THE GREMLIN

1:00pm
When I got up this morning Mum was getting ready to go shopping.

Like we do every day - we crossed off Tea from the list. We have accrued a whole cupboard full of tea-bags. When the lady from Crossroads (who provide in-home visitors) came for an assessment, a few months back, she called this 'repeat buying', she nodded sagely, 'very common'. (You calling my Mum common? Ha ha. ha.) I had to copy out the list today, Mum's had become indecipherable.

While we were doing all this I became a little concerned - we keep a couple of twenties hidden in a bag for her, 'cause she can't use a bank machine any more - this bag was on the kitchen counter, clearly empty. There was no point confusing matters, bringing this up before we finished the list - so we ploughed on with the task at hand.

Once that was out of the way the search for the wallet began. It was not to be found in any of the usual locations, & nor was the chequebook or twenties, that should have been in the empty bag on the kitchen counter.

Its quite tricky, sometimes, this business of 'looking for things with Mum', because she can't usually hold it in her head what she's looking for - unless its scissors or string. Really I'm doing most of the looking.

Today Mum doesn't seem to recognise she has a memory problem, or if she does, that this might be responsible for the things that keep vanishing. This kind of affair is much easier when she can blame the very real Gremlin; The Gremlin we call 'Alzheimer's' to each other, 'a memory problem' when talking to her.

She is saying that someone else has moved it, blaming me and Local-sister. It turns out there is a grain of truth in this - later on it turns out Local-sister had removed the unused chequebook & it was only the money we were looking for - which may or may not have confused matters.

After a few minutes I abandon the search - this has happened before. When she doesn't remember about the Gremlin? She won't stop talking about who moved it until I stop looking for it.

"Times getting on, I'll lend you some money so you can go shopping. Your wallet will turn up when you get back - it always does"

I get Mum a twenty and go to the kitchen. At some point during the search her wallet has reappeared, it is now in full view on the counter - with one twenty in it. It doesn't matter whether she forgot to tell me she had found it, or had forgotten it was what we were looking for - it has been found.

I wish I'd seen where she found it, though - the other money is probably somewhere near there.

So there's still something we are looking for.

What are we looking for?

I forget
what baffled me