Mom & Me Five Archive

there's loads of humor out there about aging. An acquaintance of mine sends me weekly "funny forwards", a good portion of which have to do with becoming older. None of them, yet, though, have talked about being truly old...like my mother, like the parents for whom you're performing sentry duty while they are able to remain at home, like the elders who are warehoused in what are often described as tasteful, well-appointed, uncrowded facilities with at least a few excellent staffers per shift (this, I've come to discover, is a pretty standard description of facility care, despite what the relatives of those who come to this really think about the provisions).
    Once in awhile, too, I've run across some brave humor by bloggers: Bailey was good at this; Paula had some stuff, too, and Mike recently hinted here at a conversation he had with one of his relatives in which he "suggested, only half-jokingly, that we ought to tell dad to 'grow up and act like a man'." Yes, I laughed when I read this. It hit very close to home. It resembles many bits of conversations I used to have more frequently with my sisters regarding Mom's belief that she can do something that she can't and our takes on what would happen if I simply stepped back and let her attempt what she is convinced she can do. I've indulged in Ancienthood humor not only with my sisters but with my mother, i.e., the Paddywhacked post. Obviously, I engage Mom in a different type of situational humor than I do my sisters. Mom probably wouldn't understand the humor of a whacked-out, imaginative dissertation on what might happen if I allowed her to, for instance, cook a meal or go through the boxes in her closet unsupervised.
    Often in blogs, I've noticed funny bits are published with an advance defense and, more often than not, someone comments that, yes, it's okay to turn elder caregiver agonies into moments of fun, even to the point of assigning the butt of the joke to the elders; it's necessary. The defenses stand witness to our continued hang ups about it. Although I admit I'm not particularly well read or well informed regarding comedy (not that I'm not interested, I'm pretty much your typical audience, though, busy with other things, pushing comedy into the corner to which I am occasionally able to relax, but only occasionally), I doubt that there are many people scrupulously mining this vein, which is probably why Sarah Silverman's homage to the really, really old is at once shocking and comedic. She pokes nasty fun at the old and what we think of and about the old, which evolves into a scene at a funeral in which the character Silverman plays for that segment rages against an Ancient One at rest in her casket. As I watched this, I realized that the rage her character expresses is, in part, rage against the mutation of old age that appears to disallow any attempt to heal relationships, come to mutual understanding and laugh at and with each other as we discover our foibles.
    During another segment, overtly focused on prejudice and its bywords, she speculates that we have trouble making any kind of fun of that which we fear. It's a brilliant section; rent the DVD and watch it. This is what I think happens when we contemplate getting old. I've met lots of people who look forward or to, at least, bravely and with hopeful relief, work themselves into an attitude of compromise with getting older. I've never known anyone, except two of my sisters, who jokes about the possibility of being Ancient and demented. Even in this instance, the joke is on me, as they posit that as I companionate and care for our mother, I am gaining valuable experience that will allow me to take care of all three of my sisters when they reach fey old age. Funny for them. Unsettling for me. Although, I always laugh. Because, well, it is funny.
    It's nothing new to say that we are, overall, afraid of advanced aging, regardless of how often we are able to sentimentalize what appears to us to be the plight of our Ancient Ones. This is the reason we are so concentrated, right now, on changing, rather than accommodating, the fact of Old Age, either from within or without. We are not interested in becoming our parents, our grandparents. Adding Advanced, demented aging to our list of topics about which it is okay to be funny, though, well, that's something pretty new.
    It has always been the job of the court jester to make fun of pride and fear so we can get over ourselves and get on with a less stunted life. The court jester, as it turns out, is usually the least vulnerable member of the court, chiefly because hilarious offense is expected, even desired as a kind of hard wisdom; as long as it emits only from the mouth of the jester. When it comes to really ticklish subjects, the ones about which the man on the street has trouble joking, though, anyone on the floor besides the jester who attempts humor is likely to lose their head.
    As I watched the segment to which I posted the above link, I wondered how many people have watched it and winced, realizing, "Ohmigod, that's exactly what I was thinking...:

• ...when I visited my dad last Wednesday."
• ...when I attended my grandmother's funeral."
• ...when I either accepted or refused the responsibility of pinch hitting for my sibling who is my great aunt's full time caregiver."

