it was late last night and i was still thinking about these scraps. Why?. not at all what i might want to work on. Uneasy. and i went to bed. but, lying there, i remembered the word that Alz B. used to use a lot. she used it for many things in her last years before going to the Old Folks Home in particular. i was trying to remember it the other day in a conversation with her son. i couldn't think of it. lying in bed, out of the blue, i remembered. Hideous.
and that word tripped off a series of images. of her over the last several years, of her in the shower the other day. and the last, almost a still shot, is her…..Look. her looking at me, suddenly, three times as we sat in the SunRoom of the Old Folks Home the last time i was there. As usual, she appeared to be sleeping. eyes closed. slumped and curled in her big reclining wheelchair kind of affair. the TV was on. it was Gunsmoke reruns and i was sitting on the couch holding her hand, absently running my index finger along the palm. now and then, i'd say something. try to engage her. but then go back to watching the TV. during that time, a half hour, out of nowhere, her eyes opened and she "shot me a look"….direct and Hard. each time i responded with her name, with a comment…but there was nothing but that split second LOOK and she would close her eyes. Close her Self.
i stitched it this morning. with red thread. red thread for the blood that continues coursing through her veins. her heart is strong. the "heart" that is a biological organ. it is strong.
but this is Her. like what she is now. i have no idea, her sense of herSelf. none. she has no speech to tell me. just random words that don't connect one to another…mutterings. and then her singing, which is for some reason the most of all intact.
and i pinned this drawing to the back of the cloth. so i would remember what it was i was feeling as i was trying to understand a way of Seeing that was Unfamiliar to me
so, this might be enough. the Sky and Sun might just stay pinned. She never cared. even in her better days she didn't really care. We were an odd pair. Together because her son wanted us to be. but i don't think we ever would have chosen each other otherwise. there were differences.
She at one time, not long after moving here from her home because he wanted her to, after moving here, she took training to be the Ombudsman at this same Old Folks Home. and ombudsman is the ally of the resident. helping the resident express and hold their own wishes in the circumstance of their physical ability and living in an end life or extended care facility. but she never followed through because she found the residents there….Hideous. i asked her…Why? Why Hideous?
and she said they are Ugly.
i think this Cloth was for no purpose at all except to help me understand how it might be for her in this time. how she somehow is IN there….in this body, in this skull, looking out still. but she is not connecting at all with what is Seen. there is a total disconnect, maybe. there is her Consciousness and then Everything else, "out there". She is trapped in a way. the blood flows strong. who knows how long. but there is that disconnect. The Cloth helps me understand. it's not pretty.
windthread 
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