Fezziwig Press & Photography by Stu Jenks

"Mary 4.0"

“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.
   
     

"Bozette at The Baha'i House of Worship"

"Bozette at The Baha'i House of Worship, Wilmettte, Illinois"

(c) Stu Jenks, Thankgiving Weekend, 2009

    The smoked turkey is tasty. Some of the party guests? Not so much.
    “It’s so sad,” say the high-end waiter who brought a plantain dish to the feast.
    “He was the best general manager we ever had, and he began to come to work drunk. He started coming to work drunk because his mother is dying. It’s so sad.”
    I’ve heard just about enough. Prior to this comment, I’ve heard minutes of harsh criticism of the Not Hip Rich mixed with great adoration for the Cool Rich. Professional snowboarders: cool. The usual Powers-That-Be: Not Hip. The irony doesn’t escape me even though it seems to be escaping the speakers. Another guest makes her living teaching surfing to wealthy clients in a Central American country, yet when I asked about what board I should buy, myself, being a new born-again surfer, she blows me off. Add to that, she seems to look down on her students, the Not Hip Rich. Now, granted, I’ve done that too, with some of the wealthy entitled fucks I’ve had deal with in my Art Job, but I know it has nothing to do with their money. I’ve met far more selfish entitled middle-class people and working-class people than I have rich ones. And as my mother Mary taught me as a child: 'The Bible is misquoted all the time. Money is not the root of all evil. It’s the Love of money that is the root of all evil.' I also think what getting to me tonight by some (not all) of the party guests is this arrogant know-it-all bullshit that tends to exclude any new knowledge or lasting empathy for those different from ourselves. If you don’t believe like us, you suck. You have another view of life in this country other than mine, you are either stupid or just plain wrong.
    Add to that this fuck-money-but-I-love money attitude and I’m ready to blow.
    I can’t keep my mouth shut anymore.
    “My mother is dying and I don’t come to work drunk,” I say.
    “That’s so insensitive,” say the surfer girl. “You should be more compassionate.”
    I feel the heat rising in my body, going to my head and resting in my ears. Oh, oh. Don’t make Hulk angry.
    “Well,” I say, with the heat now coming out of my mouth, “I pray that the pilot who is flying me home to Tucson isn’t dealing with his mother dying, by coming to work drunk!!!”
    The table falls silent.
    Funny thing is? I drove to Chicago.
    The conversation continues but now I’m being iced out. The surfer and the waiter are ignoring me. When I make any comment now, even a compassionate one, or I’m just making small talk, they just give me a quick glance that says: ‘You don’t exist in our world anymore.’ Hunk is turning big and green now.
    I head into the kitchen where my friends, the host and hostess, are frantically cooking. Poor things, the thermometer was greatly inaccurate and the second turkey is not done. But I am.
    “I gotta go. I’m leaving, before I really say something that I have to apologize for. I’m sorry but I have enough of this shit.” I explain to them what’s been going on. They suggest I go for a walk, to not leave just yet. I begrudgingly agree. I tell a little white lie to the dinner guests and say I need to go outside to make a phone call. They couldn’t care less.
    After ranting to a close friend in Tucson about the Turkey Day bullshit I’m dealing with, I decide it is time to go. I’m too far gone now. Yes, I know I’ll miss the pie, but anyway.
    I walk back into the house, and address the dining room table.
    “I’m going to go. I’m pretty tired and I was just talking with a friend in Tucson, and my mother is having a tough time. She’s dying of dementia and I’ve been gone for about five days and she’s forgetting that I’m alive. She thinks I’m dead and it’s pretty sad, actually.”
    The look on Surfer Girl’s face changes, as does the waiter’s. Yea, assholes, my mother really is dying.
    “A friend is visiting her while I’m gone but it only helps so much.” I then tell a couple sweet and darkly funny Mary stories to flesh out my general situation. I think I actually see a hint of shame in their faces. Or is it just relief that I’m leaving. I don’t know.
    I say my good-byes to my good friends in the kitchen, and tell them again:
    “This really isn’t about them. It’s about me. If I was a better man, it wouldn’t piss me off so much.”
    We give each other hugs and I head for the door.

"Old Mom's Hands"

“Old Mom’s Hands” (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

    “So how was your day?” Mary asks, sucking on a Tastee Freez milkshake I have just brought her.
    I pause. Should I tell her about the photo shoot last night at VERITAS? Oops. Too late. Time’s up.
    “We went out today,” she says, and then continues to tell me about a trip she only took in her mind.
    After she finishes telling me the long trip story, I say, “Mom, you haven’t left this house in over six months.”
    “Yes, I have,” she demands.
    “No, you haven’t.”
    “Yes, I have,” she says again, with indignation in her voice.
    Like arguing with a drunk. You always lose.
    This one-sided conversation goes on for a while. I don’t argue. I just listen. I wish I was anywhere else but here.
    After a while, I say, “So do you want to hear about my day?”
    “Oh sure... You know, this milkshake isn’t very sweet. It could be sweeter.”
    I say nothing more for a while. Old Mom is back. Never-enough, always-about-her, no-guilt-no-shame-not-my-fault Mary. And there is no sign of New Mary today. Shoot me now.
    Her diction is fine now. I can understand every word. I turn the conversation to the topic of Death, which normally is a happy topic for Mom, but not today. Mary isn’t about dying now, like she often has been in the past. She's all about living as long as she can, and getting everyone to come to her beck and call. Just like old times. I mention that I think she’ll live to Christmas.
    “Well, of course, I will!” she states with judgment and anger behind it.
    I’ve had enough now.
    “Mom, you could live for a year or you could die in your sleep tonight!”
    “Well, I have news for you,” she says with a smirk on her face, like she has me now. (I’ve seen that smirk since the day I was born.)
    “You could die in your sleep tonight, too,” she says. She has a look like ