I'm wheeling her down the hall at her assisted living facility; she's telling me it's wonderful I'm visiting when a woman exits the elevator near us.
"She's fat!" yells Mom, at the top of her lungs.
High-wattage blue eyes gleaming, Mom has the charm--when she's not insulting people--of a pixie. Her expression immediately relapses to innocent, eyes wide, smile beatific.
"This place is a parking lot for wheelchairs and walkers!" she yelled a few months ago. Before she was using both herself.
Now, she tells the aide, "your socks are ugly! Why are you wearing those ugly shoes?" But afterwords, she's nice.
Until she says, "I don't wanna wash my hands!"
"I missed you so much!" she tells me. She asks about my children and is very happy to hear about them. She asks same questions again. I tell her, and she's happy again. We do this all afternoon.
When I arrived, the receptionist said, "Oh, you're mother is so great!" They're still saying that--her aides forgive the insults and say they love working for her. But everyone talks about "her personality change."
There hasn't been one. She's lost her memory, but she hasn't changed a bit. "I like breathing," she said. "I'm going to try to keep it up." Her determination is one quality I admire.
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