I wrote yesterday about visiting my 93-year-old mother. Sometimes, I tell her things on the phone and she asks me about them a week later, sharp as can be. Other things she forgets. After her meals in the nursing home, she doesn't remember what she ate by the time she returns to her room. And sometimes she will say the same thing two or three times during the same conversation. She is in the middle stages of dementia.
She reminds me of me. When I drank, I suffered blackouts. Once I ran into a car and didn't remember. Another time, I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and didn't remember. Sometimes I fixed dinner for my wife and me and couldn't remember what I had made. I often had conversations and watched TV and later had no idea what I had been doing the past few hours.
I feel bad for my mother's condition. She can't control her loss of memory. I couldn't control mine either, but now I know how to curtail my forgetfulness: Don't drink!
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