Perfect Mom Moments

My mother looks at me sometimes like I have horns and blood-tipped fangs—as if she’s part afraid, part confused, part disgusted. At other times, she looks at me, rolls her eyes, scowls, and shakes her head, as if no one could be more ridiculous and annoying than I am. At other times, she looks at me with pure overwhelming love.

My point is, dying isn’t something I can “figure out” or get a handle on—at least not in the way my obsessively, overly analytical brain would prefer. There’s not a chart or graph I can consult, no “Ten Sure Signs…” meme, no Ted Talk that outlines the basic, consistent steps and timeline of dying. The doctors can’t tell me what to expect beyond the universal physiology of death, and the Hospice nurses, for whom I have the greatest respect, don’t know much more that I do.

There’s only, right now THIS is what’s happening.

For example, one day Mom can’t walk. I have to half-carry her from her bed to the kitchen table, as I speak loudly into her good ear, “Take another step. Now take another one.…” I aim the kitchen chair at her from behind, even as she’s melting toward the floor. She’ll sit at the table across from me, and when I ask if she’d like something to drink, she might mumble something unintelligible, or not respond at all, or not acknowledge that I’ve spoken. If there’s a spoon, she may scoop up air with it and eat these pretend bites. She may wad up a napkin and try to use it like a spoon.

That night, she might sit up in bed every two hours, all night long. How she pulls herself up, I’ll never understand (because I’m too tired to stay up and watch). But something eventually wakes me up—faint tapping on the hospital bed rail, swinging her feet into the bed frame, pulling up the bedding—and I get up, lay her back down, cover her up, put her oxygen back on, and go back to bed. At some point I’ll say, “You have to go back to sleep; it’s only X:00 in the morning.” The other night she answered, “You’re a liar. I know how to read a clock.”

The next day (or after the next nap or three days later…), she’ll grab hold of her walker and practically spring out of bed with little help, truck out to the kitchen (with minimal help), and wait for me to push her chair up behind her. She’ll say, “Look at these beautiful babies!” when she sees her iPad photo slideshow, or “Could I have some orange juice?” while I stare at her in wonder.

The next day we might be back to nothing quite working, or she might be confused and angry, or she might be doing great, or we might be onto something entirely new. It’s like caring for an infant, who turns into my mother, who turns into a snarly teen, who turns into a ghost just on the edge of my vision. Each requires a different kind of care and a different level of emotional fortitude from me. And I’ve learned not to take anything personally.

There are momentary miracles, too, that fill me so full of love I think I'll burst. Like the other night, as I was helping Mom up from the kitchen table, I brushed against her hand with the walker handle. She gave me a look I can’t quite describe—an “Are you trying to kill me?!? look—and when I said, “I didn’t do it on purpose, I’m just clumsy,” she SMIRKED. That look had been a deliberate tease. Then, as she was lying down, and I lifted her legs to help her into bed, her leg slipped out of my hand and dropped to the bed. She looked up at the door and called out, “Frank?!? Help me, Frank!!” And here’s the thing: She looked at me and smirked again. We don’t know any Frank, and she was totally goofing around!

Or this morning, when I told Mom to hug me for a minute so I could get the bathroom door closed, she hugged me and started moving side to side. I realized she was dancing! She laughed, and I laughed. It was a perfect Mom moment.

Maybe Mom’s daily abilities and demeanor are a function of brain chemistry. Maybe they depend on the strength of her resistance that day. Maybe they’re determined by how much protein she ate the day before. Maybe they’re the result of cancer cheesecloth-ing her brain. These maybes used to drive me insane, with my compulsive need to study, research, and explain…well…everything. But I’m (slowly) learning the WHYs and HOWs don’t really matter. What matters is what’s happening right now.

This morning, as I was guiding Mom’s walker forward, she looked me right in the eyes and asked, “How did you learn to do this?” I said, “We’re learning together.” And she smiled. Perfect. Mom. Moment.