DATELINE: Friday the 13th, 2020, from Lady Proverbs, somewhere on the Oregon Coast

So I saw the fugitive today. She looked so frail and old and colorless as she lay asleep in her hospital bed. I entered quietly, but in a few moments her eyes opened and she started crying with happiness and relief, it sounded like, because I was there. I won’t go into the gory details, but she was off in Dementia Mom Storyland pretty much the whole time. It’s kind of interesting to experience in living color, what the brain does when it’s deteriorating. Like HAL in 2001 Space Odyssey when it was being unplugged and powered off by Keir Dullea: slowly making less and less sense, getting slower and more jumbled, talking nonsense, and then finally stopping. Gone. Done.

My poor bro, only “boy” in the family, having a rough time processing that Mom is now Dementia Mom and there is no operations czar solution to fixing it. We all loved Dad and love Mom, but Only Son holds them on a pedestal. His wife said to me, “He doesn’t do emotions well.” He does emotions in the way some people, mostly men, do when they don’t want the perfect picture of their parents — or fill in the blank — to change. And when it does, there is no go-to way to come to grips with it. Us girl-children are suffering as well, but we know when a good cry, a knock down drag out wail really, which is what I had to do earlier this week, will hurt but it will also open the pain value and release some of the emotional pressure. It’s messy but it’s a good and valuable skill.

Yesterday and today an ocean storm brought hail then sun then wind then pounding rain. This is serious sideways rain. It slammed against the windows so hard last night, it made a guest appearance in my dreams until the noise in the bedroom woke me. But it’s just normal Oregon coast winter weather. Storm watching is part of the Oregon vibe. But we mostly like to do it from a window in a nice hotel or condo with our favorite adult beverage and/or cannabis product in hand, somebody to squeeze, a fireplace and/or hot tub, really good pizza, and the perfect music overlay.

These storms produce enormous waves that gnash at the coastline. They are as dangerous as they are magnificent in power and color: pewter, cobalt, glacier blue and ice white. A beautiful mystery. Just like Mama Bear.