a reason to weep

Food is an issue for my mom--she's 85 years old and still worries about eating too much. What she should be worried about is not eating enough, as recovering from a major stroke requires caloric intake and rest. Each meal is a struggle and also a puzzle--how to coax Mom into eating the meal placed in front of her. Today's lunch is rigatoni with a creamed tomato sauce and sauteed zucchini on the side. It's tasty--I know because I taste it. "Here Mom," I say, "try this...it's very good." I take a forkful and then steer the mouthful towards her lips where it bumps up stubbornly against her closed lips. While you or I might investigate this forkful, check out its texture and milky-pink gleam, Mom keeps her eyes closed. Shut tight. "Look," I say. "open your eyes Mom and look at what you're missing." Still, the closed lids. Her nurse practitioner, named Scott, reports that closed eyes are a result of stroke--that when the brain bleed impacts the nerves in the body, this includes the ability to blink. Apparently Mom prefers to keep her eyes shut rather than fight the problem of how to blink. In any event, with closed eyes Mom can't see what she's missing, which is a problem because something this good needs to be seen. I want to continue with my praise, with something like--"Mom, this is super super good," or "you won't believe what you are missing--the best ever," but I don't dare as it might bring her back to her old standby excuse--"why don't you and Lorna eat it." Course she doesn't say it in quite this way--takes a lot more deciphering--but I soon get the gist, like I do right now when she says--"No"--and then tries to gesture with her right hand in the direction of my voice. I guess I must have gone too far when I suggested that her pasta meal reminds me of rigatoni and tagliatelle we ate in Florence, way back when we had time and money to travel and stayed in such grand places as the Villa Cora--a fabulous old estate now turned into a five star hotel--rimming the hill overlooking Florence. We'd walk down the tree-shaded boulevard at dusk and choose some funky little restaurant for dinner, a place which where only the locals eat, and feast on "straccetti di pollo croccante" or "torchi di zucca fritti agli amaretti" or our favorite, "raviolo alla burrata." So, when I mention Mirabella's rigatoni in the same breath as one of these exotic creations, Mom decides that, really, it's too good for her to eat and she needs to stave off her appetite, because Lorna and I must have it instead.

Dinner goes in much the same way--delicious turkey pot pie left nearly unforked or unspooned. I remind Mom of how chicken pie was always her favorite--in fact, our entire family's favorite. When we'd come back from a family vacation to find the refrigerator bare, it was always "Swanson's Chicken Pot Pie" that we took from the freezer and heated up on a baking sheet. Sometimes Mom treated us with a fancy- crust pot pie from Frederick 'n Nelson....but these times were exceptions not the rule. But like the "rigatoni parmigiana" for lunch, the pot pie is left for the kitchen help to toss aside. No manner of coaxing can part her lips for a bite.

Ever since Thursday, Mom has refused to eat more than just a bite here and there of her lunch and dinner entrees, choosing instead to eat her ice cream and drink her diet Coke--too completely "healthy" foods but at least she's eating and drinking. In some respects, calories are calories, despite poor nutrition.

Along with this loss of appetite comes her weeping--incessant tears that turn her face berry-red and her eyes into two plump little grapes. "Why are you crying?" Lorna asks Mom. "Why are you so sad?" I echo back. But our questions are greeted with silence. And more silence. And then the closed-lid eyes. Mom's weeping is so pronounced that she's been unable to participate in her PT for the last three days. Without her participation, there's no "progress" for purposes of Medicare. Mom won't be able to stay here long.

