Observations, reflections, commentary.

Favorite Things

Medbh

Oonagh

Mornings with Mother are an “iffy” proposition. One is never quite sure who she is going to be. Or where in her muddled version of geography. Or, more importantly, when. Time and space seem to have have converged into a single mass of possibilities for her, as if she can say “Today I will be seven” and make it so.

One morning not long after she moved in with us, I came down to find her walls totally denuded of all the pictures and art that her oldest grandson had lovingly hung for her. Pictures of her family, ocean scenes she had painted, shots from her two trips to Europe – all were piled carefully on her bed and wrapped up in her bedclothes – a neat, if unwieldy packet.

Now, we were not without imagination. We had assessed her furniture and very carefully removed anything that could be used as a ladder from her room when we moved her in. All that remained were stolid over-stuffed chairs, a couch, a steamer trunk full of bedding, a bureau and her bed. No stools, no side chairs. Mother is barely 5 feet tall and weighs in at about 110. She smiled at me brightly. I did not want to think about how she had managed to get the pictures off the walls.

“All set to pack up.”

“Where are you going?”

“We have to be out by this afternoon, you know.”

“We do?”

“Well, of course! We can’t stay here forever. We have to get home.” She was absolutely serious.

“This is home, Mum.” I waved my hand around us. “You live with us now.”

Confusion swept across her face like a storm. “I do?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Why?”

I have never been good at answering this question. “Because you are incompetent,” just doesn’t sound like something one should say to anyone, much less to your own mother. I try for distraction.

“Let’s get these all back on the walls. shall we?”

She picked up a random picture and considerd it. It is a picture of Munich. She and her one of best friends of 40+ years are posing with Helmut, a family friend. “Where did these come from? Who are these people?”

“That’s Ruth. And that’s Helmut. You remember Helmut? My friend from Munich?”

Her blank stare testifies to the fact that she does not remember anything. That her connection to her memories is broken…or at best re-routed along unexpected pathways.

It is like that most mornings. In sleep she seems to have lost herself completely for a while. On good days she will slowly find her way back again to some semblance of who she is. On bad days, she is forever wandering from one misconception to another.

But, this morning she was herself. The fact that she had on mis-matched socks – Where does she hide them! I swear I have found them all and put them downstairs, but she always seems to be able to find one that she has squirreled away. Not two, mind you…always just one – and her sweater on backwards seems inconsequential in the face of her smile and a ready “Good morning!”

At 90, she was the toast of her assisted living facility. She headed up the library committee. She went to the opera. She took college courses. She painted. She dined out. She played bridge, hand-and-foot, and rummy so well she was banned from the novice table. She organized day-trips. She still had a lovely soprano voice and was not afraid to use it.

By 91, her daily routine was a struggle that defeated her most of the time. She forgot to go to dinner. She lost weight. Her last friends from World War II died. She stopped going out. Finally, in a last-ditch effort to keep her out of a nursing home (her greatest fear in life) we moved her in with us.

At 93, she remembers nothing from one minute to the next, cannot follow simple instructions (please put on your night gown) without someone right there to remind her of every move, and has a penchant for hiding things (left-over supper in her slippers if I don’t get there soon enough – eyeglasses under her pillow – shoes in the tub).

She will wander away – to anywhere – if left alone for more than a minute. After 3 panic-stricken searches up and down the street, I came to understand why great-aunt Mary was locked in the attic. We have to keep a constant eye on her or lock her door so we can visit the bathroom for a minute or two. This is not an exaggeration. For someone who hobbles about with a walker, she can move faster than anyone I know when the idea strikes her.

It isn’t Alzheimer’s, they say, because she was so advanced in age when it hit. Senile dementia they call it. And lots of little strokes – TIAs, they call them. Splitting hairs, I call it. Should we feel better that it isn’t the big “A”? “SD” has more letters and is just as big in my life.

Daily we must wrestle with: How much longer can we keep her with us? And who is she, now, anyway? Certainly not the woman who bore us, or raised us, or followed her husband across country and back during the War, or drove a tank-destroyer across the parade ground at Fort McHenry, or taught 5th grade to hundreds of children who adored her, or climbed on a plane at 85 to visit Ireland and Germany. She is none of those people.

I look into her watery blue eyes trying to see who is there and no one looks back. No love, no hate, no fear, no desire…no soul peers out at the world. It has all been purloined by time.

Anyway…they are [delicate]. I am [beginning]. This is [both].

More tomorrow…

It was Muad’dib in Dune (Paul). Now I feel better.