Sunny Days

I grieve for Mother and her condition most on sunny days in winter.  She is beyond knowing one day from another; she is beyond caring about where she is unless it is at the table or in her bed.  Her world is so contracted that even when she looks out the window, which she often does, she sees  the grass and the trees and the birds as if they were photos.  There is no connection to them, and this is such a change from the Mother that used to be.

On warm winder days, Mother would sit on her front porch and watch the birds.  She had an old pine cone that she used as a suet feeder.  She would make a concoction of lard and peanut butter and roll it into small balls and stuff it between the spines of the pine cone.  The birds loved it, and she would spend hours watching them eat at the pine cone and at the feeders scattered over the yard.  She could identify each bird, and by reading and watching, knew their habits and their calls. Huddled under the wool patch worked quilt, she would drink her tea and watch and enjoy. The birds were a joy for her.  Being outside on her porch was essential for her.

I grieve those times for her.  Now she looks out the window and says, "I saw a bird."  She is afraid to be outside most of the time.  "Too scary,"  she declares.  She no longer hallucinates about men in the trees, and lions and snakes in the grass, but she has also lost her enjoyment of the outdoors, the sunshine and the birds on a sunny winter day.