I remember being little and thinking Mommy would fix whatever I needed.
Then I was a little bigger and realized sometimes Mom would get mad. And fix things.
For a while I would have said that all she did was sit on the couch and watch tv and sleep--but that was wrong.
My mother loved to draw and paint. Eventually she went back to college and took art classes. It was her dream. She was older than most of the students and a couple of the teachers. Her work really blossomed with the instruction she had. She finished school and kept painting. But she seldom sold anything. She was shy and would horde any money that she earned from selling something. I had some of her things framed and the framer was very taken by her style--but what good did that do.
I read from her library, which was 90% science fiction. In those days the mafia brought paperbacks from a vast array of independent publishers to the racks found in every supermarket and drugstore. Publishers like DAW, Ace, etc. didn't need special bookstores--only sci fi fans, like my mother.
My mother read those paperbacks on the sofa. That sofa was her safety raft in a world that was changing rapidly. My father was a good husband and good provider, but my mother remained stuck in the Midwest in a small town. Painting, smoking, reading science fiction.
She had a few close close friends.
Anita, whose husband worked for an oil company, whose son dated my older sister. Who went to live in Zambia for a year. And never moved back. Anita died of a heart attack in the eighties.
Kay, a cousin of my father's. She had red hair and all her kids had red hair. Kay moved into town from the family farm and set up a ceramics studio on the first floor. My mother would come over and do ceramics and I would do ceramics. Kay moved again to another house and had the ceramics studio in the basement there. Then she went out of business. Eventually they moved somewhere. Kay died of cancer.
Kate, whose two daughters owned every toy made in the world and their house was littered with the stuff. Kate is still around, having survived her second husband.
Jean, sister-in-law of Kate, whose husband was the family doctor. He treated my family from the time he got out of his medical residency until he died a couple of years ago. Jean has had many operations to remain mobile.
Lori, whose husband was a young lawyer who moved to our town back in the Nixon administration. Lori went on to divorce the lawyer, get cancer, survive cancer, get cancer and die.
Pat, who was an artist and mom. They bought the big old house next door to ours. I don't know why they didn't stay close, but living next door to each other and both trying to be artists was probably too much.
The bakery club. My mom started going down to the local bakery which had re-opened as a coffee and donut place. Filled with smoke, you could get sugary treats and coffee there every morning. My mom would go down there and sit around with her "girls."
My grandmother was senile for close to twenty years before she died at the age of 96. She lived in the nursing home in our town for the final ten years of her life, because she had no other relatives to take care of her. My mother's sister had died of cancer. My father visited her every week--this old lady who had no idea who he was except he visited her every week. He managed her money so that she could have all the care she needed. She was healthy but senile until a few months before her death.
When my grandmother died, the bakery "girls" came to her funeral.
For forty years, my mother was terrified of losing her mind--of forgetting things, of not being able to live in her home, of not enjoying painting, and making her own decisions.
At first she was forgetful. She bought the same groceries over and over. She lost things around the house. She was in a good mood most of the time--apparently the number of pills she was taking after her bypass in 2004 mellowed her out.
After Katrina, I lived back in Nebraska for five months. Every time she saw me, she would ask me if we were going back to New Orleans. We had family dinners a lot and she would come over. She enjoyed spending some time with my sons. They had no idea that she was a shadow of the funny woman she had been.
Since I moved away, Mom became a wanderer and would call people and complain about the burglars coming into the house or show up at a neighbor and ask for help. They were neighbors and long-time friends. Our family lawyer said, "Well, she knows enough to call me," trying to calm my worried sister.
Last year my brother died of cancer--a raging, fast moving bitch of a cancer. My mother was told after he died far away from home, getting state-of-the-art radiation that failed.
She is bereft. He was her pride and joy. Gone. She did not forget that he was dead.
Now my mother turned into a terrified, lonely person who floated in and out of time. My father went away on a business trip for a few days and she believed that they had been long divorced and that she lived alone.
She had her car keys taken from her so she could not grocery shop several times a day.
My tired and baffled father and sister tried to modify how she lived. They locked the doors and kept the keys from her. They hired a lady to sit with her while my father took a break and handled his business for a few hours a day.
After a few weeks, she came to believe that my sister and father were going to kill her because they would not let her go out.
The sheriff took my mother to the closest psychiatric ward. In Nebraska, where the oldest people in the country live, they have special wards for the Alzheimer's patients with mental problems.
After that, my father became my mom's legal guardian and my sister found a place for her. Mom can't live in the nursing home in our small town because it is full of unlocked doors. She lives 30 miles away, behind locked doors.
And spends her days looking for a way to get out.
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Comments
God, honey, what a terrible double tragedy for all of you. xoxo.
Awwwwwwww, nolalibrarian. I want mine too, and like yours, she is lying in the fetal position in a nursing facility for Alzheimer's patients. What a hideous disease, just brutal. We know they are alive, but there's no one there to take our call. The donut coffee bakery sounds like a lovely place. Maybe there you can feel her a little, and enjoy something sweet.
Beautifully written and unsentimental tale of heartbreak.
Dementia is an evil beast. This was a wonderfully written first hand account of this terrible disease. It's hard and I am sure people have passed judgement on your family for placing her in care, but she is safe. That is the most important thing, she won't be found wandering again, she is safe. r
My heart is breaking for you. I send love and the biggest hug I can muster.
Well, this story really resonates for me. This is too, brief an excerpt here but ... I had brother die too while my mother lived behind a locked door. When we told her what had happened, despite her dementia she looked right at us (us being, all her children as we had gathered to tell her) and said,
"Are his good pants pressed?" and then lowered her head in to her hands and wept and wept and wept. She knew.
"Are his good pants pressed?" and then lowered her head in to her hands and wept and wept and wept. She knew.
Sending you love and hugs.
Very well written.
Very well written.
So sad.We both miss our mothers or what they were.
Sending huge hugs on Mother's Day.
R
Sending huge hugs on Mother's Day.
R
It's a terrible fate. I'm sorry for anyone who has to go through it.
Thank you all. This is all very painful--thinking of one loss just reminds me of the other. I found Open Salon around the time all this was happening and you have been one of the bright spots of the last six months. Reminding me that we all go through and come out the other side. So many of you are brave bright lights for me.
Gettin' old ain't for sissies.
This is a wonderful tribute to the mother who used to fix things for you and the disease that took that ability and artistry away.
I'm so sorry. Mother's Day can be such a loaded holiday for those who are grieving (mothers who are gone or lost) and those who never had good mothering.
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