The airport feels empty, lifeless, like it's in need of bustle and hurry, not what I expect on the Saturday before Christmas. There's a bit of a line at the Horizon desk but security is wide open, just a several minute wait. At any time I can or could have stopped, changed my mind. Gone home. When I reached MasterPark and found there was no place to park my car. When I left behind the strap for my carry-on when I went through the TSA security check point. When Cougar and I pause to eat a Wolfgang Puck pizza in the Concourse C lounge--Cougar watches from the mesh window of his cat carrier as I eat the pizza, all of it. When I leave behind my (pricey) Baby & Co woof scarf on the tarmac and watch a woman scurry away with it in her grasp. At any of these moments I could have said--I'm not going after all. But I don't. I just keep on moving towards Idaho and away from Mom.
It's not until I feel the plane shudder and lift off the runway, its wheels groaning back up into the plane's belly, that I know for sure I'm not changing my mind, not turning back. Only one decision seems possible.
When the stewardess, her name is Jane, comes by with beverages--no snacks it seems, another casualty of cost cutting measures--I opt for Talking Rain, though the complementary Cabernet sounds tempting. There are no window coverings in the Q400, so late afternoon sun heats the glass, my knees, the collapsible table I've set my drink on. It's a swelter in Row 4, my own private sauna, despite how cold it is on the other side of the glass, at least thirty below.
I can't feel the plane move, but I can see the progress we make as rivers, wintered-down crops, roads winding into wilderness pass beneath my bird's-eye-view, a strange compression of time that transposes Washington, Oregon and Idaho into an hour-and-a-half commute rather than the 850 mile, twelve hour drive it really is. By the time we reach the Snake River Canyon, I feel a million miles from Mom. I've traveled so far there's no possible way of turning back, even if I wanted. It's the abstraction, I think, how six miles above sea level, separated from the normal commotions of our lives, we've no context to understand ourselves. Just the plastic faux-leather seats...the recirculated, pressurized air...the disconnected snippets of conversation between strangers we manage to decipher above the grind and whirl of the twin engines--"When I went to Vegas...my daughter is five...I'm meeting my son for the holidays..." Suddenly we are cut free from our lives and for ninety minutes become unburdened of who we are.
Who is my mother, I wonder up here in my cocoon of flight? Who am I in relation to this difficult, complicated, often loving mother of mine? I've collected so many pieces of her life these past few months, secrets she has chosen not to tell me. Recently I came across ten sheets of paper, all of different sizes, obviously torn from ten different notebooks of paper. Written on each are the answers to four questions: "words to describe," "things to accent," "things to disguise," "suggestions." These appear to be questions asked and answered within the context of an exercise at Mom's workplace in the fashion marketing department of F&N. I'm fascinated as here are ten different people's impressions of my mother, Dorin Schuler--who she is--in the early 1950s as a young married woman. "Tiny, dark, very brown eyes, mild mannered and quiet," writes one observer. Another writes, "Feminine, petite, poised, not fussy feminine, but more tailored. Depth, sensitivity." Another co-worker with the initials "VH" (is this the Vi of Mom's unmailed letter?) writes, "Modest, executive, conservative." Under the suggestion portion of this same answer, VH admonishes Mom--"Don't be conservative! Your coloring is exotic and you can accent it by wearing bright colors...Use that bright smile all you can!" Words that appear repeatedly are--"shy," "reserved," "nice figure," "feminine," "pleasing personality," "self-conscious," in need of more "color." The consensus seems to be that Mom needs to be more forth coming, more self-assured, not as reserved. As one co-worker writes--"Come out to people more often, we like it when you did" (original emphasis).
These F&N comments are revealing, as they prefigure the mother I have come to know so many years later--stylish and beautiful but at the same time overly private to the point of secrecy. Even then, in the heyday of her marriage to my father, in the years before so many disappointments accumulated and before the responsibilities of motherhood, Mom was reserved, private...an enigma to those around her.
Who is my mother? Is she the over-achiever thirteen year old who writes in her diary (just one entry) that "today is a good day" because she receives an "A" on her geography test, a "B" on an English drill and a "B+" on her science test? In this same entry, she's carefully and systematically "planning my Christmas presents" with their projected costs: "$1.00" for Dad, "$1.00" for Mom, with a note of "lemonade tray," "$1.00" for Marguerite and "$.25" for each of her friends, Dorothy, Catherine, Betty and Mary. She calculates she has "$2.25" so far and has "$2.00" yet to earn.
Or is she the petulant, letter-writing lover abandoned by my father during the war to face the rigors of her own mother's illness and eventual death? "It's awful," she writes, to sit with her hour after hour watching her suffer as she does."
Or is she the newly married woman who revels in the pleasures of her marriage, writing to a friend Vi that her favorite hour is 11:00 at night when she and her husband talk intimately about their day over coffee or tea?
Or is she the tender soon-to-be-mother of baby Christine who writes her two young sons a goodbye letter as she's going into labor? "Dear Peter and Eric," she writes, "Daddy and I are leaving now to go to the hospital--and you boys are fast asleep, so I cannot say goodbye. Perhaps by the time you wake up you will have a new brother or sister. Or it might take a little longer. Anyway very very soon you will have a new member in our family. I will miss you boys while I am gone in the hospital, but I will be home after a few days rest at the hospital...Be good boys and help Marguerite all you can. She will be very busy with five boys to take care of. Remember I love you very much."
Or is she the loving, grieving daughter who has yet to get over the death of her mother, experiencing each day--even now--as an opportunity for regret, for all the things she should have but didn't do for her mom.
Or is she resentful, widowed woman whose comment on sex is "not fun" and who views marriage as something she'd rather not engage in twice, though she's quick to say that her marriage was "fine."
Or is she the exuberant woman of eighty-five who, despite her infirmities, can yowl like a coyote when we bite down hard into the pleasures of the Bread Queen's latest culinary wonder?
Or is she the angry, unforgiving mother who insists her eldest son is an "ugly" man who needs, even to this day, to be taught a "lesson."
Or is she the Mirabella patient in Room 201 who all the staff and aides love? They come to her room every day just to say goodnight, to give and receive a smile from her, to ask about her day, to share their Filipino delicacies. The outpouring is phenomenal.
Or is she the Alzheimer's stoke victim who cannot get through her day without an out-rush of tears and a dosage of Lorazapane or Serequel, the same woman who tells me, between sobs, "I don't...don't want to die."
Or is she the woman who reports with a smile, or a semblance of a smile, that she's "still here," still alive and that really this is okay. Life is okay.
Which mother is she?
The stale recycled air whispers nothing in reply. There's just the chatter around me from my cabin mates, anonymous noises that wing themselves across aisles, over arm rests and seats.
"I'm going back," I say to myself, to the tray reclined in my lap, to the new Lorrie Moore novel I've opened but haven't begun to read. "Back to my life." There's anger there in my voice, resentment, despite how softly I've spoken. What I know but can't quite say aloud--that under all my kisses, my lipstick moons, Mom's still the same difficult, unforgiving, fascinating, exuberant, sometimes-loving mother I've always known. Nothing has changed.
And yet everything has changed.
Later, after the plane touches down at the Freidman Memorial Airport, after I've taken the A-1 cab and listened to the driver, Bubba, recount his version of what's been happening in the Valley since I've been gone, after I've dragged my suitcase and Cougar's cat carrier through several inches of new snow and into my house and waited for the heat to turn on, the humidity to rise, I call Mom.
Over the phone, I feel our disconnection. The phone line's there, but she's not listening or maybe just not talking. I can't tell which.
"Mom," I say, "Mom?"
Silence, but I can hear other voices, maybe aides in the hallway or Lorna talking on her cell phone, so I know we still have a connection.
"How was your day?"
Silence.
"Did you have any visitors?"
Silence.
"There's not much snow here--just a couple of inches. But it's cold. 8 degrees."
Silence.
"I miss you Mom...wish you were here."
And when I say this, I realize this is true--that I do wish she was here... that she was well and could travel and walk without need of a wheelchair...that the cold didn't bother her like it does...that she and I could drag out the Christmas ornaments from her garage and garland a tree...that we could go into town, looking for last minute presents at our favorite boutiques, Deja Vu, Sport's Connection, Theodore's...that we'd stop off at Atkinson's to order our Christmas turkey and wait in an interminable line to purchase our groceries for dinner, just like all the other shoppers...that she could turn to me and say, amidst all the chaos of our family's Christmas dinner, "I love you, oh daughter of mine." Christmas will not be Christmas without Mom. Not from here on out.
But instead, there's just silence. And more silence. And the noisy racket my tears would make if Mom was listening, really listening on the other end of the line. What am I feeling as we both breathe into the silence, into the vacuum where our tongues should be speaking instead? Fear...regret...loss...abandonment...loneliness? All of these?
"I'm never going to earn your love," I whisper into the receiver, so quietly I'm sure she's not heard. Her forgiveness, her approval, her affection will always be held in reserve. I know this now. No matter how many hours I occupy a chair at the Mirabella, laughing with Mom, crying with Mom. No matter how many doctors and nurses and nurse's aides I oversee, making sure Mom is safe. No matter how many cards we make, slices of bread we eat, kisses we exchange. Because it's not about this. Not about taking or receiving.
"I love you Mom" I say to the silence, between my sobs. "I'll call you...tomorrow. I promise."
And I will.
An umbilical connection keeps us like this, mother and daughter.
No matter what.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
goodbye
We make cards today, one of the Christmas activities planned for Mom in the next two weeks. It will be hard to help her forget she isn't in Idaho for the holidays, the place she has spent Christmas each year for thirty-four years. Last year was the first Christmas she'd missed in that entire time. But it was different last year, not as hard, as Mom was home in her Medina residence whereas now she's "home" at the Mirabella. Not home at all.
Jennifer has brought stamps, ink, stickers and white card stock cut on a zig-saw, like rickrack trim Mom and I would sew crazily onto summer shorts and dresses for ourselves back in the 60s. We situate Mom in her wheelchair so her elbows are supported by her adjustable table. Her hands are at the ready. We're not sure what Mom will be able to do or not, so we start small, asking if she wants to press down the 2x2 photo of herself to the card stock. Lorna's been busy sticking rolls of tape onto the back of these photos, pictures Jennifer took last week. The day of the photos wasn't one of Mom's good days, so Lorna had to support Mom's spine so she'd come across "normal" instead of slumped in the photo.
I crouch to the right of Mom, ready to guide her hand if necessary.
"Where," she says at first. "Where...to go?"
"Doesn't matter Mom...wherever you want it to go," I say back to her, encouraging her to tape the photo into place wherever it looks good to her.
Mom's hand hovers there with the photo pressed between her thumb and her forefinger for several minutes. I can see her brain working, how she considers whether to square the photo with the edges of the card stock or whether to place it jauntily at an angle. And then there's the question of which part of the card to make use of--the corners, the middle, each will create a different effect. In years past, if Mom and I were making these cards we would launch into a conversation assessing the relative merits of each of these strategies, like it was decision worthy of careful deliberation.
Minutes later, Mom is still considering where to place the photo. I'm watching her, wondering how long this is going to take. Finally I touch her hand and suggest--"What about taping it here," pointing to the left corner of the space available. Mom nods "Yes" and begins to push her thumb into the center of her photo; the rest of her fingers remain suspended, inches above the photo's surface. I help her smooth the edges so the photo affixes evenly to the card.
Next, we consider the stamp and which color ink to use. Jennifer grabs for the Christmas wreath stamp and hands it to Mom. "Red or green?" she asks Mom, showing her the two different colored pads of ink. I can see Mom's mouth forming the "r" and the "g" of these two colors but her hands remain motionless in front of her chest, grabbing for neither of the pads.
"What about red?" Jennifer asks. Mom looks relieved at the suggestion and nods "Yes." Both Jennifer and I help Mom to press the wreath stamp down hard into the ink pad and then ferry it to a blank spot on Mom's card. "You've got to press down hard now Dorin," Jennifer says, explaining to Mom how stamps are not forgiving--takes a lot of pressure to get the ink to imprint evenly. We guide Mom's hand with the stamp as we press down into the card stock, helping to keep the stamp solidly in one place as the ink is transferred to the card. "Do you think we're done?" Jennifer asks. Mom and I both nods "Yes" as we carefully lift the stamp from the card, trying not to smudges the wet ink. Voila--there's a near perfect Christmas wreath. right next to Mom's photo. A small red smudge winks to the right of the wreath, a place where Mom's finger accidentally dragged the card's surface. Any other time, this smudge would bother Mom--a sign, she would think, of imperfection when perfection was possible. But now, she doesn't appear to notice, and nether do I.
