"It was an emotional struggle to finally make the decision to move Mom into a nursing facility. It damn near broke my Dad’s heart. He took care of Mom with the devotion of a true soul mate but it was becoming too much for him, even with me there in the house to back him up."
In this sharing, Kathy reveals her exploration of a familiar, but consistently difficult awareness of the transition of a loved one as they move closer to their role as an Ancestor. This writing reminds us of the relationship of death to life, of our lives to history, recent and ancient and the tender space between mother and daughter. - Ukumbwa Sauti
I want to tell you about my Mom.
Back while I was growing up my mother was a force to be reckoned with, she was kick-ass before the
term was invented. When most women of her day married young and started families my Mom moved across the country to a university to study opera. She lasted two full years on her own and admitted to me while I was in my teens that toward the end she existed on a couple of pieces of fruit a day because money was non-existent. Eventually she gave up her dream and came home where she and my Dad reunited and started dating. She had a full-time job and a home of her own - on her own - long before it was considered proper behavior for a young woman. My Mom was something of a scandal back then and I dare say she enjoyed the label.
Mom and Dad dated and eventually eloped and were married by a Justice of the Peace. A church
wedding was out of the question because of religious conflicts between the two families. Mom was
Methodist and Dad came from pure Irish Catholic stock, and well, at the time marriages between different faiths didn’t happen often.
I came along soon afterwards followed by my brother fifteen months later and my sister surprised them both five years after me. Mom was never supposed to have had children because of a heart defect. When she was barely out of toddlerhood she had scarlet fever and it damaged her heart for good. Any one of us kids could’ve killed her, but here we are so she managed to pull it – us - off.
When Mom was in her mid to late-thirties her heart and her health started to fail. Mom and Dad made
the decision for her to have open heart surgery. It was beyond risky since it had only been done in our
area a few times. I remember the day the school principle came and got my brother and I out of class to tell us that Mom had made it through the surgery. I didn’t really understand the significance at the time but I remember feeling relieved.
Years later after Mom was healthy again she went on to work in a large city school system where she
built a library in an elementary school that had never had one. It was in a basement and not easy for the kids to get to but she made that library a haven for those kids. It was full of light and laughter with handmade mobiles of famous cartoon characters that would be easily recognizable today. Those
mobiles are still in the family, packed away nice and safe, faded somewhat but ready to be hung up and used again.
Eventually the school closed and Mom had other jobs until her retirement more than 20 years ago. The woman who was a rebel and a force of nature started to slow down until one day she fell and hurt her hip. The hip wasn’t too secure anyway but that fall started Mom’s downward slide. Instead of fighting to get her mobility back she sank into a depression that nothing and no one could pull her out of. She refused to follow doctor’s orders to start walking again. The family tried to encourage her to get up and start living again but Mom always was stubborn as all hell so she sat in her chair in the livingroom and did very little to stop her own physical deterioration.
After that Mom had one physical set back after another. A shattered thigh bone was reconstructed out of a metal plate, wire, pins and screws. Her other hip had to be operated on and she had colon cancer that was thankfully discovered before it took hold. We almost lost her many times, once from a bleed out, from several bouts of pneumonia, wounds that became infected, and fall after fall. It was during this time that her mind started to deteriorate. She started to forget things, dates and places to start. She gave up her crossword puzzles when she couldn’t remember the words anymore, her handheld games went unused, and she started watching television with a blank stare. The once formidable woman who kicked ass and took names started to fade away.
It was an emotional struggle to finally make the decision to move Mom into a nursing facility. It damn near broke my Dad’s heart. He took care of Mom with the devotion of a true soul mate but it was becoming too much for him, even with me there in the house to back him up. She had many, many health issues by the time she was finally admitted into where she is now.
Today Mom has zero mobility, doesn’t remember most of her own past, and sometimes when I visit she looks at me and I wonder if she remembers who I am. She can feed herself but her food has to be ground into a paste so that she won’t choke on it. She weighs a fraction of what she used to and her bones show through her skin.
The woman who busted my ass when I needed it, was rude and uncompromising at times, was
independent and confident as hell is now a fragile being living somewhere between this world and the next. She tells me she sees her mother, father and older brother here and there. I see it as a sign that she’s getting ready, or being readied, to cross.
My Mom will be an ancestor soon. I won’t be ready, I’ll never be ready but she’s told me for years that once she crosses she’ll put pennies in places I won’t expect to see them to let me know she’s okay. I expect that when I cross and become an ancestor that I’ll see her again in all her kick ass glory.
- Kathy R.
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