Extremely Normal
I've had the opportunity of late for a lot of conversations with my cognitively challenged mother. She's 70 and she was diagnosed with M.S. over 30 years ago. It has affected her more cognitively than physically, although her balance is bad, and she can't walk very well. Talking to her is like talking to a precocious grade schooler. Anything she thinks, she says. She has favorite stories that she likes to hear over and over, and tell over and over. She gets very excited about her favorite food and likes to have her things around her all the time. Environments and changes are bad for her. Anyway, we were at a gas station and while filling up the car, she mentioned to me that as a child she used to love the smell of gas. And she observed aloud that that probably meant she was a very strange child. I told her I wasn't so sure that's true. She sat back for a second and then she said, yeah, maybe I was just extremely normal. That made me laugh a lot at...