that necklace

Mom has a necklace she wears every day. It has great sentimental value for her. It is big and brass and jingles. Every day she wears her too-tight jeans and her brass necklace.

When I took her to her doctor's appointment last week, as she undressed, I put the necklace in my purse, and then I forgot about it.
By Saturday Mom was in a panic. She could not find her necklace. Mom wrote up large posters and hung them in her bedroom windows, facing out to the woods. "Find my jewels."

She told her friend she had lost "something" she had lost something very special, but she couldn't even say the word "necklace". She's clutching her breast and crying, "You know, you know that thing, I lost it." She told her friend that she had lost it while bending over the river. (How did a river get into this saga?) This friend helped Mom look in all her drawers and in and under her bed.

Finally one of the aides remembered that Mom and I had gone to the doctors together, and called me. Yes, it's here in the bottom of my purse. I feel like I have the baby's pacifier or the toddler's favorite stuffed animal.

When I called Mom to tell her that I "found" her necklace, she was almost crying. "You don't know how much it means to me."
You're right Mom, I don't understand, I don't understand how you can be so fixated on this necklace, how you can spend hours and hours crying about it, but you don't even care (care, remember, know) if your brother has visited you this year, or if your son has called you today.

I also don't understand your anxiety about your cat. You don't like to leave him alone in your bedroom, you're afraid he's going to be lonely. Yet, you don't play with him.
"I have to see the cat."
"He's ok Mom, he is laying in the sun, on your bed, taking a nap."

"I HAVE to go see him!
He's my family!
YOU don't understand." she yells at me.

I don't understand. Damndementia, stab me in the heart, why must you be so cruel.