visiting mom

Shortly after my father died, six years ago, my mother moved into senior housing in Buffalo, a few miles away from where my sister and her husband have a house (the announcement of the move came as a surprise to me). Mom's birthday is today, so every Labor Day, The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I take a long weekend and drive up to visit.

We stayed in a guest room at the apartments where she lives, and dropped in on her after the drive up on Friday.

On Saturday, before mother was potting about, we went to a HUGE farmers market near my sister's house. It's big enough that there's competition, and instead of paying a premium for buying at a farmers market, as seems too often to be the case here in the Garden State, stuff is actually cheaper (and, usually, better) that stuff in stores. Here's TEW, my sister, and her husband rejoicing in their farmers market finds:

From there we went to the Burchfield Penney gallery. Burchfield was an artist who mostly did trees, and I wish i liked his stuff better than I do. He left some money for the gallery, as well as his works and collection. They specialize in modern (many of them, living) artists. Some of the stuff was cool...

 That above is Backpack by Jason Seeley, from 2013, and I thought it was great. But much of the stuff is disturbing in various ways, like this Little Dancer by Jonathan Rogers from about 2000:

It's part of a series of works, and they were NOT comfortable.

Mom came out with us to the gallery, though, and loved it. I think much of what she loved was being out with family, though. More later on that.

The next day, Sunday, my sister and her husband, and TEW and I, did the "Maid of the Mist" boat trip that goes to the bottom of Niagara Falls.

...and a gajillion other pictures that didn't come out.

Then back to Mom's apartment, where her little brother, who's 83 and the life of the party, came over from Rochester. We went out to dinner and had a great time.

But mother is 88 now. She can take care of herself with some help, but she can't retain new memories, and doesn't remember that she's already told you what she just told you, to say nothing of what she told you last week. She's not to the point where she can't be trusted living on her own, but I won't be surprised if she's at that point by the time next year rolls around.

She's twenty-four years and a bit older than I, and I worry for my own condition in the upcoming years, as well as hers. My ride home was thoughtful and emotionally difficult. And the end is not yet. I am lucky and grateful to have TEW to put my parts back together.