old friends

After lunch, I went to Atria.  I had been there the day before, but my mother had been sleeping.  I sat there for an hour, reading, waiting to see if she would wake up, but she never did.  I had bought a bunch of junk food for her, since she hasn't had any food in her apartment in awhile, and I left her clean laundry on the bed.  I also wrote a note for her, that I left on her chair and then came home.

She was awake when I got there yesterday, but lying on the couch.  The note I left for her was still sitting on her chair, so she had not sat in that chair at all yesterday.  I somehow feel that she saw the note and thought someone had put it there and she was not supposed to remove it and just sat on the couch instead.

She got up and sat in her chair, reading my note several times, each time asking me if I had written it.  Then she'd put it down next to her and then see it again, as if for the first time, and read it again.  She is having difficulty recognizing words now and so she reads slowly and has to sound out many simple words.

The other thing she spent time doing is looking at a photo of her 90th birthday party.

This framed picture sits on the floor next to her chair and from time to time she pulls it out to look at it and ask what it is.  It is a picture of all the people who came to her 90th birthday party and any of them signed the border of the frame into which we were going to put the group photo.  She looks at the photo and doesn't recognize anybody.  Yesterday I found the book I made for her after the party and showed it to her, reminding her about what fun she had at the party and how many people came to celebrate with her.  She doesn't even recognize me in the photos and doesn't always recognize herself.