Lately, I've been contemplating the meaning of truth....who gets to say it, claim it. What is Mom's truth....what is mine? It's been nearly five years since Mom's stroke, and we are still hanging on. Her to her life, as it is. And me to my life, what it has become.
This summer I gave a talk about women's caregiving at the place I work, Seattle University. It was a small audience, but I had invited people who have been with me on my journey caring for Mom. There were also strangers, people who wanted to hear about the balance we work to achieve, those of us who struggle with keeping hold of our own truth and those of the ones' we caretake. I spoke for fifteen minutes, and then read for ten minutes from my upcoming book--Lipstick Moons. I wasn't sure what to expect, either from me or from those who listened. When I finished, my voice was raw, full of emotion, though my listeners might not have known: it's been a while since I've spoken about Mom. But also there was my calm, a knowledge that said, "You have spoken the truth, Christine, and you have spoken well." And something else too, amidst the silence that gathered after my words no longer came: the grief, mine and Mom's, which had become something else over the course of my talk. While still grief, my experience, my emotion, was also now a connection, something shared with the women communing with me in Room 516 of the Casey Building. Most of us caretake someone, all of us know the grief of loss, at some point in our lives. And all of us struggle to work the balances in our lives. The tears leaking from the eyes of my listeners told me, "Yes, we have felt this too." I am not alone.
My thoughts for this talk were prompted by recently reviewing the care plan for my Mom who currently lives at an adult family home, a placement modification made due to the need to preserve her money in the face of the continuing strain on her finances. What struck me was the detailed level of care she is provided with. There was nothing in that plan I didn't already know. But somehow being confronted with the numbers of things was sobering: the 19 medications she receives each day, the 71 daily interventions (on all levels) required by her caregivers to keep Mom whole, or as whole as she can be, the 9 hospitalizations she has had since right before and after the stroke. It was overwhelming. And I thought: as difficult as I find my life--caring for Mom and trying to keep myself afloat professionally and personally--the women who care for Mom are administering to her daily, hourly and with unlimited love. They come from the Philippines and from Ethiopia, women from diaspora, looking for a better life, for a way to support their families back home, for work that is honorable and paid well enough that they can more than subsist. These women--Lina and Tess and Mulu--get up every three hours to change Mom's Depends, they pulverize her food and her medications so that she can drink them like milk, they talk with her even though now Mom can't talk back to them, they touch her, smooth her skin and smile into her eyes: in short they do everything I would do and more and not just because they are paid. The mundane details of Mom's life are looked after, even as I am looking after Mom's financial details and her health decisions and her emotional needs...and looking after my own details--the courses I need to get prepared for as my upcoming fall quarter approaches...the book I need to finish revising....the query letters I need to send out...the website I need to revise. All happening at once. Miraculously. Life is full of surprises, often not agreeable. But the women at Viewhaven are surprising and full of wonder (for me), women who help me help Mom. There are not words enough for this. Gratitude is my truth today.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Thursday, February 11, 2010
see you darling
We've been working on cards, Valentine's cards. Jennifer brought the fixings--the white card stock with the letters "I (Love) You" cut out. And there's lots of stickers and stamps, even some pink striped papers. Lorna's been tracing and cutting out hearts from the paper and Mom (with the help of Jennifer) and I have begun to assemble the stickers onto the cards.
Whenever Jennifer comes, the conversation is lively. I'm not sure why this is, other than the fact that Jennifer is an interesting, articulate woman and Mom likes to talk with her. Sometimes we talk with Jennifer about things I'm sure Mom would never say if it was just her and I conversing. Always, we seem to get into controversial topics, just the sort of thing Mom reveled in before her strokes and her Alzheimer's. In fact, last Wednesday we talked so long and so hard about religion, of all things, that we never got to the point of making a single card. Our conversation got launched with Lorna's laughter over an article she'd seen in the Seattle Times about a couple who married at 90 and 92 and just left for their honeymoon. For whatever reason, Lorna found this hysterical, particularly the idea that this octogenarian honeymoon couple would be reveling in the pleasures of sex. Jennifer tried to argue that all people can enjoy sex, even those who are in their later years. Lorna's comprehension failed her at this point, however, as for Lorna sex is not a treasured activity. "No fun," Lorna says, "this sex." Sex is something she is glad to be done with.
How sex evolved into religion I'm not sure except that soon we were arguing the merits of attending church regularly and hotly disputing the humanness of church organizations, meaning the many ways that church organizations become flawed with our human failings. Somewhere along the way Lorna dropped out of the conversation and then it was just Jennifer and I, with Mom chiming in at times. By the end of the conversation, we had come to the topic of church attendance and raising children, something Jennifer was interested in as she and her partner would like to have a child. I had nothing to say about this, seeing how I don't have children and don't plan on adopting.
So today we know better and begin the card making right away, knowing that our conversation will follow. And it does.
"When did you feel best about yourself?" Jennifer asks. We've been talking about women's self-worth and marriage, a favorite topic. Because we're making Valentine's cards, we've decided to focus on "love."
To myself, I'm thinking--I bet I know her answer. So I say, "Okay Mom, let's hear your answer and then I'll tell you how I thought you were going to answer."
And so she begins--"After he was...you know...when he was...gone...gone."
"After who was gone?" I ask her.
"Him," she says, "him...him,"expecting that I know who "him" refers to.
"That's it," she adds, and when she does I begin to understand, deducing she's talking about my dad, as either it's her father, Peter or dad. These are the only men who have left her.
Jennifer begins to clue in here also. "So Dorin, you felt the strongest after your husband died?"
"Yes," she says, nodding her head vigorously. "Yes, that's it."
I'm surprised, frankly, as I always imagined Mom at the height of her personal empowerment when she got her master's degree--something so difficult, particularly at her age. But no, it was the year or two or three following my father's accident that produced this largess of self.
"Weren't you afraid" Jennifer asks, "when he died?"
"No," Mom answers emphatically. "No...so much...you know...so much...to...to...do."
So in those difficult months when Eric and I felt immobilized by dad's death, my mom, out of necessity, was coming into her own, assuming the business tasks my father left her as well as the parenting tasks she had already taken on. Her life was full in a way it had not been before, and she was in charge. No more bickering with my father about decisions. She just made them.
It's here in our conversation that I remember a letter written to Mom, something I've been carrying around in my carpet bag for weeks. Recently, I found the stack of eighty-nine condolence cards Mom saved regarding Dad's passing. Most of the signed names meant nothing to me. They came from Denver, Monument Valley, Spokane, Bergen, Seattle, Portland, Boise, New York, Chicago. The ubiquitous phrase--"Our thoughts and prayers are with you"--made me purpose to never write these words to anyone. Not ever. By themselves, they appear to convey concern, but in mass they become platitudes offered in lieu of meaningful communication. Surely there are other words to be chosen to convey sorrow, empathy? Somebody actually sent a placard entitled--"Rules for Daily Life"--where, amongst other things, the reader is admonished to "acknowledge every good bestowed and offer grateful praise." I thought, what about "every bad bestowed"--what was my mom meant to do with these, things like my father's death, my brother Peter's disappearance? I noticed that she too must have tired of the platitudes, as many of the cards remained unopened.
The only letter of interest came typed from a friend and business associate of my father's--Hal. His letter is dated August 16th. Hal was there with my father the day he died--not actually there at precisely the time of the accident but nearby. He writes--"I will never forget that day when he left us both." He goes on to say that two days after the accident he returned to Muldoon Canyon and "felt peaceful as if Paul was there with me saying 'Cool it'. 'Cool it', I thought. I don't remember my father saying words like this. 'Cool it', indeed! I wondered then how Mom came to her own peace with my father...if she ever did? I suspected that even now, all these years later, she still hadn't arrived at a sentiment of 'cool it'. His death would always remain a defection, an opportunity he could have seized to display loyalty to life, to my mom, but rather negligently let pass by when the tires of his vehicle ricocheted off the road.
But who knows? In light of Mom's revelation today about how she felt after he died, about how she came into her own, maybe she sees his death differently?
On an impulse, I decide to read Hals' letter aloud to Mom and Jennifer and Lorna. I've been carrying it with me, waiting for a time when the topic of Dad's death comes up--not something Mom talks about usually. In opening the envelope, a faint release of ribbon-ink reaches my nose--how typewritten documents smelled prior to PCs and printer cartridges. Age can have a smell, a memory. I begin okay--steady, calm. But when I get to the poem near the end of the letter--something from Hal's experiences in a German prison camp during WWII--I find I can't continue. Part of the poem comes out fine--"In some far flung wider sphere/a pilot soars a winged victory/Freed of all overestimate flight/Past all barrier now." But my voice becomes unrecognizable with tears when I read the final lines--"A spirit heads off for home/and behind on earth men and eagles weep."
I don't know why this poem, Hal's words, have caught me, as I've read this letter before, several times in the last few weeks since I discovered it. I haven't cried for my father since that first year, 1979, when that's all I could do. I used up all my tears in that extravagant display, or at least I thought I had, But here they are again and not just a dribble. My voice stops because no sound can escape, nothing except my sobs, a heavy, chest-shaking rattle. When I look at Mom, I notice the rims of her eyes are wet, but not anything close to the saline stream showering my face.
We sit like this for a moment--Lorna cutting hearts, Jennifer sticking heart and cupcake stickers to cards, Mom quiet and me out of control with grief, wondering what's going through Mom's head, heart. It's a long time before conversation is possible.
Later, after Jennifer has gone and the cards are done, Mom says to me as I'm putting on my coat--"See you darling." I feel the heat of her words, like these words and the fierceness of her breath need to be everything she might have to say about Dad and his leaving and the life she and I have had since then. She's willing me to be okay, for us to be okay. I know we'll never talk about this again, his dying and what became of all of us in his wake of his passing.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Whenever Jennifer comes, the conversation is lively. I'm not sure why this is, other than the fact that Jennifer is an interesting, articulate woman and Mom likes to talk with her. Sometimes we talk with Jennifer about things I'm sure Mom would never say if it was just her and I conversing. Always, we seem to get into controversial topics, just the sort of thing Mom reveled in before her strokes and her Alzheimer's. In fact, last Wednesday we talked so long and so hard about religion, of all things, that we never got to the point of making a single card. Our conversation got launched with Lorna's laughter over an article she'd seen in the Seattle Times about a couple who married at 90 and 92 and just left for their honeymoon. For whatever reason, Lorna found this hysterical, particularly the idea that this octogenarian honeymoon couple would be reveling in the pleasures of sex. Jennifer tried to argue that all people can enjoy sex, even those who are in their later years. Lorna's comprehension failed her at this point, however, as for Lorna sex is not a treasured activity. "No fun," Lorna says, "this sex." Sex is something she is glad to be done with.
How sex evolved into religion I'm not sure except that soon we were arguing the merits of attending church regularly and hotly disputing the humanness of church organizations, meaning the many ways that church organizations become flawed with our human failings. Somewhere along the way Lorna dropped out of the conversation and then it was just Jennifer and I, with Mom chiming in at times. By the end of the conversation, we had come to the topic of church attendance and raising children, something Jennifer was interested in as she and her partner would like to have a child. I had nothing to say about this, seeing how I don't have children and don't plan on adopting.
So today we know better and begin the card making right away, knowing that our conversation will follow. And it does.
