DAY 2 in which I reveal what a bad seed I am

My mother has requested a new sweater vest.  She is specific - she knows what she likes and her most important choice is that of the fiber, it must be cotton.  (sigh)  I've been longing to try Blue Moon fiber - but alas, they do not offer a cotton.  Would it be wrong to try to pull the wool bamboo over her 81 year old eyes?  Should I just go ahead and order some of their delicious yarns and set to knittin'????  In my heart I KNOW that the fiber will be indescribably soft and comforting.  But I would feel ugly and unlovable in deceiving me old mom.  I'm a bad seed.  She and I are engaged in a battle these days.  It goes like this -


"Mom, you don't HAVE to go to the Nursing Home every other day.  If you don't feel well and the place further depresses you, just stay home.  He doesn't know you're there half the time, anyway."  She protests this and whines a bit and I begin to pale and sweat.  "Mom, he calls out for you because he remembers your name.  When he sees you, he doesn't recognize you."  She offers up her excuses.  I'm experiencing multiple hot flashes.  "Mom.  Mom.  Do you want me to remind you what a terrible husband and father he was?  You're doing more than anyone else ever would.  Mom, what do you think about Bob?"


You see, Bob is the husband of Lillian, another patient at the Nursing Home.  Bob comes every day and he feeds his wife and takes her out to the garden and when he strokes her hand and speaks so lovingly to her, I have to turn away, it seems wrong to eavesdrop on this tenderness.   Lillian does not respond to her husband any longer.  She is frozen into place now, without speech or recognition.  The other day I walked into the Nursing Home to find Bob and my mother sitting together in the sun room.  There was conversation and a little laughter.  I was astonished and thrilled.  Bob!  He is just what the doctor ordered!  Me old mom needs a friend.  Now how do I convince her that there is nothing wrong in accepting the gift of friendship - the gift of survival - the outlasting of the plaque of Alzheimer's?  I am not suggesting that they run off to Monte Carlo (although, that would be absolutely fine by me) I'm talking a cup of coffee at Starbucks, for Chrissake.  My mother picks at some invisible lint on the front of her smart linen shirt.  She reminds me that I am her lifeline.  The image of coffee and Bob is shrinking and I feel a seizure coming on.


Oh - and here's some green for you -

The children have returned from their extended weekend to the Cape.  I am certain that Bubbha will be very happy  to return to his routine.  I know that I am.  Still, I'll miss seeing his funny old face first thing in the morning -

Believe it or not, there HAS been some knitting!  While I was dog-sitting I worked on face cloths for Hilary.  I found a few skeins of an old Rowan organic cotton - they must have been stashed at least 10 years ago!  They were lounging in my hope chest which is lined in cedar, so the skeins smelled lovely.  I like this pattern very much because it is easily memorized and has some real structure, which is key for a face cloth.  Some knitters might poo-pooh the notion of knitting face or wash cloths, but I find these little rectangles happy distractions from my intricate lace projects.  Plus, I like to incorporate knitting into my ordinary world.  It makes me happy to reach for something that I need, that I've made for myself.  Better still - to be able to give away as gifts.

This is called 'Double Bump Scarf or Dishcloth Pattern', designed by Missy Angus.  She warns that it is addictive, and I can echo the sentiment.  I like that it is reversible and can imagine it in the softest gray fiber, wrapped several times around one's neck.  (Blue Moon Fiber Arts?????!!!!)

The window boxes are planted.  In years past I would combine heliotrope and sweet potato vine as well as artemesia and begonia, but this year is an ordinary theme of impatiens and coleus because -

This season has seen the steady advance of the hydrangeas - they've grown at such an astonishing rate that their heads nearly block the boxes from view!  It's strange and beautiful, this alchemy that exists beyond the house.  The plants have a secret life to which we gardeners are not privy.  

The blueberries are starting to ripen, but will we enjoy them?  Not a one.  The critters make short work of stripping the fruit at peak - it usually occurs in the space of an afternoon. 

Alone with my thoughts this humid Father's Day - in my mother's south garden.  I'd volunteered to do cleanup when I realized how shaky and unsteady she has become.  Her excellent health has always been a mainstay - something to depend upon.  But the events of this past year have taken their toll and nowhere is this more evident than in her neglected gardens.  It's painful to see and hear my mother struggling with emptiness and sorrow. I try not to lift the curtain on her daily existence - the long solitary hours, the meals taken at the table alone - the silence that penetrates each action, each moment.  I want to be more.  I want to be a better daughter.  And I always fall short of this goal.


And then it was time to go to the nursing home where my father lies waiting for his heart or some other organ to fail.  He has been in this place for over a year now, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand how it is so.  There are no road maps for these territories - no guides or sages to lead the way.  I sit beside his bed and struggle to find words that will engage him.  He has his high clear moments which evaporate or shape shift into scenes I am not privy to.  The cat in the window, the dog in the yard.


Driving home I am overtaken by grief.