Yes, it's hard to visit

I went to Caldwell to see my friend today. She and her husband were at the home of a widow in the ward; he was mowing the lawn; she was sitting on the porch with the widow, talking. When I arrived my friend got up and walked out to meet me. That and a few other things--she remembers Lola, she remembers we have been friends for a long time--say to me that she knows who I am. Or she did today.

But

• I was shocked by her appearance. Smaller, thinner. Yes, we all shrink, but this is pronounced.She used to be a statuesque 5'9".
• Her walk is more a shuffle. 
• She has certain little things she says, half under her breath, that seem to be designed to make her seem normal. That sounds weird, I know. I don't know how else to explain it. 
• She can converse in a very limited way. 
• She doesn't know where her only daughter lives. (In Salt Lake.) She tried to tell me but talked in circles. She knows her daughter doesn't come up to visit much. Or at all. 
• She grumbles about her son's family living there in her home, although at first she did not know which child was living there, and doesn't seem to know why. (They're building a house.) She complained the children are loud and destructive. "They scream like girls." Destructive was my word. She said, yes. 
• She knows where her youngest son lives and what he does and that he and his wife are very much in love. 
• I asked where they had gone on their mission. She answered quickly. "Russia, then we came back and went to south, the south part of." The widow lady finished the sentence, "Minnesota." I said, "So you were there for the winter." I don't think she really answered that. June, the widow lady, began to talk about winters she has known. My friend and her husband have been on several missions, the first to Albania, then to Hawaii, then to Russia. Maybe somewhere else. I don't know. This last one to Minnesota, cut short, is the last one. Period. Of that I'm positive.
• She has dementia, that's sure, and I'm pretty sure she has Alzheimer's also. It sounds like an accusation, but it's not. There is no shame in it, just sadness. She was such an excellent person.
• She says people act like they are afraid of her. No one ever visits. The is a refrain of hers. And it may be true, or it may be she does not remember the visits. I said nothing. What I think is that they simply do not want to see the changes in her. I think it's good I said nothing.

·         I hugged her a long time before I left.

·         It is not possible for me to describe what I see and feel.