Brain Sparks

Today was a fairly easy day. Last night was not. I am usually up several times for myself, but add to that the several times I was called by mom, and I find myself sleep deprived. I couldn't even sleep late because I had a morning appointment with my doctor.

All is well with me and my blood work. No signs of pre-diabetes, etc. Blood pressure under control, etc. etc. Thank You Lord, I'm good for another 50,000 thousand miles, ha ha.

Because of little sleep, I did a lot of sitting around in front of the TV. Mom was in her chair and was having a so-so day. She had been doing a lot of complaining about her hip and leg so she had been getting pain meds around the clock. Low grade doses.

This afternoon she was in an "awake" mode. Not that she was able to keep up with any conversations or even follow the TV programing, but she was talking....

All I had to do was listen, smile, nod my head, say uh huh, etc. She started saying memory statements that had no connection to each other. When I realized what she was saying, I got a notebook and started writing down the different directions her brain was going in. It lasted about a half hour...

From out of thin air, mom made a comment about a note Melissa wrote to her dad years ago when she was a little girl. As I was responding to that statement, she told me what a great singer Perry Como was. That followed with how Vicki always ran to their momma and Sylvia always ran to their grandma when they were in trouble and needed a whipping. She followed that memory with a story about her neighbor friend and then about a man her momma knew that used to pull practical jokes on his wife. As she was talking about the DeBens who used to roll cigars at her house with Angie, I realized none of the above statements were complete stories, just disjointed statements. That's when I got the pencil and paper.

3:25pm - There was a man who lived in Pineville around where Melba lived who killed his girlfriend and hung her on a tree. I don't think they ever found the guy who did it.

3:26 - Vicki and I would laugh so hard at Martha Ray. Our neighbor would call through the window that he could hear us. That was a time when no one locked their doors in DeRidder. That's when everybody was celebrating the army troops...

3:30 - when we were going to N.O. and we passed the airport, the planes were so low they scared Laurie.

3:31 - when we visited in the country, everyone had mosquito netting. There were cracks in the walls and floors. Just like at Butch and Diane's house before the fixed it up.

3:32 - I used to know all the theme songs from the radio and that was where I first met Mr. Dietz. I was singing at work and had a banana hanging from my ear, that Chiquita banana song and Mr. Dietz asked who I was...(she said more about him, but I stop listening when she starts on him)

3:35 - the first year in DeRidder daddy called me one morning and asked me if I was awake. When I told him no, he told me to look out the window. It was snowing and he took off to take me around to enjoy the snow.

3:36 I was sitting over the floor furnace and as I was talking, my wedding ring fell into the furnace. I started crying, but daddy got it for me.

3:38 - Remember that country boy on TV from Williamsburg? The one who worked with wood? (we were watching PBS and Norm was on. This was the only statement that was connected to something we were watching!)

3:40 - Martha Chase was a great crocheter. She made little hats and blankets for new born babies in her town. She lived by the mountains and would tell me to be careful when I climbed them. Don was my fun friend. Martha never understood what we were laughing at.

3:45 - I used to love what Martha Stewart used to do on TV. She looked just like her mother.

3:47 - Everyone says I looked like my mother.

3:48 We has so much extra milk when we lived in the country. I asked Frankie if she knew anyone who could use the milk for their kids. There was an army man with kids and his mother. The grandmother gave me a quilt.

3:50 - I had a cane wrapped with rope, and when I was in the bread store someone came along and stole it from me.

3:53 - when we first met with Butch, he thought all you kids were just like me, always having fun. That was when I bought that straight hair wig and had so much fun fooling everybody.

3:54 That was the year the Sound of Music came out. She gave me a big hat and as I was going out, I threw that hat into the air and started to sing "the hills are alive with the sound of music..." Butch just laughed and said I was the only one he could goof around with.

As I was waiting for the next thought to be spoken, I realized she was done. She gazed off into the air and slowly fell asleep. About an hour later she did the same thing again, but I didn't take notes. It didn't last as long. At dinner, she said a few disjointed things and ate her food.

Although I did not write everything down verbatim, the times and what she said are fairly accurate. There were no rational statements in between these comments. She spoke, I listened and wrote, she stopped...

Tonight she is enjoying watching the Golden Girls and I will be helping her to bed in a while. Her leg continues to ache her... She continues to cry...