My mother has always been very concerned about her appearance. She would get up at 5:00 am to perform her morning ritual of hair and makeup. Choosing her outfit and accessories was a major event. She had to look perfect in order to go down to breakfast.

She finally had her hair done last week. She had not gone to the little beauty parlor in the assisted living since the accident on February 9th. I can’t imagine what that was like, to go so long without having her hair perfect, let alone clean. The aide took her down in a wheelchair and after she was done her “friends” greeted her, surrounded her. “They were so happy to see me! They kissed my hands!”

On the other hand, looking good can be a bone of contention. There appear to be issues in River City: power struggles. My mother is a strong lady and so is the aide and it sounds like they have been butting heads. I am sorry about this because the current aide takes no guff from anyone, she is protective and proactive. The weekend aide is more laid back, something my mother prefers. Another issue is that the aide is sometimes difficult to understand, something I can vouch for. She speaks quickly, is somewhat dysfluent at times, and has an accent. But she is a good person, a loyal and honest person. I feel this although I have never met her.

This I learned during a phone call this evening. This and much more.

My mother feels she is losing her dignity. She didn’t use that word but that is what I extrapolate. She wants to get up at 7:00 am, go to the bathroom and do what she has to do. The aide wants her to wait thirty minutes to an hour, maybe because she needs to get ready first to get the day going. If my mother insists on getting up so early then it puts pressure on the aide to get up even earlier: this is what I surmise. Here is a woman, now ninety-five, who is not permitted to get up without asking for assistance, let alone go to the bathroom. The aide is afraid she is still too weak and might fall. My mother is afraid of losing her freedom yet she knows she needs someone to be with her.

My mother and the aide bicker. My mother rebels, the aide digs in her heels. “I could never live with a person like that,” my mother said in sotto voce on the telephone. I hate to say it but she is, she is living with that person and this odd couple is struggling to get along.

Aging ain’t easy.

Getting back to vanity, mother’s been having visitors. There’s a physical therapist who is getting her to walk in the hall, teaching her how to get up from a chair, teaching her exercises to strengthen her arm and hand. There is a volunteer visitor, the Hospice people. Everyone wants to know how she lived so long and what she does to look so young. She has shown them the medical newsletters she subscribes to from doctors who practice alternative and natural medicine. She has likely spilled a few beauty secrets. She has always been a student of health and practiced naturopathy as long as I can remember.

Aging and loss of independence due to health issues must be a hard blow to reconcile.

We had discussed moving for a few weeks and my mother and I are on the same wavelength: it will end up being a large expense, she will have to start paying for things like utilities and cable, she will be at the mercy of the person renting, she fears appliances may not work properly–and then what? (I keep thinking about the hard tile floors–what if she falls?) I mean, it is true. It will take months to break even before we can start saving money on rent. “I don’t think I can do it.” She said, her first admission of a mixture of fear and fatigue. “I know what I have here, I don’t know what I’ll have there.”

“I don’t know how much longer I have.”

“When I came home (from the hospital/rehab) I thought this was it, I was even comfortable, at peace with the thought that I could just let go. But the medicines were wonderful, they helped me, I got better, it wasn’t my time. I just want to stay in my little world, in my apartment. I don’t want to be around the people in the dining room–they come to meals sick. I want to be up here, sit on my terrace and look at the trees.”

It makes sense, it all makes sense, do the best we can one day at a time, making peace with the cracked sink, the nonworking garbage disposal, the rats that opened the lid on the cookie tin and sent it crashing to the floor, the lady who didn’t come to clean or do the laundry. It was all OK. Even the food that is lousy one day and passable the next. Suddenly it didn’t matter, it was almost a joke. Everything had been re-framed. This was going to be the final place…hopefully…as bad as it is …if the money holds out.

My mother spends her time watching television and doing simple crossword puzzles. Taking a nap here and there, exercising her rights in verbal battle with a woman who she doesn’t understand due to culture and country. She wishes she could go to the bathroom herself, brush her teeth without rushing. She walks down the hall with the physical therapist, comes back spent. My mother’s world is shrinking, just as she has, yet she still finds it beautiful, funny, strange. She is an observer of her own condition, slowing pulling away from herself and watching from afar. She is still together, still all there, and knows that each day could be the day, the last day.

I wonder what the last day will be like. I hope it is easy, that when the time comes it is an smooth and admirable passage. I hope I fare well when I receive the call. I hope I can be as brave and courageous as my mother when my time comes.

No one knows how much longer they have. As for my Mom, I believe she would like to go with her hair done and her makeup on, after a pit stop at the bathroom. With just a little dignity.

Without help.

This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.

The series starts here

continued here