"When did you feel best about yourself?" Jennifer asks. We've been talking about women's self-worth and marriage, a favorite topic. Because we're making Valentine's cards, we've decided to focus on "love."
To myself, I'm thinking--I bet I know her answer. So I say, "Okay Mom, let's hear your answer and then I'll tell you how I thought you were going to answer."
And so she begins--"After he was...you know...when he was...gone...gone."
"After who was gone?" I ask her.
"Him," she says, "him...him,"expecting that I know who "him" refers to.
"That's it," she adds, and when she does I begin to understand, deducing she's talking about my dad, as either it's her father, Peter or dad. These are the only men who have left her.
Jennifer begins to clue in here also. "So Dorin, you felt the strongest after your husband died?"
"Yes," she says, nodding her head vigorously. "Yes, that's it."
I'm surprised, frankly, as I always imagined Mom at the height of her personal empowerment when she got her master's degree--something so difficult, particularly at her age. But no, it was the year or two or three following my father's accident that produced this largess of self.
"Weren't you afraid" Jennifer asks, "when he died?"
"No," Mom answers emphatically. "No...so much...you know...so much...to...to...do."
So in those difficult months when Eric and I felt immobilized by dad's death, my mom, out of necessity, was coming into her own, assuming the business tasks my father left her as well as the parenting tasks she had already taken on. Her life was full in a way it had not been before, and she was in charge. No more bickering with my father about decisions. She just made them.
It's here in our conversation that I remember a letter written to Mom, something I've been carrying around in my carpet bag for weeks. Recently, I found the stack of eighty-nine condolence cards Mom saved regarding Dad's passing. Most of the signed names meant nothing to me. They came from Denver, Monument Valley, Spokane, Bergen, Seattle, Portland, Boise, New York, Chicago. The ubiquitous phrase--"Our thoughts and prayers are with you"--made me purpose to never write these words to anyone. Not ever. By themselves, they appear to convey concern, but in mass they become platitudes offered in lieu of meaningful communication. Surely there are other words to be chosen to convey sorrow, empathy? Somebody actually sent a placard entitled--"Rules for Daily Life"--where, amongst other things, the reader is admonished to "acknowledge every good bestowed and offer grateful praise." I thought, what about "every bad bestowed"--what was my mom meant to do with these, things like my father's death, my brother Peter's disappearance? I noticed that she too must have tired of the platitudes, as many of the cards remained unopened.
The only letter of interest came typed from a friend and business associate of my father's--Hal. His letter is dated August 16th. Hal was there with my father the day he died--not actually there at precisely the time of the accident but nearby. He writes--"I will never forget that day when he left us both." He goes on to say that two days after the accident he returned to Muldoon Canyon and "felt peaceful as if Paul was there with me saying 'Cool it'. 'Cool it', I thought. I don't remember my father saying words like this. 'Cool it', indeed! I wondered then how Mom came to her own peace with my father...if she ever did? I suspected that even now, all these years later, she still hadn't arrived at a sentiment of 'cool it'. His death would always remain a defection, an opportunity he could have seized to display loyalty to life, to my mom, but rather negligently let pass by when the tires of his vehicle ricocheted off the road.
But who knows? In light of Mom's revelation today about how she felt after he died, about how she came into her own, maybe she sees his death differently?
On an impulse, I decide to read Hals' letter aloud to Mom and Jennifer and Lorna. I've been carrying it with me, waiting for a time when the topic of Dad's death comes up--not something Mom talks about usually. In opening the envelope, a faint release of ribbon-ink reaches my nose--how typewritten documents smelled prior to PCs and printer cartridges. Age can have a smell, a memory. I begin okay--steady, calm. But when I get to the poem near the end of the letter--something from Hal's experiences in a German prison camp during WWII--I find I can't continue. Part of the poem comes out fine--"In some far flung wider sphere/a pilot soars a winged victory/Freed of all overestimate flight/Past all barrier now." But my voice becomes unrecognizable with tears when I read the final lines--"A spirit heads off for home/and behind on earth men and eagles weep."
I don't know why this poem, Hal's words, have caught me, as I've read this letter before, several times in the last few weeks since I discovered it. I haven't cried for my father since that first year, 1979, when that's all I could do. I used up all my tears in that extravagant display, or at least I thought I had, But here they are again and not just a dribble. My voice stops because no sound can escape, nothing except my sobs, a heavy, chest-shaking rattle. When I look at Mom, I notice the rims of her eyes are wet, but not anything close to the saline stream showering my face.
We sit like this for a moment--Lorna cutting hearts, Jennifer sticking heart and cupcake stickers to cards, Mom quiet and me out of control with grief, wondering what's going through Mom's head, heart. It's a long time before conversation is possible.
Later, after Jennifer has gone and the cards are done, Mom says to me as I'm putting on my coat--"See you darling." I feel the heat of her words, like these words and the fierceness of her breath need to be everything she might have to say about Dad and his leaving and the life she and I have had since then. She's willing me to be okay, for us to be okay. I know we'll never talk about this again, his dying and what became of all of us in his wake of his passing.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Thursday, January 28, 2010
the belle of mirabella
When I get to Mom's, it's been a hard day, a hard week. Everything this week has required thought, enormous effort. Mom's problems have been then least of my concerns. What I want to say to everyone in my life, in my classroom, in my family--why can't we all just get along? I've had difficult students this week....difficult class confrontations and resolutions. And then there's the issue of my brother Eric--how we have yet to come to an agreement about him resigning as power of attorney. Everyday I think of him, wondering where he has gone. Not that he's physically lost, like my other brother, but rather that I don't know who he is anymore. When I saw the recent bank statements with the cash withdraws from Mom's account for the months of September, October, November of 2009, months when my brother could have no justifiable reason for taking hundreds of dollars out of her account two, three four times a month, I found myself hollow, emptied inside. Like what's left once the innards of a cantaloupe have been scrapped from the husk. There's just the raw flesh behind. I am well past rage and now have entered into that territory where disbelief no longer exists. There's just knowledge, the terrible kind of apple-tree knowledge, where Adam and Eve have bitten the fruit and know there's no going back. As a psychiatrist acquaintance recently reminded me, we can be as honest as we like, but there are still consequences that follow. Eric bit the apple and now the consequences are following. I just didn't know how painful this would be, watching my brother disappear.
So when I get to Mom's I feel heavy--my body's taken on the affect of my mind. Even my feet are leaden, like the leather buckle boots I wear are just too much. For the last two weeks, Mom's been watching the coverage of the disaster in Haiti. Day in and day, she follows the lives and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people like they are her friends, her coworkers, her extended family. Sometimes Lorna has to turn it off, as Mom gets to crying and can't be stopped but for a dosage of Seroquel. So once I'm through the door today, I can hear the TV set is on and CNN is blaring. Together we've watched a baby pulled alive from the ruble and we've watched shanty-towns appearing in vacant lots where people have made themselves a temporary home out of sheets and sticks of wood and we've watched fear turn to despair and then to rage as camera people and reporters film the stages of grief played out on the faces of survivors.
I wonder what Mom is thinking when she sees all the photos, hears the coverage. Is this her world? Or does she see this as something happening a long ways away? Does she wonder why she is "safe" and 150 people are buried alive under massive piles of concrete? What happened to these not-quite-survivors--are they now part of the death toll? TB...malaria...diseases rampant in Haiti. No water, no electricity, no food, inadequate medical attention. And Mom is here, at the Mirabella, "safe" in her cocoon of Alzheimer's and stroke recovery.
"Do you feel fortunate?" I ask Mom, as we both look intently at the flat screen TV monitor.
Mom doesn't respond. I can't even guess what her answer might be.
But as I've learned, sometimes the unexpected does happen. It never pays to rule out the possibility. So, for example, Mom "made" a sailboat today--took a paint brush, according to Lorna, and splashed green paint on the sides, red paint on the top and a thin yellow trim around the perimeter. The boat is lovely. I wasn't there for the project, so I wonder how much of this Mom painted and how much of it Lorna did. Mom can't grab onto a pen or take a hold of a cup, so painting with a brush seems unimaginable to me. But maybe she did? Maybe this was her lucky day?
When Adama brings dinner, "Sole w/ Julienne Veggies and Tomato Broth," Lorna hauls out Mom's new "apron," something Courtney (the activities director) gave her today. I call it an apron, as Mom would be unhappy thinking it was a bib. Actually, it's somewhere in between--longer than a bib but not as much coverage as a full length kitchen apron. She's thrilled with her new attire and Lorna seems happy--helps with the spillage issues Mom has every time she eats.
With the TV off, the realities of the Mirabella once again assume their urgent importance. I watch as Mom tries to grab her fork full of broccoli, tries to reach for her napkin, none of which does she successfully accomplish. But she's trying all the same. Her arms aren't useless like how my aunt's were in her final days. She's not quite as close to death.
"You're lucky Mom," I say. "A lucky woman." And just in case she doesn't understand, I add--"Lucky you can move your arms...your hands.
Mom stops her chewing then and her mouth hinges opens to a huge laughing grin. I can see the partially masticated fish and vegetables pausing there on her tongue like flotsam.
"Lucky," she beams. "Lucky lady," the phrase Lorna often offers in relation to Mom
We both laugh. Loudly. Loud enough that for the moment we can't hear the screams down the hall.
"Have been..." she continues. "Have been for..."
And I know then what she's wanting to say.
"Have been for eight-five years?" I help her finish.
"Yes," Mom says. "Yes...that's it. It."
"Here she is," Lorna chimes in, nodding at Mom as she surreptitiously scoops more couscous onto Mom's fork. Mom hasn't noticed...her attention has been elsewhere.
"The b-e-l-l-e of Mirab-e-l-l-a," Lorna finishes, her voice a song, notes rising, winging themselves out the door, down the hall. Away from here...from our good fortune...our abundance.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--
So when I get to Mom's I feel heavy--my body's taken on the affect of my mind. Even my feet are leaden, like the leather buckle boots I wear are just too much. For the last two weeks, Mom's been watching the coverage of the disaster in Haiti. Day in and day, she follows the lives and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people like they are her friends, her coworkers, her extended family. Sometimes Lorna has to turn it off, as Mom gets to crying and can't be stopped but for a dosage of Seroquel. So once I'm through the door today, I can hear the TV set is on and CNN is blaring. Together we've watched a baby pulled alive from the ruble and we've watched shanty-towns appearing in vacant lots where people have made themselves a temporary home out of sheets and sticks of wood and we've watched fear turn to despair and then to rage as camera people and reporters film the stages of grief played out on the faces of survivors.
I wonder what Mom is thinking when she sees all the photos, hears the coverage. Is this her world? Or does she see this as something happening a long ways away? Does she wonder why she is "safe" and 150 people are buried alive under massive piles of concrete? What happened to these not-quite-survivors--are they now part of the death toll? TB...malaria...diseases rampant in Haiti. No water, no electricity, no food, inadequate medical attention. And Mom is here, at the Mirabella, "safe" in her cocoon of Alzheimer's and stroke recovery.
"Do you feel fortunate?" I ask Mom, as we both look intently at the flat screen TV monitor.
Mom doesn't respond. I can't even guess what her answer might be.
But as I've learned, sometimes the unexpected does happen. It never pays to rule out the possibility. So, for example, Mom "made" a sailboat today--took a paint brush, according to Lorna, and splashed green paint on the sides, red paint on the top and a thin yellow trim around the perimeter. The boat is lovely. I wasn't there for the project, so I wonder how much of this Mom painted and how much of it Lorna did. Mom can't grab onto a pen or take a hold of a cup, so painting with a brush seems unimaginable to me. But maybe she did? Maybe this was her lucky day?
