I love you

When I go see Mom, the day after the market extravaganza, I bring a gift. I stop off at "Baby & Co" and Jill and Rita find me something to bring to Mom: a soft black sweater with a fabulous shawl collar that she can bunch up at the neck or wrap like a scarf from shoulder to shoulder. It's perfect--Mom is always cold. And what do you buy for a woman in a wheelchair? There's a limit to what high fashion she can strut. Rita lovingly wraps the sweater and ties millions of ribbons around the handles of the bag, all of them different colors of blue and lavender, having the name "Baby & Co" printed in black. The package looks lovely, inviting, irresistible. Looks so much like Mom.

When I get to Mom's room, she's asleep--she's had a long day and has little energy left. I consider leaving, but the package lures me in--I can't wait to see Mom's face when she looks at it, when she "helps" me open it.

"Mom," I say. "Look what I have." Mom's eyes flutter open, like wings, and I watch her eyes try to focus, try to take in what she sees. Her daughter standing in her room, with a off-white duster loaded with fringe. A brown handled bag with gazillions of ribbon. Pieces of the outside world, the "normal" world, now come to her.

"Oh," she says softly, without conviction. It's you." And I'm grateful for this, for this recognition, however unenthusiastic, as I know there will be a day when Mom doesn't know who's standing here in her room, a day when I will be just a "nice friend" who comes to visit. This day I dread, cannot face in any way. This will be the day that Mom is dead for me.

"Look what I brought," I say to Mom. "It's for you."

I begin to carefully unwind the ribbons, knowing that Mom will want to save these. I grab a hold of the caramel brown tissue and begin to ease the sweater out of its bag. I bring the tissue-clothed sweater closer to Mom, so she can finger the paper and the fabric before we open to see what's there.

"Oh," she says again, feeling the wool beneath the tissue, feeling anticipation for what might be there.

"It's a sweater," I say, holding up the finely-woven wool....from "Baby & Co."

"Oh my my," she says to this, and her face cracks open into the biggest laugh I've seen on Mom's face. Ever. Note the pictures of Mom--her mouth's wide open for both and almost looks like a cry but I know it's an incredible grin. I can tell that I've wowed her, that I brought the unexpected, that I've done something, however minor, to make this day different from the monotony of the others.

"Shall we try it on?" I ask her. Mom looks at me expectantly but, despite her smile and her laugh, doesn't respond. "Or maybe we'll wait til tomorrow," I say to her then. " We can try it then, okay?"

"Yes," she says. It takes energy to try on clothes, more energy then Mom's got this afternoon.

I drape the sweater over her sheets, within her reach, so she can touch the fabric, if she wants. I leave the bag there too, thinking the ribbon color might make her smile.

Later, when I go to leave, when I'm one foot through the door and back out into the world, she says to me, shouts really, as she's a long ways away and there's a nurse in her room, noisily getting things ready for a cathetered urine sample: "I love you."

While I think that I've heard this correctly, I'm not sure. So I move back into her room and say--"What was that again?"

"I love you," she repeats, without even a pause or a hint of confusion. Clear as her old self, so many years ago.

"I love you too," I say back to her, kissing her full on the lips, a place she usually turns away from me when I go to kiss her goodbye. "I love you too."

She accepts this gift, as I accept hers.

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