Cottontail of Leave

As I drove over to see Madame this morning, leaf colors loomed and faded through the misty rain. Such veiled days have their own beauty. However, it wasn't the kind of day that seemed auspicious for taking Madame out of the building, even though she kept looking out the window and expressing her opinion that it was not raining. We took the elevator down to the bistro on the first floor instead. She has been there often enough now that she kind of remembers it--but she still thinks it's in "the basement" and also does not quite understand that she lives in the same building. When I tell her which way we should go, she frequently looks at me in amazement and says "How did you know that?!" I tell her I've been here before.

We both had a salad. I would rather have had a sandwich, but she gets confused if I don't get the same thing she has. Luckily, she didn't choke on anything! It's hard to come up with enough adventure stories to amuse her, after a week when I've been having covid, but somehow we struck upon enough topics of interest to keep the conversation going. By the time we got back to her room, she was really tired and had to stop and rest a few times. She seemed a little more tired than usual. They went on a field trip by bus to view the fall colors at the botanical garden yesterday, so she might still have been tired from that, too. I sat with her in her room and talked a little longer. When I got up to go home, she did not offer to accompany me to the door, as she usually does. I was all right with that, because it is excruciatingly slow when she walks me back, but it does show that her energy was flagging. She still forgets sometimes that her parents have died, and says she wants to go live with her mom. I told her that I dream about my parents sometimes. She said "I talk to mine sometimes, and then people look at me funny!"

I was happy to escape into the refreshing rainy air, get back in my car, and go home--although every one of those phrases stabs me with the pain of knowing that Madame will never again do any of those things, and I too may only be doing them for an unknown period. I'm too aware of people who are in liminal spaces right now. It's like walking on a steep ridge in the mist. (This may explain why I came home and spent a lot of time watching Everest climbing/disaster videos.) It makes me tired, and then I go home and want a snack, but nothing tastes good to me right now. I may have to do something about that tomorrow.