Lucidity

Mary doesn't respond very often to direct questions, at least not with direct answers. But tonight in the dementia unit at the nursing home she seemed to be lost in the gentle strains of the old time music wafting from the cheap boom box, so I thought I'd ask her if she knew what she was listening to. A Muzak version of Blue Moon interrupted the clink of fork tines scraping along plates and folks yelling about some imagined wrongdoing. I looked at Mary and asked her, "Mary, do you know this song?" She continued to look faraway and didn't answer. When Somewhere Over the Rainbow came on, I asked her if she knew that song. Nothing. However, Alma volunteered that she indeed knew the song. She and I then discussed watching The Wizard of Oz sometime and we agreed that would be fun. Then The Platters' tune, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, performed with a forlorn-sounding saxophone, caught my ear. I've always loved the song so I sang along and then asked Mary the obvious question, "How about this one, Mary? Smoke Gets in Your Eyes?" Mary looked right at me and said, plain as day, "Yes, sometimes it does." I couldn't help but laugh, she had answered my question, in a way.