Hello, it’s me
I was coming out of yoga today, feeling like I was cramming in what is good for me into a day jammed with things to do and I saw that my mother had called. I listened to her message which had an urgency that has the same effect on me like the boy who cried wolf. “Rachel! Call me right as soon as you get this message.”
I called mom, and she said in an altered voice, “The photograph of you and Steve is missing! The one that was in Sunset Magazine.”
I said well it probably fell. I’ll look for it when I come by.
“No, I looked, and I tell you I am sick to death of this.”
“Of what?” I asked.
“Of people thieving.”
I asked her who would want to take that photo since both of us look so fat in it.
“Well, I’m tired of this I tell you!”
Again I said, tired of what? Of picture thieves?”
“No I’m sick to death of my fucking children taking advantage of me.”
Pause.
Then a scream and a howl and then crying in huge degrees. I waited, on the side of the road, for her to come back to the phone.
“I found it. It fell behind the basket on the floor.”
Call me later, I said knowing that dementia does not discriminate – it’s not her children who have taken advantage of her, it’s some glitch in her brain that says she is the victim and this is all happening to her unwillingly.
Deep breath. Yoga style.