Mom looks at this wreath in wonder--as in she can't believe she's just done this magical thing--imprinted red ink to a card. Her mouth opens to a wide grin, something that's definitely a smile, whereas most of Mom's other "smiles" look like grimaces, or at least frozen somewhere between a smile and a grimace. There's no question this is a smile. I go limp at the sight of it's loveliness--that something so small as a stamp on a card could bring such pleasure.
We repeat the sticking process with the two holiday stickers Mom's chosen for the card. We have eleven more cards to go. It will take us four and a half hours to finish these cards, at least an hour of this time taken up with Mom dictating to me what messages she wants me to write on the back of the card. Jennifer brought a silver pen--makes a smooth swoosh of silver ink each time I put pen to paper. We think hard about what to write on each of the cards, wanting the messages to convey Mom's thoughts even though she has a hard time communicating her thoughts. To myself I'm thinking--maybe these will be the last Christmas cards Mom sends, maybe there won't be another Christmas for Mom. But I don't say any of this to Mom. We take as long as it takes--Mom dictating, me writing. Her smiles are worth every second.
All the while we're making our cards, I'm thinking about what I need to say to Mom later tonight--goodbye--because I'll be going to Idaho for ten days and she won't be coming with me. My sister-in-law is also leaving for Idaho the day after Christmas with two of her children. So Mom will be alone for over a week, alone except for the activities I've arranged and the people I've asked to come see her. Maybe Eric will visit Mom. Mom would like that.
Leaving has always been a fraught activity for me, Maybe its hereditary. Growing up, Mom had a hard time leaving me when she and Dad occasionally went away by themselves on a business trip--once to Chicago and the Virgin Islands, once to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm sure there were others, it's just these are what I remember. And, to be fair, I had a difficult time being left. I found notes I wrote to Mom, begging her not to leave me, begging her to come home. In one of Mom's keepsake boxes there was a letter addressed to "Century Plaza Hotel" with a post date of November 17, 1967. I remember this trip, as Mom and Dad had gone down to the furniture market in San Francisco looking for finds for Dad's design store, Laurelhurst Interiors. They'd made a side trip to Los Angeles, staying at the then swank Century Plaza. There are two notes inside the envelope. One of them, 9x11, reads: "Dear Mamu, I miss you I what you very very mush I wish you a safe trip back, you are a nice mamu. How are you. Luve Christine." Apparently I wasn't much of a speller. This is followed by two pencil drawings, one of "Christine" saying in a bubble "Hi Mama" and the other of "Mame" saying "I love you very very much." There's also a second piece of paper, only 3x9, that says, in pencil, "I don't want to stay at Gretchen's house." Gretchen Andrews was my best friend, in addition to Sandra Blakely who lived at the end of the point. Gretchen and I were connected at the hip, at all times, and yet at age seven I didn't want to be there with her parents Bob and Priscilla. I wanted my own mother, my own house. Nothing else would do. I remember this separation as excruciating, punctuated by much crying and unhappiness. My notes to Mom were returned, however--the US PO stamp said the letter was "unclaimed." Mom must have forgotten to check the mail while there or maybe the letter took too long to get to Los Angeles. My words went unread until Mom returned. My consolation was a very large pink stuffed mole, which I named "Molely," brought back to me by Mom in an extravagant pink and orange square box. As cool as I thought Molely was, I would rather Mom had never left. Nonetheless, I loved that mole until it's fur turned an unfortunately shade of pink-grey from too much handling, too many kisses and hugs. "Molely" still lives in my spare bedroom closet--something I can't seem to part with.
In contrast, Dad's absence on business trips was not nearly as upsetting. In the same year, 1967, Dad went to Chicago on business--he left, it appears, while most of his family were doing something else. Mom has each of us write him a note which she then posted on January 9th. My note is simple, non-emotional. I write in pencil and then go over the letters in black ink: "I went to Amys house I am sorry at I did not get to say goodbye to you Merry Christmas From Christine." Each of the "Ys" in the note have long tails that reach back in a grand flourish to the beginning consonant. At the end of the note, there's a tiny drawing if a girl with angel wings. I address the note "to Payl" (a version of Paul, I assume) rather than to Dad or Daddy. Mom also writes a quick note, oddly impersonal: "It is quiet around here. At least Deda keeps talking about how quiet it is without you. We're going to the Ice Capades this afternoon. Hope you're feeling better. See you Tuesday." Peter writes the most, being thirteen at the time. He tells Dad about skiing for the first time: "Dear Dad, I had fun skiing yesterday. All the equipment worked perfectly. We did not learn much the first day except the snowplow and the snowplow turn. I got home just after you left."
Telling Mom I will be leaving her over the holidays is not an easy thing--must be as difficult as Mom telling me she and Dad were going to be gone on a business trip. Mom would wait till the night before their departure and then spring it on me. I hated this. But this is what I do to Mom today, not having been able to find the right moment to share my departure with her earlier in the week.
"Mom," I say, "I'm going to go over to Idaho for Christmas."
Mom says nothing, so I'm not sure if she's heard me.
"Did you hear me Mom?" I repeat, "I'm going to be gone for ten days."
After all the activity of card making, Mom's tired. Her head is tilted back awkwardly onto her pillow, hair flat with "pillow head" rather than curled and poofy as she prefers. From my chair I can see her eyes are closed to just a slit. Her mouth gapes open like she's exclaiming "Oh" but no sound is escaping. She's not asleep but rather in that intermediate zone where she's awake but not fully following what's going on around her. When she answers me, her speech comes out fuzzy, like how your lips move when you've been out in the cold too long. Nothing is clear or enunciated. Instead, her words sound numb, lumbering. Difficult to understand.
"You..you," she slurs.
"Me what, Mom?" I respond.
"You...you...always..."
"What Mom?" I ask again, though really I'd rather not know what's troubling her mind. Whatever it is, it can't be something I want to hear. So I have to will myself to stay where I am, in this designer chair by the side of Mom's bed here at the Mirabella, will myself to listen to what she might have to say.
"Leave..." she then adds. "You...leave."
"What are you talking about Mom," I spout back to her, annoyed that this is her conclusion about me when in my way of thinking it's her son Eric who has left, chosen not to engage in a difficult and, at times, disagreeable process of dying. I've been here everyday for her. Any days I've missed I've called in and talked to her. I'm here and have been for the last three months.
"You know...know...gone gone."
This is something she's doing lately, repeating words twice, right in a row, like "gone gone."
"Gone where?" I ask.
"Away away," she answers, wrinkling her forehead, twisting her lips into an exaggerated frown.
I don't say anything at first, not sure of how to answer. 'Away' where, I ask myself? How have I left Mom? When I moved to eastern Washington to accept a job just out of law school? When I eloped and married my husband? When I launched a life for myself, separate from her and my brother's family? Which of these are the treacheries she refers to? None of them seem the act of disloyalty Mom chooses to see. Instead, they are life processes--of growing up, moving away, starting a life. What is so nefarious in this?
"No," I say to her. "You're wrong. I'm right here Mom, always have been."
"No," she says back to me. "NO...NO...NO."
We sit with this for a time, minutes at least. I wonder at what she's thinking. Her grief is obvious. My defection this Christmas fits a pattern for her, of being gone when she wants me to stay. But this has never been anything we can discuss. Nor can we talk about her responses to my "leaving" or to anything else for that matter that doesn't please her. Mom's famous shunning.
"I need to have some down time," I tell her then, deciding to ignore her rebuke. "Time away. You can understand can't you?"
Mom says nothing to this, her eyes now decidedly closed. There's breath coming from her mouth as I can hear a sigh each time she breathes out, so loud it almost speaks a language.
I think about what Lorna told me several days ago, about how the last few weeks Mom has received ghostly visits from her Mom, her Dad. "They sit on the bed, my dear," Lorna told me, "and your Mom talks away." I was stunned by this. While I've heard of such things, visitations before people pass away, I had not considered the fact that Mom would be dying sometime soon. Her doctor has given her a year or maybe two. What could this mean? Ironic, I think, that on the eve of Mom's own passing, the people she has loved the most come back to her. There's no placating Mom's grief over the unnecessary death of her mother in 1936 and the later death of her father when I am eight years old. These are all leavings for her--people who have gone before Mom was ready to let them go. The difference is, Mom doesn't blame her Mom, her Dad for their unwanted departures, not like what she's accusing me of here tonight--of leaving her when I don't need to be gone. There's bitterness reserved here for me, but for her mother and her father there's just grief at the unfairness of life. Why is this?
We say nothing more. Mom's silence works like a guilt, causing me to question what I've planned, what I need for myself. My ticket was purchased back in July, long before Mom's stroke. Deciding to pack a suitcase and get on that plane on Saturday, however, are different matters all together than that earlier ticket purchase. They are acts of defection that require me to put aside my worry about Mom, my interest in her having as full a life as possible for as long as she can. They are acts that say--this is my life and I need to live it as best as I can. The question is whether I'm ready to do this, to say this to Mom.
I can't help but think of those times Mom left me to travel with Dad. At the time, I could not understand why she would choose to go with my father and leave me behind. The imperfections of a child's perspective. Now, sitting by the side of her bed, I can see we have come full circle. I am the parent saying--I need to leave but I will return. And she is the child saying, selfishly--I can't stand your leaving, please don't go.
I grab hold of Mom's right hand. It isn't easy as she has it tucked securely under her sheets. I grab the fingers and pull it gently out to rest on her duvet.
"Mom," I say to, as I squeeze her hand. "Mom, I love you. I need to go, but I'll be back. I promise. You understand don't you?"
Mom doesn't say a thing. Her eyes stay shut tight. Her breath comes light now, sleep-like, barely something I can hear. I have to lean forward to feel the rhythmic sigh of air on my face before I know for sure she's still here, still my Mom.
We sit like this for a very long time. My asking. Her not answering. Mother daughter. No longer the same at all.
When I say goodbye, she turns her cheeks from me, avoiding my lips and the lipstick moons I meant to leave behind.
I kiss her anyway. Whether she wants me to or not.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Jennifer has brought stamps, ink, stickers and white card stock cut on a zig-saw, like rickrack trim Mom and I would sew crazily onto summer shorts and dresses for ourselves back in the 60s. We situate Mom in her wheelchair so her elbows are supported by her adjustable table. Her hands are at the ready. We're not sure what Mom will be able to do or not, so we start small, asking if she wants to press down the 2x2 photo of herself to the card stock. Lorna's been busy sticking rolls of tape onto the back of these photos, pictures Jennifer took last week. The day of the photos wasn't one of Mom's good days, so Lorna had to support Mom's spine so she'd come across "normal" instead of slumped in the photo.
I crouch to the right of Mom, ready to guide her hand if necessary.
"Where," she says at first. "Where...to go?"
"Doesn't matter Mom...wherever you want it to go," I say back to her, encouraging her to tape the photo into place wherever it looks good to her.
Mom's hand hovers there with the photo pressed between her thumb and her forefinger for several minutes. I can see her brain working, how she considers whether to square the photo with the edges of the card stock or whether to place it jauntily at an angle. And then there's the question of which part of the card to make use of--the corners, the middle, each will create a different effect. In years past, if Mom and I were making these cards we would launch into a conversation assessing the relative merits of each of these strategies, like it was decision worthy of careful deliberation.
Minutes later, Mom is still considering where to place the photo. I'm watching her, wondering how long this is going to take. Finally I touch her hand and suggest--"What about taping it here," pointing to the left corner of the space available. Mom nods "Yes" and begins to push her thumb into the center of her photo; the rest of her fingers remain suspended, inches above the photo's surface. I help her smooth the edges so the photo affixes evenly to the card.
Next, we consider the stamp and which color ink to use. Jennifer grabs for the Christmas wreath stamp and hands it to Mom. "Red or green?" she asks Mom, showing her the two different colored pads of ink. I can see Mom's mouth forming the "r" and the "g" of these two colors but her hands remain motionless in front of her chest, grabbing for neither of the pads.
