Lightning Ninja Strike

My mother is most affected in her ability to speak and pay attention to activities going on around her, but she also loses some of her coordination as the disease progresses.  When my sisters and I are around, she is usually no less than two feet away.  Her hovering lasts until she gets distracted by any object in any given room.  She picks up bottles of lotion in the bathroom and taps them on the counter, she shuffles books in the living room and throws the accent pillows on the floor before flattening the picture frames propped up on end tables and playing with dust jackets on nearby books. 

Over the past few months, she has been crossing her pinky finger under her ring finger so that it almost disappears.  She does this with both hands and they look almost like lobster pinchers as her fingers seldom move individually.  She pushes food around her plate with an upside down spoon and struggles to get the chopped bits of whatever is for supper to stay on the utensil. 

For the most part, she is fairly passive in deciding what objects to pick up, tap on whatever surface is closest, and set down somewhere else.  Her food, for the most part, is also uninspiring.

This penchant for roaming chaos tends to make me forget that my mother is still able to focus her attention at times.

When my mother sees something she wants, she snatches it disturbingly quick. 

I think of this as the Lightning Ninja Strike, and I’ve seen her employ this move on two victims:  chocolate and television remotes.  When she notices the remote from a distance of several feet, tunnel vision takes over.  Like the wind, she takes three or four large strides toward it, pushing by anyone in her way before grabbing the object and pulling it close. 

Smiling proudly, she searches the room to see who is watching.  If I ask for the clicker, she hands it over willingly, but as soon as I set it on the table, she swoops in to retrieve it again. 

My mother also stalks anything in the kitchen that looks like chocolate.  On a random day, she races across the room and reaches across the sink while I am washing dishes, just so she can capture a black plastic lid from a travel mug.  She tries to take a bite, but her teeth chomp down on hard plastic. Surprised, she pulls the lid away and studies it in her open hand, all the while giving it the dirtiest look I have seen in years.

Angry at the lid for tricking her, she tosses it back on the counter and moves on to other prey.