“You would look so much better with a facelift,” Mom announces, like she has never said this before, reaching out and thoughtfully touching one of my crinkled eyes. “I could pay for it!”
“Thanks, Mom! That is so nice of you,” I answer, taking her hand, “but you know, if you gave me that money, I’d be off to France!” I give her hand a kiss and place it back in her lap.
Mom laughs and shakes her head. I tell her how well she looks, and she admits she feels better here. “But I miss my friends from that other place!” There were four wings and several hundred people in the last nursing facility, including the medical personnel. Mom likes people watching, so I don’t doubt she misses “her friends.” But what she really misses, my sisters have told me, is the vending machine down the hall from her room. After winning a handful of quarters at Bingo, my candy-bingin’ mom would roll herself right up to that vending machine and impatiently wait for all the sweets she could afford to plop into the tray, the last thing her ailing kidneys needed.
After lunch Mom is drowsy and I encourage a nap in bed, but she won’t have it since I am visiting. She closes her eyes and sits quietly for a few moments. I sit in front of her, silent, thinking she may be dozing off.
Suddenly, in a voice that hints of barely controlled anger, Mom states, “I have never understood why you and your sister said those awful things about your dad. You broke my heart.”
Coming to quick attention, I ask, “What things, Mom?” In over two decades, this is only the fourth time Mom has broached this particular conversation and accused me of breaking her heart, and Dad’s as well. Although I know what she means by “those things,” I would like to hear her say the words out loud. Twenty-five years ago, I began speaking about my memories of sexual abuse by Dad. Mom persists in denying these accusations and says my sister and I are both crazy for bringing up such nonsense.
“Oh, you know what I’m talking about!” she hisses.
Long, tense moments pass. I sit there and consider what to say that could help and not ruin this visit, what would be sensitive to Mom, and also be supportive to myself. “Do you know how much I was hurt when those things happened? Do you know how hard it’s been for me to live with those memories?” I notice even I am hesitant to say the words “sexual abuse.” Part of me is afraid Mom will reach out and slap me like she did when I was in high school and told her I’d had a dream of Dad hovering over my bed.
“He could have been put in prison for what you said! Your father was a good man. He did not do what you say he did!”
“I know Dad was a good man, Mom … and he was also a very confused and angry man.” I take a gulp of air before adding, “And I also believe he sexually abused me.”
A huge block of sadness hits my gut. Maybe if I burst into tears, let Mom see the blathering, crying, muddled mess I have been for so long in my life. Let her see what it’s like when I catapult into wondering what the fuck is wrong with me, why I am so depressed, why I can’t seem to get better, why I sometimes still consider killing myself? I can’t stand being a woman, now in her sixties, who has barely figured out how to live with all this, who still feels such pain recognizing my mom’s complicity with what happened between my dad and me. Setting my abuse memories aside, except in therapy, and rarely talking about them, perpetuates these experiences as damaging secrets, which is yet another kind of trauma.
But I breathe deeply, and, in front of my steely-eyed, self-righteous mom, I let go of that desire to cry. Mom, always proud that she doesn’t cry, has even bragged how she once stood up to Dad’s rage after he tried to strangle her. I do not want to waste my tears with her. She is an old woman, Dad has died, and I am on the verge of pulling it together for the first time in my life with therapeutic assistance, medications, and my own dedicated willingness to be healthy. But waving the flag of sexual abuse in front of my mother’s face and demanding she admit to what she allowed to happen in our lives, such a confession does not even feel like a remote possibility. In a way, I am still afraid of her wrath, and of her not loving me. With Dad dead, I want to believe she now chooses me over him, even if she claims what I say happened never really happened. All of this is so difficult to explain, and even harder to live.
Finally, after an uncomfortably long silence, I ask, “What if I sing a few songs?” I have often sung to Mom throughout our lives and especially now after learning a large repertoire of comforting songs with Threshold Choirs during the last four years. I feel desperate for comfort. As a toddler and throughout my adolescence and teens, I would rock and sing in efforts to calm down. Right now, I don’t know what else to do but sing.
“Fine,” Mom snips with her eyes closed.
I begin singing, alternately watching Mom and her birds. Paula claims to fill that feeder daily. I can see why with the mob of birds out there. I sing softly, lingering over words, humming some verses when tears well up. Taking long pauses between songs, I slowly and softly begin a new one and sing it several times. My breath deepens, and my heart lets go of that awful, familiar squeeze of anxiety. Even the birds seem to not be in such a frenzy now, and Mom’s breathing no longer sounds like a strained rubber band about to snap.
Singing this song, blesses me …
Singing with you, blesses us …
My heart is searching for your heart …
Your heart is letting me find you.25
On the second time around with this particular song, I notice a tear rolling down Mom’s cheek. Maybe her eyes are simply watering?
But then I notice a fat tear slide down the other cheek.
I have never seen my mother cry.
With eyes shut tight, she reaches up, wipes away one tear with the end of a sleeve, then the other, and continues to sit quietly, almost stoically.
Two tears. There and gone in an instant.
I am stunned. Mom cries? I feel a sense of relief, but I am not sure if that is because I realize she is able to cry, or because the crying might be a sign of remorse, or even an admission of her complicity. Her crying could mean she is acknowledging her own pain about what happened in her home. That she is finally being open to her own feelings about her husband having sex with a daughter. Then again, what if it is only a response from that broken heart she accuses me of breaking?
I finish the song to Mom’s dry eyes. It feels calm and peaceful in her room. The birds have emptied the birdfeeder, the remaining few foraging on the ground. I hear Mom stir and take a deep breath.
In a low guttural growl, like she is just waking up, Mom demands, “I want you to sing to me when I’m dyin’.”
“Absolutely,” I assure her. And I mean it.
THE LAST SONG
April, 2015 (age 62)—Sherman, Texas
Mom is in a rehab nursing facility, her room directly across from the head nurse’s office. As I peer around the corner into this new room, behind me, the head nurse—her hand stuck in a bag of potato chips—informs me Mom is in Physical Therapy—back down the hall and take a right.
Nice to meet you, too, I think. My sisters, who are taking some time off after two intense weeks of visiting and providing care for Mom, warned me that this was not the most hospitable of places. I really do want to feel better about these impersonal, corporate-owned nursing facilities, but in comparison to Just Like Home, I already feel like this place sucks.
Mom is riding a bike in physical therapy. I wince watching her through the glass pane. The pedaling is torture, and her face is contorted in pain. My eighty-nine-year-old mother, who has abhorred exercise her entire life, who has been in a wheelchair for the last two years, is now forced to exercise after hip surgery two weeks ago. I feel sorry for her, sorry she tripped on the blanket dragging beside her bed that led to surgery that led to another nursing facility that led to that damn bike.
After she is assisted back into a wheelchair, I enter the PT area and offer to roll her back to her room. No smile from Mom greets me, only a grimace. She keeps her eyes closed until we are in her room
. I turn her wheelchair around to face me as I sit on her bed.
“Did you fly out here just to see me?” Mom demands, finally opening her eyes.
“Yep, you’re right about that.”
“Well, there’s not much to see but an old lady in a lot of pain.”
At least Mom isn’t crammed into a tiny room with a roommate, like at the last rehab place, nor propped up in a dining area with her mouth hanging open, like Dad and the other old vets at the Veterans Home. I suggest a walk and roll, and I am soon pushing Mom around the joint’s three halls, past the gift shop, beauty shop, library, and into the small, superficial Disney-like chapel. I roll her around so she is beside me as I sit in a quaint, tiny wooden pew. If only I could lower the overhead lights, light a few candles, and push a button for some background harp music. Anything to soften the mood.
“I’m sorry you fell and broke your hip, Mom.”