"What about red?" Jennifer asks. Mom looks relieved at the suggestion and nods "Yes." Both Jennifer and I help Mom to press the wreath stamp down hard into the ink pad and then ferry it to a blank spot on Mom's card. "You've got to press down hard now Dorin," Jennifer says, explaining to Mom how stamps are not forgiving--takes a lot of pressure to get the ink to imprint evenly. We guide Mom's hand with the stamp as we press down into the card stock, helping to keep the stamp solidly in one place as the ink is transferred to the card. "Do you think we're done?" Jennifer asks. Mom and I both nods "Yes" as we carefully lift the stamp from the card, trying not to smudges the wet ink. Voila--there's a near perfect Christmas wreath. right next to Mom's photo. A small red smudge winks to the right of the wreath, a place where Mom's finger accidentally dragged the card's surface. Any other time, this smudge would bother Mom--a sign, she would think, of imperfection when perfection was possible. But now, she doesn't appear to notice, and nether do I.
Mom looks at this wreath in wonder--as in she can't believe she's just done this magical thing--imprinted red ink to a card. Her mouth opens to a wide grin, something that's definitely a smile, whereas most of Mom's other "smiles" look like grimaces, or at least frozen somewhere between a smile and a grimace. There's no question this is a smile. I go limp at the sight of it's loveliness--that something so small as a stamp on a card could bring such pleasure.
We repeat the sticking process with the two holiday stickers Mom's chosen for the card. We have eleven more cards to go. It will take us four and a half hours to finish these cards, at least an hour of this time taken up with Mom dictating to me what messages she wants me to write on the back of the card. Jennifer brought a silver pen--makes a smooth swoosh of silver ink each time I put pen to paper. We think hard about what to write on each of the cards, wanting the messages to convey Mom's thoughts even though she has a hard time communicating her thoughts. To myself I'm thinking--maybe these will be the last Christmas cards Mom sends, maybe there won't be another Christmas for Mom. But I don't say any of this to Mom. We take as long as it takes--Mom dictating, me writing. Her smiles are worth every second.
All the while we're making our cards, I'm thinking about what I need to say to Mom later tonight--goodbye--because I'll be going to Idaho for ten days and she won't be coming with me. My sister-in-law is also leaving for Idaho the day after Christmas with two of her children. So Mom will be alone for over a week, alone except for the activities I've arranged and the people I've asked to come see her. Maybe Eric will visit Mom. Mom would like that.
Leaving has always been a fraught activity for me, Maybe its hereditary. Growing up, Mom had a hard time leaving me when she and Dad occasionally went away by themselves on a business trip--once to Chicago and the Virgin Islands, once to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm sure there were others, it's just these are what I remember. And, to be fair, I had a difficult time being left. I found notes I wrote to Mom, begging her not to leave me, begging her to come home. In one of Mom's keepsake boxes there was a letter addressed to "Century Plaza Hotel" with a post date of November 17, 1967. I remember this trip, as Mom and Dad had gone down to the furniture market in San Francisco looking for finds for Dad's design store, Laurelhurst Interiors. They'd made a side trip to Los Angeles, staying at the then swank Century Plaza. There are two notes inside the envelope. One of them, 9x11, reads: "Dear Mamu, I miss you I what you very very mush I wish you a safe trip back, you are a nice mamu. How are you. Luve Christine." Apparently I wasn't much of a speller. This is followed by two pencil drawings, one of "Christine" saying in a bubble "Hi Mama" and the other of "Mame" saying "I love you very very much." There's also a second piece of paper, only 3x9, that says, in pencil, "I don't want to stay at Gretchen's house." Gretchen Andrews was my best friend, in addition to Sandra Blakely who lived at the end of the point. Gretchen and I were connected at the hip, at all times, and yet at age seven I didn't want to be there with her parents Bob and Priscilla. I wanted my own mother, my own house. Nothing else would do. I remember this separation as excruciating, punctuated by much crying and unhappiness. My notes to Mom were returned, however--the US PO stamp said the letter was "unclaimed." Mom must have forgotten to check the mail while there or maybe the letter took too long to get to Los Angeles. My words went unread until Mom returned. My consolation was a very large pink stuffed mole, which I named "Molely," brought back to me by Mom in an extravagant pink and orange square box. As cool as I thought Molely was, I would rather Mom had never left. Nonetheless, I loved that mole until it's fur turned an unfortunately shade of pink-grey from too much handling, too many kisses and hugs. "Molely" still lives in my spare bedroom closet--something I can't seem to part with.
In contrast, Dad's absence on business trips was not nearly as upsetting. In the same year, 1967, Dad went to Chicago on business--he left, it appears, while most of his family were doing something else. Mom has each of us write him a note which she then posted on January 9th. My note is simple, non-emotional. I write in pencil and then go over the letters in black ink: "I went to Amys house I am sorry at I did not get to say goodbye to you Merry Christmas From Christine." Each of the "Ys" in the note have long tails that reach back in a grand flourish to the beginning consonant. At the end of the note, there's a tiny drawing if a girl with angel wings. I address the note "to Payl" (a version of Paul, I assume) rather than to Dad or Daddy. Mom also writes a quick note, oddly impersonal: "It is quiet around here. At least Deda keeps talking about how quiet it is without you. We're going to the Ice Capades this afternoon. Hope you're feeling better. See you Tuesday." Peter writes the most, being thirteen at the time. He tells Dad about skiing for the first time: "Dear Dad, I had fun skiing yesterday. All the equipment worked perfectly. We did not learn much the first day except the snowplow and the snowplow turn. I got home just after you left."
Telling Mom I will be leaving her over the holidays is not an easy thing--must be as difficult as Mom telling me she and Dad were going to be gone on a business trip. Mom would wait till the night before their departure and then spring it on me. I hated this. But this is what I do to Mom today, not having been able to find the right moment to share my departure with her earlier in the week.
"Mom," I say, "I'm going to go over to Idaho for Christmas."
Mom says nothing, so I'm not sure if she's heard me.
"Did you hear me Mom?" I repeat, "I'm going to be gone for ten days."
After all the activity of card making, Mom's tired. Her head is tilted back awkwardly onto her pillow, hair flat with "pillow head" rather than curled and poofy as she prefers. From my chair I can see her eyes are closed to just a slit. Her mouth gapes open like she's exclaiming "Oh" but no sound is escaping. She's not asleep but rather in that intermediate zone where she's awake but not fully following what's going on around her. When she answers me, her speech comes out fuzzy, like how your lips move when you've been out in the cold too long. Nothing is clear or enunciated. Instead, her words sound numb, lumbering. Difficult to understand.
"You..you," she slurs.
"Me what, Mom?" I respond.
"You...you...always..."
"What Mom?" I ask again, though really I'd rather not know what's troubling her mind. Whatever it is, it can't be something I want to hear. So I have to will myself to stay where I am, in this designer chair by the side of Mom's bed here at the Mirabella, will myself to listen to what she might have to say.
"Leave..." she then adds. "You...leave."
"What are you talking about Mom," I spout back to her, annoyed that this is her conclusion about me when in my way of thinking it's her son Eric who has left, chosen not to engage in a difficult and, at times, disagreeable process of dying. I've been here everyday for her. Any days I've missed I've called in and talked to her. I'm here and have been for the last three months.
"You know...know...gone gone."
This is something she's doing lately, repeating words twice, right in a row, like "gone gone."
"Gone where?" I ask.
"Away away," she answers, wrinkling her forehead, twisting her lips into an exaggerated frown.
I don't say anything at first, not sure of how to answer. 'Away' where, I ask myself? How have I left Mom? When I moved to eastern Washington to accept a job just out of law school? When I eloped and married my husband? When I launched a life for myself, separate from her and my brother's family? Which of these are the treacheries she refers to? None of them seem the act of disloyalty Mom chooses to see. Instead, they are life processes--of growing up, moving away, starting a life. What is so nefarious in this?
"No," I say to her. "You're wrong. I'm right here Mom, always have been."
"No," she says back to me. "NO...NO...NO."
We sit with this for a time, minutes at least. I wonder at what she's thinking. Her grief is obvious. My defection this Christmas fits a pattern for her, of being gone when she wants me to stay. But this has never been anything we can discuss. Nor can we talk about her responses to my "leaving" or to anything else for that matter that doesn't please her. Mom's famous shunning.
"I need to have some down time," I tell her then, deciding to ignore her rebuke. "Time away. You can understand can't you?"
Mom says nothing to this, her eyes now decidedly closed. There's breath coming from her mouth as I can hear a sigh each time she breathes out, so loud it almost speaks a language.
I think about what Lorna told me several days ago, about how the last few weeks Mom has received ghostly visits from her Mom, her Dad. "They sit on the bed, my dear," Lorna told me, "and your Mom talks away." I was stunned by this. While I've heard of such things, visitations before people pass away, I had not considered the fact that Mom would be dying sometime soon. Her doctor has given her a year or maybe two. What could this mean? Ironic, I think, that on the eve of Mom's own passing, the people she has loved the most come back to her. There's no placating Mom's grief over the unnecessary death of her mother in 1936 and the later death of her father when I am eight years old. These are all leavings for her--people who have gone before Mom was ready to let them go. The difference is, Mom doesn't blame her Mom, her Dad for their unwanted departures, not like what she's accusing me of here tonight--of leaving her when I don't need to be gone. There's bitterness reserved here for me, but for her mother and her father there's just grief at the unfairness of life. Why is this?
We say nothing more. Mom's silence works like a guilt, causing me to question what I've planned, what I need for myself. My ticket was purchased back in July, long before Mom's stroke. Deciding to pack a suitcase and get on that plane on Saturday, however, are different matters all together than that earlier ticket purchase. They are acts of defection that require me to put aside my worry about Mom, my interest in her having as full a life as possible for as long as she can. They are acts that say--this is my life and I need to live it as best as I can. The question is whether I'm ready to do this, to say this to Mom.
I can't help but think of those times Mom left me to travel with Dad. At the time, I could not understand why she would choose to go with my father and leave me behind. The imperfections of a child's perspective. Now, sitting by the side of her bed, I can see we have come full circle. I am the parent saying--I need to leave but I will return. And she is the child saying, selfishly--I can't stand your leaving, please don't go.
I grab hold of Mom's right hand. It isn't easy as she has it tucked securely under her sheets. I grab the fingers and pull it gently out to rest on her duvet.
"Mom," I say to, as I squeeze her hand. "Mom, I love you. I need to go, but I'll be back. I promise. You understand don't you?"
Mom doesn't say a thing. Her eyes stay shut tight. Her breath comes light now, sleep-like, barely something I can hear. I have to lean forward to feel the rhythmic sigh of air on my face before I know for sure she's still here, still my Mom.
We sit like this for a very long time. My asking. Her not answering. Mother daughter. No longer the same at all.
When I say goodbye, she turns her cheeks from me, avoiding my lips and the lipstick moons I meant to leave behind.
I kiss her anyway. Whether she wants me to or not.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
these four walls
"Looks like a cemetery," I say aloud to the drizzle and the damp.
It's mid-December but the air's still warm and wet--the freeze we had for the last week-and-a-half is long since gone. I'm standing on the now-vacant lot of 3100 Evergreen Point Road, the place in Medina my parent's bought on contract in 1951 and transformed into a family compound. I've eked my way through a eight foot cyclone fence that had been erected to keep people like me out--curious, interested bystanders who might have something to say about the demolition going on inside. There's mud on the asphalt, mud rimming my black boots and in the distance I can here the hum of heavy machinery, ripping into one of the structures on the Barbie's property--I don't even look to see what structure is coming down, because I don't really want to know. I just stand there, in my muddy boots, in the rain, and take in what was once a house, a life.
This morning early I received a call from my sister-in-law. "It's gone," she said. I mean totally gone."
"What's gone," I asked her.
"The house, both houses," she told me. "I saw it this morning coming over 520--I couldn't see the Barbie's house anymore. Just a patch of dirt. So I drove by on the way to my meeting."
I couldn't read my sister-in-law's voice--this property in Medina was her home for nearly the duration of her marriage and yet her voice sounded neutral, informational--like this could be any one's home that's now razed to the ground and she was just reporting the facts.
We knew this moment would come--that's why the state purchased the property, after all. But still, so many months have passed since the sale closed. I'd begun to fantasize that maybe the house, my childhood home, would stand, despite the facts suggesting otherwise.
I wonder why Terry has called me to impart this news--not that I'm complaining. I'm glad she did. But what am I to her? Since the debacle of Thanksgiving, when Terry and her family celebrated this day with Mom but without inviting me, she has started calling, leaving voice mails, offering bits of information behind like breadcrumbs. Why? I don't have an answer.