When Adama brings dinner, "Sole w/ Julienne Veggies and Tomato Broth," Lorna hauls out Mom's new "apron," something Courtney (the activities director) gave her today. I call it an apron, as Mom would be unhappy thinking it was a bib. Actually, it's somewhere in between--longer than a bib but not as much coverage as a full length kitchen apron. She's thrilled with her new attire and Lorna seems happy--helps with the spillage issues Mom has every time she eats.
With the TV off, the realities of the Mirabella once again assume their urgent importance. I watch as Mom tries to grab her fork full of broccoli, tries to reach for her napkin, none of which does she successfully accomplish. But she's trying all the same. Her arms aren't useless like how my aunt's were in her final days. She's not quite as close to death.
"You're lucky Mom," I say. "A lucky woman." And just in case she doesn't understand, I add--"Lucky you can move your arms...your hands.
Mom stops her chewing then and her mouth hinges opens to a huge laughing grin. I can see the partially masticated fish and vegetables pausing there on her tongue like flotsam.
"Lucky," she beams. "Lucky lady," the phrase Lorna often offers in relation to Mom
We both laugh. Loudly. Loud enough that for the moment we can't hear the screams down the hall.
"Have been..." she continues. "Have been for..."
And I know then what she's wanting to say.
"Have been for eight-five years?" I help her finish.
"Yes," Mom says. "Yes...that's it. It."
"Here she is," Lorna chimes in, nodding at Mom as she surreptitiously scoops more couscous onto Mom's fork. Mom hasn't noticed...her attention has been elsewhere.
"The b-e-l-l-e of Mirab-e-l-l-a," Lorna finishes, her voice a song, notes rising, winging themselves out the door, down the hall. Away from here...from our good fortune...our abundance.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--
Friday, January 8, 2010
what would Nixon do?
It's a new year and yet really it isn't. The same problems that dog us in 2009 are still present when the clock rolls around to 2010. Mom's the same, teaching's the same, the weather's the same, my body's physical needs are the same, the economy's the same. But why should it be otherwise? A hopeful (or serious;y demented) driver sports a bumper sticker on his rear window as I drive to class on Tuesday--"What would Nixon do?" I can't decide if this is a hopeful sign, in that we are so far beyond Nixon in our national greed and political intrigue that Nixon has become irrelevant? Or maybe it's a depressing sign of the time--that people or at least this one driver is so desperate that even Nixon's impeachable answers would be welcome. In any event, the sticker starts a laugh for me, one that carries me well through my drive past Boeing Field till I get to the parking lot of Seattle University. Then the sameness of my life interrupts. These may be new students but I'm not so new. I'm really still the same. So I'm trusting intellect and innovation to prevail once I walk into PGT 309. Usually is does. Today is no exception.
This week at the Mirabella, the first of the new year, Mom has been relatively good. She's sleeping well. She's eating her meals on the whole (meaning she skips most of dinner but eats everything else). In fact, she's eating so much that one of the aides, Salvadore, comments--"Dorin, you were such a little thing when you came....and look at your now." I'm hoping Mom didn't catch the quip, seeing how sensitive she is about her weight. Her skin's a good color. Her brain's engaged with what is happening around her. What's not so good is her inability to communicate--speech evades her consistently now--and her lower body has become nearly frozen. Not even therapist Michael's daily remonstrations can keep her limbs moving.
On Wednesday afternoon we make flash cards, a project Jennifer spearheads. She's photocopied color prints of scenes from sunny blue sky Arizona. Lorna's job is to cut these pictures from the photocopied sheet and Mom's job is to glue them to the white cardboard Jennifer has provided. Jennifer positions Mom so she's propped on the edge of the bed. A month ago, Mom would have been able to sit there, unaided for forty minutes under Beverly's encouragement. Now, she can't stay erect for more than second. Jennifer props pillows and an off-white plushy teddy bear behind Mom's back so she won't fall backwards. Soon we realize gluing is too complex of a task--Mom can't manipulate the glue stick without considerable assistance from Jennifer. So, we retool and give Mom the task of holding down the corner of the pictures so Jennifer can smear glue from the glue stick onto their edges. Both of them press down hard on the surfaces of the print, affixing the glue--Jennifer presses the hardest and Mom lightly rolls her fingertips.
The photos are amazing. Cholla cacti, with their aggressive asexual reproduction. We all get a laugh over this one as Jennifer explains how these cacti reproduce by affixing pieces of themselves to whatever happens along, hoping there won't be need for genetic variation. Saint Mary's Basilica--a mission style church that contrasts dramatically with the modernity of downtown Phoenix. Parry's penstamon, flowers that elicit a long conversation about when and where Mom and I have encountered penstamon on our hikes. Mom comes out with the word "purple,"a seemingly random verbal contribution until I realize she's talking about the color of penstamon we've seen in the wild--all of them having been purple. Fifth Street Fountain in downtown Scottsdale where bronze horses splash and cavort dramatically in pools of cascading water. And then our favorite--sand dunes in Monument Valley. The blue is bluer than any sky I've seen and the dunes roll and ungulate like a tide has gone out recently, the suctioning away of the sea from the sand leaving a pattern of ripples and dips you might find at the beach.
When we've finished making the cards, Jennifer tries to interest Mom in a matching game, asking her to find each card's mate. She places each set side by side, so all Mom has to do is figure out which appurtenant card goes with which. Mom finds this task difficult, if not impossible. We stick with it for fifteen minutes, encouraging Mom to choose photos that both have cactus, both have prancing horses, both have penstemon. Mom's exhausted.
When I leave for the day, I ask Mom and Lorna--"Do you have new year's wishes?" We've just watched King Five News where the anchor people are laughing about new year's resolutions. According to their on-air guest, these best wishes rarely stick as we fail to change our patterns, fail to recognize how we make choices based on who we are, the things we believe, the patterns we've established. As the guest so aptly put this--isn't the definition of insanity to do the same thing again and again and expecting a different result? So I wonder what Mom can wish for the new year? What does an eighty-five year old woman with Alzheimer's and recent stroke hope for?
No one says anything at first, and then Lorna says, shaking her head--"I don't believe in new year's resolutions my dear."
Mom listens to this, appears to take it in, but still there is silence.
"Be happy," Mom says finally. "Be happy....not sad."
Wow, I think to myself. She knows, she's aware. There's so little time left, why waste it with crying.
I think about my own wish, not a resolution for the new year per say, but rather a wish I'd hung on a wishing tree, an international project Yoko Ono is overseeing. When in Idaho, I'd participated in the gallery exhibition for "Speak for the Trees" and the wishes hung on the tree would be forwarded to Yoko Ono, joining many other such wishes from around the world. I'd been overwhelmed at first, not sure of what direction to take with my wish. Surely there were far too many things to wish for. I'd thought about better health for Mom, an end to the economic crisis, an end to the war in the Afghanistan and Iraq. And yet these all seemed well beyond my personal reach. What are wishes for? Are they prayers? Are they calls for action? Do we really need to be able to address them within the the smallness of our own lives?
What I decided is this--wishes become significant only if we can take some small step to bring about their occurrence. Otherwise, they are just imagination, like astrology--something people grab a hold of to feel better about the randomness and chaos of their lives. So, I have little control over Mom's health, no control over economics and war, but what I can do is make a decision about myself, within the constraints of my own little pedestrian world.
My wish: to be myself and to be fully present. Always. In the face of a dying parent, a dwindling income, a fledgling career as a novelist, a dysfunctional pain-inflicted family, a vanished brother, I can still be me as completely as possible. I can still be present. This is something I can do.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
This week at the Mirabella, the first of the new year, Mom has been relatively good. She's sleeping well. She's eating her meals on the whole (meaning she skips most of dinner but eats everything else). In fact, she's eating so much that one of the aides, Salvadore, comments--"Dorin, you were such a little thing when you came....and look at your now." I'm hoping Mom didn't catch the quip, seeing how sensitive she is about her weight. Her skin's a good color. Her brain's engaged with what is happening around her. What's not so good is her inability to communicate--speech evades her consistently now--and her lower body has become nearly frozen. Not even therapist Michael's daily remonstrations can keep her limbs moving.
On Wednesday afternoon we make flash cards, a project Jennifer spearheads. She's photocopied color prints of scenes from sunny blue sky Arizona. Lorna's job is to cut these pictures from the photocopied sheet and Mom's job is to glue them to the white cardboard Jennifer has provided. Jennifer positions Mom so she's propped on the edge of the bed. A month ago, Mom would have been able to sit there, unaided for forty minutes under Beverly's encouragement. Now, she can't stay erect for more than second. Jennifer props pillows and an off-white plushy teddy bear behind Mom's back so she won't fall backwards. Soon we realize gluing is too complex of a task--Mom can't manipulate the glue stick without considerable assistance from Jennifer. So, we retool and give Mom the task of holding down the corner of the pictures so Jennifer can smear glue from the glue stick onto their edges. Both of them press down hard on the surfaces of the print, affixing the glue--Jennifer presses the hardest and Mom lightly rolls her fingertips.
The photos are amazing. Cholla cacti, with their aggressive asexual reproduction. We all get a laugh over this one as Jennifer explains how these cacti reproduce by affixing pieces of themselves to whatever happens along, hoping there won't be need for genetic variation. Saint Mary's Basilica--a mission style church that contrasts dramatically with the modernity of downtown Phoenix. Parry's penstamon, flowers that elicit a long conversation about when and where Mom and I have encountered penstamon on our hikes. Mom comes out with the word "purple,"a seemingly random verbal contribution until I realize she's talking about the color of penstamon we've seen in the wild--all of them having been purple. Fifth Street Fountain in downtown Scottsdale where bronze horses splash and cavort dramatically in pools of cascading water. And then our favorite--sand dunes in Monument Valley. The blue is bluer than any sky I've seen and the dunes roll and ungulate like a tide has gone out recently, the suctioning away of the sea from the sand leaving a pattern of ripples and dips you might find at the beach.
When we've finished making the cards, Jennifer tries to interest Mom in a matching game, asking her to find each card's mate. She places each set side by side, so all Mom has to do is figure out which appurtenant card goes with which. Mom finds this task difficult, if not impossible. We stick with it for fifteen minutes, encouraging Mom to choose photos that both have cactus, both have prancing horses, both have penstemon. Mom's exhausted.
When I leave for the day, I ask Mom and Lorna--"Do you have new year's wishes?" We've just watched King Five News where the anchor people are laughing about new year's resolutions. According to their on-air guest, these best wishes rarely stick as we fail to change our patterns, fail to recognize how we make choices based on who we are, the things we believe, the patterns we've established. As the guest so aptly put this--isn't the definition of insanity to do the same thing again and again and expecting a different result? So I wonder what Mom can wish for the new year? What does an eighty-five year old woman with Alzheimer's and recent stroke hope for?
No one says anything at first, and then Lorna says, shaking her head--"I don't believe in new year's resolutions my dear."
Mom listens to this, appears to take it in, but still there is silence.
"Be happy," Mom says finally. "Be happy....not sad."
Wow, I think to myself. She knows, she's aware. There's so little time left, why waste it with crying.
