February 2, 1997 -- "Fly Away Home"

I had a long visit with Mom today. I went equipped with the film, "Fly Away Home," as well as a Spanish language video that I am studying: the first because Aunt Emory and Mom's friend Ruth suggested it, and the second because I wanted to try something new.

Mom was very sluggish when I arrived at about 11:00 and took her to her room, but she was a tad more responsive than during my last couple of visits. We called Aunt Emory, which always wakes her up a bit. Then I told her that I am working on my Spanish for my book on "Black Jack" Pershing and Pancho Villa. I presented my learning video as a sample of what I'm studying.

I did this because of a whimsical idea. Maybe a completely unknown language would capture Mom's attention simply because it was unknown. Since she can hardly speak her own language any more, maybe she could speak a new language. Who knows, a month from now she might be speaking Spanish!

As I say, it was a whimsy: she paid attention for a minute or two, then lost interest. No big miracles today.

So we turned to "Fly Away Home." At various times Sunset staffers came by with lunch and medication. Mom paid pretty good attention for 30 minutes or so to this charming film. As we watched a young girl and her father trying to teach gooslings how to fly, I fed Mom her soup, spoonful by spoonful.

After Mom's dementia became serious, she was still able to feed herself for a surprisingly long time. For at least four years she has needed "prompting" -- where someone gets her started. And occasionally someone else has had to do the actual feeding. But until recently she would feed herself when I was around. But the process was getting less and less effective. And today I was just as glad that she let me feed her the soup -- at least she ate it all.

While the little girl and the goslings in the film were learning to fly, Mom was working at eating her hamburger and potatoes. At this point she was trying to feed herself, and at the least she was persistent. Her hand with the fork would approach the food, often missing it altogether before getting to her mouth. Or she would manage to get a potato on the fork, but it would fall away before she could eat it. She kept at it, and occasionally she got lucky, and the fork reached her mouth with some food. But soon half the meal was on the tray. So I would pick up a potato or a piece of hamburger, and touch it to her lips as soon as her fork departed, and she would eat it.

In this way she finished most of the meal while the flyers in the film were leading their young geese across Lake Erie, through Baltimore, and south. I was quite moved by the film -- its themes of risk and bonding and growth blended curiously with my own experience as I watched. Mom is growing backwards -- losing most of what she has learned since childhood. And she is bonding less and less as her world recedes into a haze.

And yet there is a tiny spark of life in her and tiny moments of triumph. In one scene in "Fly Away Home" where the young girl is riding a four-wheeler, Mom said, "motorcycle."

That wasn't quite right, but still it showed some contact with the moment.

Later the geese were swimming in a river. Mom suddenly became aware of the geese, and here's what she said:

"Ducks -- maybe."