It's been months since I've driven down Evergreen Point Road headed towards Mom's house. For those weeks in March and April of this year, I made this drive everyday, sometimes several times a day, trying to unload Mom's house of all her "things." I'd arrive early in the morning, before my moving help got there, and begin to sort yet another box of dirty, discarded objects. I never wore gloves so by the end of the day there was grime under my nails. My fingers and hands and arms were a quiver of pulled muscles from the boxes I'd lifted, sorted, carried outside and set down on the asphalt in the system of piles I'd developed: recycle, dump, hazardous waste, Mom's new house, my house, Eric's storage shed, Mom's garage. I'd seen this as a job to get done--I had to. In my mind, I decontextualized everything--tried to ignore this was a door my father hung or the slate floor my parents resealed every spring, or the stove Mom cooked eggs over easy for my father every morning. There was no other way through.
It wasn't until the night before the estate sale in late April that it finally hit me, ran me over--this is my family's home, my home, and by the end of the weekend there would be just these four walls standing, so to speak. Nothing else. All that belonged to my family would be sold or taken to the dump. I'd stood there, amidst the jumble of the items marked with orange stickers saying $1.00, $8.00, $50.00, "Best offer," and felt the weight of the years--a ballast keeping me anchored down. Was I drowning in the ruble or was this junk, these "finds" all that was left of a precious life? I'd begun grabbing then, fitting my hands around a stuffed brown velor bear with orange embroidered eyes I'd had in grade school, two Nancy Drew mysteries I'd read in junior high, a yellow smiley T-shirt I'd bought on family vacation, a red faux-leather belted coat I'd worn at age six or seven, well-used pink toe shoes and a netted purple tutu I sported for a performance at Cornish School for the Arts. Even a rusted iron outdoor side table (without glass top) made it's way into the back of my car. I grabbed at all of these and more and began stuffing them into garbage bags. There was no stopping my reclamation project. Not even knowing I was in violation of the contract with the estate sale handlers could hold me back. According to what I signed, all items now belonged to the estate handlers and any items taken after they assumed possession would have to be purchased at fair market value. I had no intention of "paying" for any of these items--they were mine. I bought them, wore them, lived with them. A common law right to everything that was appurtenant to my life.
It was late, the house almost dark, and still I searched for the things that were my life. No one else there. Just the sobs rolling my tongue, filling my family's wall to overcapacity. I've never felt such desperation.
It's mid-December but the air's still warm and wet--the freeze we had for the last week-and-a-half is long since gone. I'm standing on the now-vacant lot of 3100 Evergreen Point Road, the place in Medina my parent's bought on contract in 1951 and transformed into a family compound. I've eked my way through a eight foot cyclone fence that had been erected to keep people like me out--curious, interested bystanders who might have something to say about the demolition going on inside. There's mud on the asphalt, mud rimming my black boots and in the distance I can here the hum of heavy machinery, ripping into one of the structures on the Barbie's property--I don't even look to see what structure is coming down, because I don't really want to know. I just stand there, in my muddy boots, in the rain, and take in what was once a house, a life.
This morning early I received a call from my sister-in-law. "It's gone," she said. I mean totally gone."
"What's gone," I asked her.
"The house, both houses," she told me. "I saw it this morning coming over 520--I couldn't see the Barbie's house anymore. Just a patch of dirt. So I drove by on the way to my meeting."
I couldn't read my sister-in-law's voice--this property in Medina was her home for nearly the duration of her marriage and yet her voice sounded neutral, informational--like this could be any one's home that's now razed to the ground and she was just reporting the facts.
We knew this moment would come--that's why the state purchased the property, after all. But still, so many months have passed since the sale closed. I'd begun to fantasize that maybe the house, my childhood home, would stand, despite the facts suggesting otherwise.
I wonder why Terry has called me to impart this news--not that I'm complaining. I'm glad she did. But what am I to her? Since the debacle of Thanksgiving, when Terry and her family celebrated this day with Mom but without inviting me, she has started calling, leaving voice mails, offering bits of information behind like breadcrumbs. Why? I don't have an answer.
It's been months since I've driven down Evergreen Point Road headed towards Mom's house. For those weeks in March and April of this year, I made this drive everyday, sometimes several times a day, trying to unload Mom's house of all her "things." I'd arrive early in the morning, before my moving help got there, and begin to sort yet another box of dirty, discarded objects. I never wore gloves so by the end of the day there was grime under my nails. My fingers and hands and arms were a quiver of pulled muscles from the boxes I'd lifted, sorted, carried outside and set down on the asphalt in the system of piles I'd developed: recycle, dump, hazardous waste, Mom's new house, my house, Eric's storage shed, Mom's garage. I'd seen this as a job to get done--I had to. In my mind, I decontextualized everything--tried to ignore this was a door my father hung or the slate floor my parents resealed every spring, or the stove Mom cooked eggs over easy for my father every morning. There was no other way through.
It wasn't until the night before the estate sale in late April that it finally hit me, ran me over--this is my family's home, my home, and by the end of the weekend there would be just these four walls standing, so to speak. Nothing else. All that belonged to my family would be sold or taken to the dump. I'd stood there, amidst the jumble of the items marked with orange stickers saying $1.00, $8.00, $50.00, "Best offer," and felt the weight of the years--a ballast keeping me anchored down. Was I drowning in the ruble or was this junk, these "finds" all that was left of a precious life? I'd begun grabbing then, fitting my hands around a stuffed brown velor bear with orange embroidered eyes I'd had in grade school, two Nancy Drew mysteries I'd read in junior high, a yellow smiley T-shirt I'd bought on family vacation, a red faux-leather belted coat I'd worn at age six or seven, well-used pink toe shoes and a netted purple tutu I sported for a performance at Cornish School for the Arts. Even a rusted iron outdoor side table (without glass top) made it's way into the back of my car. I grabbed at all of these and more and began stuffing them into garbage bags. There was no stopping my reclamation project. Not even knowing I was in violation of the contract with the estate sale handlers could hold me back. According to what I signed, all items now belonged to the estate handlers and any items taken after they assumed possession would have to be purchased at fair market value. I had no intention of "paying" for any of these items--they were mine. I bought them, wore them, lived with them. A common law right to everything that was appurtenant to my life.
It was late, the house almost dark, and still I searched for the things that were my life. No one else there. Just the sobs rolling my tongue, filling my family's wall to overcapacity. I've never felt such desperation.
So now, eight months later, I'm here again. Only there's nothing here but the rubble of a house. Bricks chipped and split. Concrete cracked and splintered into unrecognizable pieces. The foundation is here, but only the remnants. I walk carefully the perimeter, tracing the rooms I know so well. Kitchen leads to hallway leads to dining room leads to back hallway leads to my bedroom and my brother's bedrooms. These spaces look so small--impossible they could have held all these people, all these years. I'm told foundation are deceptive in this way, never look their actual size until the wallboard and 2x4 are in place. As I'm stepping through the concrete wreckage, I work to avoid the crumbled mortar and busted-up brick. There's so much here to distract. To my right is what is left of the family room fireplace. I can see it even though I'm standing in Peter's room. With no walls one's sight becomes 20/20. I remember stories about Dad building this fireplace, about the art of laying a level foundation for all the rest of the bricks to follow. The beers he and my uncle drank, as they put on the roof--Carlsberg Black Label Beer. I don't think this is made anymore. What must it have been like to see the walls buckle, the concrete split, the shingles pulverized under the pressure of a backhoe, a bulldozer. How did this house come down? This is not something I will ever know.
Maybe there aren't words for the death of a house. Every thought, every linguistic manifestation seems inadequate. It's an erasure--my parents' energies, time, money all reduced to dirt. Earth to house, house to earth. An imperfect weave. And there will be nothing to visit--no grave marker for the lives lived here. I can't come visit, imagine another family living in these walls, knock on the front door and ask to have a peak inside just to remind myself of what was once here. Soon there will be nothing here, not even this scraggle of a foundation. A bridge will be built, concrete will cover the ground. No room for a sigh or a groan. Just the silence of a man-made invention, and then of course the whine and howl of traffic as commuters make their everyday way to work and back home over territory that once held a family's living, breathing life.
So perhaps I'm wrong, this ruptured ground is not a cemetery. Not at all. I won't be visiting a grave like where my father's buried at Walshelli. I won't even be returning to weep, because what will there be to see--eight lanes of traffic converging on the northern shore of Lake Washington. I don't miss the irony, of course, how my father battled tooth and nail against the erection of the original 520 bridge, fighting with local cities and ultimately the state. He was one voice against the machine of progress. Mom has saved all the clippings. I found them on one of our many forays into Mom's "keepsake" boxes. Now, thirty years after his death, the 520 expansion literally swallows him whole--finishes the job it began back in 1960 when the first bridge was built. There's nothing left except the trees that had overgrown the house over the years--monstrous specimens of laurels and rhododendrons and magnolias and ornamental maples. Large enough to have shielded this house from change, from the passage of years. But in the end they couldn't.
I've taken photos, but the rain and my shaking hands make the resolution less than legible. So really there will just be what I remember in my head. Memory will have to be enough. As I restart my car to head back over 520 to see Mom, I drive slowly past the moss encroached walkway leading to a now-absent front door, the sleek laurel hedge some twenty feet tall separating our property from the Elliots, the off-white stone near the side of the road bearing the numbers "3100." I can't cry enough tears. I just can't. My family's life plowed under, making way for the next crop, the next public need. The factivity of this is so great, it temporarily overwhelms the logic of my own brain, the logic that tells me we are not the walls we live in, home cannot be a piece of ground.
But here I am, all the same. Alone. Wailing in the midst of the demolition, a river of tears at my feet.
Certain I can never go home.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
playing god
It's what she'd want, Lisa says, "if she could understand."
I nod, knowing this is true, but still facing a dilemma inside my head.
We've been looking over Mom's "Directive to Physicians," a document Mom drafted back in 2005, back when she was well or rather back when we had no name yet for what Mom was suffering from, Alzheimer's. Ensconced in the private dining room of the Mirabella, we sit side-by-side at the long dining table, covered in a white linen-type cloth. The table has wood legs but the top surface is padded cotton--no wood in sight--a strange concession to practicality. Down the hall two rooms are Mom and Lorna. When I stopped by a minute ago, Lorna and Seble were changing Mom. I said hello, kissed Mom and moved quickly out of the room, knowing I had Lisa to meet.
Recently Lisa and I realized that the Directive Mom executed in 2005 did not match the "Blue Form" I filled out on behalf of Mom when she was first admitted to the Mirabella in early September. The Blue Form determines what kind of care Mom will receive in an emergency or in the event she should lose consciousness or sensibility and not be able to make these medical decisions for herself. The most critical question on the Blue Form is the CPR or DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) decision--whether Mom's heart is to be restarted.
I've been reading about "end-of-life-planning," as Julie Grey (MSW, LICSW, GMHS) puts this in her paper entitled "Let's Talk!" According to Gray the survival and recovery rate for those receiving CPR is very low, despite TV shows suggesting that people receiving CPR intervention consistently recover and in a short period of time. It turns out that for patients over seventy, only 4% survive to be discharged; this drops to 2% to 4% for patents depending on others when admitted. Those who survive do not fully recover but rather have a significantly diminished quality of life, most often becoming more dependent on others for survival. Apparently CPR itself poses a risk to elderly patients in particular through the possibility of broken ribs and punctured lungs. Receiving not enough or too much oxygen in the process of receiving CPR often produces brain damage or hyperventilation, either of which are seriously damaging. All on all, it seems CPR is not a panacea.
Mom's Directive does not address CPR. Instead, it says--"no artificial hydration" and "no artificial nutrition" in the event she is diagnosed with a "permanent unconscious condition." I remember the day in August when she signed this document. Eric, Mom, myself, Chuck (her CPA) and Jessie (her lawyer) all around one very large conference table in Chuck's office. Mom can't come to a decision about the rest of her estate planning documents--such as the QPRTs (and the guess the IRS requires her to make as to how long she will live) and whether to disinherit Peter--but she can, it seems, decide about her end-of-life decisions. I remember her checking and initialing the boxes for "No" to hydration and nutrition. Jessie had explained all of this to her, several times--about when the Directive would come into play, what the "Yes" and "No" choices meant. She hadn't said much, but quickly and surprisingly agreed to sign the Directive without much encouragement. In my mind, and perhaps her mind also, this all seemed so far away--a time when she would not have the presence of mind to make these kinds of decisions for herself. In several weeks we were all headed to Idaho for our annual hiking extravaganza, where the goal was to hike as many trails, summit as many peaks as possible in two weeks. Mom would be there with the rest of us. She seemed sound in body, walking her usual four miles regime everyday, even if her mind was starting to show signs of dementia--losing hats, misplacing checks, getting disorientated in familiar places, tripping on sidewalks when walking, becoming unable to make basic decisions, such as what to order at a restaurant or what bills to pay and when.
