Home Again

I returned home  last evening after spending a few days at my parents' home.  My dad went on a vacation and I visited with my mother.  I had not spent the night at my childhood home since I married 37 years ago.  I was very comfortable except for the lack of internet access, but octogenerians have little use for wifi.  Before he drove off, my father went around the house showing me how to close blinds, turn on night lights and lamps.  Funny though, he did not mention that my mother's power chair is plugged into a wall outlet that works by a switch.  So the first morning, my mother's aide noticed that the chair didn't work.  Eventually a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that that when I turned off the switch for the lamp, I had turned off the power to her  chair.  I learned how to give an insulin injection, screw on the needle, take off 2 caps, dial to the proper dosage, slowly depress the plunger.  Not so scary after all.  I tried to find items to interest my mother--a guest book from her 60th wedding anniversary, children's fairy tales, Beatrix Potter stories, Scrabble, china teasets,  a photo book.  I made meals that were easy to swallow.  Chicken noodle soup, stuffed peppers, pot roast, eggs on toast.  We talked and talked.  We watched vapor trails in the blue sky, the small maple tree sway in the breeze, a tandem reclining bicycle with two wheels in the front, one in the back and a colorful flag.   We watched two young men load a motor scooter in a station wagon and take off with the hatch up.  We observed joggers and bicyclists.  We watched the neighbor and his two boys come home after school.  I tried to figure out this dementia, where at times my mother is spot on, and other times where she combines two different thoughts.  I laughed when she cracked a joke and sighed in relief when she safely traversed from her chair to the bathroom, around the kitchen or to her bedroom.