I think about my own wish, not a resolution for the new year per say, but rather a wish I'd hung on a wishing tree, an international project Yoko Ono is overseeing. When in Idaho, I'd participated in the gallery exhibition for "Speak for the Trees" and the wishes hung on the tree would be forwarded to Yoko Ono, joining many other such wishes from around the world. I'd been overwhelmed at first, not sure of what direction to take with my wish. Surely there were far too many things to wish for. I'd thought about better health for Mom, an end to the economic crisis, an end to the war in the Afghanistan and Iraq. And yet these all seemed well beyond my personal reach. What are wishes for? Are they prayers? Are they calls for action? Do we really need to be able to address them within the the smallness of our own lives?
What I decided is this--wishes become significant only if we can take some small step to bring about their occurrence. Otherwise, they are just imagination, like astrology--something people grab a hold of to feel better about the randomness and chaos of their lives. So, I have little control over Mom's health, no control over economics and war, but what I can do is make a decision about myself, within the constraints of my own little pedestrian world.
My wish: to be myself and to be fully present. Always. In the face of a dying parent, a dwindling income, a fledgling career as a novelist, a dysfunctional pain-inflicted family, a vanished brother, I can still be me as completely as possible. I can still be present. This is something I can do.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Saturday, December 19, 2009
an umbilical connection
The airport feels empty, lifeless, like it's in need of bustle and hurry, not what I expect on the Saturday before Christmas. There's a bit of a line at the Horizon desk but security is wide open, just a several minute wait. At any time I can or could have stopped, changed my mind. Gone home. When I reached MasterPark and found there was no place to park my car. When I left behind the strap for my carry-on when I went through the TSA security check point. When Cougar and I pause to eat a Wolfgang Puck pizza in the Concourse C lounge--Cougar watches from the mesh window of his cat carrier as I eat the pizza, all of it. When I leave behind my (pricey) Baby & Co woof scarf on the tarmac and watch a woman scurry away with it in her grasp. At any of these moments I could have said--I'm not going after all. But I don't. I just keep on moving towards Idaho and away from Mom.
It's not until I feel the plane shudder and lift off the runway, its wheels groaning back up into the plane's belly, that I know for sure I'm not changing my mind, not turning back. Only one decision seems possible.
When the stewardess, her name is Jane, comes by with beverages--no snacks it seems, another casualty of cost cutting measures--I opt for Talking Rain, though the complementary Cabernet sounds tempting. There are no window coverings in the Q400, so late afternoon sun heats the glass, my knees, the collapsible table I've set my drink on. It's a swelter in Row 4, my own private sauna, despite how cold it is on the other side of the glass, at least thirty below.
I can't feel the plane move, but I can see the progress we make as rivers, wintered-down crops, roads winding into wilderness pass beneath my bird's-eye-view, a strange compression of time that transposes Washington, Oregon and Idaho into an hour-and-a-half commute rather than the 850 mile, twelve hour drive it really is. By the time we reach the Snake River Canyon, I feel a million miles from Mom. I've traveled so far there's no possible way of turning back, even if I wanted. It's the abstraction, I think, how six miles above sea level, separated from the normal commotions of our lives, we've no context to understand ourselves. Just the plastic faux-leather seats...the recirculated, pressurized air...the disconnected snippets of conversation between strangers we manage to decipher above the grind and whirl of the twin engines--"When I went to Vegas...my daughter is five...I'm meeting my son for the holidays..." Suddenly we are cut free from our lives and for ninety minutes become unburdened of who we are.
Who is my mother, I wonder up here in my cocoon of flight? Who am I in relation to this difficult, complicated, often loving mother of mine? I've collected so many pieces of her life these past few months, secrets she has chosen not to tell me. Recently I came across ten sheets of paper, all of different sizes, obviously torn from ten different notebooks of paper. Written on each are the answers to four questions: "words to describe," "things to accent," "things to disguise," "suggestions." These appear to be questions asked and answered within the context of an exercise at Mom's workplace in the fashion marketing department of F&N. I'm fascinated as here are ten different people's impressions of my mother, Dorin Schuler--who she is--in the early 1950s as a young married woman. "Tiny, dark, very brown eyes, mild mannered and quiet," writes one observer. Another writes, "Feminine, petite, poised, not fussy feminine, but more tailored. Depth, sensitivity." Another co-worker with the initials "VH" (is this the Vi of Mom's unmailed letter?) writes, "Modest, executive, conservative." Under the suggestion portion of this same answer, VH admonishes Mom--"Don't be conservative! Your coloring is exotic and you can accent it by wearing bright colors...Use that bright smile all you can!" Words that appear repeatedly are--"shy," "reserved," "nice figure," "feminine," "pleasing personality," "self-conscious," in need of more "color." The consensus seems to be that Mom needs to be more forth coming, more self-assured, not as reserved. As one co-worker writes--"Come out to people more often, we like it when you did" (original emphasis).
These F&N comments are revealing, as they prefigure the mother I have come to know so many years later--stylish and beautiful but at the same time overly private to the point of secrecy. Even then, in the heyday of her marriage to my father, in the years before so many disappointments accumulated and before the responsibilities of motherhood, Mom was reserved, private...an enigma to those around her.
Who is my mother? Is she the over-achiever thirteen year old who writes in her diary (just one entry) that "today is a good day" because she receives an "A" on her geography test, a "B" on an English drill and a "B+" on her science test? In this same entry, she's carefully and systematically "planning my Christmas presents" with their projected costs: "$1.00" for Dad, "$1.00" for Mom, with a note of "lemonade tray," "$1.00" for Marguerite and "$.25" for each of her friends, Dorothy, Catherine, Betty and Mary. She calculates she has "$2.25" so far and has "$2.00" yet to earn.
Or is she the petulant, letter-writing lover abandoned by my father during the war to face the rigors of her own mother's illness and eventual death? "It's awful," she writes, to sit with her hour after hour watching her suffer as she does."
Or is she the newly married woman who revels in the pleasures of her marriage, writing to a friend Vi that her favorite hour is 11:00 at night when she and her husband talk intimately about their day over coffee or tea?
Or is she the tender soon-to-be-mother of baby Christine who writes her two young sons a goodbye letter as she's going into labor? "Dear Peter and Eric," she writes, "Daddy and I are leaving now to go to the hospital--and you boys are fast asleep, so I cannot say goodbye. Perhaps by the time you wake up you will have a new brother or sister. Or it might take a little longer. Anyway very very soon you will have a new member in our family. I will miss you boys while I am gone in the hospital, but I will be home after a few days rest at the hospital...Be good boys and help Marguerite all you can. She will be very busy with five boys to take care of. Remember I love you very much."
Or is she the loving, grieving daughter who has yet to get over the death of her mother, experiencing each day--even now--as an opportunity for regret, for all the things she should have but didn't do for her mom.
Or is she resentful, widowed woman whose comment on sex is "not fun" and who views marriage as something she'd rather not engage in twice, though she's quick to say that her marriage was "fine."
Or is she the exuberant woman of eighty-five who, despite her infirmities, can yowl like a coyote when we bite down hard into the pleasures of the Bread Queen's latest culinary wonder?
Or is she the angry, unforgiving mother who insists her eldest son is an "ugly" man who needs, even to this day, to be taught a "lesson."
Or is she the Mirabella patient in Room 201 who all the staff and aides love? They come to her room every day just to say goodnight, to give and receive a smile from her, to ask about her day, to share their Filipino delicacies. The outpouring is phenomenal.
Or is she the Alzheimer's stoke victim who cannot get through her day without an out-rush of tears and a dosage of Lorazapane or Serequel, the same woman who tells me, between sobs, "I don't...don't want to die."
Or is she the woman who reports with a smile, or a semblance of a smile, that she's "still here," still alive and that really this is okay. Life is okay.
Which mother is she?
The stale recycled air whispers nothing in reply. There's just the chatter around me from my cabin mates, anonymous noises that wing themselves across aisles, over arm rests and seats.
"I'm going back," I say to myself, to the tray reclined in my lap, to the new Lorrie Moore novel I've opened but haven't begun to read. "Back to my life." There's anger there in my voice, resentment, despite how softly I've spoken. What I know but can't quite say aloud--that under all my kisses, my lipstick moons, Mom's still the same difficult, unforgiving, fascinating, exuberant, sometimes-loving mother I've always known. Nothing has changed.
And yet everything has changed.
Later, after the plane touches down at the Freidman Memorial Airport, after I've taken the A-1 cab and listened to the driver, Bubba, recount his version of what's been happening in the Valley since I've been gone, after I've dragged my suitcase and Cougar's cat carrier through several inches of new snow and into my house and waited for the heat to turn on, the humidity to rise, I call Mom.
Over the phone, I feel our disconnection. The phone line's there, but she's not listening or maybe just not talking. I can't tell which.
"Mom," I say, "Mom?"
Silence, but I can hear other voices, maybe aides in the hallway or Lorna talking on her cell phone, so I know we still have a connection.
"How was your day?"
Silence.
"Did you have any visitors?"
Silence.
"There's not much snow here--just a couple of inches. But it's cold. 8 degrees."
Silence.
"I miss you Mom...wish you were here."
And when I say this, I realize this is true--that I do wish she was here... that she was well and could travel and walk without need of a wheelchair...that the cold didn't bother her like it does...that she and I could drag out the Christmas ornaments from her garage and garland a tree...that we could go into town, looking for last minute presents at our favorite boutiques, Deja Vu, Sport's Connection, Theodore's...that we'd stop off at Atkinson's to order our Christmas turkey and wait in an interminable line to purchase our groceries for dinner, just like all the other shoppers...that she could turn to me and say, amidst all the chaos of our family's Christmas dinner, "I love you, oh daughter of mine." Christmas will not be Christmas without Mom. Not from here on out.
But instead, there's just silence. And more silence. And the noisy racket my tears would make if Mom was listening, really listening on the other end of the line. What am I feeling as we both breathe into the silence, into the vacuum where our tongues should be speaking instead? Fear...regret...loss...abandonment...loneliness? All of these?
"I'm never going to earn your love," I whisper into the receiver, so quietly I'm sure she's not heard. Her forgiveness, her approval, her affection will always be held in reserve. I know this now. No matter how many hours I occupy a chair at the Mirabella, laughing with Mom, crying with Mom. No matter how many doctors and nurses and nurse's aides I oversee, making sure Mom is safe. No matter how many cards we make, slices of bread we eat, kisses we exchange. Because it's not about this. Not about taking or receiving.
"I love you Mom" I say to the silence, between my sobs. "I'll call you...tomorrow. I promise."
And I will.
An umbilical connection keeps us like this, mother and daughter.
No matter what.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
It's not until I feel the plane shudder and lift off the runway, its wheels groaning back up into the plane's belly, that I know for sure I'm not changing my mind, not turning back. Only one decision seems possible.
When the stewardess, her name is Jane, comes by with beverages--no snacks it seems, another casualty of cost cutting measures--I opt for Talking Rain, though the complementary Cabernet sounds tempting. There are no window coverings in the Q400, so late afternoon sun heats the glass, my knees, the collapsible table I've set my drink on. It's a swelter in Row 4, my own private sauna, despite how cold it is on the other side of the glass, at least thirty below.