    I think it would be impossible for those of us who don't jest professionally to make much headway in dispelling the pervasive fear of Ancienthood under which we currently labor. Ancienthood is rarely, after all, a pretty sight. Maybe, though, if our court jesters can lead us by the hand toward imagining ourselves as the unintended clown in the diaper, well, maybe, is it possible, that the Ancient Ones for whom we are struggling to care will begin receiving more compassionate care; they will no longer simply be just "old" or "dying"?
    Jesus Is Magic also contains a segment in which she points out that, if you have to explain it, it isn't funny. I fear I have more than breached this commandment. So, let me end by saying, I salute you, Sarah Silverman, for going where most of us are afraid to go...and doing it with both the audacity and gentility of the treasured and esteemed court jester. Pay attention, people, and prepare yourself for The Reimagining of Ancienthood.

POST SCRIPT:  Oh, in the meantime, if you're aware of any humor about being Ancient and demented/disabled, classic or recent, Shakespearean or Shakes-the-Clownean, reference them on your blogs, post them as a comment here...I'm sure, knowing human nature, we've done this before, I'm just not sure when and where.

    The comment was meant to be posted to this post, and I managed to post it using the commenter's usual identification when she comments here. I can't unfortunately, confirm the problem of no verification script because the owner of the blog is not required to go through the verification process when commenting on her own blog. I will mention the problem to Blogger.
    I'll have more to say on this subject, later...not in response to the comment, as I can verify, from my own experience, everything Patty has said, including the internal roiling and the external aggressiveness that overtake caregivers...rather in response to having watched, with much enjoyment and appreciation, the outrageous Sarah Silverman (click that last link with care, it's a MySpace link...it's hilarious to think that Sarah Silverman has a MySpace site) Jesus is Magic. The DVD of the show contains two segments that tickled my previous thinking about this subject of The Old, the evidence that indicates they are marginalized (we don't joke about them, although Sarah Silverman does, thank the gods, and we don't joke about caregivers to The Old, either) and what all this means, you know, etcetera...
    ...later.

...the second complaint in a week that the Blogger-No-Longer-Beta's commenting facility is screwing up, not allowing posting of comments because the verification script doesn't show up, allowing posting to occur...at least on those of us who are using "old" blogger templates...not sure if it is affecting anyone else. Anyway:

1. I'm going to try to post this latest comment myself, with the typical identification of the commenter (she's a fairly regular commenter) imbedded in the comment, since I expect the comment, itself will appear to come from me.
2. Immediately after that I'll report on my progress. If I have no luck, I'll post the comment here in the journal with appropriate identification.
3. If anyone else has trouble posting comments, let me know, mentioning "commenting failed" in the subject line, so I can tell it's not spam (those of you who email me regularly don't have to worry about this) at the email address to the right towards the bottom of the link section. As well, if you weren't planning on remaining anonymous to me and still want to post your comment, send it to me, indicating somewhere in the subject line that the contents of your e is a "comment failing to publish". I will, one way or another, get your comment posted, with whatever identification you prefer (might be a good idea to mention this to me), or, anonymously, if you like (although, if you wish to remain anonymous to me, I'm thinking you probably won't be e-ing me about commenting problems).
4. I will notify Blogger of the problem.

    Well, here's goes something, I hope.

...(I come by this genetically, it seems): I'm more than well aware, I am painfully aware, of how many of our elders are caught in the grips of progressive, debilitating dementia that is, currently, considered the Alzheimer's type, especially considering that their caregivers are primarily the people who are journaling online about their elder caregiving experiences. I can't help but wonder, though, about what must be the millions of people who are aging, in the way of my mother, through the experiences of Ancient health and Dementia-Lite, and their caregiving families and friends. I think we're apt to ignore those caregivers to Ancients who continue to have a sense of themselves, as we become involved in the stories of those who are losing their loved ones to severe dementia.
    It's become apparent to me, over the last few months, that we are ignoring the plight of what to do about the grandparents/parents who remain sure of who they are, despite their increasing inability to negotiate the demands of life, in favor of those who are now ensconced in what we currently consider to be worst case scenarios. How many Ancients like my mother, who have not forgotten everything and who still have will enough to not want to be disconnected from family, are languishing in facilities next to those who have forgotten everything, including autonomic function, simply because our society is not economically or socially prepared to consider Ancienthood a legitimate stage of life? Truth is, despite all the online blogs about severe dementia and Alzheimer's, all the caregivers I know in-the-flesh (and, I know more than a few) are taking care (or have taken care) of parents and grandparents who are traveling paths parallel to my mother's. These are the paths, I think, that truly call into question our economic and societal assumptions about and ignorance of old age. We're coming closer and closer to the answer to the question, "What to do about Grandma when she's no longer Grandma?" The question we seem to be ignoring is, "What do we do about Grandma if she insists on remaining Grandma, even as her ability to operate independently and successfully in life diminishes?" The answer doesn't lie in our awe over the 96 year old who continues to work in the world or our despondence over the 83 year old who has become obliterated in the neurological tangles and gum of dementia. We need to pay more attention to the middle ground. The reason it's in the middle is that it's the axis around which most of our elders rotate. At present, in our society, it is as though this middle ground doesn't exist. We forget it, I'm afraid, at peril to our own axes and revolutions.

