Snow Melt

Was this a hallucination?

I think my mother hallucinated this afternoon. She was sitting in her wheelchair facing the fireplace. I was sitting on the couch near by and she asked, “Who are those two men?” I looked, but there were no men standing near the fireplace or anywhere else.

The question surprised me and I didn’t know how to answer. It took me a second to come up with an answer that wouldn’t upset her. I couldn’t say “What men?” Mom didn’t realize there were no men standing by the fireplace and she would get angry if I told her there was no one standing there. I told her it was Grandpa and Uncle Roy.

She didn’t ask me if it was her grandfather or my grandfather. She didn’t ask me to identify Uncle Roy. Uncle Roy is one of my Grandpa Newland’s brothers. Mom accepted my explanation. Sometimes it’s easier to give Mom an explanation with familiar names then to tell her the truth, which in this case was that I saw no one standing by the fireplace.

Did my mother hallucinate? Did my mother really see two men standing by the fireplace? It doesn’t make a difference because given Mom’s Alzheimer’s disease and poor eyesight, she thought she saw two men. I wasn’t going to tell her she didn’t see someone standing there. I wasn’t going to tell her it was a hallucination. Either of those answers would have made her angry and I wasn’t going to make her angry.