It was about twenty minutes after what has turned into Mom's very predictable momentary sob about wanting to come home that she suddenly perked up, dried her tears, snapped out of her customary breakdown and suddenly blurted out to Dad, "Hey, remember that Chinese stew you said you used to work with?"
Okay, a few clarifications here. One, even though the politically correct term for stewardess is now flight attendant, both my parents continuously violate this rule on two levels--they continue to refer to flight attendants as stewardesses, and most of the time they further demoralize the title by referring to flight attendants as "stews." Two, Dad is a retired commercial airline captain. Now you're caught up. Going on....
Dad, of course, didn't hear Mom's question, so she turned to me for help.
First I needed more info. "Chinese stew?" I asked her.
"yesss. Dad worked....for this s-s-s-stew from......China....and she.....runs this place."
"Here? As in (I gesture, indicating the entire ALF) HERE?"
"yessss," she nodded with complete clarity.
A couple of red flags went went up in my head at this point. First, Dad retired over thirty years ago, so any.....ahem, "stew" he worked with would today be, well, pretty old. And I didn't remember seeing any really elderly woman, of any Asian persuasion, working in my mom's wing of the ALF. It's a small area, I would've met them by now. Second, how would Mom know who "ran this place" anyway? I've never even met the person who runs the whole facility. I've met the admissions coordinator, the accounting person, the receptionists, the aides, the nurses, the head of laundry, the maintenance guys, and the housecleaners. Not one of them even comes close to resembling a very old Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Phillipino, Thai, Vietnamese, or Tibetan woman. (If I left anyone out, I apologize.)
I've noticed Mom does this a lot lately--puts bits and pieces of facts together to make a whole new reality. A couple of visits ago, she asked me if Dad was taking good care of Suki. Suki was our cocker spaniel. Actually two cocker spaniels. The first one I grew up with as a child. The second one was our family pet while I was in high school. I guess our family liked the name so much that we named both dogs the same thing. But in any case, Suki, both Suki's, have been dead for decades.
Clearly, as I tried to process Mom's question and thought to myself, Mom's brain was piecing together fragments of memories. Dad looked over at me, waiting for me to restate Mom's question to him. But rather than ask him the question which I was sure wasn't going to make any sense to him and only frustrate him, I just said I'd tell him later when we were in the car.
Which I did. Here's what I said to him once we got in the car and were headed home. I said, "Mom said that the Chinese stew you used to work with is the person who runs the assisted living facility." Then I waited as Dad absorbed and processed. I braced for the wrinkled brow. I prepared for the perplexed expression which would most certainly be followed by a shrug of frustration. A sort of "Mom's doing it again" shruf. (For those who remember--Shrug #1.)
But.......except for the shrug, Dad didn't really respond at all. He just listened. I asked him if he heard what I said. He said yes. That's all. We continued home.
Then, a really weird thing happened. About a half hour later, we drove into the driveway. I turned off the engine. I opened my door to get out. I took Dad's walker out of the back and wheeled it over to him. He carefully swung himself out of the Jeep, straightened up, grabbed his walker, and started off toward the house. But as he wheeled away from me he said this. He said, kind of chuckling in amazement, "Yeah that's really somethin' that that Chinese stew runs the place where your mom is."
Okay. Can I just restate here that.........NEITHER MY MOTHER OR MY FATHER OR I HAVE EVER MET THE PERSON WHO RUNS THE PLACE WHERE MY MOM IS LIVING! And also......I HAVE NEVER HEARD EITHER MY MOTHER OR MY FATHER MENTION ANYTHING........A N Y T H I N G........ABOUT A CHINESE STEWARDESS, FLIGHT ATTENDANT, PILOT, CO-PILOT, FLIGHT ENGINEER, OR CAPTAIN, EVER! E V E RRRRRR!
So like..........what is going on? Are my parents somehow connecting in some really strange dementia world of their respective subconscious minds? First my mother makes a completely preposterous nonsensical statement. Then, my father, approximately one hour later, totally corroborates my mother's completely preposterous nonsensical statement! As if he knew and understood exactly what she was talking about. My MOTHER doesn't even know what she's talking about!
I wish I had nice tidy ending for this story.
But I don't.
Chinese stew.
It's a head-shaker.
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