Talking to myself

We had my mom living with us the last four years of her life. Sometimes I'd walk past her room and hear her apparently on the phone. She'd have these animated, involved conversations in which she would say something and then wait for the "response". She had just the right voice inflections and chuckles and was obviously enjoying the conversation. It sounded so real, sometimes I'd check to see if the phone was IN USE. Often I'd hear her recounting chapters from her life story, some I'd heard over and over and sometimes I hadn't heard them before. It dawned on me that Mom wasn't demented, she was just doing a "life review" and putting it all in order. She knew she did this and told me they were some of her favorite conversations. She died in the hospital at age 93 and up until her last couple of days, was regaling the nurses with stories from her childhood. You can't keep a social person down. She's with Dad in heaven now, filling him in on everything that's happened since he passed.