Mom looks at me with a scowl on her face. “Not much I can do about that now.” She looks around discouragingly at the large paintings of archangels hanging on the chapel walls and pulls her blanket up closer like the angels are about to descend upon her. It is chilly in the chapel with the ACs cranked up to counter this hot April Texas day.
“I just wish I could die,” she mutters in a gruff voice.
I take that comment at face value, and understand the sentiment, but still pause before answering. “Well, the only thing you can do to make that happen is to decide to stop eating and drinking. I will tell you more about that, Mom, if you really want to know.”
Mom gives me one of her Oh-aren’t-you-a-little-smart-ass looks. I have mentioned VSED (Voluntary Stop Eating and Drinking) to her before, and she accused me of trying to play God.
“Your other choice is to do all you can in physical therapy to help that hip heal and lay off the sweets, since your kidneys aren’t doing well.” I know neither of these things is likely, but I feel like I have to lay out some kind of alternative strategy. I mean, here we are, now whadawedo?
Back in her room, I encourage Mom to sip some water, but she ignores me. She closes her eyes and lets the pain medications a nurse is administering course through her body. The nurse leaves and after a few minutes of silence her eyes pop open, she looks straight at me and, in all seriousness, announces, “Somewhere in there we missed a step with you,” like that explains it all. I laugh and ask what step that might have been, but Mom has already shut her eyes and stays mum.
The next day Mom has a post-surgery appointment with the orthopedic surgeon who performed her hip replacement. In a mighty Texas downpour, she is loaded into the facility’s bus and driven to his office. I follow in my car, windshield wipers thumping wildly, then jump out in time to hold an umbrella over Mom as she is unloaded and rolled off the bus. There is no overhang at the medical building and the door isn’t automatic, so someone kindly holds the door for us while I clumsily try to keep the umbrella over Mom and wheel her inside. Geez, there are a bunch of orthopedists in this building; didn’t they consider how automatic doors would assist their patients? We are both dripping wet. The AC is set for the heat of the preceding day and it is ridiculously frigid. Mom shivers as I brush the water off and pull the damp blanket up across her shoulders.
Where are the archangels when we need them?
She isn’t very communicative, and I suspect she has been dosed with substantial painkillers for the day’s journey. The office gives us a dry blanket and doesn’t make us wait long in the reception area. Mom seems warm by the time the doc makes it into our little room. She nods but says little as I tell him about her excruciating pain, and how she keeps saying she thinks her knee is broken, too. The doc says he will ask the rehab facility for a knee X-ray, and also have her pain meds increased.
“How old is your mother?” I blurt out while the guy is writing some notes.
The doc looks up, surprised by my question, and answers, “Ninety.”
“And if your mother fell and broke her hip, would you recommend surgery for her at that age?” I have been struggling to understand the rationale for surgery on any previously inactive, wheelchair-bound, already medically compromised older person.
I continue to stare blankly at him and he hesitates. “No, I wouldn’t,” he admits. “But I explained everything to your sister, and she talked to your mother, and they chose to have the surgery.”
I sigh, looking at this doctor who is looking at Mom, who has nodded off. He looks down at his lap, then up at me.
“I do understand how hard all of this can be. Let’s keep your mother medicated for the pain, encourage the PT when possible, and do what we can to make her comfortable.” The doc’s responses feel authentic, and I thank him for that.
It is still raining outside, only now the parking lot is flooded. A river of water rushes under the bus ramp. Mom gives the entire scene the stink-eye as a wheezing, overweight aide pushes her up the steep, slippery incline into the vehicle. I meet her at the unloading dock back at the rehab facility. Once inside her room, I dry her off and help her change into a warm sweater, then ask if she would like to eat in the dining hall or in her room.
“Oh, let’s go see who there is to see around here,” she grumbles, always one to take in a crowd. I am surprised she wants to go since she has been in so much pain but guess it is because she is still dressed for the doc appointment, and not in her nightgown like normal. Might as well eat out.
