Lately I've been thinking that it might do my mom some good for us to try to play a game of some sort when I visit her, as opposed to just sitting an talking. On the way to see her yesterday, I stopped and bought a pack of playing cards and a mini-Jenga game. When I got to he place, she had just finished lunch and was sitting at a table in the common area with a couple of other residents. We talked for a minute, then I wheeled her back to her room.
I placed a small, rolling table between us, adjusted the footrests on her wheelchair so I could get her close to the table and began shuffling the cards. I smiled because, as a kids, I was always amazed at how well my mom could shuffle a deck of cards. Life a Vegas blackjack dealer. She has long fingers and it always seemed like the cards were flying in her hands.
I suggested to her that we'd play "war," hoping that the rules would come back to her after I gave her a short refresher. They didn't. She had a hard time understanding which card was higher than the other. She didn't understand where to put her cards if she won a hand. She wanted to keep turning over one card after the other. It hurts to say this, but it was like playing "war" with Joe when he was two or three years old. This from a woman who has a bachelors and a masters degree.
About halfway through the deck, my mom began to breath more rapidly, like she was getting out of breath. This is what she does when she's becoming agitated or uncomfortable. I stopped the game and put the cards away and she settled down.
I pulled out my the latest edition of The Sewanee Review and read poetry to her as she dozed on and off in her wheelchair. And I wondered to myself, how did we get here?
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