Monkey In the Bananas

We've been having great days lately, lots of them and all of them in a row. We've fine tuned my mom's supplements and diet to the point where she's pretty normal every day. 

I have extra time with my mom... she's coming back!  Could this be?

I remember thoughts not long ago wishing that my demented mother would return, just long enough so that I could enjoy her.  It's true, you miss the little things in a person when the person is gone.  I visualized it and believed that it was possible.  Next thing I knew... Josie returned.

It's as though the Universe has granted my "wish";  I have extra time to share my life with my mother.  A dream come true. 

So... with this extra time, where do I take her?  Shopping of course, her favorite pasttime.

Today, while we were shopping in Whole Foods, my mom asked what I needed. I gave her a few items on my list and off she went with the cart to gather grapes, blueberries, asparagus and bananas. She didn't need my list. She remembered everything using her own memory! I was pretty impressed.  Remembering the items didn't thrill me as much as today, the toy stuffed Monkey in the banana display didn't become a real boy!

Just a few weeks before my mom became convinced that the stuffed monkey in the banana display at Whole Foods was real, that the monkey was a living being, a mischievous boy. 

She often would talk to the monkey, "Get down from there... oh! oh! ... you are going to get hurt.  Susie, get him down!" 

For weeks I did everything I could to keep my mom out of the banana aisle at Whole Foods.  The Monkey freaked her out and any people that happened to be in the aisle with her.

More than once over the course of several months, my mom had dragged me to look at the monkey and said, "See, See Susie, it blinked at me. It's making faces! It's so funny… Someone better get that little boy out of there, he's going to get into mischief."

On and on she would carry on, crafting quite a story around the monkey in the bananas.