Last night is a revelation. My brother and I sit by the side of Mom's bed, watching her weep. We've tried everything to cajole her into stopping. We remind her about how lucky she is with all the people who love her: Lorna and Mulu her caregivers, her children (Eric and Christine, not sure about brother Peter--he's not here to say), her daughter-in-law (Terry), her grandchildren (Alex, Nick and Caroline), her nephews (Paul and Dan). But mostly, I remind her about Lorna and Mulu, women who sit with patience through all of Mom's fears and smiles, tantrums and soiled diapers and give her nothing but love in return. Mom is never alone--never needs to feel abandoned or wretched because of her isolation. This is something I've made sure of, as Mom has never liked feeling alone. I think it has something to do with losing her mother when Mom was twenty-one--never really trusted people to stay with her ever since. She still cries at her mother's name, Berentina. But despite the veracity of these arguments, Mom dismisses them with a single phrase when she says with surprising clarity--"you don't love me....think I'm crazy." Mom's word shock both Eric and I--no further conversation is possible, as we ponder how she could say this. Despite the seriousness of Mom's utterance, I feel a tiny urge to laugh--it's a grief-kind-of-laugh. I glance over at my brother and we exchange a look, something that says, "here we are...in this together."

My brother then grabs one of the roses out of her now-nearly-dead arrangement of lilies, roses and stalk and reminds her that--"This rose is beautiful, Gamoo...God gave you this rose because He loves you." I am impressed by my brother's ingenuity, as Mom is forced to nod "yes," as who can refuse the offering that --"God loves you"--especially when you are as ill as Mom? While I don't say anything, I remain skeptical about Eric's God argument. Being reminded of God's love when one is dying seems like an oxymoron, but who am I to say. Perhaps I will take up "religion" when I get to be Mom's age. But I'm surprised, nonetheless, at Eric's tactic, as I have always seen him as a spiritual man but not a "Bible-thumper." And, in fact, I am later reassured. When Eric and I talk the next day about getting Mom some "spiritual" guidance," Eric says--"Be sure you don't bring some white-collar here to see Mom." Acerbic to the end, my brother. Actually, I would't mind a pastoral visit or two for Mom--God is real and while I choose to take a less mainstream approach to spirituality, everyone requires a spiritual life. I fear that Mom has had little of this for a very long time.

Eventually, Eric and I just sat there with Mom's tears, let the rain fall, so to speak, thinking that sooner or later the clouds must lift. We sat like this for a very long time, at least a half an hour, until Mom said--"I want to run...you know...run...run...away." Her tears have calmed a bit by this time, so there's room to say something other than platitudes about God or love. "Problem with that, Mom," I say back to her, "is that you take yourself with you when you leave." When I mkae this pronouncement, I speak from experience. She doesn't look at me when I say this but I can tell she's heard as her eyes flutter open just a crack before returning to her usual closed-eye stare. It's then that she says it--the thing that explains her grief.

"I'm...a...you know...I'm...I'm...afraid," she says. "Afraid of what Mom?" we both ask her. But I know, even without waiting for her answer. I know in this second, that this is indeed why she weeps--Mom's afraid to die. Who wouldn't be?

After this, what is there to say? How do we accept our own death, after a life-time of being enamored of our own flesh? Oddly, we are forced to accept the death of other loved ones as we age--the father of mine who died in a terrible accident in 1979, the childhood friend of mine who died from a flesh-eating disease when she's forty-seven, the uncle and grandfather of mine who died writhing in their hospital beds, the aunt of mine who died from complications following Alzheimer's. These we accept because, ultimately, there aren't other choices if we want to continue on. But our own death? There's no after-the-fact opportunity to process what has already happened when our bodies die--that work of grieving we leave to the people we leave behind. Instead, there's just the days, months leading up to death. All we can do is manage our mind and our spiritual center on this journey that has the same conclusion for all. Mom has reached this point, where her days and months can be easily counted. She knows it and so do I. She just too frightened to talk about it.

As I leave Mom today, I am thinking of her statement about dying, wondering if Mom's refusal to eat vigorously (despite how she has done so all her life) has less to do with body mechanics (as the speech therapist offered) and more to do with her fears. Is she really a "full code," resuscitation in all circumstances, I ask myself? Would Mom want this "revive at all costs" now, now that she lives a life of pain and physical debility?

I have wondered for months whether Mom is aware of her growing incapacities, the way her brain isn't working, the way her body is failing her. I found my answer yesterday. "I think I'm crazy," she says just before Eric and I leave. "I'm...crazy...crazy...crazy."

A reason for weeping.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--