We finally find two places in a sea of occupied round tables. I notice Mom’s sweater has stains from a previous meal and is unevenly buttoned. I should have checked it, but does anyone care? Although I try having a conversation with her, she is more interested in looking around. I ask the only occupant at our table, an elderly man, how he is, but he just stares at me.
“Can’t you talk?” Mom barks. He looks at her, then me, then at his lap. A server shows up and greets him kindly, placing a bib around his neck and mentioning how nice that he has some company today. Mom’s food is placed in front of her and I wave away any for me, offering to help feed the gentleman at our table while encouraging Mom to eat some of her meal. She pushes her food around, butters the roll and mops up some gravy, and then spots the dessert cart loaded with pies. Her sweet tooth is still alive and well.
After Mom finishes her pie, and her tablemate’s, we head back to her room. Now she wants to lie down but screams in pain as the aides move her out of her wheelchair, onto a bedside toilet, then into the bed. After hollering again as supportive devices are arranged for her in the bed, finally a nurse comes in to give Mom the increased pain meds the doc prescribed.
Mom closes her eyes and refuses to look at me. A scowling look contorts her face. I sit quietly for a while, then ask her if she would like me to sing for her. She does not answer, so I close her door, pull up a chair close to her bed, and begin singing softly.
So many angels all around me …
So many angels, it’s you I see …
So many angels gathered around …
So many angels, it’s you I’ve found.26
Soon her breath indicates she is asleep, and I kiss her forehead then stand back and look at her. Memories course through my head: how Mom sewed me beautiful clothes for years; regularly enclosed cash in her letters as I worked my way through college; continued to write me throughout the decades; came and helped me after an emergency hysterectomy when I lived alone; and was always welcoming and kind to any man or woman—friend or lover or spouse—to whom I introduced her.
Right now, the staff here sure would not put Mom in the angel category. But most people are not very angelic when they are in intense pain. Mom is a veteran of pain. I have often thought one reason she chose to deny the sexual abuse in our house was in order to survive. I believe she wanted to be happy, like the dainty powder-blue bluebirds she drew and meticulously cut out for homemade cards and craft projects.
Mom recognized my pain, too, and there were times when it seemed she genuinely wanted me to feel better. She was aware of the
many episodes of deep depression in my adult life, both before and after I had spoken about the sexual abuse. After we reconnected, she expressed concern about my despair and instability, unless I spoke of the abuse, and then she labeled the accusations nonsense and called me crazy.
She never said she believed me.
The next day, due to Mom’s increased levels of discomfort and pain, PT is skipped. Because I can smell her, I repeatedly ask a nurse and aides when Mom last had a bed bath. No one will answer my question so, finally, three aides and I attempt to give Mom a bath. This is a formidable task. With her arms swinging amidst loud and excruciating screams of pain, it becomes clear to me why these aides have ignored cleaning Mom, even while changing her adult diaper. Despite Mom’s resistance, these kind women continue to talk to her softly and try to assuage her discomfort.
“Patricia, why are you doing this to me?” Mom shrieks in her angriest of voices. I am so sorry I thought a bath was necessary, but having my mom smell so badly felt confusing and disheartening. Even the dying deserve dignity.
After all the commotion, the nurse recommends adjusting Mom’s pain meds again, and I understand. I remember the doctor’s last words: “Let’s just do our best to keep her comfortable.”
Finally, Mom is clean and changed. When the hubbub is all done, I stand beside her bed and run my fingers through her damp snowy hair. She moans in a medicated stupor. “Who are all these people in here?”
“We’re all alone now, Mom. Everyone has left.”
“We are not! There are people sitting right here on my bed!” she hollers, her eyes big.
I am not about to argue with her. Maybe there are people I can’t see, like her beloved long-dead sister, or her father and mother, or even my dad. Right there, offering her comfort as she did for them, sitting bedside near the ends of their lives.
I dab some face cream across her forehead and cheeks, aware of how even the slightest pressure bunches up her paper-thin skin. She opens her eyes and seems genuinely surprised to find me standing there. “You came all the way from Colorado just to see me?”
Being Mean Page 27