    Aside from a few republications in order to adjust the placement of pictures, I also wrestled with my life long difficulty with keeping "right" and "left" straight (which I inherited from my father's side of the family), which played havoc with my attempt to connect applicable text to its corresponding picture. I think everything's straight, now.
    Last night I realized that all this family history stuff began about a month before Mom's "I'm going to Mt. Vernon, tomorrow," night. She and I were talking about her cousin (the one who graduated from college the same year as Mom), her cousin's husband, and Mom wondered aloud if we still had a good phone number for them. I decided to try the internet. Not only did I confirm that our number remains correct (I'm not surprised; although this couple was also an extremely mobile branch of the family, practically living out of an RV for a good 20 years of their retirement life, they are both well into their 90's, and not at all mobile, now and always kept up their homestead in Mechanicsville, Iowa), I discovered an online history of Mechanicsville, Iowa, written in 1974. As some of you may recall, this town figures prominently in my mother's life and memories. Although only one of the founding fathers, Johnson, is a direct maternal relative, my mother's ancestral family provided wives for more than a few of the founding families and the names of Mom's aunts, uncles and cousins are generously scattered throughout the history, one of whom was Mayor of Mechanicsville for a couple of years. Mention is made, too, of surrounding towns with which my mother is familiar and many of her friends and schoolmates. I printed off the entire history and fashioned it into a booklet, using one of those folders with permanently affixed plastic, page-sized pockets. Every evening since I did this, my mother has spent time picking up the history, browsing through it, finding something noteworthy and reading sections of it to me. One particular section is read to me almost every other night, the naming of the town (fourth paragraph in this section). During these readings my mother isn't just reading history, she regularly comments on the names of people and towns and relates bits of personal history. I love thinking about my mother's mind and perceptions as she does this. It's been obvious since this and a slightly earlier event that we are firmly planted in Iowa, now.
    The "earlier event": A little after Christmas, we received a handsome, extremely detailed centennial history of St. Martin Land Company, a privately traded company, entitled, Passing a Century in the Atchafalaya Basin by Lana Henry. A couple of her relatives were numbered among the founders of the company, in which my mother continues to own lucrative stock, which was passed down to her through her parents. Her paternal grandfather was one of the founders. A picture of one of her cousins with her grandfather, as well as a group portrait of the founders, are in the book. Her relatives are mentioned a fair number of times throughout the early history of the company. Originally, all the company's holdings were in Louisiana. It seems that Louisiana is also where her paternal relatives disembarked and initially lived when they migrated to the U.S., previous to moving to Iowa. The book is rich with pictures and history that are familiar to my mother, so she also spends many happy moments with this book, as well.
    As for me, I'm pretty impressed that my mother's family is full of ambitious pioneer types, especially since many of those relatives migrated from Germany and England during times when the poor in both countries were being variously persecuted by the law. These migrants were not, as well, liked here. My paternal great grandfather, in fact, although he was a native speaker of German, refused to speak German around his kids and refused to allow them to learn it. As my mother talks about these things, I find myself vaguely recalling that my maternal grandfather had flashes of deep migrant appreciation for this country, no doubt passed to him from his immediate relatives. I now understand his enthusiasm. It seems that the mere existence of this country allowed many of my maternal relatives to disengage from economic shackles in order to give their dreams and energy full sway. I wonder when my maternal family tree will produce the next generation of chance taking, eyes-on-the-horizon migrants, figurative or literal.
    What does all this have to do with caregiving? I think, really, it has more to do with the companionship part of it. I've been contemplating, lately, that one of the more important aspects of companionating my mother through her Ancient Years is being an available witness as she reconstructs and repaints her family's history and character using her personal palette. Genealogy was a late interest of hers, taken up only after she retired from teaching. I sense that as she resurrects people, places and events, she is rediscovering her legacy, part of which involves many people who resemble Methuselah. I believe this is a significant factor in what keeps her going.
    I note, as well, that my appreciation for those tidbits of my existence that are maternally genetic is increasing by leaps and bounds. It's been a pleasure, lately, to find myself thinking, "Hmmm...so, that's where I got this trait." It also fills me with wonder regarding what curious genetic tricks my mother still has stuffed up her sleeve, thus reminding me that Ancienthood isn't merely a pre-death holding tank, it's a stage, in it's own right, full of possibility and surprise, even when observers take no note of this and assume that there is little left to know of one of their Ancient, demented relatives. Funny what happens when environment and genetics collide.

