I asked her, "So Eszter, how is it working out for you so far?" Her smile was wide, her teeth too nervous to stand straight in their gums.
"Id'z working out fine. Id'z good for me. Your mother iz so sweet. She iz a pleasure to service." She talked a little bit about herself, her upbringing, her life in Poland and her children who still lived in Europe. She talked about her dead husband who was now living with the angels. The door was opened and I slid into her conversation with ease that I almost felt guilty in what I was about to do.
"My mother has an angel watching over her, also... her father. He was a gypsy man with a great many powers on both sides...”
I leaned over the table and warmly cupped the top of her hand with mine. I felt the handcuffing gesture of connection between us fit nicely into the story. “…if you know what I mean.”
“God, he loved my mother…AND still does to this day. From the time he died he never left her side, guiding her and protecting her from anyone who would have harmful intentions towards her. One time a man stole a twenty-dollar bill out of the side pocket of my mother's purse. And that happened in church. Church! A frigin’ church for Christ’s sake! Can you believe that? You think he’d know better! Well, that guy got into an accident on the way home and ended up in the hospital. He didn't die or anything. My grandfather was not a revengeful man. He just wanted this thief to know that he should have never messed with his daughter... my mother. I think he lost a leg or got paralyzed or something like that. I know angels, especially dead relative angels. They can certainly be wonderful protectors. Insurance."
I was on a roll. Another story followed with barely a breath between. That night Eszter left and never returned. She called the next day and said her daughter needed her and in being a good mother she would have to quit her job and put her child's needs first. For a week I listened to the radio’s traffic reports with more interest.
Eszter.
Previous Caregiver: Elba. Elba was 5 feet 7 inches tall, 35 and not married. Don’t know why she was single, she was very attractive and appeared very approachable. Her hair was auburn, braided close to her skull and gathered in the nape of her neck. Her eyes were dark green like emeralds, clean and polished as if they were precious stones.
JOB DESCRIPTION: Support in the daily activities for a kind woman with dementia. Assistance with bathing, grooming, dressing and eating; basic companionship and interactive communication required. look out for the physical safety of restrictions on food. No need to give medications. Flexible hours. Car needed. Willing to stay with patient on occasion throughout the night. Live-In preferred. No energy jugglers. Criminal background check required. Caregiver must the patient. No REASON FOR DISMISSAL: Sleep disorder. About 3:30 or 4 in the morning, there were loud noises coming from upstairs. I ran into the room and noticed my mother was fully dressed sitting on the couch as if she were sitting on a bus stop bench. In her hand was the remote that she was feverously trying to operate. The TV was blaring.
“Mom, what’s going on? What are you doing?” “I can’t get this God damn remote to work.”
Without physically acknowledging that I had entered the room, in a loud whisper she added, “Shhh, she’s sleeping.” She pointed to Elba without turning her head from the business in hand. Elba was sound asleep in my mother’s hospital bed next to the couch. This happened twice.
Elba.
23. SOVINA Sovina's hair was thick, black and wild, barely kept in check by an elastic band. Her eyes were like jet-black marbles filled with the reflection of gas jets. At first meeting, she looked familiar, as if I’d seen her before. She was painterly interesting, thick, full and colorful like Caravaggio's painting of Mary Magdalene. And there was a fine-ness about her. She could have easily worked in palaces caring for the children and lady mothers of royalty.
Sovina wore two-pocketed shirts with tiny soft patterns and slacks. "Good morning, Mrs. Violet. Are you ready to start the day?" Every word was toned in sweetness.
Sovina was the first one up in the morning. She would help Violet into her wheelchair, take her to the toilet and make breakfast – soft eggs that folded in on each other with smooth walls and one serving of Ensure. While Violet sipped the butter-pecan drink, Sovina would clean Violet’s bed. White sheets would billow in the air like winged parachutes as Sovina sang the songs with the words her mother sang to her in Lithuania. Violet sang along. Occasionally the languages met but more often, Violet missed and resorted to mixing in some creative lyrical gibberish.
