Rereading a life

Jon has to leave town for a few days for business, so I will be alone with Leola. Luckily, Whitney agreed to come over from Bend, both to see her grandmother and to help break the tedium for me. She arrives this afternoon and will leave Monday morning. Jon leaves tomorrow morning and comes back very late on Tuesday.

Last night, during dinner, Leola started talking again about going home, but this time she didn't know where home was. She mentioned needing to find her car again, too. She didn't know Jon was her son and got a little testy when he insisted he was. He kept pushing her and the more he did, the more unpleasant she became.

"If I'm your mother, then where did I go to school? Where was I born? See you don't know, so I can't be your mother." she argued.

After 20 minutes or so of this kind conversation, I'd had enough and went to clean up. They were still at it. I went out in front to water plants for a while since it had been a 95 degree day. When I came back to the deck to water out there, they were still having this absurd conversation. Later I asked Jon why he was trying to convince her.

"You know logic and reasoning doesn't work. Why badger her like that? I asked him.

"You didn't go through this with your mother... having your own mother not know you. I can't let her just forget me and our relationship." he said.

He was right of course. I didn't go through this with my parents. My father died when I was 6 yrs. old and my mother - well she watched Jeopardy in her hospital room the night before she died and knew most of the answers, just like Morgan Freeman in the movie, "The Bucket List". Nothing wrong with her brain. Still I thought there had to be another way to keep her remembering that she was his mother. Then Jon had a brilliant idea. You remember all those boxes of letters I was complaining about? He got one out and had her start reading them, which is what she's doing now. She's rereading her life.