Mom Thinks I'm Her Sister

When I went to see my mom today, she was sitting in the dining hall. I said hi to the lady sitting next to her, and my mom introduced me as her older sister. She had introduced me to the nursing home staff as her younger sister before. I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed that her dementia seems to have progressed. The consolation is her willingness to speak to the lady next to her. There’ve been times when she’s snapped at me for saying hi to other residents.

I asked my mom if she wanted to walk or ride in her wheelchair to a restaurant that was four blocks away. She said she wanted to walk. I got her walker for her. As we were leaving the nursing home, one of the staff members noticed she wasn’t relying on the walker–she was lifting it up and setting it down every few steps. At first I told her to slow down and take one step at a time, as her physical therapist had showed her when she first started her sessions. Then I realized she was ready to walk on her own, so I offered to carry the walker for her. She didn’t need to use it again till the last block or so. It was quite a journey. She made it!

There was a time when she was wheelchair bound and at least two medical professionals said she might continue to deteriorate. A relative of another nursing home resident, also a frequent visitor, told me there was hope, and she was right. This opens up a range of destinations. We made plans to go to the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, which will involve a much longer walk if she wants to see the animals.

I’ve been taking walks on my own in my neighborhood. I found this stepped spillway and made a mental note to check it every now and then. Ephemeral streams have been on my mind since I read about the US Supreme Court decision to exclude them from federal protection under the Clean Water Act. My kids used to like to play in Wildcat Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area, which only had water in the winter, the wet season. Now whenever I walk by water, I think about its permanence.