"Do You Need Something, Mother?"

...I ask, as she opens one drawer after another in my kitchen, looking briefly in each one before closing it and going on to the next one.

"Just a knife," she says.

"They're in the drawers to the right of the dishwasher," I tell her; then she meekly goes over to those drawers and finds whatever kind of knife she needs.

This isn't the first time we've had this conversation. Not the 10th time either. Maybe the 100th?

Almost five years ago, my husband and I and our children moved back to this area, buying my parents' home and moving into it while they moved down the hill to a smaller home on the same property. It was their idea, and we've loved being here. So I can see how it might be confusing for my mom to try to find her way around my kitchen...which used to be her kitchen. I didn't put the glasses in the same cupboard. The spices have all been moved. And of course, the knives are in different drawers. But it's been almost five years! Shouldn't it have sunk in by now? Shouldn't she be able to remember, after countless times of looking, which drawers the knives are in?

I'm learning that, with Alzheimer's, there's no hope (or precious little) that the individual will be able to learn new information. Maybe they will; maybe they won't. Who knows? But there's no guarantee that, if we go over the material enough, it will sink in. With my children, I see them learn through repetition. With my mother, it doesn't work that way.

I'm sure it's only a matter of time until, once again, I see her opening every drawer in my kitchen so that she can find a paring knife to cut up some fresh strawberries for our dinner. May I have the patience to treat each time like it's the first, and not let my grief and impatience show, even if it's the 1,000th.

Where's Jacob?

"Where's Jacob?" my mother asked today. We were having a family get-together which included my brother from another state. His wife had to work, and his oldest son - Jacob - had another activity to be at, so my brother only brought his younger two children. My mother knew that, and had known that since earlier this week when emails were exchanged to let us know who would and would not be coming. But still, after several hours of the family being together, while we were watching the children playing outside, my mother asked where Jacob was.

How do I answer her? With a "he hasn't been here all day today, Mom! how could you forget?" No, of course not. Instead, I gently started to explain that he stayed behind to go to a water park with a friend and... Then she remembered, "Oh, yes, that's right! How could I forget? I'm so used to doing a head count of all the children...and seeing all three of your brother's kids together...it's strange not having Jacob here..."

I'm so accustomed to her forgetting things that I completely expect it these days. I wasn't at all surprised, for example, that, after everyone had left and we were talking over the day, Mother said the same comments over and over: "Isn't it great that your sister is thinking about moving closer to home?" and "I can't believe how much your brother's kids have matured!" and "I really missed your brother's wife today." (She used their real names, of course; but for the purposes of this blog, I'm not). A few minutes later, she'd say the same thing - and I'd smile and nod, not letting on that I'd already heard that exact comment from her lips just a short time before.

But her question about Jacob caught me off guard. She knew in advance that he wasn't coming, he hadn't been here all day, and yet in the late afternoon, she suddenly expected him to be around here somewhere playing with the other children...and worried when she couldn't spot him.

I have a feeling that as I get used to one level of forgetfulness, she will reach another one; and I'll have to brace myself for other moments when I want to exclaim, "How could you forget this??"