Ninety One

She is a Depression survivor and it shows.  At 91 years of age, her mind is alternately foggy and sunny, cloudy and clear.  Names are hard to remember as well as how people are related.  “Now who are you?” she might ask a grandchild.  Yet in the midst of forgetting these important things, she remembers little things that helped her survive her childhood in the 30s.  Today she needs help with showering, dressing, even going to the bathroom.  But that part of her that served her well her whole life, that part of her that is methodical, organized and frugal, is still alive and well.

Her morning routine is a study in who she is.  Visiting her recently to help my stepfather with her care as he recovered from minor surgery, I observed how her mind works to make life safe, controlled and functional.


“I put these three things on my left side in this order”, she tells me as she sits at her makeup table.  She is referring to a rubber encased 2 inch mirror she uses for applying lipstick, a container of blush, or “rouge”, and a foundation color.  They are placed on a diagonal line starting from the middle of the table going back to the left near the lamp.  To the left of them are placed two hair picks and kleenex.  In the middle is a mirrored tray holding lipsticks and miscellaneous other things.

After applying lipstick she blots her lips then carefully tears off the kissed corner of the kleenex, throwing it away while retaining the rest for her pocket.  “Waste not” is the unspoken commandment she is still obeying.

As she proceeds with her morning ritual, she narrates everything, not so much to inform me but more to inform herself, to keep things clear in her mind as to what she has done and not done.  Behind the tray, propped up against the large table mirror is a 7-inch fold up calendar with a pen attached.  She notices it as she sits there, deciding now is the time to make a mark on the day’s date.  With an unsteady hand she slowly marks an X on the day’s number.  She notes the day of the week and lets it sink in.  “Today is Wednesday, March 27th” she tells me.

Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays are her shower days. Before doing her makeup, on these days she will carefully enter the shower stall.  While I wait outside, having already turned on the water and checked the temperature, she soaps up a wash cloth and begins a verbal narration of her bathing progress.  “I’m washing my right arm.”  I wait.   “Now I’m washing my left arm.”  Having finished that she tells me, “I’m washing my right arm now.”  “Mom, you already washed your right arm” I tell her.  “Oh, that’s right.”  Now I help her wash her back, gently passing over her rounded shoulders that had been my burden bearer as a young child; the shoulders that gently stooped over her pie-crust in the making; and the shoulders that powered the push in kneading her homemade rolls.  How can there be so much memory making contained in the body and shoulders of one woman?

We turn off the water and she backs out of the stall to a waiting towel.  All is done a step at a time, again announcing each movement as if she were demonstrating how to get dressed to a classroom of the uninitiated.

“Now what do I do?” she asks as we leave her bedroom headed to the kitchen. “Which way should i go?”  “This way Mom.” directing her to the right while she constantly looks to the left, down the hall.

“Oh, yes.  That’s right.”