"What day is it today?” Violet would ask. “Did they name it yet?" She looked outside the window. Looking to see if her birds were awake. Maybe they knew what day it was. "Should I go to church?"
"If you would like to go to church, Mrs. Violet, we can go. Suzka would take us both." "No...well... I'm not sure... Why aren't those damn birds up yet?" Violet was good at juggling more than one topic at a time without her own notice. When she finished with the window, she turned her head back to the eggs. Their yellow eyes peaked at her from under their folds. She wasn't sure what to think or why her eggs were so shy.
"Where are your babies?" A question aimed at Sovina. "They’re back home in Europe, Mrs. Violet." "Oh... “ Pausing in thought, “What in God's name are
they doing there?"
"They live there."
"Oh...” Often the dementias ambushed my mother’s train of thought. It didn’t seem to bother her.
“Are you my daughter?" Violet went on talking, gibberish mostly, asking parts of questions as if a seam gave way in her head and bits of stuffing fell out. When she emptied all her words, the door closed.
[ My mother was a seamstress. Threads in fine colors dangled down from her crown. When a memory woke up, it would slide down one of the threads laughing and calling for her all the way. Her head would lean over and catch it just before it slid into the hole and disappear forever. She would then stitch that memory into a quilt that would take her away for awhile
– until another memory woke up and slid down another
hanging thread. ]
Sovina was part of a Lithuanian community of
women caregivers. They came from neighboring villages before moving to this country. Their mothers and their mothers’ mothers knew of each other; mothers who long ago talked about their husbands, their children and gossiped over picket fences. The wives would bring cookies and breads and sausages to other wives when their husbands died. Sovina received their gifts when her husband died.
Sovina was married at seventeen. She met her husband in the village where she lived - a tall handsome man with thick black wavy hair and strong bones. His work had given them a home. His hands were trained to build the kitchen's cabinets, table and chairs where their children would have dinner and talk about their days in school over potato sausages, fried black bread rubbed with garlic and small cakes baked with poppy-seeds. A bottle of Stumbras vodka sat in the middle.
Their lives together were bound, slow and deliberate. He died ten years ago. A terrible accident, that was all I knew. Sometimes the untold tales of the horrific accident lurked in her words and in the catches of her voice. I never asked. I am sure his face was on a family stone just like my father's parents.
Sovina's home was big and bricked in baked bronze stone. She showed me a picture. It faced the Nemunas River, a river that twisted its way through neighboring villages and eventually spilled into the Baltic Sea. It would break away in Sovina eyes when she thought of happier times.
Behind the house was a garden and behind the garden were hills, populated with stories hidden in its White Elms, the Lindens and its Stelmuze Oaks. The hills were peopled by generations of the unborn, the dead and never seen. They carried the myths and legends that squirmed about the night keeping the villagers banded together. Left behind were the rich smells of honeysuckle, asters, jasmine, blue bells, and hemp.
The soul of Sovina's husband with other husbands walked the hills at night as Sovina set her face to the stars, searching ou
t the arms of God. Her future hung in the darkness. A mortgage bank held the home her husband built as well as her life for hostage. Sovina would have to leave her children in the care of family members and village friends and go to the United States for work. All the Sovina's, the immigrant ladies with heavy accents, sent money and clothing back to their families.
Sovina loved my mother.
My mother loved Sovina.
24.
BARBARA THE BARBER My mother was more confused these days, a secret she kept to herself. She knew certain ways to hide what was going inside of her. She thought like a grasshopper. Grasshoppers were quick, vigilant and one jump ahead of any combative obstructions or questions. You could never catch a grasshopper off-guard. I knew the workings of this little grasshopper. I kept my mother's secret.
It happens to all people with dementia. All at once they are rather quiet and thoughtful; a bit inattentive to all the surface goings-on in front of them. Even their smiles don’t have the same meaning as before. They’re not sure whether they're laughing or crying and probably don't care as long as they're doing something to trick and ward off the outside interrogators.
