Today I awaken at 5, which is my normal schedule but hasn't been for months. I check for messages, and only recall having done it one other time in the night. It feels as if there's some space in my brain to evaluate the day, which seems a healthy sign. Getting to the care facility is still my predominant objective but I linger at home long enough to squeeze in my morning stretches.
The parking lot is open to the public, its freshly painted gray surface emitting a hazy chemical smell that seems to go with me as I sign in the visitor log book, key the security code into the elevator, and ride up to the 2nd floor to (as my grandmother used to say) "see what's what."
She's awake, working bent over her puzzle book, a different brightly colored blouse carefully buttoned and her shoes on. No pajamas are in sight. "Oh, hello there," she greets me in her typical dry manner, but the smile is real and her eyes are clear and remain fixed on me. These days they are more apt to skitter all around the room, and around and around as if they are looking for solid thoughts, but today they watch me as I lean close to kiss her cheek and she offers the opposite one as well, just as she did all my life. I swallow hard. "Did they help you get dressed today?"
"What do you mean? No one helped me. I got myself dressed, just like I do every morning." So, this is a very clear morning, not just a moment. Chattering about the pattern I spread out the plush blanket I detoured to purchase on my way in. The bright pinks and yellows cover the beige of the bedspread and help me feel better about her being in this institutional room. She notices the stars and corrects me on the plural use of "butterflies" as there are definitely more than one. It's unusual to have her taking in details like this and I am so pleased by her engagement; I am so ridiculously pleased by my mother's approval.
Last week she was sobbing loudly as I prepared her lunch, and I continued on with my task as I had learned to do -- nerves raw as I followed each intake and exhale, hands shaking as I cut off the crusts and quartered her turkey sandwich. She reduces me to jelly with unhappiness that is a deep yawning cavernous pit she can tumble into without warning. I arranged the plate atop a neatly quartered paper towel with the fold on the left and knelt down beside her, drawing my face so close to her papery skin and wispy feathery hair. "What's going on in your head?" I prompted. And she told me she just didn't know what was happening. That she couldn't figure out where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. That she didn't even know who she was.
"Okay," I said calmly. "But I know who you are and where you are and what you are doing, and I can help you. What's your name?"
She said it, hesitantly, with the surname she hadn't used in almost sixty years.
"Good. You got married and your last name changed, but that was the name your parents gave you when you were born. Do you know my name?"
Again, with uncertainty, she offered a guess.
"That's me. Well done! Can you tell me who I am to you?"
The answer came quickly, as solid and unexpected and painful as a stubbed toe: "You're my mother."
So, today my heart fills up with this moment, her happiness over a navy blue background spotted with moons and stars and butterflies and pink and white flowers. Maybe we all spend decades of our lives attempting to elicit the approval of our mothers. Perhaps it's unique to me. But today it's a sweet and momentary thing that is gone as we move to the shower. Paranoia and belligerence take over her personality and I am grateful to hang back in the corner as the aide guides my stubbornly reluctant mother through the routines of hygiene. By the time lunch arrives it's a reprieve to have her engage ravenously with her food as I gather her dirty laundry, wind the strap of my purse over my head and prepare to escape. She doesn't notice my leave taking, or hear my assurances that I will see her tomorrow morning.
Sometimes you don’t know a thing is true until you say it aloud, and it remains. Or perhaps that’s another personal quirk. Many of my thoughts are murky that way, whirling slowly like pond eddies until I try them out, testing them as words. Solidified by speech I can hear them more clinically, more objectively.
“That’s real,” I can then assert. Or, I will toss it from my brain with a firm, “You don’t actually believe that, you know."
On the ride home I shake off the muck of guilt and acknowledge the truth: it's a relief to be driving away.
The parking lot is open to the public, its freshly painted gray surface emitting a hazy chemical smell that seems to go with me as I sign in the visitor log book, key the security code into the elevator, and ride up to the 2nd floor to (as my grandmother used to say) "see what's what."
She's awake, working bent over her puzzle book, a different brightly colored blouse carefully buttoned and her shoes on. No pajamas are in sight. "Oh, hello there," she greets me in her typical dry manner, but the smile is real and her eyes are clear and remain fixed on me. These days they are more apt to skitter all around the room, and around and around as if they are looking for solid thoughts, but today they watch me as I lean close to kiss her cheek and she offers the opposite one as well, just as she did all my life. I swallow hard. "Did they help you get dressed today?"
"What do you mean? No one helped me. I got myself dressed, just like I do every morning." So, this is a very clear morning, not just a moment. Chattering about the pattern I spread out the plush blanket I detoured to purchase on my way in. The bright pinks and yellows cover the beige of the bedspread and help me feel better about her being in this institutional room. She notices the stars and corrects me on the plural use of "butterflies" as there are definitely more than one. It's unusual to have her taking in details like this and I am so pleased by her engagement; I am so ridiculously pleased by my mother's approval.
Last week she was sobbing loudly as I prepared her lunch, and I continued on with my task as I had learned to do -- nerves raw as I followed each intake and exhale, hands shaking as I cut off the crusts and quartered her turkey sandwich. She reduces me to jelly with unhappiness that is a deep yawning cavernous pit she can tumble into without warning. I arranged the plate atop a neatly quartered paper towel with the fold on the left and knelt down beside her, drawing my face so close to her papery skin and wispy feathery hair. "What's going on in your head?" I prompted. And she told me she just didn't know what was happening. That she couldn't figure out where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. That she didn't even know who she was.
"Okay," I said calmly. "But I know who you are and where you are and what you are doing, and I can help you. What's your name?"
She said it, hesitantly, with the surname she hadn't used in almost sixty years.
"Good. You got married and your last name changed, but that was the name your parents gave you when you were born. Do you know my name?"
Again, with uncertainty, she offered a guess.
"That's me. Well done! Can you tell me who I am to you?"
The answer came quickly, as solid and unexpected and painful as a stubbed toe: "You're my mother."
So, today my heart fills up with this moment, her happiness over a navy blue background spotted with moons and stars and butterflies and pink and white flowers. Maybe we all spend decades of our lives attempting to elicit the approval of our mothers. Perhaps it's unique to me. But today it's a sweet and momentary thing that is gone as we move to the shower. Paranoia and belligerence take over her personality and I am grateful to hang back in the corner as the aide guides my stubbornly reluctant mother through the routines of hygiene. By the time lunch arrives it's a reprieve to have her engage ravenously with her food as I gather her dirty laundry, wind the strap of my purse over my head and prepare to escape. She doesn't notice my leave taking, or hear my assurances that I will see her tomorrow morning.
Sometimes you don’t know a thing is true until you say it aloud, and it remains. Or perhaps that’s another personal quirk. Many of my thoughts are murky that way, whirling slowly like pond eddies until I try them out, testing them as words. Solidified by speech I can hear them more clinically, more objectively.
“That’s real,” I can then assert. Or, I will toss it from my brain with a firm, “You don’t actually believe that, you know."
On the ride home I shake off the muck of guilt and acknowledge the truth: it's a relief to be driving away.
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