Two things at the house keep Mom oriented to time and date. One is a clock I ordered online that looks like a digital picture frame. It shows the day, time and date and is placed on a shelf across from Mom’s favorite chair. The other is the daily local newspaper. Mom will often look at the top of the morning paper to learn today’s date. Sometimes I will catch her picking up the paper just to orient herself to the day of the week.

Today is the 150th anniversary edition of our local newspaper, The Nevada Appeal. Like most morning Mom walked out to the driveway to bring in the paper and began reading it as I was busying myself in the kitchen getting her coffee and a muffin.

Suddenly I heard gasps and cries of alarm coming from the room where she was reading. I rushed in to see what was wrong and she pointed to the paper and said “This is awful did you see this?” She was pointing to a page in the paper headlined “Terror Attack” and it proceeded to outline the events of September 11. 2001. It was of course a reprint of the newspaper’s coverage of that terrible day.

As it turns out the entire paper was a tableau of front page spreads celebrating their 150 years of publishing. I immediately assured Mom that this was old news and this was their anniversary issue outlining all their reporting over the years. She remarked “Well this is the first I heard of it! How awful!” I agreed it was and we went over the events of that day.  She was newly horrified and upset by the article and was most bothered by the attack on the Pentagon as her Dad had been stationed there when she was a teenager.

Feeling it was to both our benefit not to relive every ghastly event of the past 150 years, when Mom got up to go into the kitchen I hurriedly gathered up the offending pages and stuffed them in the trash before she returned.

I believe it critical for people of sound mind to remember those who have sacrificed with reverence and respect. But this may be the rare occasion where I think for my Mother, forgetting is a blessing.