Sunday, September 22, 2002
Up at the squawk of dawn today in order to get to Keswick in good time. Main reason for wanting to head to Keswick was to see if I could find a land survey for the property, which may be handy come the sale. So I spent 3 hours going through papers.
It was very odd seeing the ReMax "For Sale" sign in front of the house.
Didn't find what I was looking for, but I found plenty of other interesting things. Old mortgage documents with oh-so-low, pre-inflationary prices for the house. Collections of old school photos of me. Reams of personal letters. An old election pamphlet promo-ing my Uncle John. Manuals and receipts for long-gone items, like the colour TV bought in 1969 or the car stereo system bought for a long-gone car.
Just after noon I called a cab in order to see Mom at the hospital. Just as I was leaving I noticed a couple had stopped in order to look at the house and its grounds. Didn't have time to talk, but it is heartening to see the interest in the place.
Took Mom an extra blanket from her home, a small teddy bear for comfort, her knitting supplies as well as a bag of scotch mints and fresh AA batteries for the portable CD walkman I loaned to her to listen to CDs with. I spent about an hour-and-a-half with her, talking primarily about family things and about the nursing home I am hoping she gets into. She is certainly looking much better than she did at the start, no longer looking as frail, and with a sparkle back in her eyes. But her memory is still a problem. I showed her some photos she had taken of Vanessa doing a "ballet performance" during Mom's last visit to our place that I found among the papers. She remembered it well enough, and I told her that I had signed Vanessa up for ballet classes, talking about it at length. Near the end of the visit she glanced at the pictures again and said I ought to sign her up for ballet lessons. I went into the spiel about signing Vanessa up for lessons again, and never was there a hint of recognition that I had already told her about it. She does know that I am selling the house and placing her in a home -- she brought up the topic herself early on in the visit -- but later she reverted to saying that she was looking forward to going home. All very sad.
I was very glad to get home around dinnertime and finally have a chance to relax. Had a great time sitting in the back yard as Annie repeatedly got in and out (and sometimes under) her toy car, purposely but firmly closing the door whenever she got out, just as a "big person" would. She loves that sort of thing. It was great sitting and just watching her play.
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