connectivity

Red letter day yesterday--no Internet connection and hence no blog. Apparently the Internet "card" for my computer had come loose inside the belly of the computer itself. How this can happen while the computer is at rest on my counter is a thing of mystery. A friend of mine figured out the problem today, so I am eternally grateful, as it's not anything I would have known how to resolve.

There are limits to connectivity--many kinds of limits. Aside from Internet "cards" there's the issue of data retrieval--as in data bases to access in finding Peter. An Internet search for "Peter Ross Schuler" via Zabasearch" reveals three possible entries for my brother: Medina, WA, Lynville, IA and Ketchum, ID. I easily rule out the first one--Peter hasn't lived in the family residence since 1976. The third, Ketchum, has a phone number that I immediately dial, expecting what I find--a disconnect message: "This number is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this number in error please..." Peter and his wife did live in Ketchum, but this was many years ago--in the 1980s. The second listing, "IA" (is this Iowa, Indiana?) seems an improbable location for my brother, lover of hiking and skiing and all things out-of-doors. And then, as I look further, I notice the birth date is wrong for the Peter of "IA": it's Oct 1931 when in fact Peter is only 56 years old, having a birthday of February 1953. I realize then for the first time--Peter is exactly the same age as my father when he was killed in 1979. This realization makes me stop and reflect. Shudder. Brings my father's death back to me. Peter and my father's birthday are just days apart. Peter is as old as the father I remember, as the father I can visualize.

Then I notice there are thirty-two listings for "Peter Schuler" from places as far away as San Antonio, Texas, Knoxville, Tennessee, Merrimack, New Hampshire (never heard of this one) and Fargo, North Dakota. It seems my brother could be anywhere.

When I relay this information to Mom--that I've done some checking but have yet to find a firm location for Peter--Mom looks devastated. It seems she's been counting on finding him. Eventually. This is not something I'd realized. I remind her that I've just begun--that there are other databases to check and that there's always the prospect of a private detective. I'm not giving up yet.

I ask Mom--what would you say to him if you could write a letter or better yet see him walk through this door" I've asked this of Mom before, never getting a clear answer. Mom pauses, looks perplexed, says nothing. Then she adds--"I'd say...remember...you know...the years..." What years, Mom?" I ask her. "You know...THE YEARS...the ones he was here...you know...in Seattle." Wow, I'm thinking, Mom still believes in blood--that those first twenty-five years or so of his life could be a stronger a tie than the more recent twenty-one years. I'm not convinced.

Mom has a truncated memory regarding my eldest brother. I remind her of the many years Dad and then my Mom (after Dad died) paid rent for my brother and his schizophrenic wife, Heather, to live in scenic (expensive) Sun Valley, Idaho. My father first did this as a precaution, I imagine, as a way to keep my brother around and in their lives, even if in a dysfunctional way. I mean, what business do parents have in supporting a twenty-eight year old married son in the lap of luxury? Peter's hostility and resentment over my parent's rejection of his choice of spouse, religion and lifestyle made it difficult to communicate; the only thing that talked was money. But then, what business does a son have in disappearing, ditching his parents? Mom too was afraid of this loss. When I ask her--"Why did you do it, pay his rent, take his abusive words"--she's silent and then she says to me one word--"Fear." Fear of losing my brother for good.

Something else I remember: Peter and Heather "camping out" with tent and cook stove in my father's Medical Dental Building sometime during the year before he died. Mom has no memory of this.

Another memory: dozens of angry letters sent to first Dad and then Mom (after Dad died), letters condemning my parents to hell for their "ungodliness." Mom has no memory of this either.

I'm beginning to wonder what Mom does have a memory for. What reason does she assign for why her son has been gone since 1979?

Mom stumps me then, asking--"Is he...you know...is he...de...dead?"

This possibility had not occurred to me as, like Mom, I have naively assumed that someday there would be time to resolve what has yet to be resolved with my brother. I think quickly now, knowing that I want to assure Mom that this is not the case: she has become so invested in the idea of finding him, resurrecting him.

"No, Mom," I say. "I don't think this is the case."

"Why?" she asks.

"Because...because...this would have come up on the database--they check death records as a source of information about people." Fortunately I'd noticed this fact when I'd glanced in the margins of the "Zabasearch"--"Want to know more about the death of a loved one?"

"Oh," Mom says, placated for the time being. She comes back to this question three more times, however, before I leave for the day. Apparently Peter's death is something she's thought about, something she worries about. Maybe something that keeps her awake at night, keeps her crying when she has no words to explain why she's so sad.

I ask her again--"What would you say to him? What should we write to him?" Like Sunday, she has no words to give me about this. I begin to be concerned, as I'm positive we can find Peter, if finding is what we want to do. He's had no interest in contacting us but I don't think he's hiding. But once found, what will she say to my brother? What would any mother say after so many years of silence?