Mom and I never talked about the Blue Form, or at least not when she still had most of her faculties. The first time we were asked to fill out such a form was nearly two years ago, when Mom changed doctors from Dr. Rice to Dr. Addison. By this time, Mom was early-to-mid-stages Alzheimer's. She had little understanding of what the form said or what the consequences could be for filling out the form one way or another. Nevertheless, the form needed to be completed--to leave it blank was to leave these important decisions up to the hospital, the doctors, the courts ultimately. As her power of attorney, I tried to explain each question to her. I listened hard for what she said and for what she didn't say, trying to decipher Mom's intentions when maybe she herself didn't know what they were. As it turned out, the boxes we checked displayed an intention other than the Directive Mom signed years before, though at the time I couldn't remember what her Directive said. We checked "CPR," we checked artificial hydration and artificial nutrition, we checked antibiotic intervention: Mom was going for a "full code." Why? Did Mom really know what we were saying, what I was checking on her behalf? Why did I fill in the boxes, wondering if she understand what was being asked? Wasn't that my job, as her power of attorney, to carry out Mom's wishes? Or was my job something else, to fill out the boxes based on what was in her best interests, irrespective of what I thought she wanted? And who was/is to decide what this might be--her best interests? Hasn't this been the problem all along, with every decision Eric and I have tried to make regarding Mom's care--that what she seems to be saying now, in her incapacity, doesn't seem to match what her doctors think is best for her, what we think is best for her, or what she may have wanted long before her stroke? Who is to decide?
Upon admittance to the Mirabella, the Blue Form reappeared once again--one of the many documents I signed that late Friday afternoon. We were all deep in grief, trying to adjust to the fact of Mom's stoked body, immobile and nearly insensible. I wanted Mom alive, no matter what. Or at least I did at the time.
Three months later, I wonder about that Blue Form--what it should say, what Mom would want it to say, what I want it to say and whether this is relevant or not. What are Mom's intention? Lisa and I have been talking about this for forty-five minutes, trying to determine what Mom wants, what is best for Mom. The only thing that seems clear to me is that in August of 2005 Mom foresaw a time when she might not want to have her life artificially prolonged. This is important to me as it suggests an intention to not be a "full code"--that she saw herself as a DNR. Had I remembered this back in September I would have filled the form out differently, wouldn't I?
At least once a week, back in October and November, I remind Lisa, Mom would say to me--"I can't do this" because rehab seemed too difficult, pointless even. She was aware enough to know that the state she was in was not something she relished--it wasn't "living." Now rehab has ended and Mom is unable to move her body below her waist and only has limited control over the movement of her arms and hands, what is her quality of life, I wonder?
What is a good day for Mom? Having visitors? Thinking and talking clearly enough to answer basic questions for herself--are you hungry, do you have a headache, do you need a pain med? Ice cream for dessert? Watching CNN? A kiss from her daughter, her son? When is this not a life?
Filling out the Blue Form has the feeling of playing God, that somehow I'm making a future decision about whether Mom will live or die--that the box I check on Mom's behalf with tell the medics, the nurses, the doctors what is to happen to Mom.
I don't want to play God. I just want my mother alive, whole.
But really, as Lisa points out, I have no power over either of these. She tells me about one of her clients who struggled with this very thing--about whether to provide antibiotic intervention each time her terminally ill husband contracted pneumonia. Every time his lungs filled, she overrode the directive, ordering the necessary antibiotics. Finally, when she came to the point of saying--"No, no more medication"--he recovered anyway, despite her decision to withhold treatment.
Mom will survive or not based on her particular body, on the universe's plans for her soul. I have nothing to do with this.
Mom will die when she dies, no matter what the Blue Form says, no matter if I check the DNR or the CPR box. No amount of my grief or longing can keep her alive.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is aliferwithmom--
I nod, knowing this is true, but still facing a dilemma inside my head.
We've been looking over Mom's "Directive to Physicians," a document Mom drafted back in 2005, back when she was well or rather back when we had no name yet for what Mom was suffering from, Alzheimer's. Ensconced in the private dining room of the Mirabella, we sit side-by-side at the long dining table, covered in a white linen-type cloth. The table has wood legs but the top surface is padded cotton--no wood in sight--a strange concession to practicality. Down the hall two rooms are Mom and Lorna. When I stopped by a minute ago, Lorna and Seble were changing Mom. I said hello, kissed Mom and moved quickly out of the room, knowing I had Lisa to meet.
Recently Lisa and I realized that the Directive Mom executed in 2005 did not match the "Blue Form" I filled out on behalf of Mom when she was first admitted to the Mirabella in early September. The Blue Form determines what kind of care Mom will receive in an emergency or in the event she should lose consciousness or sensibility and not be able to make these medical decisions for herself. The most critical question on the Blue Form is the CPR or DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) decision--whether Mom's heart is to be restarted.
I've been reading about "end-of-life-planning," as Julie Grey (MSW, LICSW, GMHS) puts this in her paper entitled "Let's Talk!" According to Gray the survival and recovery rate for those receiving CPR is very low, despite TV shows suggesting that people receiving CPR intervention consistently recover and in a short period of time. It turns out that for patients over seventy, only 4% survive to be discharged; this drops to 2% to 4% for patents depending on others when admitted. Those who survive do not fully recover but rather have a significantly diminished quality of life, most often becoming more dependent on others for survival. Apparently CPR itself poses a risk to elderly patients in particular through the possibility of broken ribs and punctured lungs. Receiving not enough or too much oxygen in the process of receiving CPR often produces brain damage or hyperventilation, either of which are seriously damaging. All on all, it seems CPR is not a panacea.
Mom's Directive does not address CPR. Instead, it says--"no artificial hydration" and "no artificial nutrition" in the event she is diagnosed with a "permanent unconscious condition." I remember the day in August when she signed this document. Eric, Mom, myself, Chuck (her CPA) and Jessie (her lawyer) all around one very large conference table in Chuck's office. Mom can't come to a decision about the rest of her estate planning documents--such as the QPRTs (and the guess the IRS requires her to make as to how long she will live) and whether to disinherit Peter--but she can, it seems, decide about her end-of-life decisions. I remember her checking and initialing the boxes for "No" to hydration and nutrition. Jessie had explained all of this to her, several times--about when the Directive would come into play, what the "Yes" and "No" choices meant. She hadn't said much, but quickly and surprisingly agreed to sign the Directive without much encouragement. In my mind, and perhaps her mind also, this all seemed so far away--a time when she would not have the presence of mind to make these kinds of decisions for herself. In several weeks we were all headed to Idaho for our annual hiking extravaganza, where the goal was to hike as many trails, summit as many peaks as possible in two weeks. Mom would be there with the rest of us. She seemed sound in body, walking her usual four miles regime everyday, even if her mind was starting to show signs of dementia--losing hats, misplacing checks, getting disorientated in familiar places, tripping on sidewalks when walking, becoming unable to make basic decisions, such as what to order at a restaurant or what bills to pay and when.
Mom and I never talked about the Blue Form, or at least not when she still had most of her faculties. The first time we were asked to fill out such a form was nearly two years ago, when Mom changed doctors from Dr. Rice to Dr. Addison. By this time, Mom was early-to-mid-stages Alzheimer's. She had little understanding of what the form said or what the consequences could be for filling out the form one way or another. Nevertheless, the form needed to be completed--to leave it blank was to leave these important decisions up to the hospital, the doctors, the courts ultimately. As her power of attorney, I tried to explain each question to her. I listened hard for what she said and for what she didn't say, trying to decipher Mom's intentions when maybe she herself didn't know what they were. As it turned out, the boxes we checked displayed an intention other than the Directive Mom signed years before, though at the time I couldn't remember what her Directive said. We checked "CPR," we checked artificial hydration and artificial nutrition, we checked antibiotic intervention: Mom was going for a "full code." Why? Did Mom really know what we were saying, what I was checking on her behalf? Why did I fill in the boxes, wondering if she understand what was being asked? Wasn't that my job, as her power of attorney, to carry out Mom's wishes? Or was my job something else, to fill out the boxes based on what was in her best interests, irrespective of what I thought she wanted? And who was/is to decide what this might be--her best interests? Hasn't this been the problem all along, with every decision Eric and I have tried to make regarding Mom's care--that what she seems to be saying now, in her incapacity, doesn't seem to match what her doctors think is best for her, what we think is best for her, or what she may have wanted long before her stroke? Who is to decide?
Upon admittance to the Mirabella, the Blue Form reappeared once again--one of the many documents I signed that late Friday afternoon. We were all deep in grief, trying to adjust to the fact of Mom's stoked body, immobile and nearly insensible. I wanted Mom alive, no matter what. Or at least I did at the time.
Three months later, I wonder about that Blue Form--what it should say, what Mom would want it to say, what I want it to say and whether this is relevant or not. What are Mom's intention? Lisa and I have been talking about this for forty-five minutes, trying to determine what Mom wants, what is best for Mom. The only thing that seems clear to me is that in August of 2005 Mom foresaw a time when she might not want to have her life artificially prolonged. This is important to me as it suggests an intention to not be a "full code"--that she saw herself as a DNR. Had I remembered this back in September I would have filled the form out differently, wouldn't I?
At least once a week, back in October and November, I remind Lisa, Mom would say to me--"I can't do this" because rehab seemed too difficult, pointless even. She was aware enough to know that the state she was in was not something she relished--it wasn't "living." Now rehab has ended and Mom is unable to move her body below her waist and only has limited control over the movement of her arms and hands, what is her quality of life, I wonder?
What is a good day for Mom? Having visitors? Thinking and talking clearly enough to answer basic questions for herself--are you hungry, do you have a headache, do you need a pain med? Ice cream for dessert? Watching CNN? A kiss from her daughter, her son? When is this not a life?
Filling out the Blue Form has the feeling of playing God, that somehow I'm making a future decision about whether Mom will live or die--that the box I check on Mom's behalf with tell the medics, the nurses, the doctors what is to happen to Mom.
I don't want to play God. I just want my mother alive, whole.
But really, as Lisa points out, I have no power over either of these. She tells me about one of her clients who struggled with this very thing--about whether to provide antibiotic intervention each time her terminally ill husband contracted pneumonia. Every time his lungs filled, she overrode the directive, ordering the necessary antibiotics. Finally, when she came to the point of saying--"No, no more medication"--he recovered anyway, despite her decision to withhold treatment.
Mom will survive or not based on her particular body, on the universe's plans for her soul. I have nothing to do with this.
Mom will die when she dies, no matter what the Blue Form says, no matter if I check the DNR or the CPR box. No amount of my grief or longing can keep her alive.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is aliferwithmom--
Thursday, December 3, 2009
you won't be alone
I take Mom to see her neurologist, Dr. Song, an event which requires arranging permissions, transportation, alternative lunch plans. We feel like we're playing hooky from school or, worse yet, escaping from jail. It's a blue day in Seattle, so all we have to concern ourselves with is the cold--no rain in sight. It's suppose to stay this way well into next week.
Dr Song's late today, but I don't suppose this matters--Mom's just glad to be "out." While killing time in the waiting room, Lorna catches me up about the night before, Mom's sojourn to my niece's birthday party. The party--mid-afternoon lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe--went well enough, that is until Mom got back into the van with Larry to return to the Mirabella. Mom recognized the streets Larry's driving on--NE 8th running past the Bellevue Mall, which then lead to 92nd which then lead to 11th Street and Mom's home on Clyde Hill. When Larry turned right instead of left onto NE8th, to head towards I-405 and SR520 and eventually the Mirabella, Mom began to scream, to cry.
"NO," she yells at the top of her lungs.
"WRONG...WRONG...WRONG... way."
Larry, from his driver's seat, is trying to assure Mom, whose in the back of the van, strapped in, wheelchair and all--"We're going back to your room at the Mirabella, Dorin. Not to worry."
"NO...NO...NO" Mom repeats, not to be placated. Her arms beat the air, vigorously, Lorna reports, like she'd take on anyone who stood in her way.
I can't imagine how this must have felt for Mom--to be so close to where she lived, to recognize the neighborhood, the street, and yet to be powerless to effect her desire, to be back once again in her home without need for medical oversight or twenty-four hour care.
Later, after Mom and Lorna have gone to bed, Mom wakes up screaming in the night--"TIME TO GO," she tells Lorna sternly. "Time to meet the doctor. Marguerite is waiting."
