This morning was cool enough that with the windows and doors open, we could have a fire to enjoy our coffee in front of...Kara was thrilled. She has been asking for a fire since the weather stopped being in the 90's, ha ha.
Mother loved it. She watched it till it went out. Then she started remembering moments in her life that involved fireplaces...starting with how she enjoyed sitting in front of her gas fire on White street and a few other recent memories.
She talked about Grandma Redmond's house in the country and the duel fireplace and how the furniture was arranged around it and how the other rooms has no heat...
Her next thought was of her sitting in front of the fire when she was a young woman and gazing at the sparkles from her engagement ring.
She went back several more years and spoke about sitting in front of the fire listening to the radio with her sister when they were kids.
I thought she was finished, but then she went further back and spoke about her grandmother in Italy... although this memory was not about fireplaces, but graveyards!
I made a joke about her mind working in decades, she laughed with me, and proceeded to tell me another memory.
My Thoughts:
I read in a book about a woman dealing with an aging parent and how she was taking each moment of clarity as a gift, so I am trying to take that way and see each speaking as a gift to remember her by. The problem with Mom's stories is they grow in detail and length each time they are told. I can remember so many of her stories from the original tellings way back when...and the current versions have been greatly enhanced!
The mind is a mystery. I wonder why it can't remember what the mouth spoke about a subject just a moment ago. Mom wakes up with a thought and speaks it, then speaks it again, and again, and again; all within a few hours. She always tells the story as if it has never been told before. It is just as funny to her the tenth time as it is the first. If I try to let her know that she has told the story already, her mind will not compute that information, and will continue the story to the end...what scares me is that sometimes I find myself doing the same thing to Harry, oh Lord!
I guess the enlightenment that truly hits home is I usually expect Mom to change for the good of the house, without thinking I need to let go of some of my different ways, i.e., Mom is a talker. She talks about anything and everything. She talks whenever, wherever. When she has something to say, she says it. It makes no difference if we are watching tv, reading, sleeping...she speaks.
I, on the other hand, need lots of silence. Although I am able to keep up with the best of the talkers, I also like being left alone. Not going to happen in this household!!! I am not an early morning talker. I find that talking is "noise" to me in the mornings. My ears hurt. I do talk in the morning; I just don't want long conversations so early, and Mom gets up talking! I do not think silence is a void that needs to be filled. Mom sees silence as an opportunity to speak!
I'm not a late night talker either. I look forward to everyone going to sleep so I can have a few hours of silence. I need to listen to the silence for awhile before going to bed. And again, that is hard to get in this household.
The other night as I was trying to get to sleep, I was kept awake by a late night dryer squeaking, the ceiling fan in our bedroom had developed a strange noise, the dog was barking outside (I usually can ignore her, but with all the other noises, she was just another aggravation), the baby monitor attached to Mom's room was picking up all her late night sniffling, and to top it off, Harry's snoring was extra loud! I got up and walked around the house trying to see if there was anyplace that would give me quiet. I refuse to spend the night in the tub! Anyway, the dryer finally stopped, the dog fell asleep, mom fell asleep, and I was so tired, I was able to "pass out" into sleep in spite of the snoring and creaking of the fan. Poor Me!