I can't feel the plane move, but I can see the progress we make as rivers, wintered-down crops, roads winding into wilderness pass beneath my bird's-eye-view, a strange compression of time that transposes Washington, Oregon and Idaho into an hour-and-a-half commute rather than the 850 mile, twelve hour drive it really is. By the time we reach the Snake River Canyon, I feel a million miles from Mom. I've traveled so far there's no possible way of turning back, even if I wanted. It's the abstraction, I think, how six miles above sea level, separated from the normal commotions of our lives, we've no context to understand ourselves. Just the plastic faux-leather seats...the recirculated, pressurized air...the disconnected snippets of conversation between strangers we manage to decipher above the grind and whirl of the twin engines--"When I went to Vegas...my daughter is five...I'm meeting my son for the holidays..." Suddenly we are cut free from our lives and for ninety minutes become unburdened of who we are.
Who is my mother, I wonder up here in my cocoon of flight? Who am I in relation to this difficult, complicated, often loving mother of mine? I've collected so many pieces of her life these past few months, secrets she has chosen not to tell me. Recently I came across ten sheets of paper, all of different sizes, obviously torn from ten different notebooks of paper. Written on each are the answers to four questions: "words to describe," "things to accent," "things to disguise," "suggestions." These appear to be questions asked and answered within the context of an exercise at Mom's workplace in the fashion marketing department of F&N. I'm fascinated as here are ten different people's impressions of my mother, Dorin Schuler--who she is--in the early 1950s as a young married woman. "Tiny, dark, very brown eyes, mild mannered and quiet," writes one observer. Another writes, "Feminine, petite, poised, not fussy feminine, but more tailored. Depth, sensitivity." Another co-worker with the initials "VH" (is this the Vi of Mom's unmailed letter?) writes, "Modest, executive, conservative." Under the suggestion portion of this same answer, VH admonishes Mom--"Don't be conservative! Your coloring is exotic and you can accent it by wearing bright colors...Use that bright smile all you can!" Words that appear repeatedly are--"shy," "reserved," "nice figure," "feminine," "pleasing personality," "self-conscious," in need of more "color." The consensus seems to be that Mom needs to be more forth coming, more self-assured, not as reserved. As one co-worker writes--"Come out to people more often, we like it when you did" (original emphasis).
These F&N comments are revealing, as they prefigure the mother I have come to know so many years later--stylish and beautiful but at the same time overly private to the point of secrecy. Even then, in the heyday of her marriage to my father, in the years before so many disappointments accumulated and before the responsibilities of motherhood, Mom was reserved, private...an enigma to those around her.
Who is my mother? Is she the over-achiever thirteen year old who writes in her diary (just one entry) that "today is a good day" because she receives an "A" on her geography test, a "B" on an English drill and a "B+" on her science test? In this same entry, she's carefully and systematically "planning my Christmas presents" with their projected costs: "$1.00" for Dad, "$1.00" for Mom, with a note of "lemonade tray," "$1.00" for Marguerite and "$.25" for each of her friends, Dorothy, Catherine, Betty and Mary. She calculates she has "$2.25" so far and has "$2.00" yet to earn.
Or is she the petulant, letter-writing lover abandoned by my father during the war to face the rigors of her own mother's illness and eventual death? "It's awful," she writes, to sit with her hour after hour watching her suffer as she does."
Or is she the newly married woman who revels in the pleasures of her marriage, writing to a friend Vi that her favorite hour is 11:00 at night when she and her husband talk intimately about their day over coffee or tea?
Or is she the tender soon-to-be-mother of baby Christine who writes her two young sons a goodbye letter as she's going into labor? "Dear Peter and Eric," she writes, "Daddy and I are leaving now to go to the hospital--and you boys are fast asleep, so I cannot say goodbye. Perhaps by the time you wake up you will have a new brother or sister. Or it might take a little longer. Anyway very very soon you will have a new member in our family. I will miss you boys while I am gone in the hospital, but I will be home after a few days rest at the hospital...Be good boys and help Marguerite all you can. She will be very busy with five boys to take care of. Remember I love you very much."
Or is she the loving, grieving daughter who has yet to get over the death of her mother, experiencing each day--even now--as an opportunity for regret, for all the things she should have but didn't do for her mom.
Or is she resentful, widowed woman whose comment on sex is "not fun" and who views marriage as something she'd rather not engage in twice, though she's quick to say that her marriage was "fine."
Or is she the exuberant woman of eighty-five who, despite her infirmities, can yowl like a coyote when we bite down hard into the pleasures of the Bread Queen's latest culinary wonder?
Or is she the angry, unforgiving mother who insists her eldest son is an "ugly" man who needs, even to this day, to be taught a "lesson."
Or is she the Mirabella patient in Room 201 who all the staff and aides love? They come to her room every day just to say goodnight, to give and receive a smile from her, to ask about her day, to share their Filipino delicacies. The outpouring is phenomenal.
Or is she the Alzheimer's stoke victim who cannot get through her day without an out-rush of tears and a dosage of Lorazapane or Serequel, the same woman who tells me, between sobs, "I don't...don't want to die."
Or is she the woman who reports with a smile, or a semblance of a smile, that she's "still here," still alive and that really this is okay. Life is okay.
Which mother is she?
The stale recycled air whispers nothing in reply. There's just the chatter around me from my cabin mates, anonymous noises that wing themselves across aisles, over arm rests and seats.
"I'm going back," I say to myself, to the tray reclined in my lap, to the new Lorrie Moore novel I've opened but haven't begun to read. "Back to my life." There's anger there in my voice, resentment, despite how softly I've spoken. What I know but can't quite say aloud--that under all my kisses, my lipstick moons, Mom's still the same difficult, unforgiving, fascinating, exuberant, sometimes-loving mother I've always known. Nothing has changed.
And yet everything has changed.
Later, after the plane touches down at the Freidman Memorial Airport, after I've taken the A-1 cab and listened to the driver, Bubba, recount his version of what's been happening in the Valley since I've been gone, after I've dragged my suitcase and Cougar's cat carrier through several inches of new snow and into my house and waited for the heat to turn on, the humidity to rise, I call Mom.
Over the phone, I feel our disconnection. The phone line's there, but she's not listening or maybe just not talking. I can't tell which.
"Mom," I say, "Mom?"
Silence, but I can hear other voices, maybe aides in the hallway or Lorna talking on her cell phone, so I know we still have a connection.
"How was your day?"
Silence.
"Did you have any visitors?"
Silence.
"There's not much snow here--just a couple of inches. But it's cold. 8 degrees."
Silence.
"I miss you Mom...wish you were here."
And when I say this, I realize this is true--that I do wish she was here... that she was well and could travel and walk without need of a wheelchair...that the cold didn't bother her like it does...that she and I could drag out the Christmas ornaments from her garage and garland a tree...that we could go into town, looking for last minute presents at our favorite boutiques, Deja Vu, Sport's Connection, Theodore's...that we'd stop off at Atkinson's to order our Christmas turkey and wait in an interminable line to purchase our groceries for dinner, just like all the other shoppers...that she could turn to me and say, amidst all the chaos of our family's Christmas dinner, "I love you, oh daughter of mine." Christmas will not be Christmas without Mom. Not from here on out.
But instead, there's just silence. And more silence. And the noisy racket my tears would make if Mom was listening, really listening on the other end of the line. What am I feeling as we both breathe into the silence, into the vacuum where our tongues should be speaking instead? Fear...regret...loss...abandonment...loneliness? All of these?
"I'm never going to earn your love," I whisper into the receiver, so quietly I'm sure she's not heard. Her forgiveness, her approval, her affection will always be held in reserve. I know this now. No matter how many hours I occupy a chair at the Mirabella, laughing with Mom, crying with Mom. No matter how many doctors and nurses and nurse's aides I oversee, making sure Mom is safe. No matter how many cards we make, slices of bread we eat, kisses we exchange. Because it's not about this. Not about taking or receiving.
"I love you Mom" I say to the silence, between my sobs. "I'll call you...tomorrow. I promise."
And I will.
An umbilical connection keeps us like this, mother and daughter.
No matter what.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Friday, December 18, 2009
goodbye
We make cards today, one of the Christmas activities planned for Mom in the next two weeks. It will be hard to help her forget she isn't in Idaho for the holidays, the place she has spent Christmas each year for thirty-four years. Last year was the first Christmas she'd missed in that entire time. But it was different last year, not as hard, as Mom was home in her Medina residence whereas now she's "home" at the Mirabella. Not home at all.
Jennifer has brought stamps, ink, stickers and white card stock cut on a zig-saw, like rickrack trim Mom and I would sew crazily onto summer shorts and dresses for ourselves back in the 60s. We situate Mom in her wheelchair so her elbows are supported by her adjustable table. Her hands are at the ready. We're not sure what Mom will be able to do or not, so we start small, asking if she wants to press down the 2x2 photo of herself to the card stock. Lorna's been busy sticking rolls of tape onto the back of these photos, pictures Jennifer took last week. The day of the photos wasn't one of Mom's good days, so Lorna had to support Mom's spine so she'd come across "normal" instead of slumped in the photo.
I crouch to the right of Mom, ready to guide her hand if necessary.
"Where," she says at first. "Where...to go?"
"Doesn't matter Mom...wherever you want it to go," I say back to her, encouraging her to tape the photo into place wherever it looks good to her.
Mom's hand hovers there with the photo pressed between her thumb and her forefinger for several minutes. I can see her brain working, how she considers whether to square the photo with the edges of the card stock or whether to place it jauntily at an angle. And then there's the question of which part of the card to make use of--the corners, the middle, each will create a different effect. In years past, if Mom and I were making these cards we would launch into a conversation assessing the relative merits of each of these strategies, like it was decision worthy of careful deliberation.
Minutes later, Mom is still considering where to place the photo. I'm watching her, wondering how long this is going to take. Finally I touch her hand and suggest--"What about taping it here," pointing to the left corner of the space available. Mom nods "Yes" and begins to push her thumb into the center of her photo; the rest of her fingers remain suspended, inches above the photo's surface. I help her smooth the edges so the photo affixes evenly to the card.
Next, we consider the stamp and which color ink to use. Jennifer grabs for the Christmas wreath stamp and hands it to Mom. "Red or green?" she asks Mom, showing her the two different colored pads of ink. I can see Mom's mouth forming the "r" and the "g" of these two colors but her hands remain motionless in front of her chest, grabbing for neither of the pads.
"What about red?" Jennifer asks. Mom looks relieved at the suggestion and nods "Yes." Both Jennifer and I help Mom to press the wreath stamp down hard into the ink pad and then ferry it to a blank spot on Mom's card. "You've got to press down hard now Dorin," Jennifer says, explaining to Mom how stamps are not forgiving--takes a lot of pressure to get the ink to imprint evenly. We guide Mom's hand with the stamp as we press down into the card stock, helping to keep the stamp solidly in one place as the ink is transferred to the card. "Do you think we're done?" Jennifer asks. Mom and I both nods "Yes" as we carefully lift the stamp from the card, trying not to smudges the wet ink. Voila--there's a near perfect Christmas wreath. right next to Mom's photo. A small red smudge winks to the right of the wreath, a place where Mom's finger accidentally dragged the card's surface. Any other time, this smudge would bother Mom--a sign, she would think, of imperfection when perfection was possible. But now, she doesn't appear to notice, and nether do I.
Mom looks at this wreath in wonder--as in she can't believe she's just done this magical thing--imprinted red ink to a card. Her mouth opens to a wide grin, something that's definitely a smile, whereas most of Mom's other "smiles" look like grimaces, or at least frozen somewhere between a smile and a grimace. There's no question this is a smile. I go limp at the sight of it's loveliness--that something so small as a stamp on a card could bring such pleasure.
