I called Mom this morning and asked if she’d like to go to breakfast together. “Hm. Have I had breakfast yet?”
“I don’t know. Did you eat anything this morning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you like to eat something?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes and we’ll go to breakfast.”
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
I laughed, “Sure.”

I picked her up ten minutes later.
“Why are you here?”
“I thought we’d go to breakfast.”
“Okay.” Pause. “What day is today?”
“Saturday.”
“Do I go to that place today?”
“The YMCA?”
“Yes.”
“Not usually. We can go if you’d like to.”
“No. I only go M, T, W, Th. What day is today?”
“Saturday.”
“Do I go to the Y today?”
“No. Want to go to breakfast?”
“Sure.”

We were handed menus.
“I can’t read this.”
“Do you have your glasses with you?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to read it to you?”
“Yes.”
I read the things I thought she might like. No, no, no, no. I asked her what she’d like.
“A piece of toast and some fruit.”
“Would you rather have toast or a biscuit?”
She looked at me plaintively.
“Toast is a piece of flat square bread. A biscuit is round, and a little fluffier.”
“Oh. A biscuit sounds good.”

The food arrived and we ate. I asked her how she liked her breakfast.
“Well, it’s not Tiffany’s. But it will do.”
And she laughed.

I was dumbfounded. Humor is hard. It’s one of the hardest things to master when learning another language.  And yet, even though she can’t master time, or remember what we said a few minutes prior, and is losing the ability to pair the abstract word with the concrete thing, she can still make jokes.

And I laughed, too.