When Barbara walked in the room my mother was somewhat taken aback. She was as blank as driftwood with hardly clue who this strange woman was or why she was standing in front of her, but she had learned on her own that it was surprisingly easier to be quiet and nod her head periodically. My mother seemed to know she could leave when she really wanted to, if she was in desperate straights or simply extra confused. Dancing gypsies in her head for sure would take pity on her and take her away to the music only heard by adventuring explorers. Music that my mother danced to sixty years ago on New Year’s Eve when she met the father of the children she now can't remember.
Barbara quietly spread around her 'hellos' as if she was the funeral director at a wake, over-emoting every gesture. She winked in my direction acknowledging my presence and walked over to my mother. The oblivious visitor snubbed the crowd of ballooned airheads. Their stretched smiles leaned forward, closer to the visitor in an attempt to reverse the seriousness in the room. The airheads tried to wiggle old pictures of ‘how-things-were’ out of the lady's head. Princess Bell, Kitty, Dora and Elmo looked at the visitor out of their fixed eyes that wanted to say something.
Belle swayed side-to-side. "Oh mama, who is this foreign intruder? ...and look at what she's wearing. Good Lord." Belle was always pretty free in offering uncooked opinions.
" Calm down, Princess. Let's give Violet's visitor a chance to speak." Kitty was the more sophisticated airhead in the room. She moved around if she was floating in a Prada spring runway show.
Dora reluctantly added, "Ok, ok girlfriend, we'll give the lady a chance. But she better not screw up the mojo we got going on around here."
The balloons were filled with excessive chatter. Barbara was a large woman with tiny eyes framed in silver. Her breasts and belly were zippered into a black dress with tiny white polka dots. Her hair was thin and painted copper brown.
My mother appeared more cautious with her words. She was accustomed to any questions tricky visitors would spring on her, especially the silly questions. Such a waste of time looking for suitable answers to questions that would take her back to the flat places where girdles are required and words stayed in their proper order.
She kept her fingers busy fiddling with small glass crystals on her lap. A thin metal chain kept them in line preventing them from rolling away. The chain's end was attached to a metal coin that led to a bangle of a tiny tortured man. She had no idea what that was about, she just like playing with the tiny glass balls. It kept her fingers happy.
"Mom, this is Barbara. She came to visit you." Barbara mumbled a few words to me as if my mother wasn't present in the room. Mom sat in her wheelchair like a grasshopper watching her visitor carefully. She put all the physical features of her visitor in her head hoping to find a match but her thoughts were inpatient. Barbara, do I know a Barbara? Barbara, Barbra, or did she say barber. BARBER! Oh God in heaven, the woman's a barber?
[ My mother had a way of accessing the energy of the people around her. There was no need to know their name, who they were or how she knew them. She didn’t recognize their surface. She went much deeper.]
Violet slowed down like a train approaching its last station. Seriousness grew inside her. She was fully aware of the workings of barbers. They could leave you close to baldness if you let them. Barbers had tools, all types of instruments, up their sleeves. They had clippers. Some ran on automatic and if not in the hands of an experienced barber, they could mow over a head relentlessly, cutting down every hair in its path.
Violet stared at the barber-Barbara. Her eyes were on their knees pleading; I beg of you, don't chop off my hair. I like my hair. Violet squinted her brain tightly in place. She cannot wander. She must stay here and keep both her eyes fixed on the barber-Barbara.
Violet, deep in thought and deep in her stare, worried about other possibilities. Maybe this barber-Barbara will cut into her head... taking stuff out and replacing them with events that never happened. How barbaric. What kind of a woman is this? Has this woman no shame!
The visiting woman, a Barbara with an undisclosed profession, squatted down spreading her cherub legs apart. She carefully wobbled her balance using the handles of my mother's wheelchair. The barber-eyes squinted. One eyebrow moved up leaving its twin a bit confused. Barbara's face was questioning her own expression. Are we sad, are we happy, what's going on here? A face just needs to know what to do.