We repeat the sticking process with the two holiday stickers Mom's chosen for the card. We have eleven more cards to go. It will take us four and a half hours to finish these cards, at least an hour of this time taken up with Mom dictating to me what messages she wants me to write on the back of the card. Jennifer brought a silver pen--makes a smooth swoosh of silver ink each time I put pen to paper. We think hard about what to write on each of the cards, wanting the messages to convey Mom's thoughts even though she has a hard time communicating her thoughts. To myself I'm thinking--maybe these will be the last Christmas cards Mom sends, maybe there won't be another Christmas for Mom. But I don't say any of this to Mom. We take as long as it takes--Mom dictating, me writing. Her smiles are worth every second.
All the while we're making our cards, I'm thinking about what I need to say to Mom later tonight--goodbye--because I'll be going to Idaho for ten days and she won't be coming with me. My sister-in-law is also leaving for Idaho the day after Christmas with two of her children. So Mom will be alone for over a week, alone except for the activities I've arranged and the people I've asked to come see her. Maybe Eric will visit Mom. Mom would like that.
Leaving has always been a fraught activity for me, Maybe its hereditary. Growing up, Mom had a hard time leaving me when she and Dad occasionally went away by themselves on a business trip--once to Chicago and the Virgin Islands, once to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm sure there were others, it's just these are what I remember. And, to be fair, I had a difficult time being left. I found notes I wrote to Mom, begging her not to leave me, begging her to come home. In one of Mom's keepsake boxes there was a letter addressed to "Century Plaza Hotel" with a post date of November 17, 1967. I remember this trip, as Mom and Dad had gone down to the furniture market in San Francisco looking for finds for Dad's design store, Laurelhurst Interiors. They'd made a side trip to Los Angeles, staying at the then swank Century Plaza. There are two notes inside the envelope. One of them, 9x11, reads: "Dear Mamu, I miss you I what you very very mush I wish you a safe trip back, you are a nice mamu. How are you. Luve Christine." Apparently I wasn't much of a speller. This is followed by two pencil drawings, one of "Christine" saying in a bubble "Hi Mama" and the other of "Mame" saying "I love you very very much." There's also a second piece of paper, only 3x9, that says, in pencil, "I don't want to stay at Gretchen's house." Gretchen Andrews was my best friend, in addition to Sandra Blakely who lived at the end of the point. Gretchen and I were connected at the hip, at all times, and yet at age seven I didn't want to be there with her parents Bob and Priscilla. I wanted my own mother, my own house. Nothing else would do. I remember this separation as excruciating, punctuated by much crying and unhappiness. My notes to Mom were returned, however--the US PO stamp said the letter was "unclaimed." Mom must have forgotten to check the mail while there or maybe the letter took too long to get to Los Angeles. My words went unread until Mom returned. My consolation was a very large pink stuffed mole, which I named "Molely," brought back to me by Mom in an extravagant pink and orange square box. As cool as I thought Molely was, I would rather Mom had never left. Nonetheless, I loved that mole until it's fur turned an unfortunately shade of pink-grey from too much handling, too many kisses and hugs. "Molely" still lives in my spare bedroom closet--something I can't seem to part with.
In contrast, Dad's absence on business trips was not nearly as upsetting. In the same year, 1967, Dad went to Chicago on business--he left, it appears, while most of his family were doing something else. Mom has each of us write him a note which she then posted on January 9th. My note is simple, non-emotional. I write in pencil and then go over the letters in black ink: "I went to Amys house I am sorry at I did not get to say goodbye to you Merry Christmas From Christine." Each of the "Ys" in the note have long tails that reach back in a grand flourish to the beginning consonant. At the end of the note, there's a tiny drawing if a girl with angel wings. I address the note "to Payl" (a version of Paul, I assume) rather than to Dad or Daddy. Mom also writes a quick note, oddly impersonal: "It is quiet around here. At least Deda keeps talking about how quiet it is without you. We're going to the Ice Capades this afternoon. Hope you're feeling better. See you Tuesday." Peter writes the most, being thirteen at the time. He tells Dad about skiing for the first time: "Dear Dad, I had fun skiing yesterday. All the equipment worked perfectly. We did not learn much the first day except the snowplow and the snowplow turn. I got home just after you left."
Telling Mom I will be leaving her over the holidays is not an easy thing--must be as difficult as Mom telling me she and Dad were going to be gone on a business trip. Mom would wait till the night before their departure and then spring it on me. I hated this. But this is what I do to Mom today, not having been able to find the right moment to share my departure with her earlier in the week.
"Mom," I say, "I'm going to go over to Idaho for Christmas."
Mom says nothing, so I'm not sure if she's heard me.
"Did you hear me Mom?" I repeat, "I'm going to be gone for ten days."
After all the activity of card making, Mom's tired. Her head is tilted back awkwardly onto her pillow, hair flat with "pillow head" rather than curled and poofy as she prefers. From my chair I can see her eyes are closed to just a slit. Her mouth gapes open like she's exclaiming "Oh" but no sound is escaping. She's not asleep but rather in that intermediate zone where she's awake but not fully following what's going on around her. When she answers me, her speech comes out fuzzy, like how your lips move when you've been out in the cold too long. Nothing is clear or enunciated. Instead, her words sound numb, lumbering. Difficult to understand.
"You..you," she slurs.
"Me what, Mom?" I respond.
"You...you...always..."
"What Mom?" I ask again, though really I'd rather not know what's troubling her mind. Whatever it is, it can't be something I want to hear. So I have to will myself to stay where I am, in this designer chair by the side of Mom's bed here at the Mirabella, will myself to listen to what she might have to say.
"Leave..." she then adds. "You...leave."
"What are you talking about Mom," I spout back to her, annoyed that this is her conclusion about me when in my way of thinking it's her son Eric who has left, chosen not to engage in a difficult and, at times, disagreeable process of dying. I've been here everyday for her. Any days I've missed I've called in and talked to her. I'm here and have been for the last three months.
"You know...know...gone gone."
This is something she's doing lately, repeating words twice, right in a row, like "gone gone."
"Gone where?" I ask.
"Away away," she answers, wrinkling her forehead, twisting her lips into an exaggerated frown.
I don't say anything at first, not sure of how to answer. 'Away' where, I ask myself? How have I left Mom? When I moved to eastern Washington to accept a job just out of law school? When I eloped and married my husband? When I launched a life for myself, separate from her and my brother's family? Which of these are the treacheries she refers to? None of them seem the act of disloyalty Mom chooses to see. Instead, they are life processes--of growing up, moving away, starting a life. What is so nefarious in this?
"No," I say to her. "You're wrong. I'm right here Mom, always have been."
"No," she says back to me. "NO...NO...NO."
We sit with this for a time, minutes at least. I wonder at what she's thinking. Her grief is obvious. My defection this Christmas fits a pattern for her, of being gone when she wants me to stay. But this has never been anything we can discuss. Nor can we talk about her responses to my "leaving" or to anything else for that matter that doesn't please her. Mom's famous shunning.
"I need to have some down time," I tell her then, deciding to ignore her rebuke. "Time away. You can understand can't you?"
Mom says nothing to this, her eyes now decidedly closed. There's breath coming from her mouth as I can hear a sigh each time she breathes out, so loud it almost speaks a language.
I think about what Lorna told me several days ago, about how the last few weeks Mom has received ghostly visits from her Mom, her Dad. "They sit on the bed, my dear," Lorna told me, "and your Mom talks away." I was stunned by this. While I've heard of such things, visitations before people pass away, I had not considered the fact that Mom would be dying sometime soon. Her doctor has given her a year or maybe two. What could this mean? Ironic, I think, that on the eve of Mom's own passing, the people she has loved the most come back to her. There's no placating Mom's grief over the unnecessary death of her mother in 1936 and the later death of her father when I am eight years old. These are all leavings for her--people who have gone before Mom was ready to let them go. The difference is, Mom doesn't blame her Mom, her Dad for their unwanted departures, not like what she's accusing me of here tonight--of leaving her when I don't need to be gone. There's bitterness reserved here for me, but for her mother and her father there's just grief at the unfairness of life. Why is this?
We say nothing more. Mom's silence works like a guilt, causing me to question what I've planned, what I need for myself. My ticket was purchased back in July, long before Mom's stroke. Deciding to pack a suitcase and get on that plane on Saturday, however, are different matters all together than that earlier ticket purchase. They are acts of defection that require me to put aside my worry about Mom, my interest in her having as full a life as possible for as long as she can. They are acts that say--this is my life and I need to live it as best as I can. The question is whether I'm ready to do this, to say this to Mom.
I can't help but think of those times Mom left me to travel with Dad. At the time, I could not understand why she would choose to go with my father and leave me behind. The imperfections of a child's perspective. Now, sitting by the side of her bed, I can see we have come full circle. I am the parent saying--I need to leave but I will return. And she is the child saying, selfishly--I can't stand your leaving, please don't go.
I grab hold of Mom's right hand. It isn't easy as she has it tucked securely under her sheets. I grab the fingers and pull it gently out to rest on her duvet.
"Mom," I say to, as I squeeze her hand. "Mom, I love you. I need to go, but I'll be back. I promise. You understand don't you?"
Mom doesn't say a thing. Her eyes stay shut tight. Her breath comes light now, sleep-like, barely something I can hear. I have to lean forward to feel the rhythmic sigh of air on my face before I know for sure she's still here, still my Mom.
We sit like this for a very long time. My asking. Her not answering. Mother daughter. No longer the same at all.
When I say goodbye, she turns her cheeks from me, avoiding my lips and the lipstick moons I meant to leave behind.
I kiss her anyway. Whether she wants me to or not.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Jennifer has brought stamps, ink, stickers and white card stock cut on a zig-saw, like rickrack trim Mom and I would sew crazily onto summer shorts and dresses for ourselves back in the 60s. We situate Mom in her wheelchair so her elbows are supported by her adjustable table. Her hands are at the ready. We're not sure what Mom will be able to do or not, so we start small, asking if she wants to press down the 2x2 photo of herself to the card stock. Lorna's been busy sticking rolls of tape onto the back of these photos, pictures Jennifer took last week. The day of the photos wasn't one of Mom's good days, so Lorna had to support Mom's spine so she'd come across "normal" instead of slumped in the photo.
I crouch to the right of Mom, ready to guide her hand if necessary.
"Where," she says at first. "Where...to go?"
"Doesn't matter Mom...wherever you want it to go," I say back to her, encouraging her to tape the photo into place wherever it looks good to her.
Mom's hand hovers there with the photo pressed between her thumb and her forefinger for several minutes. I can see her brain working, how she considers whether to square the photo with the edges of the card stock or whether to place it jauntily at an angle. And then there's the question of which part of the card to make use of--the corners, the middle, each will create a different effect. In years past, if Mom and I were making these cards we would launch into a conversation assessing the relative merits of each of these strategies, like it was decision worthy of careful deliberation.
Minutes later, Mom is still considering where to place the photo. I'm watching her, wondering how long this is going to take. Finally I touch her hand and suggest--"What about taping it here," pointing to the left corner of the space available. Mom nods "Yes" and begins to push her thumb into the center of her photo; the rest of her fingers remain suspended, inches above the photo's surface. I help her smooth the edges so the photo affixes evenly to the card.
