losses at 90

Spending the day with Momma, you never know what

you gunna get.

At 90, she is mostly happy and "goes with the flow"

yesterday, however when I picked her up at the Manor

to come and spend the afternoon in Plaquemine

she was sad. One of her table friends were leaving.

Just as we were leaving her friends family were

packing up their vehicles with their elderly mother and

her belongings.

She hugged her friend and said,

"Don't let them make you do anything you don't feel like doing"

as we walked to the car she was quiet.

I knew that her friend was heading to the nursing home

and at that moment, so did momma.

"I wonder why her family wants to put her in the

nursing home, I wonder if they can't afford it.

She pays her own bills for heaven's sake"

I try and make her feel better by saying that her son

told me it was because she could no longer stay by herself,

it had become too dangerous.

This was not a good enough reason for momma.

I wondered if she was thinking of herself,

if we could ever do this to her.

I try and reassure her by telling her that she

will never go to the nursing home, that us children

will always find a way that she can stay at the manor.

I vow silently to keep this promise.

By the time we get to baby boy's her mind, the demented

way it is, has changed the story to conform to something

she can handle, that is happy for her.

I ask her to relay the story to BB to see how she is with the

news now.

She tells BB that her son has decided to take her to his house.

Amazing what a demented mind can do for the good.

Yet as we approach the manor in the late afternoon,

momma says,

"I am surely going to miss my friend, you know she

has been at the manor for 13 years, I don't know why

she couldn't stay"

I try and cheer her up by saying she has other dinner friends.

She corrects me saying the other two don't like to talk,

the one who left used to converse and talk, they

played bingo every bingo day together and had

their coffee together.

I am sad for momma, I realize that this is a loss for her.

A friend that she remembers, one she associated with every day.

Her thoughts are not about whether or not she will ever

go to the nursing home rather what will she do without

her one true friend at the manor.

This makes me sad for momma.

Living to be 90 is not all it's cracked up to be.

Last night at 5:30 my thoughts are on my momma,

sitting at her table with one empty chair.

Probably not speaking much.

She called me twice last night,

probably because she had no one to talk to at supper.

This woman can still pull at my heart strings.

I know in a few days her friend will be just a distant memory

and she will be happy again because dementia is good

to her like that.

I know in a few days, there will be another to occupy

the empty chair at he dinner service.

I hope it is someone who likes to talk and joke,

I hope she likes bingo like momma does.