I wonder sometimes what happens in Mum’s head. I don’t mean in an exasperated sort of way (although exasperation does take up a large percentage of my wondering).  I mean how it is that some days she cant remember where her bedroom is to walk back from the bathroom, yet minutes later she can tell me she wants to wear the cardigan that I made her – the same cardigan that the previous week she swore beyond doubt I’d never given her and she’d certainly never seen.

Someone said to me last week that it’s good she still has her knitting.  But at the moment Mum doesn’t believe that she ever could knit and I’ve hidden her wool and knitting needles as she was getting stressed thinking that she needed to finish a jumper (something she’d not made since before her stroke).  Even looking at the Tuesday Blanket squares, she has no recollection at all of making them.

Yet I’m told…and I see…that some skills come and go.  That this is far from linear.

But in my rather basic view of how a brain works, there are bits of wool (obviously it’s wool) that connect up all the memories and thoughts and skills.  And when something disappears in Mum’s brain I assumed that the wool got snipped and the connection is lost.  So how does she remember where her bedroom is in relation to the bathroom the next day?  Or remember the cardigan she forgot, or like last week, totally forget my name or my relation to her while we sit in a coffee shop and remember as we drive home?  And how does she manage to lose her coat three times between pulling up outside her house and getting inside?!  Maybe the wool isn’t cut.  Maybe it’s just in a right old tangle.

Don’t worry, I don’t want actual answers.  I just wanted to wonder my wandering wondering out loud…or so to speak.

And sometimes I wonder if actually my head is almost as tangled as Mums 😳