Woman Writing at a Table by Thomas Anshutz

I received a call earlier from the Hospice social worker who visits my mother and shares her observations.
My mother sleeps a lot and is living on sips of soup. She is thinner and thinner and undoubtedly more diminished since I saw her last week. She perks up briefly and listens. I think her blindness has engulfed her: Her eyes are clouding over. Candy, the aide, says she is living more and more in her memories. My mother told Candy that she wanted to write a letter to my father (gone since 1991) and ask him out. Val, the social worker chuckled, we both thought that was so sweet, a precious memory, a precious moment.

And then she said she wanted to write me a letter and ask to spend time with me. And I thought, and I replied to Val, I always wanted to do a mother-daughter thing with her and it never happened. When we brought her back to NYC from Florida after close to 30 years, and after she was settled into the apartment we got for her, there was never an interest to “go out” to spend the kind of time I was craving my whole life. There was always an excuse. In the seven years she has been here, she has never come to my home, never spent an occasion, celebration, holiday with us. We seemed to have ended any family time so many years ago. But, the day we brought her back to NY, we daughters and our families sat down for dinner together in the residence’s dining room. That was the last time we ate together. So, I was surprised when this was one of my mother’s wishes.

Perhaps as we near the end, in the fog of nearing death, there is a clarity about what we have missed, and then, unfortunately it all ceases to be.

I am going to bring my husband into this tale: just to let you know, he has had blood work that didn’t reveal anything about a condition of muscle deterioration, he has had MRIs of the brain and legs which didn’t reveal anything about his decline. We were sent back to the lab for another panel of tests. He can barely walk a step. He can barely manage to ambulate with a rollator outdoors. He does better with a rolling walker in the house. He tires easily, he is wasting. I recently bought him smaller clothes and they are hanging off of him.

I am scared and mortified.

In the house he does a little better, but where is he going? We are waiting for a back-ordered chair lift. I cringe when he goes up and down the stairs. When he ascends, he crawls up with his hands.

Outside, today to get to the lab, I had to hold him up, hold up a man, my husband. Help him move, pray he wouldn’t fall.

He was the man who carried all the suitcases when we traveled and lifted them into European train racks and overhead bins of planes. He was the one who carried our three to four cameras on travels, because after walking in the heat I could never carry mine. He was the one who paid the bills, who got the mortgage, who made the calls, who did the recycling, who actually liked to do all the food shopping. In short he took care of things that he no longer can take care of: I am doing it all. He sits. He sleeps. I get tired and anxious and cranky, and I also get angry at him for bowing out, for not being able, for letting me down. THIS is how life sometimes goes and it stinks. This is a mourning period of what once was.

Next week we’ll see our doctor for flu shots and for a follow-up on the blood work.

Now, they are looking for cancer.

Addendum: he had a fall in the shower this morning. How did I pick him up? Help can’t come fast enough.

📌The series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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