Seasons Change

Monday evening when I arrived home, I smelled it. The clear stench of burn. Fire. Smoke. The kind of odor that permeates walls, fabric, and carpet for days, if not weeks. Mom scurried to the kitchen door to let me in and excitedly tell me that she burned her dinner. Since she has been eating waffles lately, I automatically assumed she toasted a waffle too long in the toaster oven. We've all done that at some time in our lives. Created a charred, crusty, ashen, smokey trivet of yuck.

It actually must have caught on fire or heated to such a high temperature that it melted or began to ignite. The stench of fire, smoke, and burn is still trapped inside the house. 40-hours later. Every room. Each closet. Every drawer. Inside the cabinet. Under the bathroom sinks.

Last night I couldn't sleep, perturbed about how I could possibly still go to the office most days and leave mom in the house alone. I can't. So in a sleepless daze I went to the kitchen to warm up oatmeal in the microwave. It was in that moment I realized Mom had not toasted a waffle two days before. She microwaved a frozen meal in a little black plastic TV-tray or leftovers from the refrigerator. The horrific odor leaking from the microwave was unbearable. I thought the microwave was on fire - deep inside like an electrical fire. However, the smell was not electrical so I doubt that is the issue. It was definitely the fire/smokey odor. It must be a leftover smell trapped in the unit.

At 4:00 AM, instead of eating my oatmeal, this choking smell prompted me to go outside to the trash barrel to take a gander. At the very bottom of the trash barrel, wrapped in clear plastic was a piece of china dinner plate, blackened and broken with some kind of fire-charred food burned on to the plate. It looked like she placed a TV-dinner on a plate and cooked it for an hour or more.

This morning as I watched Mom put a bagel in the toaster oven, I realized how swiftly she can become distracted by anything. I watched her instantaneously forget about the bagel and toddle over to the living room to watch a raven and squirrels outside the front window. I could smell the bagel beginning to smolder in the toaster over and it was then that I became truly cognizant of how, like the seasons have made their complete change without us realizing, so has her brain.