Newfoundland & Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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PAM FRAMPTON: Alzheimer’s has robbed my mother of so many things, but not her generous nature

Although her mother can no longer remember names or play her beloved Scrabble, her generous nature remains undaunted

Our Scrabble days are over.

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I have not seen Mom’s game board since her retirement home was renovated, but I can picture it clearly in my mind’s eye — the scuffed surface, the little wooden pews oozing globs where her Scrabble friend Paul repaired them with Gorilla glue.

Inside the drawer that contains the letters in their black drawstring bag was a photo of my mother’s siblings.

Her memories of them are mostly gone.

These days, I resort to playing a Scrabble knockoff game online called Outspell against a non-human opponent. The avatar the game has conjured up is nameless. Short grey hair, black-rimmed glasses, flawless smile, intelligent eyes for a caricature; her age is somewhere north of 50, eyebrows arched in a way that suggests she gets irony.

She lets me win most of the time.

But I miss the games with my........

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