Family? Dinner

On Saturday my brother cooked us up some more fish.  He does a really sweet job at that.  We brought Mom over even though she had already dined at her place.  There is always room for a little fish. 
Pat cooked up two big plates of rock fish and halibut.  Mom started eating as soon as the first plate was done.  I know she ate at least six pieces and maybe more.  The little man ate three big pieces.  We had chips and a pasta salad with it.  When we were done there were three pieces left over.  I cleaned up while the men went to play the computer game they have been playing.  I walked my leftovers out to the car. 
When I came back in Mom kept saying she was hungry and that she didn't get any fish.  Wait...what? Now you can't really argue with a dementia person.  I did comment on her fish and left it at that.  So then it was time to take her home.  She went down the hallway to say bye to the men and as she comes back she starts in with she feels completely left out because she didn't get to spend any time with her children. 
This set the tone for the drive home.  No big drama, just a running monologue of how she has never felt left out in her own family before this.  Oy.  She had been with me continually except when I ran a bag out to the car.  So I just kept quiet. 
Once back to her place I walked her to her room and I gave her a hug and told her that no one intentionally set out to make her feel bad and that all of this is hard.  She agreed.  And I went home.  Now part of the time she was talking to me she wasn't talking to me her daughter.  She was just talking to someone.  It's a weird phenomenon.
This week I had one of my visits and I stopped in and checked with the nurse for another matter.  I commented on family dinner.  And then he pops off with well she wasn't in the present.  She was somewhere in the past and the people she ate with are not her kids.  Oh yeah.  I get that.  I have read it.  It is just kind of weird to start experiencing it.  Because it isn't that the person forgets you.  It is just they go back in time and you don't look like that anymore depending on how far back they go.  And so the disease progresses.