After resting so much the day before, I hoped that Kate would be up a little earlier yesterday. I got my wish. I didn’t have to wake her. She wasn’t up early enough for Panera, but we did get to lunch shortly after 11:30. She was happy, and we enjoyed our lunch time together.
It didn’t surprise me that she wanted to rest as soon as we got home. She is doing that quite regularly these days. We had hair appointments at 3:00. About 2:25, I reminded her of that, and she got up right away. She took a little time to brush her teeth and use the bathroom, but we arrived for our appointments almost ten minutes early.
When we returned home, she worked on her iPad until time for dinner. That was a little over an hour. She continues to have trouble with the puzzles but did pretty well.
The best part of the day occurred at home after dinner. I have mentioned before that Kate often says, “That goes in the book.” She does that whenever we are talking about things that happened in the past. Almost a year ago, I jotted down a number of things that I thought were of importance to her. That includes the names of her family (grandparents, parents, brother and his wife, our children and grandchildren) our courtship and marriage, places we have lived and traveled, as well as a couple of letters I had sent to my parents when we were dating, one from Kate’s mother to my parents during that same period of time, and another from our son that he sent to us after our 50th anniversary. I put the information in a three-ring binder and included some family photos in the back.
After dinner, I asked Kate if she would like to look at it while I watched the news. She did and enjoyed it. It was difficult for her to read, and she asked me to read parts to her. I was pleased that she was interested. She hasn’t expressed much interest until the past few days. She prefers her photo books. I suspect her memory loss may play a part in the recent appeal of reading about things that have been so much a part of her life.
Going through the book gave a little more understanding of the challenges she has with reading and her photo books. For example, I read the letter from our son. I, of course, told her it was from Kevin. In addition, he talks about us and our marriage from his perspective throughout the letter. When I finished with “Love, Kevin,” she was almost in tears. She said it was beautiful and thanked me for writing it. It’s another illustration of the weakness of her rational abilities and the strength of her intuitive ones. She couldn’t remember that it was from Kevin nor pick up that it was from him by what he said. She was, however, able to pick up on the feelings expressed. She may have assumed it was from me since I read it to her.
Another example involved four photographs I had just added to the binder. One of those is of her grandmother that was taken in Lucerne, Switzerland in the mid-1930s. The other is one of us taken in the same spot in 2015. I had them enlarged to 8 x 10s so that she could see them more easily. I told her who the people were and asked if she noticed anything about where the pictures were taken. She didn’t understand what I was asking. I said, “Do you see anything similar about the two pictures?” It took a lot of help on my part for her to see they were taken at the same place. She would never have noticed without my help.
The other two pictures were of her mother taken on the boardwalk in Quebec City with the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in the background and one of Kate taken in the same place. Her parents had stayed at the hotel on their honeymoon in 1936. We stayed there our on our 41st anniversary in 2004. I went through the same routine with these pictures. I’m not sure she ever understood what they had in common. If she did, it didn’t generate any interest. She was, however, interested in the binder’s overall contents. I am glad about that because it gives her something else to enjoy besides her puzzles and photo books. I also intend to add more information. There is plenty of material I can add. The challenge is how to package it in such a way that it is not overwhelming.
By the way, I originally printed it in a 14-pt. font. I have gradually increased it to 36. I think that may be where I stop. She seemed to be able to read that.
