Unspoken Thoughts

I sit in the gazebo of the nursing home with my 98yo mother and 15 other residents. Each has half of a swimming pool noodle. Teenagers from a nearby day camp are playing Noodle Ball with them, tossing balloons to them to bat back with their noodles.

Mother's mind is still in great shape. She beat me at Scrabble last night, and will probably do so again tonight As I rolled her out here, she said, "It's hard to believe I'm a resident here."

As she sits waiting for one of the teenagers to toss her the balloon, I wonder what she thinks of all this. How does life get to the point where one is trapped inside a body that doesn't work as it should?

Mother has never been one to share her thoughts and feelings. Anytime I have ever tried to tell her how I feel about anything in our shared life, her chin starts to quiver and tears fill her eyes.

Visiting her now is a challenge of filling the time. I tell her things about my life and the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She smiles a smile of acknowledgement, but asks no questions and offers no observations. She tells me nothing about her day or her life in this (hopefully temporary) prison. But carry on a conversation? Nope. Not happening.

There are moments of interest in her eyes—the spark we occasionally saw when we and she were young. But now it's a life of biding time until (according to her understanding of the world), God says it's time to go.

In the meantime, Noodle Ball caught her interest for half an hour this morning.