Spots of Memory

I figured I would write while waiting for Shannon to be ready to watch a movie. Well, she was ready quickly so I'm writing after. We watched Pinky; a 1949 movie about a girl who had passed for a white in the north when she went up to school and then returned to her grandmother and her struggles accepting herself and the situations she found herself in. She gave up the man she loved to embrace her heritage, her family, and herself. Such a stirring movie. I'd count it next to To Kill a Mocking Bird.

There has been a lot of talk about birds today. Perhaps it's because I've been pouring over sparrow pictures and editing like crazy to try to find one that will work my tattoo. Just a little thing, a symbol - a brand I suppose really.

I always loved tiny little brown sparrows outside in the winter on the snow and associated myself with them, their small dumpy brownness, as a child. I never told anyone though, so it came as a shock when after I went away to college mom started calling me her Sparrow. In church she would smile at people and say her Sparrow came home! Anytime she spoke to people she would say it instead of my name. It didn't take long to suspect that she had forgotten my name while I was gone. She does seem to forget us kids when we aren't around. Todd doesn't get much thought after he's been gone a month, while old relatives we never knew are talked about constantly. It's a strange sensation.

Her memory has odd holes and associations. At dinner tonight she came out with; "I'm worried that when Tricia has her baby my father in-law will pass away." Shannon and I looked up from our salads "What? Why?" She said that her Grammy Milican told her that when someone dies a new baby is born in their place. Her friend Pat died a few weeks ago when Baby Leah was born so she's worried who will die when the next baby she knows of is born. Shannon and I tried to correct her but she knew better.

Her logic is hard to argue with but sometimes her memory is just confusing. Mom broke her glasses. The frame snapped right in half. She's been wearing a spare pair she had lying around all week. In trying to get them replaced tonight we found out that she's broke an old pair and the ones she was keeping as a spare are her newest prescription.  Not only was it an old pair but it is probably more than 10 years old and she's had several different pairs of glasses since then. The Dr didn't even have the prescription on record.  What happened?  How did she mix up glasses without noticing anything!  I guess I'll never know.

I do know that I'm dropping to sleep though. It's been a long day and tomorrow proves to be just as full.