Ned was going to arrange things for a Mothers Day brunch with my mother, which is always difficult to do because of not knowing exactly when they are going to feed them lunch...and you can't call ahead to arrange things because if she actually answers the phone, by the time she hangs the phone up, she will have forgotten what you were calling about.
We got to Atria as she was finishing her lunch and we sat with her while she polished off a big strawberry dipped in some sort of pink frosting.
While we were sitting in the dining room, Tom called and he talked with me and with his grandmother, but his kids were busy with their other grandmother so I didn't get to talk with them.
Ned, who is one of the very good guys, had brought all the brunch food, so we took her out of the memory unit and down to a patio in the regular part of Atria, which she claimed never to have seen before.
There are some perks of dementia. For one thing, you don't remember what your stomach has done and so though she had finished her lunch, she ate another one, which is fine because she hasn't been eating lately. . .
...and you get lots of points for giving her a card, which was brand new every time she picked it up to read it.
It's also possible for someone with dementia to eat "just one" stuffed egg four different times!
We came home after brunch. Ned had to get to work to help his friend Jon at the university's Whole Earth Festival and it was time for my after-brunch nap. Sadly, while sleeping I missed a call from Jeri.
Walt offered to take me out to dinner, but Mothers Day is such a hard time to find a restaurant without a reservation, so I just planned to cook dinner here at home.
It was a quiet Mothers day but I felt loved and maybe my mother remembers that she is loved too. If not maybe she'll find her card and read it again, for the first time.