Mama

I spent time with my dear mother today. They are bittersweet, our visits, these days. Mama is in the throes of Alzheimer's. Her more vivid memories now, are of her childhood, her mother and father, her siblings and Grandmother and Granddad Vaughan. In the last few years, she seemed not always to recognize photos of my father, her husband of 59 years. Today, however, she talked of "your dad", and looked and looked at a photo taken 12 years ago. They were sitting with Dad's arm around her under the arbor in the back yard. She wasn't sure that was her husband because "your dad wasn't that heavy". She embraces older memories of when they were young farmers, when Dad ate like a horse but worked it all off. He was slight of frame and slender then.

She has been a widow almost nine years. And we have come full circle.

Her daughters are her mother now. Daughters divvie out her medicine from a locked box. We buy the groceries. We make sure her hair is combed and that she bathes. We check to see if she is eating and ask nosey questions about her bowels. We clean up after her. We boss her, encourage her and tell her what to do, when to do it and why. I find myself talking to her as tho she is a toddler, explaining, reminding and preparing her for the event ahead.

Mom had a bad day yesterday. She couldn't get her front door open to get her afternoon newspaper. She was scared, shaking and trembling when my brother and his wife came by. They couldn't calm her. She needed to call someone! My brother helped her call, Mary, her youngest daughter, two blocks away. Mary came and helped soothe her. Now the talk is of nursing home. Our aim had been to keep her at home just as long as possible.
What is the best for our dear mother? The noise and commotion of a nursing home where strangers will tell her when to dress, when to eat, when to use the lavatory instead of her daughters? What if she tries to leave the nursing home to find her "real" home -- the home that she sometimes looks around now and says "how did I get here?" because in her mind, she is living in a rural farm house with a slightly built, handsome , young farmer? Or would it be best to leave her be , leave her to mostly quiet days at home until she forgets the next thing or can't get the door open and is scared and shaking and out of control? But forgets later about the terror, the panic. I pray for the answer -- but my siblings may make the decision for me. I sense the tide going out. I sense the swing. I dread the nursing home where strangers will judge my Mama.

Tonight, I give Mama a bedtime snack. I pull her bedspread back, fluff her pillow and lay out her nightgown. I wait for her to do her nightly hygiene, ingrained for 86-1/2 years. I kiss her goodnight.

Good night, Mama. I love you.