The leaves crunched beneath the wheels of my mother's chair as I pushed her along the paths of the nursing home where she now lives. The sun shone brightly in a brilliant blue sky; an occasional breeze reminded me of cooler weather to come.

I stopped frequently along the path, to enjoy the fading colors of summer and to tease from my mother the names of the flowers she knew so well.

"What kind of flower is that?" I would ask, eager to reinforce her connection to my world, to have her recall the names of the things we share.

Since suffering a stroke three and half years ago, Mom often retreats into her own world, to people and places of long ago.

Nasturtium, Mom answered, or foxglove, or geraniums. Sometimes she offered a comment of her own, like when she reminded me that at one time you could only grow red geraniums, not the rainbow of colors available today.

Other times, she wouldn't be able to recall a flower or plant, and I would gently coax its name from her. Mostly, though, the names sprang spontaneously from her, like those of her children, and this made the day seem even brighter.

Later, resting on a bench beside the pond at the nursing home, we sat together. One-on-one conversation isn't easy for Mom anymore and she relies on routine questions: How are the children, she might ask. Or my husband? Or my garden?

She never asks about my writing anymore, and that saddens me. A lover of language, Mother was always proud of my writing, and I sent her my columns, which she kept in a binder. Maybe Mom doesn't remember because writing came later in my life, after husband and children. Or maybe she remembers but can't think clearly enough to form a question.

On this Sunday afternoon, though, we were mostly quiet, eating the red raspberries and Concord grapes I had brought her. She carefully picked a raspberry from the container and moved it slowly to her mouth, then sucked on it like a lollipop. Her eyebrows arched in pleasure, as she smacked her lips, "Mmmm. That's good."

The Concord grapes were more difficult for her to eat, so I helped. She would purse her lips as I squeezed the soft green glob of fruit into her mouth and tossed the purple skins onto the grass. Grape juice dribbled down her chin.

"Remember how you used to make these grapes into juice," I reminded her, conjuring up an image of the steamy kitchen of my youth. To make juice, Mom poured boiling water into canning jars half-filled with grapes and sugar.

I loved watching the water dissolve the white sugar and cause streams of purple to bubble upward through the jar. Stirring the mixture with a long wooden spoon, Mom magically turned the water into a deliciously sweet drink. She smiled at the memory, and so did I.

Sitting by the pond, Mom dozed off and on, her wheelchair tilted back so that she faced head-on the full force of the cooling afternoon sun. A light blanket shielded her from the occasional breeze. Lying there, her eyes closed, she murmured more to herself than to me, "This is perfect."

Where does her contentment come from? I wonder. From our sitting together in the beautiful October sunshine? Or maybe from those long-ago people and places she visits when no one is here to feed her grapes and remind her of her present life?

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.