“Mary 4.0” (c) Stu Jenks, December, 2009
Mom has rebooted again, but without the Microsoft updates. More like a hard reinstall of all the old softwares. All the past sweetness of the past few months is gone. All her attentiveness and compassion for her housemates has left. All of her kind motherly love for me is no more. It’s like the Good Mother I’ve had for the past three months never existed. We’re back to the selfish, self-centered woman I’ve been dealing with for the past 55 years. Only major difference is she can’t remember what happened three minutes ago. But her angry pronouncements that ‘Nobody ever visits me’, ‘I hate this room’, ‘The people here are awful’, and ‘I thought you would never come to see’ are now mixed with continuous chatter, most of it unbelievably hard to follow, yet clearly spoken:“I went out on the town and then they dropped something.”
“He was here but then he left.”
“He just drove by. That was him.”
“We sure had a something, I tell you.”
“Mom I can’t understand a thing you are saying,” I say.
“I’ll try harder.”
“Trying not going to help, Mom.”
“I went out this morning and we drove to someplace.”
“Mom, you haven’t left this house for six months and that was when you were in the hospital.”
“Abcdefghijklmnop”
That’s new.
“Will I ever buy a new car?” she asks.
“No, you won’t. You haven’t driven a car in 14 months.”
“I haven’t?”
“No, Mom, you haven’t”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“I want to....That woman is terrible,” responding to the voice of one of the caretakers in the hall.
“Mom, everyone here loves you.” [They really do. Every other resident in the house is either mute or brain-impaired. Mary at least talks.]
“Why is it this way?” she asks.
I tell her for the 100th time. I don’t mind telling her the truth. She used to like the truth, demanded it the past few months, and felt happy to hear it. Hell if I know now.
“Mom, you are dying of dementia. It’s that Brain Thing. Your body’s deteriorating because of your Brain Thing. You can’t drive, walk, write or go to the bathroom by yourself. The feeling on your right side is almost completely gone. You can’t remember things. And none of it is your fault. It’s not your fault.”
“I can try harder to remember.”
“It won’t matter, Mom. You don’t have to remember. The staff and I are taking care of you and all the remembering. I know you aren’t happy...”
“I’m not at all!”
“...I know, but I think if you can just accept what is happening to you a little, rather than fighting it, you might be a little happier.”
“Puhh,” she scoffs.
“You need to hear what I’m saying,” she continues. “1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. Now you’re upset.”
“I am a little irritated.”
“Well, I just won’t say anything,” and she clams up like a petulant child.
I might have, in the past, filled this space with small talk. Not this afternoon. I let it hang. For a very long while. Close to a minute. I’m being petulant too. Two grownups acting like kids. She breaks the silence to ask the time.
“Quarter to Four. Dinner will be soon.”
“Hummph.”
I can’t be around this any more today.
“Mom, I got some work to do. Do you want to go back into the living room or stay here, in your bedroom?”
“I can’t stay in the house anymore!”
“You going to have to, Mom.”
“It’s wrong!”
“Just accept it as best as you can.”
I wheel Mary out to the rest of the house. It’s dinner time. All the other residents but two are sitting at the table. One woman, new to me, inches herself in her walker, ever so slowly toward her chair. I give her a hand and pull out the chair for her.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You’re welcome.”
I return to Mary’s wheelchair.
“Time to put you at the head of the table,” I say.
“Good,” she says.
Then she proclaims loudly to the everyone sitting around the table:
“This is my husband, Stuart!”
“No, Mom. I’m your son, Stu.”
“We know that,” says one of the resident, looking at me.
Mary give me a look that says: ‘Don’t you correct me. I know what I’m talking about.”
I give her a kiss on the forehead and make my exit from Crossroads Adult Care Center.
Driving away, I call Annie and give her the rundown of Mary’s condition, and warn her what to possibly expect when she visits on Saturday.
“Oh, Jeez,” she says.
“I know.”
I’ve got to come up with my own whole new level of acceptance to this new situation with Mary. Accept that Sweet Mom is perhaps gone forever. And I’m pretty clear on this one thing. I won’t be visiting Mary everyday for a while. Four, five times a week tops, to protect my own sanity. Mary is already perpetually disappointed in me, whether I come everyday, or never again. The compromise of every-other-day seems to be the way to go, at least for now.
Yet as Scarlett O’Hara said: ‘Tomorrow is another day.’
Then again, Scarlett stated that after Rhett had walked out on her.
So who knows what part of Mary’s brain will be with us tomorrow.
Mary 5.0? Or perhaps a whole new operating system.