COMING TOGETHER--35

Yesterday was very good and very bad. First the bad.

   Mom was refusing to eat food. After she had her afternoon delight of chocolate, I was a bit mad at her. It came out.

   She said she was going to drive again, so I reminded her forcefully that she had nearly hit a man with the car. I don't know if this was Mom rationally thinking she could drive, or a bit of dementia making her forget what she'd done, but I was mad at her.

   So I said she was saying those things to get away from me. She didn't hear the words I said, she heard her own feelings, her own reaction to what I said. She said I had claimed she didn't love me, and that made her cry. I knew the crying was one of her 'drama queen' acts, so I said nothing but to deny what she thought I said.

   I told her I needed to get away from her once in a while, which to her is incomprehensible. So she tried to assuage her feelings by making my bed and thinking I need my own dresser in our bedroom. Well, there is no room in our bedroom for a cat, much less any more furniture.

   So we walked around each other for a while, neither of us saying a thing. Then she came to where I was and sat for a long time, talking unemotionally about this and that. I've said before my mother is good at forgiving and forgetting and that was what she was doing. So I decided to try to do the same thing.

   She sat there a few hours, then she laid down on the sofa while I played some classical music on my laptop. It was our way of making up. Finally, she did what I didn't expect her to do.

   She actually ate meatloaf and a potato for dinner! This was the first real cooked dinner she's had in a month. When she cooked it herself, I realized I had gotten through to her about eating real food, not sweets. So I went into the kitchen to sit with her, as a gesture of approval and agreement. Actually I was proud of her for responding to what I'd been saying about her eating.