Next, we consider the stamp and which color ink to use. Jennifer grabs for the Christmas wreath stamp and hands it to Mom. "Red or green?" she asks Mom, showing her the two different colored pads of ink. I can see Mom's mouth forming the "r" and the "g" of these two colors but her hands remain motionless in front of her chest, grabbing for neither of the pads.
"What about red?" Jennifer asks. Mom looks relieved at the suggestion and nods "Yes." Both Jennifer and I help Mom to press the wreath stamp down hard into the ink pad and then ferry it to a blank spot on Mom's card. "You've got to press down hard now Dorin," Jennifer says, explaining to Mom how stamps are not forgiving--takes a lot of pressure to get the ink to imprint evenly. We guide Mom's hand with the stamp as we press down into the card stock, helping to keep the stamp solidly in one place as the ink is transferred to the card. "Do you think we're done?" Jennifer asks. Mom and I both nods "Yes" as we carefully lift the stamp from the card, trying not to smudges the wet ink. Voila--there's a near perfect Christmas wreath. right next to Mom's photo. A small red smudge winks to the right of the wreath, a place where Mom's finger accidentally dragged the card's surface. Any other time, this smudge would bother Mom--a sign, she would think, of imperfection when perfection was possible. But now, she doesn't appear to notice, and nether do I.
Mom looks at this wreath in wonder--as in she can't believe she's just done this magical thing--imprinted red ink to a card. Her mouth opens to a wide grin, something that's definitely a smile, whereas most of Mom's other "smiles" look like grimaces, or at least frozen somewhere between a smile and a grimace. There's no question this is a smile. I go limp at the sight of it's loveliness--that something so small as a stamp on a card could bring such pleasure.
We repeat the sticking process with the two holiday stickers Mom's chosen for the card. We have eleven more cards to go. It will take us four and a half hours to finish these cards, at least an hour of this time taken up with Mom dictating to me what messages she wants me to write on the back of the card. Jennifer brought a silver pen--makes a smooth swoosh of silver ink each time I put pen to paper. We think hard about what to write on each of the cards, wanting the messages to convey Mom's thoughts even though she has a hard time communicating her thoughts. To myself I'm thinking--maybe these will be the last Christmas cards Mom sends, maybe there won't be another Christmas for Mom. But I don't say any of this to Mom. We take as long as it takes--Mom dictating, me writing. Her smiles are worth every second.
All the while we're making our cards, I'm thinking about what I need to say to Mom later tonight--goodbye--because I'll be going to Idaho for ten days and she won't be coming with me. My sister-in-law is also leaving for Idaho the day after Christmas with two of her children. So Mom will be alone for over a week, alone except for the activities I've arranged and the people I've asked to come see her. Maybe Eric will visit Mom. Mom would like that.
Leaving has always been a fraught activity for me, Maybe its hereditary. Growing up, Mom had a hard time leaving me when she and Dad occasionally went away by themselves on a business trip--once to Chicago and the Virgin Islands, once to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm sure there were others, it's just these are what I remember. And, to be fair, I had a difficult time being left. I found notes I wrote to Mom, begging her not to leave me, begging her to come home. In one of Mom's keepsake boxes there was a letter addressed to "Century Plaza Hotel" with a post date of November 17, 1967. I remember this trip, as Mom and Dad had gone down to the furniture market in San Francisco looking for finds for Dad's design store, Laurelhurst Interiors. They'd made a side trip to Los Angeles, staying at the then swank Century Plaza. There are two notes inside the envelope. One of them, 9x11, reads: "Dear Mamu, I miss you I what you very very mush I wish you a safe trip back, you are a nice mamu. How are you. Luve Christine." Apparently I wasn't much of a speller. This is followed by two pencil drawings, one of "Christine" saying in a bubble "Hi Mama" and the other of "Mame" saying "I love you very very much." There's also a second piece of paper, only 3x9, that says, in pencil, "I don't want to stay at Gretchen's house." Gretchen Andrews was my best friend, in addition to Sandra Blakely who lived at the end of the point. Gretchen and I were connected at the hip, at all times, and yet at age seven I didn't want to be there with her parents Bob and Priscilla. I wanted my own mother, my own house. Nothing else would do. I remember this separation as excruciating, punctuated by much crying and unhappiness. My notes to Mom were returned, however--the US PO stamp said the letter was "unclaimed." Mom must have forgotten to check the mail while there or maybe the letter took too long to get to Los Angeles. My words went unread until Mom returned. My consolation was a very large pink stuffed mole, which I named "Molely," brought back to me by Mom in an extravagant pink and orange square box. As cool as I thought Molely was, I would rather Mom had never left. Nonetheless, I loved that mole until it's fur turned an unfortunately shade of pink-grey from too much handling, too many kisses and hugs. "Molely" still lives in my spare bedroom closet--something I can't seem to part with.
In contrast, Dad's absence on business trips was not nearly as upsetting. In the same year, 1967, Dad went to Chicago on business--he left, it appears, while most of his family were doing something else. Mom has each of us write him a note which she then posted on January 9th. My note is simple, non-emotional. I write in pencil and then go over the letters in black ink: "I went to Amys house I am sorry at I did not get to say goodbye to you Merry Christmas From Christine." Each of the "Ys" in the note have long tails that reach back in a grand flourish to the beginning consonant. At the end of the note, there's a tiny drawing if a girl with angel wings. I address the note "to Payl" (a version of Paul, I assume) rather than to Dad or Daddy. Mom also writes a quick note, oddly impersonal: "It is quiet around here. At least Deda keeps talking about how quiet it is without you. We're going to the Ice Capades this afternoon. Hope you're feeling better. See you Tuesday." Peter writes the most, being thirteen at the time. He tells Dad about skiing for the first time: "Dear Dad, I had fun skiing yesterday. All the equipment worked perfectly. We did not learn much the first day except the snowplow and the snowplow turn. I got home just after you left."
Telling Mom I will be leaving her over the holidays is not an easy thing--must be as difficult as Mom telling me she and Dad were going to be gone on a business trip. Mom would wait till the night before their departure and then spring it on me. I hated this. But this is what I do to Mom today, not having been able to find the right moment to share my departure with her earlier in the week.
"Mom," I say, "I'm going to go over to Idaho for Christmas."
Mom says nothing, so I'm not sure if she's heard me.
"Did you hear me Mom?" I repeat, "I'm going to be gone for ten days."
After all the activity of card making, Mom's tired. Her head is tilted back awkwardly onto her pillow, hair flat with "pillow head" rather than curled and poofy as she prefers. From my chair I can see her eyes are closed to just a slit. Her mouth gapes open like she's exclaiming "Oh" but no sound is escaping. She's not asleep but rather in that intermediate zone where she's awake but not fully following what's going on around her. When she answers me, her speech comes out fuzzy, like how your lips move when you've been out in the cold too long. Nothing is clear or enunciated. Instead, her words sound numb, lumbering. Difficult to understand.
"You..you," she slurs.
"Me what, Mom?" I respond.
"You...you...always..."
"What Mom?" I ask again, though really I'd rather not know what's troubling her mind. Whatever it is, it can't be something I want to hear. So I have to will myself to stay where I am, in this designer chair by the side of Mom's bed here at the Mirabella, will myself to listen to what she might have to say.
"Leave..." she then adds. "You...leave."
"What are you talking about Mom," I spout back to her, annoyed that this is her conclusion about me when in my way of thinking it's her son Eric who has left, chosen not to engage in a difficult and, at times, disagreeable process of dying. I've been here everyday for her. Any days I've missed I've called in and talked to her. I'm here and have been for the last three months.
"You know...know...gone gone."
This is something she's doing lately, repeating words twice, right in a row, like "gone gone."
"Gone where?" I ask.
"Away away," she answers, wrinkling her forehead, twisting her lips into an exaggerated frown.
I don't say anything at first, not sure of how to answer. 'Away' where, I ask myself? How have I left Mom? When I moved to eastern Washington to accept a job just out of law school? When I eloped and married my husband? When I launched a life for myself, separate from her and my brother's family? Which of these are the treacheries she refers to? None of them seem the act of disloyalty Mom chooses to see. Instead, they are life processes--of growing up, moving away, starting a life. What is so nefarious in this?
"No," I say to her. "You're wrong. I'm right here Mom, always have been."
"No," she says back to me. "NO...NO...NO."
We sit with this for a time, minutes at least. I wonder at what she's thinking. Her grief is obvious. My defection this Christmas fits a pattern for her, of being gone when she wants me to stay. But this has never been anything we can discuss. Nor can we talk about her responses to my "leaving" or to anything else for that matter that doesn't please her. Mom's famous shunning.
"I need to have some down time," I tell her then, deciding to ignore her rebuke. "Time away. You can understand can't you?"
Mom says nothing to this, her eyes now decidedly closed. There's breath coming from her mouth as I can hear a sigh each time she breathes out, so loud it almost speaks a language.
I think about what Lorna told me several days ago, about how the last few weeks Mom has received ghostly visits from her Mom, her Dad. "They sit on the bed, my dear," Lorna told me, "and your Mom talks away." I was stunned by this. While I've heard of such things, visitations before people pass away, I had not considered the fact that Mom would be dying sometime soon. Her doctor has given her a year or maybe two. What could this mean? Ironic, I think, that on the eve of Mom's own passing, the people she has loved the most come back to her. There's no placating Mom's grief over the unnecessary death of her mother in 1936 and the later death of her father when I am eight years old. These are all leavings for her--people who have gone before Mom was ready to let them go. The difference is, Mom doesn't blame her Mom, her Dad for their unwanted departures, not like what she's accusing me of here tonight--of leaving her when I don't need to be gone. There's bitterness reserved here for me, but for her mother and her father there's just grief at the unfairness of life. Why is this?
We say nothing more. Mom's silence works like a guilt, causing me to question what I've planned, what I need for myself. My ticket was purchased back in July, long before Mom's stroke. Deciding to pack a suitcase and get on that plane on Saturday, however, are different matters all together than that earlier ticket purchase. They are acts of defection that require me to put aside my worry about Mom, my interest in her having as full a life as possible for as long as she can. They are acts that say--this is my life and I need to live it as best as I can. The question is whether I'm ready to do this, to say this to Mom.
I can't help but think of those times Mom left me to travel with Dad. At the time, I could not understand why she would choose to go with my father and leave me behind. The imperfections of a child's perspective. Now, sitting by the side of her bed, I can see we have come full circle. I am the parent saying--I need to leave but I will return. And she is the child saying, selfishly--I can't stand your leaving, please don't go.
I grab hold of Mom's right hand. It isn't easy as she has it tucked securely under her sheets. I grab the fingers and pull it gently out to rest on her duvet.
"Mom," I say to, as I squeeze her hand. "Mom, I love you. I need to go, but I'll be back. I promise. You understand don't you?"
Mom doesn't say a thing. Her eyes stay shut tight. Her breath comes light now, sleep-like, barely something I can hear. I have to lean forward to feel the rhythmic sigh of air on my face before I know for sure she's still here, still my Mom.
We sit like this for a very long time. My asking. Her not answering. Mother daughter. No longer the same at all.
When I say goodbye, she turns her cheeks from me, avoiding my lips and the lipstick moons I meant to leave behind.
I kiss her anyway. Whether she wants me to or not.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
these four walls
"Looks like a cemetery," I say aloud to the drizzle and the damp.