Dinner comes--"Pork Chop with Peppercorn Sauce, Roasted Potato and Sauteed Corn." Mom is not a big fan of pork chops, so I wonder about this choice. And, in fact, when presented with eating her chop, Mom adamantly declines after one bite. Lorna manages to get another three or four bites of potato and/or corn into her stomach, but after this, Mom refuses everything. She uses her "No Way" voice, the strident whine that lets Lorna and I know she's reached the end of her rope, she's not going to cooperate any further. She even refuses her apple juice, screwing up her face into her raisin-look (as in shriveled and sour-pussed), like juice is the grossest thing imaginable. Lorna cajoles with--"Just one more bite, lovely lady" and Mom snaps back with--"No...no way." They're at an impasses. After a pause, Lorna gracefully says--"Okay" with her Filipino accent, a lovely musical tone that lifts up sharply with the second syllable. Mom's tray is moved away from her bed, waiting for the nurse's aid to take it back to the kitchen. When the tray's still sitting there after five minutes, Mom starts to mutter: "Take it away...you know...take it. The thing." For some reason, the sight of this tray is upsetting to Mom, as this happens most everyday. Some days I actually pick up the tray and take it from the room myself--just to get her to stop her whine about "the thing."

"Drink this," Lorna urges, bringing a glass of water to Mom's lips. Mom's fluid intake has drastically dropped since she's been in the Mirabella. For some reason, she just doesn't want to drink. The consequences are serious--dehydration and increased risk of UTIs, both of which are serious for people my mom's age. As it turns out, I was correct in suspecting a UTI--Mom is both dehydrated and under siege by an infection in her urinary track, something which may account for her ill-humor and general nastiness last week. Her doctor started her on antibiotics the night before last.

"Drink more, my dear," Lorna encourages, checking to see that today Mom has drunk 200 ml of water: the difference between 900 ml and 700 ml on the iced water pitcher that's brought to her fresh every several hours. Not nearly enough.

"Do you want to have babies, my dear?" Lorna asks, referring to Mom's birthing of her BMs. However gross this may sound, it's a gentile way to talk about Mom's problem with constipation due to her neurogenic bladder, a recurrent issue requiring the indignity of suppositories every three days. "Drink water, my dear," Lorna adds, so you will have less pain in the birthing."

We all laugh then, a genuine guffaw, that crescendos as it ricochets around the room from Lorna to me to Mom and then back to Lorna again. I'm relieved that finally Mom can laugh at herself, laugh with us about her bodily ailments. It's a form of connectivity, this laughter, something that's been missing for many many months. Feels like progress to me.

Lorna and I then chuckle about how many times we go pee due to drinking large amounts of water: we talk about this in an attempt to encourage Mom to drink, to get her to see that she too could drink a lot of water. Mom says--"Keep track." Lorna and I look puzzled. "Keep track of what, Mom?" "You know...the pee," she adds. And then I really laugh, doubled-over-almost-pee-my-pants-kind-of-laugh, realizing she's suggesting we keep a tally of how many times Lorna and I must make the journey to the toilet during a day's time. A contest of sorts. This is the funniest thing Mom's said all week.

When I get up to leave Mom, I notice she's tired. We had PT and OT today. In OT Mom picked up brightly colored cones for nearly thirty minutes, reaching over, picking up, letting go into a large blue bowl--a blue heaven for all correctly retrieved cones. Mom likes this game but it's also frustrating, exhausting. Becky (OT) and I can see her concentration--how her brain almost revs and rumbles like an engine as it works to get her body to cooperate.

At one point, Mom stops and says--"Nothing is automatic."

Becky and I are astonished, both at Mom's insight and at her word choice. "Automatic" Becky repeats. "Yes, that's right Dorin. Everything is hard. Nothing is automatic."

Moving a limb is complicated," Becky continues, "more complicated than it looks. There's positioning the limb in space--information given by your joint receptors. And then there's the motor function itself--getting your muscles to cooperate. And then finally there's sensation, paying attention to light touch, deep touch, to pain. All of these things go into moving your arm to grab one of these cones."

By the time Becky is done explaining, she has lost Mom, probably lost her back at the word "joint receptors." But this is something Mom is good at--hiding the fact that she can't follow, can't understand. She's been doing it for years and this fact makes me inexplicably sad, knowing that for such a long time Mom has been living in an abbreviated world, a world where words and ideas fly by her unread, unexamined. She compensates by nodding her head, looking engaged when really things are a muddle. What must this be like? Nonetheless, I'm glad Becky has explained--helps me to understand why each move of Mom's arm is daunting challenge, a challenge that might result in either her completion of the task or not. Every attempt is a gamble. Mom's courage in taking this gamble, again and again is unbelievable.

As I kiss Mom goodbye, she and Lorna are busily getting her second and third blankets arranged on her bed. Mom hates to be cold. She's got three smears of lipstick on her face, places where I've loved her two cheeks and chin in the hopes of telling her just how much I love her, need her, can't do without her. Connectivity.

What my brother Peter is missing...and he doesn't even know it.

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