So today I was having a small pity party for myself, because although I try to be cheery and positive, some times I feel like I can’t fight that good fight any more, so I get quiet and weird and feel very alone. That was happening this morning, but still I made breakfast, emptied and loaded the dishwasher AGAIN, and helped Mom get ready for church. We got there a little late and they were handing out the wafers for the Lord’s Supper.
As an aside, the wafers are no longer the tiny square crackers of my childhood or the broken saltines of a few years ago. Also not the super-sterile cup and wafer combo we went to in 2020. Now it’s a strange circle that tastes like rice and I suppose it’s gluten free. This time the juice was also white grape, which also got my attention. I thought about how when I was young, we used red grape juice, and then later it seemed like it was always purple grape juice. The white reminded me of how the LDS use water for their communion. I miss the red grape juice. Sometimes I find it at the store and buy it and it’s so decadent to be able to drink as much red grape juice as my blood sugar will allow. I still think of it as “Lord’s Supper Juice.”
Okay, so back to this morning. Mom did not even know what the white circle was when she got one. She looked at it quizzically and I told her to just hang on to it. I assumed since it was a super-light almost see through papery thing, she didn’t know it was a communion wafer, and I couldn’t blame her. She held on to it. Then the grape juice came around, and she seemed confused by that too. Obviously because it was white and not colored like blood, I supposed.
So it came time to eat it, and I got her to look at me and ate it, to let her know it was indeed edible. She got it then and ate the wafer. Then I drank the juice, again motioning to her to do the same. She was not done with the wafer but I rushed her because everyone else was standing up to sing. So she downed the juice. I put both cups in the little holder under the chairs in front of us.
Mom still looked confused. I leaned in. “You know that was the Lord’s Supper, right?” She said what? and I repeated myself, just a little louder but still under the singing.
Mom shook her head. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
And then I was fighting back tears. Mom has gone to church since she was a little kid. I’ve sat with her through dozens of repetitions of the Lord’s Supper. My memory is very strong of this happening in my childhood, sitting next to her, emulating her. And she doesn’t remember it at all. The weight of her memory loss weighed down on me SO VERY HARD in that moment and all I could do was wipe the tears away so she wouldn’t see and become concerned.
I’m so tired. I’m so, so tired. I came home and did my best to be a good hostess but honestly, we just watched TV and ate the food I put in the slow cooker and the food was good but I felt like I was barely there.
A couple of other things happened today that normally would not be a big deal but this time, I cried again and one time I had to take myself away from the others and just lie down and be alone on the bathroom floor.
I did not mean to get so personal on this blog. This is supposed to be my writing blog. I really should just put this on livejournal and not let my secrets of crazy out in a public place. But I don’t think anyone really reads these unless I post one on facebook with an update on Belinda, so it should be all right. At least it’s content, ha.
Anyway. Tomorrow will probably be better.
Here’s a link to something that looks like the wafer. These are definitely not as pleasant as the ones form my youth. I know it’s not about that anyway.
