An outing with Used To Be

6:10 am this morning I'm awakened by the phone. I'm jet lagged, dog tired and just barely home from the holiday.

UTBM: Oh you are finally home. I missed you so much. I need some wool and some vitamins (she calls them prescriptions but it is garlic and calcium).

Me: Oh mom it's kind of early.

UTBM: I've been up since 3:30. (She tells me all she has done. Some of it is just too much information.).

She doesn't ask about my holiday.

Me: I can take you this afternoon.

UTBM: well I have church until 2 pm, can you come after that?

I pick her up and notice her hair looks like Ceasar's, she combs it all forward.  I take her for a haircut, buy the wool, and the vitamins. She tells me my car is dirty.

UTBM: You need to come upstairs (to her apt) because I have a surprise for you.

Her bed is covered with slippers she has made. Nothing matches and they look off. They are sewn so poorly together and she has started casting off in a way that gives the toes an aladdin slipper effect.I remember when experienced knitters praised her beautiful handiwork. These latest renditions are not. She knit a scarf for my son though she didn't say which one. It's a modge  podge of all the wool she has had. She knows he will like how bright it is. There is a tiny pair of slippers that might fit a doll.

UTBM: I used up every last bit of wool.

On the way put the manager stops me and tells me my mother has started asking people who they are. She doesn't remember anyone in her complex. He wondered if we had noticed any change in her.

Yeah Mario, our mom who baked bread, made clothes, ran a store, filed all the income tax, kept our family afloat emotionally and spiritually has disappeared. Did we notice?