214 Elm

I can't say with any certainty when it began.  Certainly for as long as I can remember.

Spaghetti and meatballs. Apple Pie. Elegant Spinach (her name for creamed spinach).

She was always generous to send you home with leftovers. It was what the leftovers were packed up in that were another story. Sometime around the early 90's my grandmother started labeling EVERY piece of Tupperware she owned with a permanent marker.  214 ELM was scrawled on the bottoms of containers and the tops of lids.  Corningware lids, wonton soup containers, nothing was safe from that pen.

As I write this, I feel sad. The days of packing up leftovers is passed.  She no longer cooks, for herself or anyone else. She no longer has a kitchen. She has not lived in her apartment for a month and I do not expect her to return.  I pushed her to move into this apartment last year because I felt it was what was best for her. I felt she would be safer and less lonely.  I was wrong about the second part.  Her Alzheimer's was far more advanced than I realized.  With her I could never tell if she was unwilling or unable to change, to make friends, to join in.  Either way, it doesn't matter because the outcome is still the same.  She is old and sick and lonely and I just feel really shitty and angry and sad about it.

And that's it.