Friday, June 1, 2001
Overall, it went well... - To LTF
...really. If it had gone extremely well, though, I wouldn't be taking out a moment from facing down an impossibly busy 36 hours to relate (probably, the word "confess" would be better, even though you aren't a priest) The One Hard Moment to you.
The Cast: Eight of us, including MPBIL's dad and stepmother, MPNP of course, it was his celebration, MPNC, MPS, Mom and me. I feel as though I should capitalize "me".
We were at an Italian restaurant for MPNP's celebratory graduation meal seated "family style", Me second to the last on the booth side, Mom catty corner from me on the other side. We all know each other very well and often pick seats at such dinners according to spur of the moment conversation. As it happened, MPNC and Mom had been having a lively conversation. I was feeling excellent and having a lively, fairly loud time, myself. Everyone was feeling so good the entire table forgot to say grace. This is a long way of saying I became totally and happily caught up in the event. The dinner lasted exactly two hours. First bread was served with salad, then dinners were passed around. My mother ordered a lasagna/spaghetti plate.
I became aware of her somewhere deep into the eating-dinner portion of the soiree, maybe a half hour before we left. From her position at the other end of the table she had become cut off from conversation. She had what looked like a long empty salad plate in front of her, a large, rapidly cooling plate of lasagna/spaghetti to her right and was completely absorbed in what I later understood was the Puzzle of the Plates. We were all zestfully polishing off our entrees but she hadn't begun hers. I flushed in horror that I had lost track of her for so long that, well, that this had happened. I understood the scenario, immediately: She hadn't voluntarily pushed her salad plate away and since she had forgotten, almost before she uttered it, what she'd ordered because she was caught up in the merriment when her entree was served she didn't recognize it. She thought it was someone else's. Luckily, she had helped herself, MPBIL's dad (he had been noticing her out of the corner of his eye) assured me, over and over to salad (she likes Antipasto salad except for the black olives, which she normally and without a word passes onto my plate) and pretty much chowed down on the Renewing Breadbasket. I was somewhat relieved to hear this but I was, and still am, very, I hate to use this word but I'm in such a hurry that I don't have time to think of another, "conflicted" about what happened. On the one hand I certainly don't regret the good time I had. Frankly, if I'd been sitting next to her I would have just as good a time. And being aware of her behavior and short term memory in restaurants (it always happens that she doesn't remember what she orders) I would have been alert to reminding her, "Mom, you have lasagna and spaghetti here to eat." Ironically, I was the one who semi-arranged our seating by noticing that the chairs sat higher to the table than did the booth and, knowing she would sink table-to-chin on the booth side, I nonchalantly directed her to the chair side and didn't notice where she sat. I feel more angst-ridden than guilty. My mother, most of the time, is alert enough to eat when she is very hungry. Welllll..., almost most of the time. She is getting to the place where she needs to be reminded to eat. I'm not planning on reducing my fun or what should more accurately be called my sense of fun; it enlivens my mother's life. I guess I just have to keep better track of her. I don't think my dropping of attention was a Freudian slip. I know that "Grandma" and MPNC headed over to the corner because it was the least noisy and they were conversing. I also know I ended up at the other end because I was one of the celebrators making noise. But my heart aches that I allowed this to happen and that it could happen again. Luckily, none of the incident caused Mom to feel bad or to under eat. But I know she was lost in her own little world for about an hour, give or take, and could have been partaking of the revelry. Damn. I'm going to try to be more observant.
The Cast: Eight of us, including MPBIL's dad and stepmother, MPNP of course, it was his celebration, MPNC, MPS, Mom and me. I feel as though I should capitalize "me".
We were at an Italian restaurant for MPNP's celebratory graduation meal seated "family style", Me second to the last on the booth side, Mom catty corner from me on the other side. We all know each other very well and often pick seats at such dinners according to spur of the moment conversation. As it happened, MPNC and Mom had been having a lively conversation. I was feeling excellent and having a lively, fairly loud time, myself. Everyone was feeling so good the entire table forgot to say grace. This is a long way of saying I became totally and happily caught up in the event. The dinner lasted exactly two hours. First bread was served with salad, then dinners were passed around. My mother ordered a lasagna/spaghetti plate.
I became aware of her somewhere deep into the eating-dinner portion of the soiree, maybe a half hour before we left. From her position at the other end of the table she had become cut off from conversation. She had what looked like a long empty salad plate in front of her, a large, rapidly cooling plate of lasagna/spaghetti to her right and was completely absorbed in what I later understood was the Puzzle of the Plates. We were all zestfully polishing off our entrees but she hadn't begun hers. I flushed in horror that I had lost track of her for so long that, well, that this had happened. I understood the scenario, immediately: She hadn't voluntarily pushed her salad plate away and since she had forgotten, almost before she uttered it, what she'd ordered because she was caught up in the merriment when her entree was served she didn't recognize it. She thought it was someone else's. Luckily, she had helped herself, MPBIL's dad (he had been noticing her out of the corner of his eye) assured me, over and over to salad (she likes Antipasto salad except for the black olives, which she normally and without a word passes onto my plate) and pretty much chowed down on the Renewing Breadbasket. I was somewhat relieved to hear this but I was, and still am, very, I hate to use this word but I'm in such a hurry that I don't have time to think of another, "conflicted" about what happened. On the one hand I certainly don't regret the good time I had. Frankly, if I'd been sitting next to her I would have just as good a time. And being aware of her behavior and short term memory in restaurants (it always happens that she doesn't remember what she orders) I would have been alert to reminding her, "Mom, you have lasagna and spaghetti here to eat." Ironically, I was the one who semi-arranged our seating by noticing that the chairs sat higher to the table than did the booth and, knowing she would sink table-to-chin on the booth side, I nonchalantly directed her to the chair side and didn't notice where she sat. I feel more angst-ridden than guilty. My mother, most of the time, is alert enough to eat when she is very hungry. Welllll..., almost most of the time. She is getting to the place where she needs to be reminded to eat. I'm not planning on reducing my fun or what should more accurately be called my sense of fun; it enlivens my mother's life. I guess I just have to keep better track of her. I don't think my dropping of attention was a Freudian slip. I know that "Grandma" and MPNC headed over to the corner because it was the least noisy and they were conversing. I also know I ended up at the other end because I was one of the celebrators making noise. But my heart aches that I allowed this to happen and that it could happen again. Luckily, none of the incident caused Mom to feel bad or to under eat. But I know she was lost in her own little world for about an hour, give or take, and could have been partaking of the revelry. Damn. I'm going to try to be more observant.