"No, my dear," Lorna reassures Mom, "it's 9:30 at night. Your daughter (sister) is at home. No need to go anywhere. Not until tomorrow morning. Go to sleep."
Mom's not convinced. On night's like this, Mom joins the ranks of "the screamers" at Mirabella. There's the man next door, for example, who screams "Help" in the middle of the night, almost every night. Sometimes he wanders the halls. "Help...help...help" can be heard for hours. Not even the fireproof doors of Mom's room can avert a listening ear. And then there's the "hall people," lonely souls who mutter and wander, during daytime hours, the wide corridors of the Mirabella, their wheelchairs clocking miles, despite never leaving the second floor. It's not easy to be here, not easy to visit here.
Once escorted into Dr. Song's examination room, we wait for the verdict. Mom's recent decline over the last month suggests the existence of another small bleed in her brain, something that could have damaged her nerves once again. I'm hoping this is so because, if it's a bleed, then there's a chance for a partial recovery of her lost speech and cognition. Something to work for.
"The last CT scan we have was done in June 08," Dr. Song begins.
"But then there's the three scans down at Overlake," I interrupt, "after she had her stroke in late August." With this revelation, I can't tell if this is something he remembered or not--I'm hoping he just forgot to mention it.
"The blood is gone," he resumes. Fully absorbed."
"How can you tell," I ask him?
"Because a cavity is left, from where the bleed occurred. This fills with spinal fluid, once the blood has retreated. It stays there, permanently."
"So you can tell," I ask him, "when there's been a bleed, even if the blood has been absorbed."
"Yes," he answers.
"So has there been a bleed....since the August 30th stroke. Can you tell?"
Dr. Song looks at his notes, and then up at me--"No," he says. "No other bleeds."
I want to ask--"So how do you explain this, this recent decline in her functioning?" How would he explain the fact that she spends much of her time mumbling pieces of words that make no sense--it's like someone has scrambled the vowels and consonants and Mom doesn't have the cognition to unscramble them. How would he explain the fact that for weeks now it's been impossible for Mom to spit out her toothbrushing water. Mom cries, screams even when Lorna tries to coax her to spit. Often times she swallows, eventually, unable to expel the residue. But I don't ask. Mom's in the room. And besides, I know the answer. It's the Alzheimer's. We've eliminated other possibilities--UTI, dehydration, stroke.
For a moment, I'm reminded of other doctor appointments I've attended with Mom, times when I've asked just such a question. For months Mom and I sought answers to why her right foot was less than perfectly functioning, why her right hand could no longer hold a pen, why her legs would suddenly collapse, without notice, leaving Mom crumpled helpless on the floor or street corner. All this was long before her first stroke in October 2008. The succession of doctors we've seen--Dr.Rice, Dr. Addison, Dr. Song...and then another doctor, a bone doctor, Mom insisted. There weren't any answers, or at least no answers Mom wanted to hear. I mean, who wants to be told there's no medical remedy for what ails you? The "A" word--Alzheimer's--is something nobody could say out loud, not in front of Mom. So her doctors skated around this, suggesting other tests, other specialists, when really the answer was just this: Mom was getting old, and not in a graceful manner.
There's Alzheimer's in my family--Marguerite, Mom's sister, died from complications due to Alzheimer's. This is not something Mom can talk about. I was relieved when I learned that heredity only increases my chances of getting Alzheimer's by 5%: not a determining factor, in comparison to other environmental issues.
Driving back from one of these journeys to the doctor, I remember pulling into Mom's driveway in Medina because as I turned off the key to the ignition I heard Mom weeping. Mom never cried.
"I don't want," she sobs, "I don't want to die." Her chest and shoulders are heaving--a seismic upheaval--and mucous is running freely from her nose. Mom's body is flooded in grief.
At first I was startled. Mom never talked about dying. Like sex, contraception, pain at childbirth, nothing could be said. But when I finally realized what she'd done--that she'd broken her own rules--there was no question about what I would say in reply. I reached across the console and grabbed hold of her shoulders and back. I held on tight, almost too tight, to make sure she'd hear what I was going to say. I could feel her heart, a drum rattle of fear, incomprehension.
"Mom," I said as I began to sob with tears I didn't know I had, "I don't want you to die either."
She couldn't look at me, as we're hugging, but I could tell she was listening because her tears had stalled, opened up space for our words. As I held her, I wished we could always be this way--two bodies connecting rather than pulling each other apart. I wanted my mother like this--vulnerable, transparent. Why had it been otherwise? When I was young, and she'd rock me on her lap, easing some childhood wrong, there was nothing there between us--just the cotton fiber of my shirt, the tweed of her sweater. My tears would spread wide then, deep, like water pooling a levy, finding it's stasis, it's port of call. Mom's arms were the dike, the dam keeping me afloat.
"But I'll be here with you," I said to her, my lips pressed flat against the nylon sleeve of her jacket. "I promise, Mom."
Mom said nothing. In the silence it came to me what she needed to hear, what she feared the most--"You won't be alone, Mom. You won't."
We sat like this in my car for the longest time. Neither of us moving, neither of us saying a thing. I tried to visualize my world without Mom. I couldn't. She was the call of last resort for me--the one body I could count on, despite all the ways we'd lost each other along the way. There wasn't another safe harbor for me.
Mom's talk about death was almost two years ago, I realize. It's been two years of doctors, hospitals, medications and worry. I wonder if she sees these years in this way? I wonder if she even remembers our talk? And yet despite all this effort, this acquiescence to the wisdom of science, Mom is no better off now then she was then; instead she's much worse as the disease has taken over. There's nothing I can do. The most we've gained is a list of medications Mom takes twice a day, prescriptions to make her confusion, mood swings and anxiety manageable.
So sitting here with Dr. Song, Mom and Lorna, I realize there's probably no more need to check in with his office periodically. He says something to this effect himself--"No need to come back in for a while," he says. I don't ask him why.
It's not until much later in the afternoon that I understand Mom's reaction to the meeting. When I come to see her after teaching class, the first thing she says to me, even before I've taken off my coat, is--"When do I leave it?" Mom's waited all afternoon to say this.
"Leave what Mom?"
"You know...leave...this...this...this thing."
When I don't immediately catch on, she repeats herself, simultaneously pounding on the arms of her wheelchair--"Leave IT, Leave IT, LEAVE IT."
Recognition comes slowly--"You mean the chair, Mom?"
"Yes," she says, "the thing."
It occurs to me then that Mom and I had different expectations for our meeting with Dr Song. While I was hoping for a brain bleed, she was hoping for release from her wheelchair prison. I had no idea she still held on to this hope. Incredible really, considering the weeks Beverly worked with her in physical therapy, trying to get her to stand up, much less walk. It just never happened--the standing. Mom will never use her legs again.
"Mom," I say to her, squeezing her left knee, "you have more work to do. Those legs aren't ready."
She seems to accept my answer, but there's no way to know. Mom walks a fine line between reality and fantasy. I wonder if maybe the fantasy is needed at times--a way to help her face what she's been afraid of all her life: leaving. Everybody has left her--Deda, Berntina, Sena, Marguerite and her husband Court, Grandpa Gus and Mona (Dad's parents), her cousin Don, her husband, her best friend Dale from college, her son Peter.
Now she's doing the leaving, the dying. But she won't be alone. The rest of us will be left behind.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--
Dr Song's late today, but I don't suppose this matters--Mom's just glad to be "out." While killing time in the waiting room, Lorna catches me up about the night before, Mom's sojourn to my niece's birthday party. The party--mid-afternoon lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe--went well enough, that is until Mom got back into the van with Larry to return to the Mirabella. Mom recognized the streets Larry's driving on--NE 8th running past the Bellevue Mall, which then lead to 92nd which then lead to 11th Street and Mom's home on Clyde Hill. When Larry turned right instead of left onto NE8th, to head towards I-405 and SR520 and eventually the Mirabella, Mom began to scream, to cry.
"NO," she yells at the top of her lungs.
"WRONG...WRONG...WRONG... way."
Larry, from his driver's seat, is trying to assure Mom, whose in the back of the van, strapped in, wheelchair and all--"We're going back to your room at the Mirabella, Dorin. Not to worry."
"NO...NO...NO" Mom repeats, not to be placated. Her arms beat the air, vigorously, Lorna reports, like she'd take on anyone who stood in her way.
I can't imagine how this must have felt for Mom--to be so close to where she lived, to recognize the neighborhood, the street, and yet to be powerless to effect her desire, to be back once again in her home without need for medical oversight or twenty-four hour care.
Later, after Mom and Lorna have gone to bed, Mom wakes up screaming in the night--"TIME TO GO," she tells Lorna sternly. "Time to meet the doctor. Marguerite is waiting."
"No, my dear," Lorna reassures Mom, "it's 9:30 at night. Your daughter (sister) is at home. No need to go anywhere. Not until tomorrow morning. Go to sleep."
Mom's not convinced. On night's like this, Mom joins the ranks of "the screamers" at Mirabella. There's the man next door, for example, who screams "Help" in the middle of the night, almost every night. Sometimes he wanders the halls. "Help...help...help" can be heard for hours. Not even the fireproof doors of Mom's room can avert a listening ear. And then there's the "hall people," lonely souls who mutter and wander, during daytime hours, the wide corridors of the Mirabella, their wheelchairs clocking miles, despite never leaving the second floor. It's not easy to be here, not easy to visit here.
Once escorted into Dr. Song's examination room, we wait for the verdict. Mom's recent decline over the last month suggests the existence of another small bleed in her brain, something that could have damaged her nerves once again. I'm hoping this is so because, if it's a bleed, then there's a chance for a partial recovery of her lost speech and cognition. Something to work for.
"The last CT scan we have was done in June 08," Dr. Song begins.
"But then there's the three scans down at Overlake," I interrupt, "after she had her stroke in late August." With this revelation, I can't tell if this is something he remembered or not--I'm hoping he just forgot to mention it.
"The blood is gone," he resumes. Fully absorbed."
"How can you tell," I ask him?
"Because a cavity is left, from where the bleed occurred. This fills with spinal fluid, once the blood has retreated. It stays there, permanently."
"So you can tell," I ask him, "when there's been a bleed, even if the blood has been absorbed."
"Yes," he answers.
"So has there been a bleed....since the August 30th stroke. Can you tell?"
Dr. Song looks at his notes, and then up at me--"No," he says. "No other bleeds."
I want to ask--"So how do you explain this, this recent decline in her functioning?" How would he explain the fact that she spends much of her time mumbling pieces of words that make no sense--it's like someone has scrambled the vowels and consonants and Mom doesn't have the cognition to unscramble them. How would he explain the fact that for weeks now it's been impossible for Mom to spit out her toothbrushing water. Mom cries, screams even when Lorna tries to coax her to spit. Often times she swallows, eventually, unable to expel the residue. But I don't ask. Mom's in the room. And besides, I know the answer. It's the Alzheimer's. We've eliminated other possibilities--UTI, dehydration, stroke.
For a moment, I'm reminded of other doctor appointments I've attended with Mom, times when I've asked just such a question. For months Mom and I sought answers to why her right foot was less than perfectly functioning, why her right hand could no longer hold a pen, why her legs would suddenly collapse, without notice, leaving Mom crumpled helpless on the floor or street corner. All this was long before her first stroke in October 2008. The succession of doctors we've seen--Dr.Rice, Dr. Addison, Dr. Song...and then another doctor, a bone doctor, Mom insisted. There weren't any answers, or at least no answers Mom wanted to hear. I mean, who wants to be told there's no medical remedy for what ails you? The "A" word--Alzheimer's--is something nobody could say out loud, not in front of Mom. So her doctors skated around this, suggesting other tests, other specialists, when really the answer was just this: Mom was getting old, and not in a graceful manner.
There's Alzheimer's in my family--Marguerite, Mom's sister, died from complications due to Alzheimer's. This is not something Mom can talk about. I was relieved when I learned that heredity only increases my chances of getting Alzheimer's by 5%: not a determining factor, in comparison to other environmental issues.
Driving back from one of these journeys to the doctor, I remember pulling into Mom's driveway in Medina because as I turned off the key to the ignition I heard Mom weeping. Mom never cried.
"I don't want," she sobs, "I don't want to die." Her chest and shoulders are heaving--a seismic upheaval--and mucous is running freely from her nose. Mom's body is flooded in grief.
