Graceful Aging

A daughter sorts through the emotions inherent with her mother's declining mental state

Getting older now....aging ever so gracefully.

The children have all gone away, replaced by an ever increasing accountability. A walker and a new market drug the therapy for Mother's ails. The home in which you grew, spent youth, celebrated, mostly empty now.

Only Mother left behind to tend to property some see as abandoned.

You have a home as well that needs tending, bills to be paid, improvements to be made, but all you see is empty. Four bedrooms: one occupied, ever simpler to look through the crystal balls that Mother's eyes have become.

The nurses come to Mother on Tuesdays and Thursdays and are on call if need be. Need be? In her condition, one hundred sixty-eight hours per week has become need be. Her back twisted and wrangled like the limbs of old oaks. It's hard to wash the dishes when she can't reach the sink.

Emotions wrestle with responsibilities.How much gratitude graces the promissory noteyou signed at birth? The pills have eased her pain, but Mother forgets things. Things like taking her pills. What choices are left, what to call options when most are cruel.

The nurses come on Thursday. This week they bring an ambulance. A bed has opened and Mother's nameplate has already been engraved. They call it hospice. They blather reassurances. Care is what she needs, care it what she'll have. Abandonment is what you feel.

Days morph to weeks, to months. Mother takes her pills, plays bingo on Wednesdays, and has pot roast for dinner on Sundays. You visit on Monday, called it a "mental health" day. The head nurse lightly palms your elbow, leads you into an office, and shuts the door.

Your mother is proud, particular in her appearance. The pills help her to dress herself, apply her rouge and lipstick, but even the darkest shades do nothing to hide her teeth. The pills that ease Mother's pain, allow her some level of self sufficiency, of dignity, have side effects.

The orderlies clear the trays after meals. It began on Friday; Mother's teeth accompanied the uneaten scraps of food. Saturday was the same. After chapel on Sunday, the doctor asked whether she realized that her teeth were falling out. Mother cried. Crowns and dentures are not recommended at the hospice, there are dangers of swallowing,

Making matters worse.

You cried.

They call her forgetfulness "dementia". The medication is necessary to give Mother a small dose of independence, but with that there is a price, the jaw decays, the dementia worsens, little by little, day by day, but her pain is eased considerably. Physically.

 On the following Sunday, just before the chapel service, Mother gallops more on her walker than with it, across the hall to the common ladies' room. She cleanses the makeup from her furrowed face, once a visage of beauty, and reaches for her toothbrush. Each patient has their own brush, their own hook to hang it from, only Mother can't recall which spot is hers. Too proud to ask for help, she leans her forearms on the walker and winces, the thoughts not coming.

 Mother starts to cry.

 Mother forgets that it doesn't matter anymore.

 There are no teeth left to brush.

Courtesy

D.Nadeau Photography

Author's Note

This story was inspired entirely by the included photo, taken by my good friend Deb Nadeau. Her pictures are wonderfully dark and beautiful and never cease to inspire me.

Reviews

[Susan M]

What a heart-breaking story!

Judging from the state of some of those toothbrushes, perhaps it's a good thing that Mother has lost all her teeth!