At the hospital reception desk, I unfolded one of my missing-person posters and placed my mother’s ring beside it. The receptionist initially explained that she couldn’t reveal private patient information, but something changed when she examined the photograph. After searching the system, she told me that an unidentified woman had been admitted several weeks earlier. The woman had been found wandering barefoot along a country road, confused and unable to explain who she was or where she lived. Doctors believed a medical event or injury might have affected her memory. She had no identification, phone, or purse, and she remained in the neurological unit.

Then the receptionist delivered another shock. The woman had suffered a seizure the previous evening, and two regular visitors were already at her bedside. They were an older couple. I immediately thought of the green dress and silver hair. Fear flooded me as I imagined strangers keeping my mother from her family. I begged the receptionist to let me see the patient, explaining that my mother had been missing for four months. After a quiet phone call, she printed a visitor badge and directed me to room 318. As I hurried toward the elevator, she gently warned me that even if the woman was my mother, she might not recognize me.