At first I was startled. Mom never talked about dying. Like sex, contraception, pain at childbirth, nothing could be said. But when I finally realized what she'd done--that she'd broken her own rules--there was no question about what I would say in reply. I reached across the console and grabbed hold of her shoulders and back. I held on tight, almost too tight, to make sure she'd hear what I was going to say. I could feel her heart, a drum rattle of fear, incomprehension.
"Mom," I said as I began to sob with tears I didn't know I had, "I don't want you to die either."
She couldn't look at me, as we're hugging, but I could tell she was listening because her tears had stalled, opened up space for our words. As I held her, I wished we could always be this way--two bodies connecting rather than pulling each other apart. I wanted my mother like this--vulnerable, transparent. Why had it been otherwise? When I was young, and she'd rock me on her lap, easing some childhood wrong, there was nothing there between us--just the cotton fiber of my shirt, the tweed of her sweater. My tears would spread wide then, deep, like water pooling a levy, finding it's stasis, it's port of call. Mom's arms were the dike, the dam keeping me afloat.
"But I'll be here with you," I said to her, my lips pressed flat against the nylon sleeve of her jacket. "I promise, Mom."
Mom said nothing. In the silence it came to me what she needed to hear, what she feared the most--"You won't be alone, Mom. You won't."
We sat like this in my car for the longest time. Neither of us moving, neither of us saying a thing. I tried to visualize my world without Mom. I couldn't. She was the call of last resort for me--the one body I could count on, despite all the ways we'd lost each other along the way. There wasn't another safe harbor for me.
Mom's talk about death was almost two years ago, I realize. It's been two years of doctors, hospitals, medications and worry. I wonder if she sees these years in this way? I wonder if she even remembers our talk? And yet despite all this effort, this acquiescence to the wisdom of science, Mom is no better off now then she was then; instead she's much worse as the disease has taken over. There's nothing I can do. The most we've gained is a list of medications Mom takes twice a day, prescriptions to make her confusion, mood swings and anxiety manageable.
So sitting here with Dr. Song, Mom and Lorna, I realize there's probably no more need to check in with his office periodically. He says something to this effect himself--"No need to come back in for a while," he says. I don't ask him why.
It's not until much later in the afternoon that I understand Mom's reaction to the meeting. When I come to see her after teaching class, the first thing she says to me, even before I've taken off my coat, is--"When do I leave it?" Mom's waited all afternoon to say this.
"Leave what Mom?"
"You know...leave...this...this...this thing."
When I don't immediately catch on, she repeats herself, simultaneously pounding on the arms of her wheelchair--"Leave IT, Leave IT, LEAVE IT."
Recognition comes slowly--"You mean the chair, Mom?"
"Yes," she says, "the thing."
It occurs to me then that Mom and I had different expectations for our meeting with Dr Song. While I was hoping for a brain bleed, she was hoping for release from her wheelchair prison. I had no idea she still held on to this hope. Incredible really, considering the weeks Beverly worked with her in physical therapy, trying to get her to stand up, much less walk. It just never happened--the standing. Mom will never use her legs again.
"Mom," I say to her, squeezing her left knee, "you have more work to do. Those legs aren't ready."
She seems to accept my answer, but there's no way to know. Mom walks a fine line between reality and fantasy. I wonder if maybe the fantasy is needed at times--a way to help her face what she's been afraid of all her life: leaving. Everybody has left her--Deda, Berntina, Sena, Marguerite and her husband Court, Grandpa Gus and Mona (Dad's parents), her cousin Don, her husband, her best friend Dale from college, her son Peter.
Now she's doing the leaving, the dying. But she won't be alone. The rest of us will be left behind.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
not your fault
He rings early. It's not a call I'm expecting.
"Not your fault," my brother says into the still-dark dawn.
When I say nothing, Eric continues with--"What I did was wrong. I'm sorry."
His voice sounds somber, chastened. Full of regret. Not his usual bombastic self.
Still I say nothing, as I'm not sure what's expected. Do I say--Yes, you're right, it was wrong, abusive. Or do I ask--why did you do it--take advantage of Mom--why did you put us through all of this?
"I'm going to resign," he adds. "I'll sign the paperwork."
While I'm relieved, I can't help but reflect that all of this comes too late. He's played his hand. I know what's there beneath his full-bearded cheeks, his ever-sunny tan, his Ray Bans (always omnipresent) and his skin-head skull cap. I've seen it, and there's no forgetting this. No going back.
I've never felt so alone.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
"Not your fault," my brother says into the still-dark dawn.
When I say nothing, Eric continues with--"What I did was wrong. I'm sorry."
His voice sounds somber, chastened. Full of regret. Not his usual bombastic self.
Still I say nothing, as I'm not sure what's expected. Do I say--Yes, you're right, it was wrong, abusive. Or do I ask--why did you do it--take advantage of Mom--why did you put us through all of this?
"I'm going to resign," he adds. "I'll sign the paperwork."
While I'm relieved, I can't help but reflect that all of this comes too late. He's played his hand. I know what's there beneath his full-bearded cheeks, his ever-sunny tan, his Ray Bans (always omnipresent) and his skin-head skull cap. I've seen it, and there's no forgetting this. No going back.
I've never felt so alone.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
forgiveness
"Keep her talking, " Lorna says. "Secret weapon," she finishes with a wink and a laugh, referring to the best way to get Mom to eat dinner. Thankfully, I don't think Mom understands the humor. Unlike breakfast and lunch, dinner is consistently an issue. Even Mom comments on her non-eating saying--"I don't know why....why I can't." We don't know either.
Hanna, our Bread Queen, came earlier today, just before dinner--bringing a rye loaf she made. We cut thick slices, applied butter and giggled as we told each other we're "ruining our appetites." We asked ourselves, which would we prefer--ham dinner or fresh baked bread? The choice was clear. We stuffed slices into our mouths as we watched Obama reveal his plans for Afghanistan before an audience of second lieutenants who will soon be amongst the 30,000 deployed overseas, all in the cause of ending terrorism. As he spoke about unifying our country around this "new" cause, I wondered where we will get the money to fund this new war. Don't the democrats worry about overspending, inflation? I mean, we can't just keep printing money, can we?
Despite our earlier bread binge with Hanna, dinner still arrives, waits to be eaten. Lorna and I try to interest Mom in her food--"Ham w/ Bourbon Peach Glaze, Brussels' Sprouts w/ Almonds, BBQ Beans." It's slow going until Lorna starts talking--her "secret weapon"--telling us about her life in the Philippines. Mom's listening so hard, she's hardly aware of the food Lorna is stuffing into her mouth.
Our conversation begins with a question, about why she and her husband, Bernaby, worked for so many years to put their six nieces and nephews through college. This is after they educated their own three children. Bernaby worked in Saudi Arabia for 10 years, sending money home for educational expenses; Lorna cleaned, cooked and housed her extended family in Manila, while they attended college. This sacrifice is something that's difficult for me to understand.
I find it ironic, considering tonight's broadcast, that Bernaby worked directly for Bin Laden in the 1970s, as a plumbing supervisor for the construction of his palace. "Eighteen rooms, my dear," Lorna croons, and "gold everywhere. Oh my, so much gold, people took for themselves. But never my husband, never, never," Lorna reports proudly. "This is why Bin Laden doesn't want my husband to come back to the Philippines. He's a good man, my husband, honest."
"Family, my dear," Lorna tells me, when I convey my disbelief about her and Bernaby's sacrifices. "Life is very hard in Manila. We are poor. We want our family to have a better life. And they do--they have professions (medical technicians, accountants, engineers, nurses), cars, jobs, houses." Lorna is very proud of this, of how her extended family has prospered materially in the world. Not eating hand to mouth.
"Very hard, my dear," Lorna adds. "Very hard," referring to the years she harbored her nieces and nephews. Bernaby may have been sending money home, but Lorna was trapped in domesticity, raising a large "second family" in Manila while she worked full time as a teacher. There were no washers and dryers--Lorna did all the laundry by hand with a wash board--didn't even have a wringer. Yes, this sounds very hard.
"But they are good, my dear," she makes sure I understand. "When we go back to Manila, they are very good. Treat us like royalty. We spend nothing. All is paid for."
Still, I can't understand Lorna's idea of "family," particularly in conjunction with my own, where division rather than loyalty defines our existence. Family seems to have no limits for Lorna and I wonder how this came to be
"What about your son, I ask her, "Bernaby Junior?" I'm remembering Bernaby Junior's escapades with gambling and drugs and how he was spirited away, in the nick of time, to Canada, where he subsequently "straightened out." Bernaby spent Lorna and her husband's retirements (seventeen and thirteen years respectively) on gambling, drugs and women, per Lorna's report, after she and Bernaby immigrated to the US in 1997. $20,000.00 he squandered as their power of attorney (the irony is excruciating). How does a family survive this?
"Did you forgive him?" I ask Lorna.
"Ah, my dear. Of course."
While I know Lorna is a devout woman, I have a difficult time understanding how such a forgiveness occurs. And, as it turns out, there is much more to forgive then just the money spent. Bernaby Junior left his Caucasian wife and four children and disappeared for six months. He tells his wife, Mildred, he's going to Hong Kong for a month on business and then never comes back. Lorna and her husband support Mildred and the children for the duration, including six additional months after Bernaby Junior is discovered having been living all this time in Batan with another woman, Alma (an old flame), and continuing his drug habits--not caring a bit for the plight of Midred and children. How can this end well, I'm wondering?
Lorna sends her brother, Joey, a policeman to retrieve Bernaby Junior from the clutches of Alma. He shows up at the door with a machine gun and a belt full of ammunition. Bernaby sees the errors of his ways and agrees to come home. But it isn't until Bernaby Junior immigrates that resolution is found. He may have returned to Mildred, but he didn't change his gambling and drugging.
"I pray," Lorna tells me. "Pray that Jesus will change his heart." Well there must have been a whole lot of prayer as Lorna and her husband finally persuade their son to come to Canada in 2006. His departure is all under the cover of secrecy, as fear of Alma's reprisals are still real. When he gets off the plane, Bernaby Junior turns first to his nana, Lorna, and then to his father, ama, saying--"I am a sinner." He asks for forgiveness. Forgiveness is given. Incredible.
I confront Lorna with my misgivings--"Isn't there a line to be drawn? Can everything be forgiven?" As I am asking this I'm of course thinking of my own family, of Peter in particular, knowing Mom has never forgiven him his trespasses.
"No limit," Lorna says adamantly, going on to paraphrase Jesus--"if you don't forgive, how will the Lord forgive you?"
But there is a limit, apparently, when it comes to money. While Lorna will forgive all, it doesn't mean she will open her wallet to the sinner who trespassed. She tells the story of her uncle, her father's brother, who sold her father's land when her father died (fifty-seven hectors) and pocketed the money rather than dispersing it to her and her four siblings. Lorna's sister would not permit a legal action, so nothing was ever said to the uncle. Not ever. But when Lorna comes to visit in the Philippines, she brings no gifts for her uncle, a violation of custom that sends a clear message to the transgressor.
"What about you, Mom," I say, turning to where she sits in her wheelchair. "have you forgiven Peter?"
While I think I know the answer to my own question, I'm surprised at Mom's vengeance, after all this time has passed.
'I have NOT..." she answers very loudly, "HE HAS NOT...HAS NOT..."
"Not what," I ask Mom, modeling a calmer voice, hoping to encourage her to pipe down.
"NOT...NOT...NOT..." Mom sputters, getting stuck, as she has begun to do lately, on a single word. The result is a triplet of words that sounds like a record stuck in a rotation or a CD stalled in the groove from a scratch. Annoying.
So it's Lorna who supplies the answer to Mom's question, rather than Mom--"not asked for forgiveness?"
"Yes...that's it," Mom says in an excited voice. "Not asked."
"I'm going to...to...to..."
"Going to what, Mom?" I ask her, losing patience with her rigidity, her fervor.
"Teach him...a...lesson...lesson...lesson."
I actually laugh now, despite the tension in the room. Mom's really adamant, angry even. But I can't help myself, and I can't help myself from asking, with an edge--"You're going to teach a fifty-six year old man a lesson?"
"Yes," Mom says. No hesitation. "I'm going to hold...that thing...the money..."
"Mom," I say with another laugh, a laugh laced with disgust, if I'm honest. "You don't have to give him money...but you could forgive him, you know. It takes two to make a misunderstanding, right?"
"NO," she says again loudly, "those people...are ugly, UGLY," at which point Lorna decides to insert her perspective to our skirmish.
"My dear, even if ugly, you still need to forgive."
"I WOULD NOT..." Mom replies, her voice now close to a shout.