    The first picture, to the right, is Mom and her brother. The back of the picture indicates that Mom was probably about six years old, thus her brother was about eight. She particularly likes this picture because, although she was younger than her brother by two years, the picture shows that she was just a shade taller than him. And, yes, one of his eyes is crossed. This is not a trick of the light. I have a memory of meeting him when I was too young to understand the meaning of the word "impertinence" and asking him why he didn't get his eyes fixed.
    The second picture of Mom was taken around the time she decided to paint her bedroom black. She laughed when she saw this picture and said, "You can never tell what people are thinking when you look at their picture, can you?!?"
    When I saw this picture I mentioned to her, "You know, Mom, you looked good with straight hair. I can't imagine why you insisted on perming it later!"
    "I did, didn't I," she said. "I never liked my hair, though," she continued. "When I was in high school and college, everyone was perming their hair and I guess I thought I should, too," as the last picture to the right shows, her senior college picture, taken the year she graduated from Cornell. I took this out of her senior yearbook, which, I guess, accounts for the bad reproduction. This is the best scan I was able to get from the page, which was printed on glossy, sepia toned paper.
    When we looked at this picture, my mother said, "My goodness, I looked so serious, then!"
    "You mean to say, you don't think you were as serious as you looked?"
    "Oh, my, no!"
    Something else we talked about seems to confirm this. I noticed that her graduate degree was in Home Economics, which blew me away. "Mom," I said, "You never liked to cook, I remember you sewing but I never got the impression that you liked it..."
    "I didn't," she interrupted...
    "...and, cleaning house? I remember you dealt with house cleaning in two ways: You took advantage of your kids' innocent desire to 'help' and 'do grown-up things' and hired help as soon as you and Dad could afford it."
    "That's right," she confirmed, smiling smartly.
    "So, you know, Mom, why Home Economics? Especially since there was an Education Department at the school?"
    "I just wanted to get through and start teaching. I think I figured that was the easiest way to do it."
    "So, in those days, you didn't need to major in Education in order to get a teaching certificate?"
    "Goodness, no! You just needed a degree and to show that you were breathing."
    I know that my mother worked for two years to make money for continued schooling before going to college. I'm not surprised that, as soon as she set foot in those hallowed halls, she was looking for a quick exit. She remembers her college years as good years, especially living with her grandfather and uncle. Funny thing, though, as we went through the yearbook, I noticed that some of the classmates who signed her yearbook hinted at hilarious times in Home Ec. I asked my mother about this. She had no memory of anything, in particular or in general. "I'm not surprised we were high spirited, though," she said. "I think all of us had the same thing in mind."
    "Getting out and getting on with it, right?"
    "At least," she said.
    I also noticed that so many of the students in her yearbook looked older than I expected and asked her about this.
    "They probably were," she said. "As I recall, most everyone worked before going to college, or took a year or two off to work, to pay for it."
    Then, I noticed the picture of her cousin, two years older than my mother, who graduated the same year Mom did. I got it.
    "You know," Mom mused, "it used to be that kids wanted to look like adults, long before they reached adulthood. I guess it's not like that, anymore."
    I'm not sure whether that's true, but it is true that her fellow students all look more on the adult side of fresh-faced than the child side.
    The last picture is Mom's sister dressed for her high school senior prom. Mom's sister is one of my two favorite aunts, the other being my father's older sister (both are long dead). Mom's sister earned my undying love almost immediately when I first met her at a very young age: Something about her bearing, which communicated she considered herself a great beauty and wit, worthy of the ultimate in culture and graciousness but with a decided preference for the party, dancing and the boys in the band; something about how she could tell a perfectly ordinary story about a perfectly ordinary relative and make you feel as though you were hearing something salacious; something about her grand view of herself and her grand view of life; something about how she'd say, "Yeees, darlin'," if you said or did something that delighted her, and, she was easy to delight if she loved you. This picture is my favorite of her. I can see the slant of every single one of the rest of her years in this pose. Recently, Mom and I watched a Maggie Smith movie neither of us had seen, Travels with My Aunt. As we were watching I exclaimed, "Mom, that's [her sister], if the latitude and circumstances of her birth had been only slightly altered!"
    "She'd love to hear that," Mom said. "Remember to tell her the next time you see her."
    I will.

