"I...Don't...Know...What..."

 

"I...Don't...Know...What..." (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

    Mary’s come back to us a bit. Not all the way from where she was a month ago, but enough that she can speak some. She still gets lost in her words, but on occasion, a fully-formed sentence will appear out of nowhere. It’s shocking and delightful, all at the same time. It happened tonight.
    I show Mom the back of my Canon 5D Mark II.
    “I like this shot,” I say.
    “I don’t,” says Mary.
    “Really? How come?”
    “I look ugly,” she says. I think she looks peaceful, kind, pretty, but I’m not making the artistic decisions tonight.
    “I think you look great, but I won’t use that one. How about this one?”
    It’s a shot of her looking up from her wheelchair at the nice hospice worker this morning. It’s a OK shot. Looks a little out of focus. Not great, but OK, if you ask me.
    “I like that,” she says, with a bit of exuberance to her voice. You may not call it exuberance if you didn’t know Mary Jenks, but a slight rise in his faint voice means she’s  quite excited and thrilled.
    “Really?” I look again at the shot. She does look awfully sweet.
    “OK, Mom. I’ll use that one. By the way, I’ve been writing about you and I, and I’m putting pictures of you and such on my weblog, and I’ve got more hits on my blog, than I ever have before.”
    “Is that right?” she says.
    “Yea. People really care about you, Mom.”
    She has this look I’ve never seen on her face until she got sick, but I’ve seen it a lot in the last couple months. A look of being humbly touched by the love of others. No expectations. No demands. Just touched by the Love.
    “I’m going to write about something you said yesterday, and put it on my blog.”
    “What’s that?” say Mary.
    “Well, yesterday morning as I was getting ready to leave, you said very slowly ‘I don’t know how...” and you had a hard time finishing the sentence. I said, ‘You don’t know how to die?’ You said, ‘No, no, no...’ and started over. You said, ‘I don’t know what...’ and then I knew what you meant. I said, ‘You don’t know what you would do without me?’ And you smiled and said yes.”
    The smile tonight wasn’t as big as the one yesterday, but it was a very lovely smile, nonetheless.
    “And then, later in the day, I called C____ , and while we were talking, I told her the story and, out of the blue, she said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you either.’ It made my day, Mom.”
    We’re both smiling now.
    It’s great to have Mary back, even if just for a little while: Able to listen, able to respond, able to talk just a little. More times than not, she can’t get the words out but tonight, she’s doing pretty good.
    We talk about this and that. Some sad stuff, but mostly it’s light and breezy. Then I hear my mother use a word I’ve never heard her say before. In my life.
    “Stu...What...I...want......What...I...want....”
    She gives a heavy sigh. She really wants to get this out.
    “What...I...want....is....is...a highball.”
    “A highball?”
    “Yes.”
    “Like a glass of Scotch?”
    “Yes.” She looks hopeful.
    “Well, I don’t know. I know you’ve had wine in the past here. I don’t know if you can have Scotch, but I’ll ask. Would a glass of wine in a sippy cup do?”
    She rolls her eyes, as if saying ‘If I have to have wine, I’ll drink wine, but what I really want is some Scotch.’
    “Mom, I’ll ask Jessica.” I don’t know if hard liquor is on the OK list, but I sure hope so.
    We talk a little more. Mary’s starting to wear out. It doesn’t take long these days.
    “I’m going to go, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Then suddenly, out of her mouth, comes a perfectly formed, perfectly articulated sentence.
    “Stu, do you ever get scared?”
    I pause. I’m taken aback, not by the question, but by how clearly she spoke it.
    “Yea, I get scared,” I say.
    “What do you get scared of?” she asks with perfect diction.
    I think. I know right away.
    “I’m scared of being alone,” I say.
    “Me too.” The light in her eyes says, ‘I’m not alone, thank God.’
    I kiss her goodnight, tell her I love her, and head out to the kitchen to talk with Jessica about the High Ball Request.
    “I’ll give it to her, if you go buy it.”
    “Really? You’d do that?”
    “Sure. It’ll help her sleep.”
    I’m surprised that my eyes mist up so fast, but they do. I’m overtaken by unexpected joy.
    “Thanks, Jessica. I’ll go get her pint of Scotch tomorrow or the next day.”
    As I get in my truck and drive away, the joy doesn’t subside. I call a friend or two or three and tell them about the High Ball Request. One is worried about me buying it. One laughs at the irony. Another is helpful in telling me where the liquor stores are, (For I’m completely out of the loop these days, having not drunk any alcohol in almost 25 years. I was a big Scotch drinker myself, back in the day. Most of us Jenks’ are Scotch drinkers. No bourbon or gin for us. Give us Scotch, single malt, cheap, expensive. We don’t care.)
    I’m home in my apartment. It’s getting late. Tomorrow’s my birthday. A big box with an unopened “Heritage of Scotland” kilt inside sits under my Christmas stick, ready to be opened tomorrow morning. I’m having breakfast with a friend, then helping another friend with a problem in the afternoon. But somewhere, in between all of that, I’m going to a liquor store and buy my mother a fifth of Dewer’s Scotch. I’ll try not to cry at the counter. I know I’ll cry on the drive up to her house.
                            -11:22 p.m., November. 5th, 2009

Comments

[teddy]

nd soon,our "Tomorrows" become memories of "Yesterdays".

[Carolyn]

Happy birthday, Stu, you and my cousin David share the day! Give Mary our love!

[Jessika Poole]

Happy Belated Birthday ,Stu!!! I'm glad "jessica" approved of the Scotch highball for Mary! Because, I too, in true Jenks form, am a scotch drinker (tho I've graduated to single malt) and was thinking "Hell yes" as I read her request. I hope she throughly enjoyed it. Love, Cousin Jessika (Jenks Poole)