"Our Lord says, 'forgive and I will forgive you'" Lorna says back to Mom, at which point Lorna launches into a complete rendition of the Lord's Prayer, with its wisdom about forging those who tress pass against us.
Mom is enraged, her face the color of pomegranate. Her lips hinge open so wide I can see the small red seeds of her anger. "I want to teach my son," she continues, her sentences oddly getting clearer the more she talks and the angrier she becomes. "He doesn't know...doesn't care" she vents.
"My dear," Lorna offers again. softly. "You need to see each other and maybe the pains will be healed."
"No," Mom repeats. "They've NEVER done anything...I'm NOT going to...those people need to learn something...they never attempted..."
It becomes clear to me, as Mom continues in her rage, how she's inadvertently revealed herself to me--made clear a central value, a way to understand my mother. In her world, a sin is a sin. There's always only the sinner and wronged. Never can there be mutual wrong-doing. And in this black and white world, decisions are punitive--the old testament "eye for an eye" approach. Mom has spent her life doling out punishment. When she sees her twenty-five year old daughter stealing a kiss on a train between Monte Carlo and Florence, she responds by silence for three days. We are shunned. Not a word. No explanation. My future husband and I are thrown into an abyss of shame, incomprehension. Mom is teaching us a lesson, in the middle of Tuscany--my husband is fine as a "friend" but should he be something else--a lover, a husband--this will not be permitted. And she will make sure it is so, by the force of her will. Vengeance, anger, emotional abandonment are Mom's tools and she uses them freely. Even now.
Mom's staring at me, as I'm recalling this scene from the train. Saying nothing. I stare right back. We stay like this for several minutes. There's no TV news or Bread Queen to distract us. I'm surprised at how painful this memory is for me, how emblematic for all the other times she decided to "teach" me a lesson, long past her "right" to do so. I feel stuck here, in this room with Mom, with her vengeance exposed. I'm sure I don't want to be here. But how to divert Mom, put an end to this tirade?
"Must be my dirty hair," I say to her finally with a grin, "that's making you stare at me." I stick my tongue out at her then--my grin and this tongue-sticking are not easy to offer. Miraculously, Mom laughs--a reluctant laugh. Lorna and I laugh too, more eagerly then Mom, glad to have a reason for humor. Our laughter feels like medicine, like the thing that could heal us, if we let it.
Forgiveness, a lesson Mom will never learn.
"You must bring him, my dear," Lorna says in a whisper to me, "bring him to your Mom."
I don't know what to say to Lorna, as I have little interest in negotiating yet another hostile party. But I understand what she's saying, about the need for rapprochement, because I have thought of this to, of how Mom and Peter need to forgive each other, even if they don't yet perceive this need for themselves.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--
Hanna, our Bread Queen, came earlier today, just before dinner--bringing a rye loaf she made. We cut thick slices, applied butter and giggled as we told each other we're "ruining our appetites." We asked ourselves, which would we prefer--ham dinner or fresh baked bread? The choice was clear. We stuffed slices into our mouths as we watched Obama reveal his plans for Afghanistan before an audience of second lieutenants who will soon be amongst the 30,000 deployed overseas, all in the cause of ending terrorism. As he spoke about unifying our country around this "new" cause, I wondered where we will get the money to fund this new war. Don't the democrats worry about overspending, inflation? I mean, we can't just keep printing money, can we?
Despite our earlier bread binge with Hanna, dinner still arrives, waits to be eaten. Lorna and I try to interest Mom in her food--"Ham w/ Bourbon Peach Glaze, Brussels' Sprouts w/ Almonds, BBQ Beans." It's slow going until Lorna starts talking--her "secret weapon"--telling us about her life in the Philippines. Mom's listening so hard, she's hardly aware of the food Lorna is stuffing into her mouth.
Our conversation begins with a question, about why she and her husband, Bernaby, worked for so many years to put their six nieces and nephews through college. This is after they educated their own three children. Bernaby worked in Saudi Arabia for 10 years, sending money home for educational expenses; Lorna cleaned, cooked and housed her extended family in Manila, while they attended college. This sacrifice is something that's difficult for me to understand.
I find it ironic, considering tonight's broadcast, that Bernaby worked directly for Bin Laden in the 1970s, as a plumbing supervisor for the construction of his palace. "Eighteen rooms, my dear," Lorna croons, and "gold everywhere. Oh my, so much gold, people took for themselves. But never my husband, never, never," Lorna reports proudly. "This is why Bin Laden doesn't want my husband to come back to the Philippines. He's a good man, my husband, honest."
"Family, my dear," Lorna tells me, when I convey my disbelief about her and Bernaby's sacrifices. "Life is very hard in Manila. We are poor. We want our family to have a better life. And they do--they have professions (medical technicians, accountants, engineers, nurses), cars, jobs, houses." Lorna is very proud of this, of how her extended family has prospered materially in the world. Not eating hand to mouth.
"Very hard, my dear," Lorna adds. "Very hard," referring to the years she harbored her nieces and nephews. Bernaby may have been sending money home, but Lorna was trapped in domesticity, raising a large "second family" in Manila while she worked full time as a teacher. There were no washers and dryers--Lorna did all the laundry by hand with a wash board--didn't even have a wringer. Yes, this sounds very hard.
"But they are good, my dear," she makes sure I understand. "When we go back to Manila, they are very good. Treat us like royalty. We spend nothing. All is paid for."
Still, I can't understand Lorna's idea of "family," particularly in conjunction with my own, where division rather than loyalty defines our existence. Family seems to have no limits for Lorna and I wonder how this came to be
"What about your son, I ask her, "Bernaby Junior?" I'm remembering Bernaby Junior's escapades with gambling and drugs and how he was spirited away, in the nick of time, to Canada, where he subsequently "straightened out." Bernaby spent Lorna and her husband's retirements (seventeen and thirteen years respectively) on gambling, drugs and women, per Lorna's report, after she and Bernaby immigrated to the US in 1997. $20,000.00 he squandered as their power of attorney (the irony is excruciating). How does a family survive this?
"Did you forgive him?" I ask Lorna.
"Ah, my dear. Of course."
While I know Lorna is a devout woman, I have a difficult time understanding how such a forgiveness occurs. And, as it turns out, there is much more to forgive then just the money spent. Bernaby Junior left his Caucasian wife and four children and disappeared for six months. He tells his wife, Mildred, he's going to Hong Kong for a month on business and then never comes back. Lorna and her husband support Mildred and the children for the duration, including six additional months after Bernaby Junior is discovered having been living all this time in Batan with another woman, Alma (an old flame), and continuing his drug habits--not caring a bit for the plight of Midred and children. How can this end well, I'm wondering?
Lorna sends her brother, Joey, a policeman to retrieve Bernaby Junior from the clutches of Alma. He shows up at the door with a machine gun and a belt full of ammunition. Bernaby sees the errors of his ways and agrees to come home. But it isn't until Bernaby Junior immigrates that resolution is found. He may have returned to Mildred, but he didn't change his gambling and drugging.
"I pray," Lorna tells me. "Pray that Jesus will change his heart." Well there must have been a whole lot of prayer as Lorna and her husband finally persuade their son to come to Canada in 2006. His departure is all under the cover of secrecy, as fear of Alma's reprisals are still real. When he gets off the plane, Bernaby Junior turns first to his nana, Lorna, and then to his father, ama, saying--"I am a sinner." He asks for forgiveness. Forgiveness is given. Incredible.
I confront Lorna with my misgivings--"Isn't there a line to be drawn? Can everything be forgiven?" As I am asking this I'm of course thinking of my own family, of Peter in particular, knowing Mom has never forgiven him his trespasses.
"No limit," Lorna says adamantly, going on to paraphrase Jesus--"if you don't forgive, how will the Lord forgive you?"
But there is a limit, apparently, when it comes to money. While Lorna will forgive all, it doesn't mean she will open her wallet to the sinner who trespassed. She tells the story of her uncle, her father's brother, who sold her father's land when her father died (fifty-seven hectors) and pocketed the money rather than dispersing it to her and her four siblings. Lorna's sister would not permit a legal action, so nothing was ever said to the uncle. Not ever. But when Lorna comes to visit in the Philippines, she brings no gifts for her uncle, a violation of custom that sends a clear message to the transgressor.
"What about you, Mom," I say, turning to where she sits in her wheelchair. "have you forgiven Peter?"
While I think I know the answer to my own question, I'm surprised at Mom's vengeance, after all this time has passed.
'I have NOT..." she answers very loudly, "HE HAS NOT...HAS NOT..."
"Not what," I ask Mom, modeling a calmer voice, hoping to encourage her to pipe down.
"NOT...NOT...NOT..." Mom sputters, getting stuck, as she has begun to do lately, on a single word. The result is a triplet of words that sounds like a record stuck in a rotation or a CD stalled in the groove from a scratch. Annoying.
So it's Lorna who supplies the answer to Mom's question, rather than Mom--"not asked for forgiveness?"
"Yes...that's it," Mom says in an excited voice. "Not asked."
"I'm going to...to...to..."
"Going to what, Mom?" I ask her, losing patience with her rigidity, her fervor.
"Teach him...a...lesson...lesson...lesson."
I actually laugh now, despite the tension in the room. Mom's really adamant, angry even. But I can't help myself, and I can't help myself from asking, with an edge--"You're going to teach a fifty-six year old man a lesson?"
"Yes," Mom says. No hesitation. "I'm going to hold...that thing...the money..."
"Mom," I say with another laugh, a laugh laced with disgust, if I'm honest. "You don't have to give him money...but you could forgive him, you know. It takes two to make a misunderstanding, right?"
"NO," she says again loudly, "those people...are ugly, UGLY," at which point Lorna decides to insert her perspective to our skirmish.
"My dear, even if ugly, you still need to forgive."
"I WOULD NOT..." Mom replies, her voice now close to a shout.
"Our Lord says, 'forgive and I will forgive you'" Lorna says back to Mom, at which point Lorna launches into a complete rendition of the Lord's Prayer, with its wisdom about forging those who tress pass against us.
Mom is enraged, her face the color of pomegranate. Her lips hinge open so wide I can see the small red seeds of her anger. "I want to teach my son," she continues, her sentences oddly getting clearer the more she talks and the angrier she becomes. "He doesn't know...doesn't care" she vents.
"My dear," Lorna offers again. softly. "You need to see each other and maybe the pains will be healed."
"No," Mom repeats. "They've NEVER done anything...I'm NOT going to...those people need to learn something...they never attempted..."
It becomes clear to me, as Mom continues in her rage, how she's inadvertently revealed herself to me--made clear a central value, a way to understand my mother. In her world, a sin is a sin. There's always only the sinner and wronged. Never can there be mutual wrong-doing. And in this black and white world, decisions are punitive--the old testament "eye for an eye" approach. Mom has spent her life doling out punishment. When she sees her twenty-five year old daughter stealing a kiss on a train between Monte Carlo and Florence, she responds by silence for three days. We are shunned. Not a word. No explanation. My future husband and I are thrown into an abyss of shame, incomprehension. Mom is teaching us a lesson, in the middle of Tuscany--my husband is fine as a "friend" but should he be something else--a lover, a husband--this will not be permitted. And she will make sure it is so, by the force of her will. Vengeance, anger, emotional abandonment are Mom's tools and she uses them freely. Even now.
Mom's staring at me, as I'm recalling this scene from the train. Saying nothing. I stare right back. We stay like this for several minutes. There's no TV news or Bread Queen to distract us. I'm surprised at how painful this memory is for me, how emblematic for all the other times she decided to "teach" me a lesson, long past her "right" to do so. I feel stuck here, in this room with Mom, with her vengeance exposed. I'm sure I don't want to be here. But how to divert Mom, put an end to this tirade?
"Must be my dirty hair," I say to her finally with a grin, "that's making you stare at me." I stick my tongue out at her then--my grin and this tongue-sticking are not easy to offer. Miraculously, Mom laughs--a reluctant laugh. Lorna and I laugh too, more eagerly then Mom, glad to have a reason for humor. Our laughter feels like medicine, like the thing that could heal us, if we let it.
Forgiveness, a lesson Mom will never learn.
"You must bring him, my dear," Lorna says in a whisper to me, "bring him to your Mom."
I don't know what to say to Lorna, as I have little interest in negotiating yet another hostile party. But I understand what she's saying, about the need for rapprochement, because I have thought of this to, of how Mom and Peter need to forgive each other, even if they don't yet perceive this need for themselves.
Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is a lifewithmom--
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