    In case you're wondering why I'm not publishing pictures of her maternal grandmother, several exist but my mother has no memory left of her maternal grandmother except what she sensed from her mother's mention of her. The woman died when my mother was quite young. She has many more and many pleasant memories of her grandfather. She lived with him and one of her maternal uncles, the man pictured to the left, when she attended Cornell College in Mt. Vernon Iowa. Her grandfather was a Methodist Minister, beloved, apparently, by all. When my mother lived with him and her uncle, her grandfather was officially retired but unofficially continued his community work not only as a substitute pastor but as a figure of social compassion within the community. "He was always going somewhere, seeing to someone, inviting people to the house." She remembers him as a quiet but commanding man, not easily ruffled, extremely easy going, quick to greet and listen to people, with a generous spirit. "That's probably why he outlived Grandma," she said last night as we looked through the pictures.
    Her uncle, pictured to the left, was the Director of the Conservatory of Music at Cornell. Mom speculates that the only reason she got in the college choir was because he was her uncle. "Yes," she said, in response to my query, "I had to audition. I don't remember it, but I do remember thinking that no one sang as badly as me. He let me in anyway." She thinks that it was probably enough for him that she loved music and wanted to sing. This man's intended was the woman I mention earlier in these journals who, with my mother, at her grandfather's request, cleaned up the attic, one day, and threw all his books and papers out the window for the garbage man to haul away. We talked about this again, last night. "Grandpa wasn't much for clinging to the past," she said.
    I have vague memories of her uncle and his wife. They were particularly adventurous after retirement, traveling all over Europe. They seemed to me warm, engaged, socially aware. I've been told that her uncle suffered from severe depression in his later years, although I've not been able to confirm this. When I mentioned it last night, my mother said, "That's possible. He was a deep thinker, but when I was at Cornell, he didn't seem depressed." I also have a memory of him, from some decades back, unofficially consulting with the man who was building the pipe organ in what used to be the Methodist church here in Prescott. Pipe organs were his specialty.
    These are the two relatives with whom she spends the most time in The Dead Zone; although her mother, her sister and her brother are not far behind.

    As Mom and I were looking through the photo album we found that her mother had prepared for her many years ago, we thought it would be nice for the family, and, maybe, others as well, to publish a few of the photos, here, of people who were important to my mother, as well as a few of Mom. All these pictures are decades old and show these people (including Mom) as Mom remembers them. As well, some of the pictures were already partially dilapidated at the time they were entered in the album. One, the picture to the right of my maternal grandmother, was actually a Xeroxed copy of a picture which may no longer exist. My mother speculates that the picture of my grandmother was probably her favorite. "She loved lace collars," my mother remembers. This may be why the original picture was so battered. "She probably looked at it a lot."
    I don't remember my maternal grandmother this way, but Mom does, even though she also believes that this photograph was taken either just before or just after Grandma married, at the age of 19. This is a picture of an ambitious, energetic, no nonsense woman who was the main breadwinner in the family. Her husband, my maternal grandfather, shown in the picture to the left, is the man who had the sense to find himself a woman who would let him live his life as he saw fit while she lived her life as she saw fit. Both were characters in their own right. My understanding is that occasionally, my grandfather worked for others but, mostly, the two owned and ran businesses, typically inns or food purveying businesses, the most spectacular of which was an award winning candy concern that my maternal grandmother and her sister-in-law launched during one of the periods when they lived in Iowa (to the best of my mother's recollection).
    At one time my grandfather also owned an auto repair/mechanic's shop. He especially enjoyed this business because, as my mother recalls him saying, "Those cars (most of which were Fords) don't ever break down." The picture of him has been taken from a group picture of him, one of his brothers (he was the youngest of seven children, two girls and five boys) and two friends. The only pictures we have of my grandfather when he was young were "cutting-up" pictures. In the one displayed, here, the four young men were horsing around, feet here, hands there. The shiny object above and to the left of my grandfather's head is the toe of someone's shoe. To the right of his head you can just make out the outline of someone else's shoe. We have another one in which the same four men are sitting backwards on a mule. My grandfather loved to make people laugh and was pretty good at it, even and especially when it involved himself being the butt of the joke. I don't remember him laughing much, himself, but, whenever I think of him, he is always displaying his characteristic small, secret, twinkling eyed smile. Perhaps he was aware, from a young age, that we are all the butt of The Only Joke.

