Notes-to-self

There was a phase of May's disease during which she bought a hundred or more notebooks with the expectation that they might serve as a surrogate memory. Most of them were never used. But as I was cleaning out a file cabinet this week, I came across a series of reminders spread across three different notebooks. They all involved socks for our daughter Keely, both sending and receiving. 

The first four entries below were from consecutive pages in a large memo pad, and last two were stand-alone entries in a logbook and a small note pad. I look fondly on the brackets, arrows, bullet points, boxes and cloud patterns -- a penchant for organization that is gone forever, now.  

Fearful

Walking our usual route today, she was afraid of a fake house plant in the northeast turn of the corridor. "That scares me," she said, shying away. Walking in the garden outside, she stopped short and said, "They don't want us here." Passing by a room where other residents were playing BINGO, she turned her head and said, "Don't make me go in there." She's starting to pick out patterns in the carpeting that need to be carefully walked around. Not many smiles today. I talked to the site manager about it. She said everyone was aware. "It's the disease," she said. "She has entered a new phase."