Until it was time to go, Sophie lived in her lovely but tired old house on a busy road she could remember as a sleepy country lane. She moved slowly and out of breath among daunting piles of paper. Newspaper articles of interest were highlighted with red marker so she could go back and read them someday. She knew when any single item had been moved out of place, and didn’t hesitate to scold the mover – who was often my mother.

When Mom started as Sophie’s part-time housekeeper and caretaker nearly ten years ago, she thought it would be a nice way to help someone out and earn a little money. Mom soon learned it was no easy feat to help this headstrong woman who insisted things be done (and placed) just the way she wanted. Mom keeps home better than anyone I know, and she knew from the first day that Sophie’s house needed a good cleaning. Sophie knew it, too. She told visitors to be sure to wipe their feet on their way out the door, and then laughed at her own joke.

But Sophie made it hard to get much done. She had a modern washing machine in the cold and cluttered room she called her summer kitchen, but she instructed Mom to let it fill with water, add the soap, use a broom handle to stir it up, and then place the clothes in the machine and turn it on. If Mom did manage to run a sponge around the open spots on the kitchen counter, Sophie’s only concern was why the sponge was not put back on the same side of the sink where Mom found it. Even the day Sophie fell, she told the emergency dispatcher on the phone that she didn’t want any fire trucks coming around to mess up her driveway, she just needed a couple of strong men to help her get up.

Frustrated by a juicy cleaning challenge she’d never be allowed to tackle, Mom tried following Sophie’s lead during their few hours together each week. She learned that Sophie was a voracious reader and still owned many of her childhood books. Sophie admired the illustrations, especially those in a slim volume called Suzuki Beane, about the fictional daughter of New York City beatniks. Turns out Sophie had gone to art school in another city as a young woman, before a rocky marriage took her down another road. My mother would read the book to Sophie, who would interrupt and recite the ends of most paragraphs from memory. Mom became enamored of the beatnik daughter herself and wound up purchasing her own vintage copy of Suzuki Beane.

When Sophie started forgetting how to care for herself, her family moved her to an assisted living facility. But Sophie didn’t want to dress for dinner, and the staff insisted. Mom thought that was a pretty silly rule given Sophie’s few remaining freedoms. After a short but unhappy stay, Sophie moved to a nursing home – the same one where my mother used to visit her sister who had Alzheimer’s. Mom followed Sophie there. Housecleaning tension behind them, they kept visiting, reading, talking, and laughing together. Mom helped Sophie write a poem that won her a third-place ribbon in the nursing home contest. She got the staff to put a bird feeder outside Sophie’s window. A devout disbeliever, Sophie said watching the birds sometimes drew her eye to the passing clouds, which made her wonder about heaven and whether she’d be going there. When Sophie cried, Mom told her it was okay to cry but not for too long because it makes it harder to breathe. On her days off, Mom spent hours organizing into albums the boxes of photos retrieved from Sophie’s old house when it finally sold. As Sophie’s life slipped from her own memory, Mom kept a quiet vigil by creating a photographic chronicle of the way it had been. A husband, two sons, a daughter, two grandchildren. Sophie’s son was stunned and grateful when he collected the albums from my mother.

Mom taught Sophie a farewell phrase that became the way they wrapped up each visit. Mom would say “see you later alligator,” and Sophie would try to reply “in awhile crocodile.” She never got it quite right, which made them both laugh. But then came the last day my mother would be caring for Sophie, having decided to retire her nearly ten-year position. Mom had worried about the visit and how they would end it. She did not want Sophie to feel she was abandoning her, even though she realized Sophie’s Alzheimer’s disease had progressed to a point where Mom was not sure Sophie knew who she was. At the end of the two hours, and before Mom had a chance to say “see you later alligator,” Sophie looked at my mother and said, “Haven’t we had a nice visit today? I hope you’ll come back and see me again sometime.” Mom looked at Sophie, smiled and said, “I hope so, too.” With that, my graceful mother made her graceful exit, job-turned-unlikely-friendship well done.