...After Life. I was incorrect in remembering that Nishimura Kiyo does not speak. At one point, early in the movie, since the facility grounds are experiencing autumn and there are no flowers on the grounds when she spends some time collecting natural trinkets, she asks if the grounds ever host flowers. She also asks if the cherry trees bloom. For those of you who have seen the movie, I should mention, too, that I willfully misrepresented the premise of the movie in the immediately previous post. The script never says that one lives for eternity within one's chosen memory; rather, than one picks one moment of one's life that will be the only memory one retains of one's mortal life when one continues beyond the facility. I knew this at the time I wrote the previous post. What I wrote is my preference regarding Hirokazu Kore-eda's premise. The first time I watched the movie, I was bothered that nothing else is revealed about eternity beyond the facility except for the retention of a chosen memory from one's wanderings in mortality. On second watching, somewhere in the middle of the movie, I realized that this lack of information is probably deliberate, as, one of the hallmarks of this life is lack of information about anything beyond this moment. I also considered that movie is the first I've viewed in which I feel as though I've been invited to recreate the movie in my mind to my specifications. With all other movies/videos, I've ever watched, when describing or thinking about them, I've always considered it of the utmost importance remember the movie as truly as possible when talking about it and, if that's not possible, either checking with the source to correct myself or mentioning the sinkholes in my memory. I am delighted that this Hirokazu Kore-eda movie makes me feel as though my memory of the movie, my recreation of the movie, is a part of the movie. This is the first of his movies I've seen. I will be watching others of his that are available.
    After the movie, my mother, while intrigued by it, mentioned that it surprised her. "I was expecting something different," she said. Although I didn't question her about this, which I should have, I suspect she was expecting something more conventional and less open to interpretation. She was clearly interested in the idea, though, and mentioned that "after my nap", she'd have to spend some time thinking about her choice for her one Eternal Memory. If she doesn't bring it up, I will probably remind her of her Fire on the Mountain memory, what she once wrote about it, and ask her if that would be her memory. I'm not at all sure it will be...nor am I sure that she will be able to single out one memory.
    I have decided that if I were told I was going to spend eternity within one of my memories, it would be a memory having to do with being outside in a snowfall. If, however, I was pressed with the requirements that the movie sets on memory, I would probably pick a different one; not sure yet, what that would be.
    All this memory stuff is taking place within curious circumstances, which began yesterday afternoon. Mom and I were doing something and, suddenly, she turned to me and said, "I'm going to go to Mt. Vernon [Iowa] tomorrow. Would you like to go with me?"
    Since the mention sounded innocent enough, I responded, "Sure. I'd love to. Are we going to a purpose, or without a plan?"
    She mentioned to me that when she was in Mt. Vernon "about a month ago" she met with "some people" and needed to see them again "tomorrow" (which would be today).
    I, of course, asked for the identities of the people. I assumed that they would be those relatives and friends of hers with whom she'd shared her time there. When she had trouble remembering the names of the people, I began to prompt her with the names of those I knew she'd known there. It seems, none of these people were any of the people she meant.
    That was fine. What turned the amicable tide, though, was her insistence on making plans for the trip, which would, in her mind, be a day-trip excursion. I went along with this, too, until she developed some agitation over what I assume was a vague remembrance that we are approximately a couple thousand miles from Mt. Vernon and that, apparently, I was at the meeting that took place a month ago but couldn't remember anything about it. "I was counting on you to remember why we're going," she said. "I'm expected."
    Oops! I had a couple of reactions to this. The first was a purely internal reaction. It occurred to me that "going to Mt. Vernon tomorrow" might be a muddled metaphor for "I'll be dying tomorrow." This didn't frighten me, but I was surprised that I came up with this possibility. The second reaction consisted of me asking her a variety of questions about the past and upcoming meetings, trying to determine if there was any significance to any of this. In short order, I managed to confuse both her and myself.
    After breaking the realities involved in such a trip to her and assuring her that it isn't something we could do "tomorrow", I remembered that earlier in the day, while looking for something in our walk-in closet, I'd noticed a photo album that her mother had put together for Mom some years prior to her death and Mom's college yearbook from the year she graduated. In an attempt to steer the conversation away from anymore agitated confusion, I retrieved both. This not only "did the trick", I was surprised at how much my mother did and did not remember from her life as we looked at the photographs. That was when I remembered that we'd received the copy of After Life and made a mental note to myself to be sure and watch the movie after Mom retired.
    So, now, we're at the point where Mom is napping over the consideration of the one memory she'd like retain for eternity. I don't know where the rest of this Act will take us. It's possible it won't take us anywhere...or that, when my mother awakens, she will have lost interest and I will discover that the Act is over and we're on to the next.
    In the meantime, I wonder, if you died right now and discovered that you were required to forget all except one memory as you entered an eternal afterlife, what memory would you choose? If you are a caregiver to an Ancient One (or More), whether or not the Ancient One is experiencing dementia, do you know enough about that person's life to take a stab at guessing what memory they might choose?
    Finally, and most importantly, what thoughts does this consideration evoke for you regarding the process of recollection and the creation of memory?

