Fog

I thought that today I might get to The Birches, but there was too much happening at work to get away. I feel like Mother lives outside of time. There's this other world she inhabits. There are schedules and changes there, too, but they are different somehow. They have nothing to do with the world outside, and the outside world pays their schedule no mind.

Does she know I don't come as frequently anymore? I don't think so, but there is no way to be sure. There is no way to be sure of anything with Alzheimer's. It is a fog. At times you can make out an emotion or the outline of a thought, but then it clouds over again and there could be anything there in the mist.

I find that I think toward the future. I imagine the day when her fog is lifted and she is free to follow the Light of her Lord. I know then she'll understand why I couldn't come as often...if that fact has registered at all. She will also know all the circumstances of my life that I can't talk to her about anymore...not in a way that she would really understand. She will know then about me changing churches, about the grief that has filled my life this summer. She will know about my books and Rob's heart attack and the ideas I have for the church. The fog then will clear and she will know fully, even as she has been fully known...as Paul says.

I wonder if I will always be able to find her in her eyes...those windows of the soul. Now when I visit, I can still find her there...when I really look...when we pray and I look deep and say, "I love you." It is like she is trapped in this body that goes around and puts tissues in her shoes or looks for clouds in dresser drawers. But she is in there still, wondering how many years she will live life in this foggy, other world before she is allowed to come out into the sun.