The Dining Room

We were at The Dining Room tonight, put on by the drama department. Six actors took on 57 rôles, or so the programme said, spanning several generations. It was extremely well done. As I have said before, we have a very good drama programme here with excellent professors and really talented students. I am always amazed at what they produce.

In one scene, right before intermission, the grown children are having a turkey dinner in the dining room with their aging mother, and she suddenly gets up and says she doesn’t know where she is, whereupon her son tells her she is in her home where she’s lived for the past 54 years. Then she says, “But I don’t know who all these people are,” and he gives all the names of her children. The cook brings out the turkey and the son starts to carve, and the old woman rises again and says, “Thank you all for inviting me and having me, but I must be going home now.” The scene continues as they realize that she doesn’t recognize them at all and thinks she still lives with her parents in a house that was torn down years ago to make way for an office complex. The children are devastated, feeling as though they are just ghosts.

That particular scene hit me rather close to home. I realize that there will come a day when I, too, will feel like a ghost, when my mother doesn’t know me anymore. I really don’t know what else to say.

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