BitterPecan of Bloom

Perhaps it was not the very best use of my first day of covid liberation to go and see Madame. However, I felt I owed her a visit, having been absent for nearly a month. There had been some chat among her helpers about how she'd had a cold and poor mobility, so they'd been using a wheelchair to take her out. But today when I arrived, she seemed in pretty good shape, walking like a champ with just the walker, so I went ahead and took her to the bookstore for lunch. As usual, she had trouble ordering and wanted to pay via her phone, but couldn't. We had a nice time, until it was time to go. Then she started agitating to go somewhere else, not back to her current residence. (Which she absolutely refuses to call "home," so it requires some elaborate verbal gymnastics.) She wanted to speak to her daughter about all this, but Mademoiselle was working today and said she would call later. Madame came up with some increasingly alternate-reality ideas about other places she could go. I felt really bad that I couldn't take her to any of them. I thought I had convinced her that the best idea was to go back to where she was living now and talk to her daughter about all this later.

She had not given up her secret scheme, however. I walked her into the building, although it seemed to me that she was not really pleased to have my company. As we walked toward the memory care unit, I realized she was looking for an exit. Once we arrived, she refused to go in. When I declined her urgings to go out one of the emergency exit doors, and insisted that I had to exit via the front door, she decided to walk me back there. Lucky for me, a nice young staff member guessed what was going on, and said she'd walk with us. Madame was mad! She tried so hard to get rid of the young woman. She scolded her and said she didn't need to have her watching. The staff person said she needed to come along so she could let me out. When we arrived at the door, Madame tried to exit along with me. I think she believes her car is parked in the parking lot. Every blue car that she sees, she exclaims "That's my car!" She obviously doesn't believe me when I tell her it can't be, because her car is a Prius. That is a distinction that is beyond her now. This was her last ditch effort to make a break for it. I'm sad to say that I just slipped through the door and absconded, leaving the staff member to deal with her. I know she was highly agitated. I felt that standing in the door trying to reason with her would only exacerbate the situation. But I feel quite perfidious. I texted a summary of events to Mademoiselle, in case she hears about it later.

We're getting into anniversary territory here in more ways than one. These days at the end of May were my mother's final week. It's not the best time to be reminded of fragility and dementia. We have a plan to go out to the lake tomorrow. It's raining now, but it's supposed to stop tomorrow.