It's mid-December but the air's still warm and wet--the freeze we had for the last week-and-a-half is long since gone. I'm standing on the now-vacant lot of 3100 Evergreen Point Road, the place in Medina my parent's bought on contract in 1951 and transformed into a family compound. I've eked my way through a eight foot cyclone fence that had been erected to keep people like me out--curious, interested bystanders who might have something to say about the demolition going on inside. There's mud on the asphalt, mud rimming my black boots and in the distance I can here the hum of heavy machinery, ripping into one of the structures on the Barbie's property--I don't even look to see what structure is coming down, because I don't really want to know. I just stand there, in my muddy boots, in the rain, and take in what was once a house, a life.
This morning early I received a call from my sister-in-law. "It's gone," she said. I mean totally gone."
"What's gone," I asked her.
"The house, both houses," she told me. "I saw it this morning coming over 520--I couldn't see the Barbie's house anymore. Just a patch of dirt. So I drove by on the way to my meeting."
I couldn't read my sister-in-law's voice--this property in Medina was her home for nearly the duration of her marriage and yet her voice sounded neutral, informational--like this could be any one's home that's now razed to the ground and she was just reporting the facts.
We knew this moment would come--that's why the state purchased the property, after all. But still, so many months have passed since the sale closed. I'd begun to fantasize that maybe the house, my childhood home, would stand, despite the facts suggesting otherwise.
I wonder why Terry has called me to impart this news--not that I'm complaining. I'm glad she did. But what am I to her? Since the debacle of Thanksgiving, when Terry and her family celebrated this day with Mom but without inviting me, she has started calling, leaving voice mails, offering bits of information behind like breadcrumbs. Why? I don't have an answer.
It's been months since I've driven down Evergreen Point Road headed towards Mom's house. For those weeks in March and April of this year, I made this drive everyday, sometimes several times a day, trying to unload Mom's house of all her "things." I'd arrive early in the morning, before my moving help got there, and begin to sort yet another box of dirty, discarded objects. I never wore gloves so by the end of the day there was grime under my nails. My fingers and hands and arms were a quiver of pulled muscles from the boxes I'd lifted, sorted, carried outside and set down on the asphalt in the system of piles I'd developed: recycle, dump, hazardous waste, Mom's new house, my house, Eric's storage shed, Mom's garage. I'd seen this as a job to get done--I had to. In my mind, I decontextualized everything--tried to ignore this was a door my father hung or the slate floor my parents resealed every spring, or the stove Mom cooked eggs over easy for my father every morning. There was no other way through.
It wasn't until the night before the estate sale in late April that it finally hit me, ran me over--this is my family's home, my home, and by the end of the weekend there would be just these four walls standing, so to speak. Nothing else. All that belonged to my family would be sold or taken to the dump. I'd stood there, amidst the jumble of the items marked with orange stickers saying $1.00, $8.00, $50.00, "Best offer," and felt the weight of the years--a ballast keeping me anchored down. Was I drowning in the ruble or was this junk, these "finds" all that was left of a precious life? I'd begun grabbing then, fitting my hands around a stuffed brown velor bear with orange embroidered eyes I'd had in grade school, two Nancy Drew mysteries I'd read in junior high, a yellow smiley T-shirt I'd bought on family vacation, a red faux-leather belted coat I'd worn at age six or seven, well-used pink toe shoes and a netted purple tutu I sported for a performance at Cornish School for the Arts. Even a rusted iron outdoor side table (without glass top) made it's way into the back of my car. I grabbed at all of these and more and began stuffing them into garbage bags. There was no stopping my reclamation project. Not even knowing I was in violation of the contract with the estate sale handlers could hold me back. According to what I signed, all items now belonged to the estate handlers and any items taken after they assumed possession would have to be purchased at fair market value. I had no intention of "paying" for any of these items--they were mine. I bought them, wore them, lived with them. A common law right to everything that was appurtenant to my life.
It was late, the house almost dark, and still I searched for the things that were my life. No one else there. Just the sobs rolling my tongue, filling my family's wall to overcapacity. I've never felt such desperation.
It's mid-December but the air's still warm and wet--the freeze we had for the last week-and-a-half is long since gone. I'm standing on the now-vacant lot of 3100 Evergreen Point Road, the place in Medina my parent's bought on contract in 1951 and transformed into a family compound. I've eked my way through a eight foot cyclone fence that had been erected to keep people like me out--curious, interested bystanders who might have something to say about the demolition going on inside. There's mud on the asphalt, mud rimming my black boots and in the distance I can here the hum of heavy machinery, ripping into one of the structures on the Barbie's property--I don't even look to see what structure is coming down, because I don't really want to know. I just stand there, in my muddy boots, in the rain, and take in what was once a house, a life.
This morning early I received a call from my sister-in-law. "It's gone," she said. I mean totally gone."
"What's gone," I asked her.
"The house, both houses," she told me. "I saw it this morning coming over 520--I couldn't see the Barbie's house anymore. Just a patch of dirt. So I drove by on the way to my meeting."
I couldn't read my sister-in-law's voice--this property in Medina was her home for nearly the duration of her marriage and yet her voice sounded neutral, informational--like this could be any one's home that's now razed to the ground and she was just reporting the facts.
We knew this moment would come--that's why the state purchased the property, after all. But still, so many months have passed since the sale closed. I'd begun to fantasize that maybe the house, my childhood home, would stand, despite the facts suggesting otherwise.
I wonder why Terry has called me to impart this news--not that I'm complaining. I'm glad she did. But what am I to her? Since the debacle of Thanksgiving, when Terry and her family celebrated this day with Mom but without inviting me, she has started calling, leaving voice mails, offering bits of information behind like breadcrumbs. Why? I don't have an answer.
It's been months since I've driven down Evergreen Point Road headed towards Mom's house. For those weeks in March and April of this year, I made this drive everyday, sometimes several times a day, trying to unload Mom's house of all her "things." I'd arrive early in the morning, before my moving help got there, and begin to sort yet another box of dirty, discarded objects. I never wore gloves so by the end of the day there was grime under my nails. My fingers and hands and arms were a quiver of pulled muscles from the boxes I'd lifted, sorted, carried outside and set down on the asphalt in the system of piles I'd developed: recycle, dump, hazardous waste, Mom's new house, my house, Eric's storage shed, Mom's garage. I'd seen this as a job to get done--I had to. In my mind, I decontextualized everything--tried to ignore this was a door my father hung or the slate floor my parents resealed every spring, or the stove Mom cooked eggs over easy for my father every morning. There was no other way through.
It wasn't until the night before the estate sale in late April that it finally hit me, ran me over--this is my family's home, my home, and by the end of the weekend there would be just these four walls standing, so to speak. Nothing else. All that belonged to my family would be sold or taken to the dump. I'd stood there, amidst the jumble of the items marked with orange stickers saying $1.00, $8.00, $50.00, "Best offer," and felt the weight of the years--a ballast keeping me anchored down. Was I drowning in the ruble or was this junk, these "finds" all that was left of a precious life? I'd begun grabbing then, fitting my hands around a stuffed brown velor bear with orange embroidered eyes I'd had in grade school, two Nancy Drew mysteries I'd read in junior high, a yellow smiley T-shirt I'd bought on family vacation, a red faux-leather belted coat I'd worn at age six or seven, well-used pink toe shoes and a netted purple tutu I sported for a performance at Cornish School for the Arts. Even a rusted iron outdoor side table (without glass top) made it's way into the back of my car. I grabbed at all of these and more and began stuffing them into garbage bags. There was no stopping my reclamation project. Not even knowing I was in violation of the contract with the estate sale handlers could hold me back. According to what I signed, all items now belonged to the estate handlers and any items taken after they assumed possession would have to be purchased at fair market value. I had no intention of "paying" for any of these items--they were mine. I bought them, wore them, lived with them. A common law right to everything that was appurtenant to my life.
It was late, the house almost dark, and still I searched for the things that were my life. No one else there. Just the sobs rolling my tongue, filling my family's wall to overcapacity. I've never felt such desperation.
So now, eight months later, I'm here again. Only there's nothing here but the rubble of a house. Bricks chipped and split. Concrete cracked and splintered into unrecognizable pieces. The foundation is here, but only the remnants. I walk carefully the perimeter, tracing the rooms I know so well. Kitchen leads to hallway leads to dining room leads to back hallway leads to my bedroom and my brother's bedrooms. These spaces look so small--impossible they could have held all these people, all these years. I'm told foundation are deceptive in this way, never look their actual size until the wallboard and 2x4 are in place. As I'm stepping through the concrete wreckage, I work to avoid the crumbled mortar and busted-up brick. There's so much here to distract. To my right is what is left of the family room fireplace. I can see it even though I'm standing in Peter's room. With no walls one's sight becomes 20/20. I remember stories about Dad building this fireplace, about the art of laying a level foundation for all the rest of the bricks to follow. The beers he and my uncle drank, as they put on the roof--Carlsberg Black Label Beer. I don't think this is made anymore. What must it have been like to see the walls buckle, the concrete split, the shingles pulverized under the pressure of a backhoe, a bulldozer. How did this house come down? This is not something I will ever know.
Maybe there aren't words for the death of a house. Every thought, every linguistic manifestation seems inadequate. It's an erasure--my parents' energies, time, money all reduced to dirt. Earth to house, house to earth. An imperfect weave. And there will be nothing to visit--no grave marker for the lives lived here. I can't come visit, imagine another family living in these walls, knock on the front door and ask to have a peak inside just to remind myself of what was once here. Soon there will be nothing here, not even this scraggle of a foundation. A bridge will be built, concrete will cover the ground. No room for a sigh or a groan. Just the silence of a man-made invention, and then of course the whine and howl of traffic as commuters make their everyday way to work and back home over territory that once held a family's living, breathing life.
So perhaps I'm wrong, this ruptured ground is not a cemetery. Not at all. I won't be visiting a grave like where my father's buried at Walshelli. I won't even be returning to weep, because what will there be to see--eight lanes of traffic converging on the northern shore of Lake Washington. I don't miss the irony, of course, how my father battled tooth and nail against the erection of the original 520 bridge, fighting with local cities and ultimately the state. He was one voice against the machine of progress. Mom has saved all the clippings. I found them on one of our many forays into Mom's "keepsake" boxes. Now, thirty years after his death, the 520 expansion literally swallows him whole--finishes the job it began back in 1960 when the first bridge was built. There's nothing left except the trees that had overgrown the house over the years--monstrous specimens of laurels and rhododendrons and magnolias and ornamental maples. Large enough to have shielded this house from change, from the passage of years. But in the end they couldn't.
I've taken photos, but the rain and my shaking hands make the resolution less than legible. So really there will just be what I remember in my head. Memory will have to be enough. As I restart my car to head back over 520 to see Mom, I drive slowly past the moss encroached walkway leading to a now-absent front door, the sleek laurel hedge some twenty feet tall separating our property from the Elliots, the off-white stone near the side of the road bearing the numbers "3100." I can't cry enough tears. I just can't. My family's life plowed under, making way for the next crop, the next public need. The factivity of this is so great, it temporarily overwhelms the logic of my own brain, the logic that tells me we are not the walls we live in, home cannot be a piece of ground.
But here I am, all the same. Alone. Wailing in the midst of the demolition, a river of tears at my feet.
Certain I can never go home.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
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