Henrietta has been completely consumed with the death of legendary doctor, Michael DeBakey.  She has launched into gushing praise of him, in apparently mid thought, a number of times and caught me completely off guard.

While putting her to bed last night…

H: He was 99 years old!  And he did SO MUCH for Houston!

Me: …Who?

H: 99!

Me: WHO?- (I was unaware this was going to be an ongoing thing at this point.)

H: Yes!  He was!

Me: HENRIETTA, WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

H: Oooh, Dr. DeBakey!

This happened over and over with her out of the blue announcing things like, “Did you know he’s a Catholic?!”.

Just a few minutes ago I looked in the living room and she was sitting there watching the news, bawling.  I just left it and later she started going on about how “sad it is that he died…” I finally told her that was crazy and he was a 99 year old man living in a broken down little old 99 year old body and he had done enough for the world to warrant an excuse to leave and go on to better things.  Her response?

“Ooooh, (sob), Yeeeeees!”

To be such a devout Catholic, she has consistently missed the entire message about death and heaven and rewards in the afterlife, all that.  This has happened over and over with other people who have died and her attitude is always that it must be the worst thing ever.  I really don’t think she believes in heaven.  And like I said, she is a super-duper Catholic, not just your run-or-the-mill kind.  Weird.