The dryer sheet

Wasn't able to see Mom until after a 4 pm meeting, so she was having dinner at 4:45 when I showed up.  "I didn't think you were coming," she said, her voice seeming to share some relief.  She sat at the table and I warmed up her plate, seeing the microwave had again taken a hit, probably from splattered coffee.  I set Mom's warmed plate in front of  her and she asked what was on it.  I explained there was lazagna, cooked vegies and garlic bread.  I'd cut up the lazagna and as she poked at the food and tasted a bit of it, again asked what was on the plate.  In fact in the few minutes I was with her in the kitchen cleaning up as she ate, she asked me 4-5 times what the plate in front of her contained,  and I wondered if that was an indication that it all didn't contain much flavor. She blew her nose and I turned to see she was using a dryer sheet for a kleenex.  Goodness.  As I exchanged it for an acutal kleenex, I said,  "Here, use this instead."  "Well what have I been using?" she wondered.  "Somehow you grabbed a dryer sheet," I explained. That fact didn't seem to bother her, but I thought...taste sensation is going...sense of touch is going...  I felt sorry Mom's life has become narrower and narrower, her life fading, her awareness vanishing.