...an amazing movie (about which many of you may know...I'm discovering it 9 years after it's initial release, it seems): After Life, a Hirokazu Kore-eda production. I watched it alone, after my mother retired, because I knew nothing about the film except the extremely short description provided by our online movie rental facility. As you know if you've read about my mother's and my film experiences here, she is not particularly facile with films with subtitles, although she often surprises me on this one, so I thought I'd watch it first to see if I couldn't determine whether she might have trouble with this one. I'm still not sure, but the concept of the movie is so intriguing that I'm going to run it for her, anyway. There are many contemplative aspects to this film which will no doubt spellbind me for some time. I am very curious to see how the overt premise of the movie strikes my mother: Essentially, it records a week in the "life" of the newly dead, in which they are required to select one memory from their life in which they will live for eternity, forgetting everything else; the memory is then recreated and video taped for each person, after the viewing of which the person is transported from the movie into their chosen memory. I wonder if my mother will be motivated to review her own memories, of which she retains many, and chose one. I vaguely remember, which I've previously mentioned, that she once wrote that a preteen memory of an encroaching fire and the community excitement and activity it engendered was "one of the happiest times" of her life. If she finds the idea of picking one memory provocative, I wonder if it will be this, or some other memory.
    One of the dead is a woman, Nishimura Kiyo (played by Hara Hisako) who looks to be very old. She doesn't speak in the film, although, at one point, she answers a few questions about her life by shaking her head. As mentioned by those attending her, she seems to have come into death already embraced in her memory. The film production notes indicate that one of Hirokazu Kore-eda's inspirations for this movie was his experience of his grandfather, who developed progressive Alzheimer's before Alzheimer's was a word, as he said. Hirokazu Kore-eda was six when his grandfather's mental journey became evident and watched as this journey progressed. Through the development of Nishimura Kiyo, Hirokazu Kore-eda seems to be ruminating about the possible memories that his grandfather may have been experiencing and how he may have been experiencing them, even as, to others, his grandfather appeared to be losing his memory.
    A little over awakening time for my mother...I've been looking for a still, and maybe some information, on the web of the enchanting logo on the flag above the the facility through which the dead are processed. Nothing, so far.
    As for me? I'm thinking, myself, of what memory I would chose if pressed. After running through a raft of memories, I'm thinking that perhaps I have not yet lived the experience that will become my memory.
    Mom's up and in the bathroom.
    Later.