The stories she tells

Over the past year or two I've watched, and mostly listened to Mom's stories evolve. They've slowly gone from familiar stories I've heard over and over throughout my life, to unrecognizable, yet fairly entertaining yarns about people I've never heard of.  With Alzheimer's you expect them to forget things, but to hear her totally fabricate something gets to be a little weird. It all stems from something in her memory, I'm sure, but there is at least one or two stories she tells that seem to be complete fabrication.

When we go to any large department store, she will tell me how the Troyer boys helped to build it years ago, and when she is telling it she will always look up toward the ceiling as if to see one of them perched up on the rafters. We are about 250 miles from where she grew up and although she did know a family named Troyer, I doubt any of them helped to build the local Wal Mart 5 years ago. But I always listen to her and I always seem to look up with her, like maybe we will see one of them sitting on the rafters, waving.

These days, too, when she talks about Dad she'll tell someone all about how their marriage was the best in the world and how happy they both were. Then she will immediately follow that with, "but it wasn't to be for very long.  He was taken shortly after we married. Just got sick and died." That one in particular is heart-wrenching for me because they had 49 years together.  But on the upside, she's forgotten about the whole "Vioxx killed him" scenario that she used to be so obsessed with. And then sometimes she'll even seem to forget she was ever married. She'll say, "Love never found me.  Having that perfect someone just wasn't meant to be for me."

My Grandmother married a man from Italy in 1953. Mom was grown and on her own but he was still a perfect step-dad. And when Mom got married and started having kids, he really was the perfect Grampa. He never had children of his own and we were the world to him.  He had a shoe repair shop in the basement of his garage and he made wine in the basement of his house. We often talk about how good his wine was. As kids we were always given a small glass with a holiday meal. So, last week when my younger sister visited she wanted to go to some of the wineries we have here in Indiana. So we took Mom and went to a wine tasting. We really had a ball...at least everyone except the woman serving the wine.  She stood behind the wine bar and poured a little in each of our glasses and when she got to Mom's, Mom said, "my Grandfather came from Belgium (that much was right) and he made wine (wrong)."

The lady said, "well, that's neat. You don't hear too much about the Belgians making wine."

Mom said, "oh yes! His wine was so good he started his own winery. People came from all over to learn from him how to make it."

(Mom's grandfather did come over from Belgium but he was a glass maker and much more of a wine drinker than maker.)

At this the lady was very interested and asked, "where is his winery?"

Mom said, "Oh, that's been years ago and it's not around anymore. But it was in Ohio."

At this point I said, "Mom, Grampa Louis made wine, too. He was from Italy." I looked at the lady and added, "but he just made it in his basement." I thought this might end that line of conversation but as she poured wine from the next bottle and came down to pour into Mom's glass, Mom started with the same line as before.

"My grandfather came from Belgium and he made wine..." I think after the third or fourth tasting the lady either figured it out or thought we'd been to one too many wineries for that day.

The oddest story she tells right now is the one where she was asked to come and tutor a bunch of boys. She never says where this took place or who the boys were, but they were the best six boys she'd ever been around. they gave her gifts when she left, too. She claims to have gotten the purse she carries from them. She also has an old manicure set that she swears came from them. With most of her stories I can pick out little bits of real life that she's gotten confused with other things but this one is a mystery. I don't know that she ever tutored anyone, although she did help out and teach Art at my school when I was in the 5th grade. But only once a week, I think. She also taught CCD on Sunday mornings before Mass.

I continue to be surprised on a daily basis...