Color-coded months
In February I visited my mother in a Catholic nursing home in northern Ontario. I dream of her almost every night. I just awoke from a dream in which we were flying on some fancy plane from one Pacific Isle to another. I got off the plane to deal with luggage. The airport was warm and sunny and the people beautiful. Unfortunately I woke up.
The nursing home lays great emphasis on time. Most residents have short-term memory problems. They are confused about the hour or the year or the day. The months seem almost color-coded. February, when I last saw her, was still red for Valentine’s. The most popular saint in the month of March is Patrick, and his color is green for Ireland; green was starting to make its appearance. Maybe next month will be lilac for Easter. God bless us all!
The nursing home lays great emphasis on time. Most residents have short-term memory problems. They are confused about the hour or the year or the day. The months seem almost color-coded. February, when I last saw her, was still red for Valentine’s. The most popular saint in the month of March is Patrick, and his color is green for Ireland; green was starting to make its appearance. Maybe next month will be lilac for Easter. God bless us all!
posted by Michael Andre at
6:12 AM
4 Comments:
Green and pink are the color of Easter grass upon which lay the Ukrainian style eggs. I think they should have more of that kind of thing in caskets to cheer them up.
What is your history with your mother, starting on day 1?
Day 1 might be 13 November 2001, the day my father finally died of a brain tumor. My father was definitely the boss; when he died, my mother became independent. I spent a lot of time with her here in New York and in Kingston, Ontario, and in Delray Beach, Fl. But in 2004, against my wishes, the rest of the family talked her into entering a nursing home in northern Ontario. I go there six or seven times a year. I'm not much of a Freudian, but I keep thinking that this obsessive dreaming must be an expression of, ahem, the Oedipus Complex.
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