In The Mind Of The Aged
A seven-layer cake of images
©SusanKalish

The current “module” of my photography course is “family.” It is being taught by a perky, bright young woman from The Twin Cities who is an excellent iPhone photographer having come from the creative field. She has kids who are her immediate subjects and her work is awesome. I have no little kids, no grandkids, but those who are around me are in a much more poignant condition. They have handicapping conditions, if one considers aging a handicap. And both have mobility issues.

I will concentrate on my Mom, who I called yesterday. My mother, who thinks I am her mother, and for all intents and purposes I am: I am the advocate, the intervene-er, the intercede-er, the de-tangler, the transport-er, the escort-er, the nerve-smooth-er, the explain-er. I am all kinds of words with an -er at the end; it is a full-time job.

Having an aged parent is scary: I feel like the baton is going to be passed but I have no idea when. And I don’t want that baton, that burden of such old age. I don’t want to carry it but at some point soon it will be thrust into my hand and I will have no choice. The illusion is this: as long as my mother is still alive, I am still the young child.

As one ages the world shrinks into a room with a chair and a television. As one ages and senses decline, and eyes no longer see there is betrayal; there is further shrinkage of memory, there is distortion of time, space, sequencing. The television spins stories of pain, panic, guns, blood and fear. There is retreat into one’s own gray-matter cell of how things were, of life during childhood, losses, passages and with that comes confusion and anger; why can’t the world remain the same? Why can’t I remain the same?

My mother was a war-bride. We are talking World War II. 1944. I’ve heard the stories many times. Men would tip their hats and give a lady a seat on the subway or bus. There was a housing shortage, so vets and their brides lived with their parents in Brooklyn, or The Bronx until they could afford a place to live. People lived within their means. People were happier with less. There was no excess, of anything– of material or space. The war was over, that is what mattered.

There were weddings and children, in that order, it was not done any other way. Unless there was some kind of “accident” and subsequent banishment to pointing fingers. Life had its rules. Rules were like religion-it gave people structure. The elderly see current life as anarchistic chaos and they stare at it in disbelief and retreat to their shells. Their memory-caves are peaceful and safe, even I have one.

So, after a phone call with my mom, yesterday, after soothing, explaining, after my silent eye-rolling at hearing the same stuff again and again, realizing that the broken-record that has been playing of late was stuck in a state of passing paranoia; after assuring that no one was singling her out to torment her, that the missing food items on a daily basis could be rectified by sending down the aide for a replacement…after listening to the story of the aide being changed again, that the last one was inept, that her clock wasn’t set properly and no one can fix it but me…I tried to re-frame. Life wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t she lucky to have all that she needed-really? Why get hysterical over nothing? (Except to the elderly, nothing is trivial, and maybe, just maybe the upset gives them enough adrenaline to go on with a fight for another day. Maybe it makes them feel alive? Perhaps the fight in life gives them a feeling of purpose?)

I suppress my own upset and channel it to divest myself of the negative energy and fear that what is waiting around the corner for my mother will, at some point come after me too. Her macular degeneration is genetic. The thought makes me cringe. So my time is now to use what I have. I create.

I took seven photographs and melded them into an image: the smiling perfect past, the events, the never-believing visions that age will come. The images are fading with loss of vision and inner clarity, events are spun and woven confusing time and space. We try to look forward. We end up looking back. My mother was ninety-seven in the photo with the orange sweater. She is now ninety-eight, wearing the white hat and scarf (she is always cold, even in the summer), in the wheel-chair, at the retinal specialist, waiting to have her “shot in the eye.” And she goes in and does it and is brave. Now blind in one eye and vision deteriorating in the other, it is hard for her to do her crossword puzzles, to write a check, read the mail. In that one year that has passed, from ninety-seven to ninety-eight, I see her physically diminished, much more fragile, but inside there is still that spunk. And I bet she still feels, at some level, like that starlet-looking lady in the photo.

Along with her life’s memories, she is still in there.

The previous installment is here

The next post is here

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