One went, one came.

Another will come. The new guards will take turns.

It’s different. What was, since the end of February, is now over.

After Cynthia said “goodbye,” dressed in her fancy blouse, Capris and huge peep-toed heels, dragging her seventy-five+ pound bags after her, my mother shed a tear and sang  “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”  The deal was done.

Peaches from The Bronx had taken Cynthia’s place and would be living in.  Peaches looked childlike and was shivering in fear at the newness.  Sunday, she commuted on the Q44 bus from The Bronx at 9:00 a.m.  She worried that my mother would yell at her.  She looked twenty-five but has three children – a twenty-one year old, a fifteen year old, and a nine year old. She worries about them, how they will get to school and if they will be on time. Her mother-in-law would take care of them, the same mother-in-law who would be relieving her on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and then return to her other job in Manhattan. Being an aide isn’t easy. Neither is getting old, very old.  Living in the same room can’t be wonderful, but this is the bargain, this is what people do to survive on both sides.

My son and I delivered Cynthia to the airport. He was gracious enough to help haul her bag into the revolving doors and almost broke his back; the luggage was stuffed beyond reproach and beyond the acceptable limit, stuffed with more than she needed for her life in New York City. (We do have winters up here.) Her huge leather handbag was really, really heavy. The contents of the bags were shifted and my son had to sit on them to get them closed. I paid the airline’s overweight fee.

My mother had been ambivalent about Cynthia. Though she felt secure with her, she needed to reclaim her independence. As much as I was grateful for all that Cynthia did, for her OCD-focus on cleanliness and strict rules, how she pulled my mother out of a near-death experience… My mother had enough, returning to her teens mentally, rebelling and declaring that it was her way or the highway.

So, In comes Peaches the child-mother who, unlike Cynthia, appears to have limited confidence, is not pro-active, seems awkward and is trying to find her way–along with my mother (who Cynthia did everything for). Here is a ninety-five year old little white woman and a young African-American lady who looks no older than her oldest child.

Peaches appeared to enjoy my mother, who sat on the couch on the conservatory roof and demonstrated how she can do leg lifts, practically touching her nose with her toes. “The yoga teacher is in a wheelchair, and she is even on television and she can’t even lift her legs as high as I can!”

Today I dealt with Time-Warner cable for the fourth time since my mother moved in five weeks ago:  not only the television didn’t work; the phone didn’t work. That is not good. Cynthia would have taken care of that without my asking.

It ended up being a day of errands and deliveries, I took my mother’s quilt to the cleaners, something Cynthia had promised to do in Florida, but it would have cost more than fifty dollars. Here in Queens, it will be cleaned for thirty. I was dragging and shopping with an all-time high of four consecutive ocular migraines, but what the heck? I suppose that even if I don’t think I am stressed, I am. I worry about how things will work out, if the aides will stay, if things will click, if my life will be taken over even more. I try to tell myself that during my childhood my mother took care of me, and I would sound greedy and without compassion if I didn’t keep my mouth shut now and do the right things. But here I can say it: My brain does a lot of leg work, it has to run several marathons. It is now a year since I started getting ocular migraines. I would give anything to get rid of the stress that is likely causing them. I would give anything for a quiet, boring life without something always having to be done.

God bless Cynthia. For the time we had her, she carried a huge load for me. She called me her white sister.

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