I’ve been thinking about taking Kate to our local museum of art for some time . The past several days have been cold and rainy. It seemed like a good time to act on that desire. We went right after lunch yesterday. I didn’t tell Kate where we were going until we got out of the car. That’s when I mentioned that the museum had been undergoing a renovation, and I was interested in seeing what it was like.
Once in the gallery she was quite interested. I was surprised that she seemed to express more interest than I have noticed on previous visits to that museum or any other. Her interest was diverse and included sculpture and paintings of different periods and styles. It did not surprise me that she was taken by several paintings that included children and babies. One sculpture that she liked was of a young boy unclothed sitting in a chair. The accompanying information indicated that it was a depiction of childhood innocence. Moments later, perhaps seconds, she turned around to look at something else. When she turned back, she saw the sculpture again and responded as though it were the first time. She did the same thing with another favorite painting. It was a mother with her infant child in her lap. She had a hard time taking her eyes from it.
We had been there almost an hour when Kate wanted to find a restroom. I walked her to the door and waited just outside. In a few minutes, I heard her say, “Hello. . . Hello.” I suspected she was “lost.” I opened the door and said, “Hello.” She hadn’t been able to find the door. It was located so that she couldn’t immediately see it from either the stalls or the sinks. She hadn’t panicked, but she was relieved to see me. (This reminded me of an incident in Memphis the last time we visited our daughter Jesse. Kate locked herself in the restroom and couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door. This past Saturday when we visited our friend Ellen in her memory care facility, an attendant showed us the restroom and said that the door was always locked from the outside but not from the inside. They were not going to take any chances of a resident’s being locked in. One doesn’t usually think about little things like this until coming face-to-face with Alzheimer’s.)
I decided we had had a good visit. It was time to go back home. I plan to return soon.
