That is Mom and a woman whose name I think is Helen Billis. I met Helen when I went up to the hospital to visit some folks I knew in that ward. The nurses would let me visit when ever I was up there because I behaved and people liked me. Hard to believe now, but they used to tell me I had a calming influence on them.
Helen was there for the sole purpose of "monitoring" her medication. She was sharp as a tack, remembered everything but she had a bad heart and her relatives thought she was doing too much. They stuck her in there in the hopes that the doctors would put her on something to slow her down. It was a shame but she was only in there a short week. We met a few times afterwards. You might say she befriended me instead of the opposite.
I think she was part Greek. She introduced me to Greek eating and took me or I took her, I did the driving, she chose the place, to a lot of places I'd never been to before. Some I didn't even know existed. She took me to Yaddo. That's a place in Saratoga I think where writers used to go to write. It was a sort of a retreat for them. It looked like a castle.
We went, of course to Greek restaruants.
I think Mom was feeling her control over me slipping even more. I was going up to Glens Falls to meet up with Helen and give her back a book she had loaned me when Mom decided she needed to go with me for some reason. I think she wanted to check this woman out. I don't think she was impressed.
She told me I should find my own friends and not some old rich lady. She tried to make me think Helen was going to get me in trouble some how. Maybe she was trying to make me think Helen was just using me. Mom never did like rich people. Helen had money. She owned more than one house.
Meanwhile, Helen's grown son was trying to convince Helen that I was only after what I could get out of her. None of all this crap was true. Helen and I were friends. If anything, she dared me to find the path I wanted in life and not what someone else thought I should do.
It was odd because all my life, Mom had told me I could do anything I wanted to do with my life as long as I wanted it enough and yet when ever I tried to do anything she put up blocks to stop me.
There's irony for you. Mom has a black shadow over her mouth. Oh, that is so bad of me. I don't know the third lady here.
Me and Helen. Something got on the negative but its still a good photo. Even with that much weight loss I still felt like I was fat.
It wasn't long and Helen's son found other ways for her to occupy herself.
And Mom? I just had to keep a lot of secrets from everyone. If I did anything at all that was not what Mom might approve of I kept my mouth shut. The girls at the plant were helpful with that. If I had to be somewhere to sing, I was working late. It was a given. I did often work late but sometimes not quite as late as Mom thought.