three little pigs go to market

"Which flavor do we want Mom?" I ask this as we are huddled under an awning staked out on Pontius Street, just two or three blocks from Mom's residence at the Mirabella. It's one of those early autumn days where you can feel the beat of summer on your skin but find yourself, at the same time, noticing the cool, fall-ish air that drum-rolls in the shade.

Mom looks at me intently but says nothing. Miraculously, she's sitting up straight in her wheelchair, so this means we have eye contact and often. There's a sign board posted with fifteen different flavors from the "Whidby Island Ice Cream Company"--each one of them is written in a different color ink. I start reading off the names to Mom--"Almond Vanilla," "Blackberry," "Triple Berry," "Coffee Chocolate Carmel," "Chardonnay Spice," "Orange Swirl"--but when we get to "Cardamon" Mom stops me or maybe I just know to stop naming. Cardamon is one of our favorite flavors. Reminds me of Maxime's in Paris or Il Gourmet in Firenze. Takes me back to our more peaceful days--when Mom and I traveled and ate our way across parts unknown relishing the risk of epicurean discovery.

"Does Cardamon sound good, Mom?" I ask her, just to make sure, and she nods, something she's been able to do now for about a day and a half

The pint of cardamon ice cream comes out of the freezer iced-over with frost granules--the cardboard container is brick hard. It's 75 degrees out this afternoon, so I figure we have about thirty minutes to get this ice cream stowed safely into the freezer at the Mirabella, just enough time to finish our browsing and find ourselves a $5.00 bouquet of flowers.

So far, from the "Phnom Penh Market" we've bought corn and fresh green beans for Lorna and me as well as sweet grape tomatoes in yellow, orange and deep-green-striped red. We've tasted three different honeys, deciding on "Wild Knotweed Raw Honey" as our favorite--rich in unexpected flavors, bitter sweet twists; I buy four jars for future Christmas gifts. And we've eye-balled the pastries in the "Little Prague" glass case, deciding on three almond croissants to go--we are thinking big. So by the time we get to the flowers, I've shelled out $12.00 cash plus multiple checks for amounts less than $20.00 each; shopping in the great out-of-doors can be an expensive proposition.

"Which do you want Mom?" I ask her. "How about this green and white bouquet?" Mom turns her head in my direction--something else that's new, mobility in her neck--and looks at the white dahlia's and green Mums. The bouquet is lush and what I would pick, if it was my decision to make. And while she looks at what I hold in my hand, her eyes reach beyond my arm to what the florist is currently building--a shocking orange and red and yellow assortment of dahlia's.

"That one," she says, and I nod yes, thinking her choice spectacular. Here are all her favorite blooms--dahlias, marigolds, sunflowers. I watch as the attendant pours a cup full of water into a small plastic bag and submerges the exposed stems in the fluid; a rubber band holds this in place. A nestle the bouquet sideways on Mom's lap, liking the synergy between Mom's red wool poncho and the vibrant dahlia plumes. As her head leans into the lace-like edges of her blooms, I see her face crinkle in a smile--not a big happy grin but rather a smile that says --"Here we are, you and I, and I'm glad of it."

When we get back to the Mirabella, I immediately set about arranging our booty--it's an obsession I have, needing to make an aesthetic still life out of the food I procure from a market and will soon eat. Meanwhile, Lorna and one of the nursing staff are changing Mom, as the water from her bouquet escaped its plastic borders and seeped out to wet her pants. Mom's at risk for broken skin and diaper rash, so wetness must be addressed vigilantly. Mom accepts these ministrations, with her gaze fixed out the window towards what is still a blue-hot day. I wonder, then, what she is dreaming, what visualization she is practicing to forget that there are two people handling her flesh, two people viewing the intimacies of her body, intimacies that not even she can bring herself to talk about.

When finally the changing is done, our feast is ready for consumption. With intention, I slip spoonfuls of cardamon ice cream down Mom's throat...and pull off chunks of the almond croissant and encourage her lips to accept this nourishment. Mom's not doing much eating of late--three of four bites per meal, not enough for sustenance, so I am thrilled to see her attacking our booty with vigor. She even accepts the three strawberries I press into her mouth whole, mashing her teeth around their edges like a pro. There's none of the ground beef dribbling down her bib and none of the mashed potatoes left to compact into her gums rather than be swallowed. She's bitten, chewed and swallowed it all.

Just when we've finished our sugar mania, Tess, the nurse-in-charge tonight, walks into our room and wants to do a "progress" assessment, to determine Mom's continued eligibility for Medicare. I am immediately concerned--much depends on Mom's continued viability as a Medicare patient at Mirabella. My brother and I are worried, knowing how political these "progress" reports can be. We want Mom here as long as possible under Medicare coverage--we want to maximize her recovery before she returns home.

"Where are you?" Tess begins. "In a hospital in Sun Valley," Mom answers quickly, like this is something she's been thinking about all along. (God, I'm thinking, this is going to be disastrous.)

"What year were you born?" Tess continues. "1924" (the correct answer) Mom fires back like this is something she says every day when in fact it's something she hasn't been able to remember for weeks. What month were you born?" "July," Mom answers with ease (another correct response). "What day?" And with this one, Mom stumbles, beginning with "fif..." but then finally coming out with "fifth" (correct answer).

As Mom is answering Tess, I feel frantic, worried that she will wander off into the sort of unreality she's been spinning as recent as this afternoon. As soon as I came through the door, Mom said--"who was that man who gave me the money?" While I wasn't there, Lorna informs me it was my brother, Eric, who supplied the $20.00 to be used as spending money at the market if Mom wanted. Or, Mom's statement to my sister-in-law earlier today that she hadn't heard from me, her daughter, in a "long time" when, in fact, I've been here 24/7 ever since her residency at Mirabella. Really, where do these ideas come from?

"How old are you Dorin?" And with this, Tess has finally stumped Mom; Mom can't think of her age no matter how many hints she is given. Mom gets that she's in her 80s (better than two days ago when she told the speech therapist, Lisa, that she's 98) but that's about as far as she gets.

"Do you know where you are Dorin?" Tess repeats? Again Mom gets this wrong, stating that she's in a "hospital" somewhere.

"But I'm really very lucky," she tells Tess spontaneously. "I'm very fortunate." And as she's saying this last comment, I can't help remembering what she'd said just a few days ago--about how hard this was here--too hard--and that really she didn't think she had the strength to carry on. Between now and two days ago, though, Mom seems to have had a change of heart. Lorna pipes in then and says she's been praying for Mom, claiming this as the reason for her "transformation." Who am I to say--if believing makes Mom happy, then I'm all for it.

When we get around to the part of the test where Tess examines mom's eating and swallowing, Mom opens her mouth wide and reports to Tess, with a certain amount of glee in her voice, that it was "us girls....feeding our faces...three little pigs" just before Tess came. Lorna and I look at each other and burst into laughter, not just at the image of us aging women as "girls" but also at the idea of Mom seeing our food consumption as a delightful gluttonous affair (though to be honest, it wasn't that bad caloric-wise--just an awful lot of sugar).

Inside her skin, there's still a little piece of Mom that survives, someone I recognize if I close my eyes to a slant, like Mom, and conjure without my sight.

"I'm very lucky," Mom says to Tess again, and I try to remember what that felt like to be grateful for what's been given, particularly when it's a long ways from anything good. Maybe peace is coming for Mom. Maybe there's time after all.

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