The incredible shrinking woman

It was during my mother's latest doctor's appointment that she regaled the nurses with how tall she used to be. She was -- statuesque and thin. In the '50s. Asked for her height now, she replied, "I don't know how tall I am anymore. I've been shrinking."

I tried to explain that as we age, we sink a bit farther toward the ground. That did not placate her. She then told the nurses how grateful she is to have three adult children to help her through said shrinkage, among other small crises.

Just in case we got lost, because she knows I can't find my way out of my own closet, we left at 10:45 for an 11:45 appointment 15 minutes away.

Because of Covic, as she calls it, we had to wait outside the locked door of the doctor's office until our appointment time. It gave my mother the chance to tell me that she recalled coming to the formerly Catholic hospital where we now sat to visit her newborn sister. In 1941. 

As a nun approached the office across from us, my mother took the opportunity to tell her that, on said 1941 visit, the place was swarming with nuns, so to speak.  

Sister was unimpressed. But that's the thing about my mom: She will talk to anyone, disregarding the nuanced reaction of a person who may have lost interest a few words in. When we finally got into the examining room, she told me, "I'm a nervous wreck." Indeed she was; her blood pressure was 180/80. 

She was calmer at lunch, and at ShopRite, where she told me she only needed a couple of things, something she says often. We left with five bags; something that happens often. 

I watched her push the cart to the produce section and give the fresh cherries a test run by pulling one from a bag and plopping it into her mouth. You shouldn't have to tell your mom not to do that, as if she  were a child.

But since she's shrinking, you can pretend she is a child. And that life is just a bowl of stolen cherries.