She looked all about my mother like a detective at a crime scene. Putting a stare on this little grasshopper comparing her to pictured images she had in her mind's hand. Old pictures taken from a time when they first met years ago before Violet ever got confused. She looked for the tight French twist, pearled necklace and Italian shoes. Barber-Barbara held on to the past very tightly. She lived in old albums and carried them with her wherever she went. Barbara could not see what was in front of her she could only see what wasn't there.
Violet stood tall sitting in her wheelchair. Her ballooned friends were near, protecting her the best they could under these circumstances.
Princess Belle scooted closer to Violet for support. "Stay calm Miss Violet. We got your back, baby doll. We ain't going nowhere. This lady barber don't intimate me none. She'll have to deal with me first before she even thinks about touchin' a hair on your pretty lil' head."
A N U N S P O K E N T R U T H [ Violet never talked directly to the airheads as she did with the birds.
But I believe on occasion she acknowledged their presence with bridled fondness. ] Barbara started asking questions with facial contortions. She raised her voice and extended her neck for clarity. Before Violet could put the jumbled words into sentences, before she could figure out what this woman's face was saying, the woman would ask another question. Maybe it was the same question, Violet thought. Maybe she rearranged the order of words as a test, a trick of some kind.
"How - are - you - feeling - Violet ? Do - you - know
- who - I - am ? Ann - says – hello. She - is - praying for - you."
In a lower softer voice, Barber turned her head to me and added, "Well, we're all praying for your mom... and for you of course."
My mother kept squinting her brain. She cautiously lifted her arm so as not to cause any attention. Nonchalantly she stretched her hand to the back of her head making sure everything was just as she remembered. Her fingers shook robustly and then settled on the fine curls at the nape of her neck. Thank you, Jesus, she whispered to herself. Stars flashed in her eyes. She blinked. All worries were lost in her face. She locked her eyes back into themselves satisfied.
Barbara confused herself in finding the appropriate words. She tried to use previous conversations, changing the dates and weather conditions where appropriate and filling in the dry spots with useless current events. Barbara smiled quickly like one who says, the quirkiness of dementia but really mean
s it’s a pity.
Then she lowered her voice, a sign of seriousness, “I hope your mother gets better and returns to her old self.” [ ‘HOPE” was exiled from Dementialand. I hated the word. How arrogant of a word to make me choose between uncertainty with its false dichotomies or
to be ‘here’ in the present moment. The virtue of hope seemed meaningless. 'NOW' was the all holy.]
* After the Barbara’s visit I moved a number of our ballooned friends to the front door. Visitors entering Dementialand needed to change their pitiful ways, which required in most cases, a major attitude and body adjustment. I staggered a line of balloons from the front door to my mother's room – the kingdom of Dementialand. Their weighted shoes held them in place and staggered them to slightly higher than any visiting callers. When the door opened the breeze hit the line of inflated characters making them sway and bob up-ndown to get the visitor’s attention. Not that a bunch of smiling, squeaky large, pop-eyed balloons needed any extra help from the breeze. The collection of latex smiling faces followed each other creating a colorful line of emissaries.
Elmo, the largest balloon in the collection was the first one to address the visitors. "Hello there, how ya doin'? Welcahm to Miss Violet's home. Just need ta check you in and go over a few things. This ain't no 7-Eleven. Smile please. Want to see those pearly choppers. You gotta' smile. No gettin' around this. And, don't give me no attitude, I wanna see 'happy' spread all over you like sweet butter."
As the front door opened, everyone was taken aback by the mob of inflated characters. Their wide latex smiles and bulging black eyes strictly enforced a code of compliance to all visitors. No one could avoid the drill.
"I'm going to go over the rules just once, so listen up. First: No pop quizzes, no questions regarding history, biology, physics, or mathematics. Second: No pictures, no albums, all of us here live in the moment. Not much concerned about yesterday's garbage or tomorrow's pick up. Capiche? Third: Violet is not a psychic or a psychologist. Avoid all who-am-I questions. We suggest you reserve those questions for your therapist.”
Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand Page 15