miss him more now than ever." She was speaking of her husband Ron, of course, the former President who died in 2004 at age 93. They'd been married since 1952-- 55 years. I immediately think of my mother sitting alone in her assisted living residence. She moved there less than a year after my father died. It was apparent she couldn't stay alone in the big house she and my father built, so my brother and I made the arrangements. Now she is alone in a small room. She has staff to help her dress, and remind her to take her pills, but she's alone-- except for our visits and calls. Her cat, and the TV. And her dinner companion, Ruth. Nancy Reagan tells Diane Sawyer. "We were always together." So were my parents, Bob and Gini. A neighbor once said about a pair of mallards that paddled side by side around a neighborhood pond, "They remind me of Bob and Gini." My brother and I discuss...