My Mom

Okay: this post showed up on Google Reader on Mother's Day but I pulled it because I couldn't get the spacing right. But some things are more important than spacing, so here it is.

It's been two year since I wrote this. Since then, my Mother's house has been emptied and it is rented to strangers. She doesn't remember much about her house these days, and that is a good thing. And what she does remember is all good.

Going Home
My mother’s eyes glisten across the room. Cat green and softened by age, they look at me pleadingly.

“Do you think I could go home?” she asks in her most genteel voice. She raises both hands in front of her, the way politicians do during a heartfelt speech, as if to confirm she is reasonable and solid. Her eyes shine and deepen.
“I know I can’t be alone,” she says, “but could we find someone to live with me?”

Often I am slow to answer. Always her eyes deepen and her voice is hopeful, not at all forceful. “Could you tell me why not?” she asks cautiously, politely.

The youngest of sixteen children, my Mother first came to America from Canada and walked into a classroom where she did not know the language or the country.

“Mom, we could take you home for a weekend. You could see your friend Dottie, and Marie next door. You could sleep in your bed,” I pause and smile, “but you have to promise me you’ll come back.”

She grins. “I might not,” she says.

“Mom, if you hold on to the kitchen counter when it’s time to leave I will call the police.” I grin.

She grins again. “No, I know,” she says. “Besides, what would I do there by myself?”

This fall, my mother returned home. She cautiously pushed her walker up the front steps and stepped into her hallway. “Oh it’s good to be home,” she sighed. From room to room she assimilated the unfamiliar walker into the familiar landscape.

She opened her kitchen cabinets, showed me where the pot was for tea, and sat at the kitchen table as if she had never left. As if she had not since learned to walk with an assistive device, as if her loss of memory meant nothing.

She looked ten years younger. She acted and spoke masterfully, guiding her hands effortlessly toward the right dishes and acting surprised when something seemed out of place. Then she looked at my dog Stella, who had come along for the weekend, and said, “Karen, how long have I been gone?”

"Over a year," I tell her.

"Did I leave my dog alone here all that time?”

We are all silent before I respond. "Mom, this is Stella. My dog. You know Stella,” I said.

She shook her head sheepishly. “Of course I do,” she said. “My memory’s getting worse. But my mind is still good.”

I slept on the couch so when she woke up she would not be afraid or unsafe. Four times I met her in the dim hallway and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw me.

“Where am I?” she asked. I said, “Mom, you’re in your own house.”

She shook her head. “I must be pretty confused not to know that.” Even in the darkness, her eyes sparkled. Four times she kissed me goodnight and asked if I needed a blanket.

My father and grandfather built this house and my parents lived in it for 63 years before my father died. My mother always said she would never leave it alive and she almost pulled it off.

But she fell one summer day in her front yard and broke her hip. By the time the rehab folks met up with her, she was too frail and too confused to get anything close to an endorsement that she could live alone. She moved in with JB and me for a few months and finally, reluctantly, she took up residence in a furnished room in a sweet local rest home ten minutes away.

I took my mother home that weekend knowing it risky. She was doing her best to accept the rest home. “You know I’m not a complainer,” she told me regularly, but her eyes told the whole story. She would never adjust. She could not remember anyone there. She was the literal stranger in a strange land.

Her first morning home, my mother smiled at me. “You won’t believe this,” she said, “but I’m not going to mind going back.”

“How come,Mom?” I asked.

“I don’t know”, she chuckled, “But we probably shouldn’t question it.”

And indeed, she didn’t mind going back. She spent two days sipping tea at her kitchen table. She had coffee cake with Dottie and hugged Marie for the first time ever, and she continued to tell JB and me where to find things. For these two days my mother ruled the universe.

Then she returned to her furnished room and settled in. She started playing solitaire again. She asked me to order cable TV. She read the newspaper. She complimented the food.

“Mom,” I said, “How come you’re happier since we went to your house?”
She looked confused. “I don’t normally complain do I?” she said.
A few days later I asked my mother if she remembered going home.

“Not really,” she smiled, "but I think I enjoyed it.”

Yes, Mom, you did. If you want we’ll do it again in a few months.”

“We’ll see,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s kind of a long ride, isn’t it?”