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??"