So I was reading through the letters and I came upon this one and I think I’m going to put them away for a few more years after this.<\/p>\n
\nDate: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 14:40:56 -0800 (PST)
\nFrom: Eileen Hutchins
\nSubject: Bro Robert
\nDear Celeste,
\nBrother Robert’s address is [address]
\nDad gave me some bad news last night. He said that
\nyou and Christie aren’t coming on Thanksgiving. Of
\ncourse I know that this is only a vicious rumor. I was
\ncounting on you.
\nI’m losing my memory in odd ways. It isn’t
\nAlzheimer’s,
\nI don’t think; the pattern, judging by articles and tv<\/p>\nreports I’ve seen, isn’t right. Daddy’s and Tom’s
\npatterns of deterioration were pretty much similar to
\nthe reports. My problem isn’t so much in being
\nconfused. I can still learn new presentations for the
\nmuseum, and remember what I previously learned; I can
\ndo great in narrating the slide presentation for
\nWestward Ho! and communicate very well with visitors
\non my tours.So what is the problem? Well, it’s hard to
\ndescribe. The other day I went to the Moo to help
\ncount out fliers to be distributed to school district
\noffices. I walked in and there was Chuck Morrow, who
\nhas been out sick for months. I gave him a welcome
\nback are you ok now, etc. One of the other docents
\nvery tactfully explained that Chuck Morrow was out
\nleading a tour, and this was Richard Sachen. I was
\nmortified. Still, even at that, it took me about half
\nan hour before I really realized who was who. The bad
\npart is that I know these people well. Then when I was
\nassembling the packets, I got them all mixed up. No
\none realized, but it scared me. Daddy thought I was
\nWinifred, but by that time he was disconnected
\ngenerally. What’s happening? The pattern is wrong.
\nSome other things have happened also, but none as
\nserious as this. Still, I can take detailed notes at
\nmeetings (2 a month), produce an average of 4 to 5
\ntypewritten pages, and there are no corrections made
\nat the next meeting. But I have to realize that
\nsomething is beginning to happen. Please say a prayer
\nfor me.It’s scary. These things never used to happen.
\nIs there a forseeable weekend you can go to LA to see
\nCatherine? Grandma will come too. I think we should do
\nit soon, while both of them are still able.
\nWe took Grandma to the Grand National Horse Show and
\nRodeo yesterday. I think she really enjoyed it.She
\nsaid she went to Bro. Robert’s for dinner last week.
\nShe was delighted that you asked her. You can’t
\nimagine how important your continued contact with her
\nis. Bro Robert was right when he said that your heart
\nis in the right place.
\nPlease come on Thanksgiving if at all possible.
\nLove to the world’s best daughter, Mom <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nUm, so I guess that helps answer the when-did-it-start question. I guess this means I never really knew my mom at all, really. I don’t know what I wrote back to this. In the letters around it, she’s responding to me trying to convince her that feminism and communism are good ideas. And she writes for a while about being depressed. This wasn’t long after she got on prozac. Maybe she was never depressed at all. Yeah.
\nI think I prolly wrote back the wrong thing. The right thing was “go see a neurologist now!!” I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that.
\nthis is a public service message: if yer family member complains of these symptoms, take her to a spciealist. If her tumor had been operated on then, it might have been treatable.
\nyee gods
\noh yeah. Tom was my cousin, Catherine’s older brother. He had memory deterioration and lost his short term memory before he died. Daddy was my grandpa. He broke his hip and had emergency surgery and when the anesthesia wore off . . . well, it never did really. He was extremely confused for the five years before he died. My family, which celebrates intellectualism, learning and intelligence as high virtues, has a pattern of deaths involving slow, lingering brain diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last letter from mom for a good long while So I was reading through the letters and I came upon this one and I think I’m going to put them away for a few more years after this. Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 14:40:56 -0800 (PST) From: Eileen Hutchins Subject: Bro Robert Dear Celeste, Brother … Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3693,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions\/3693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}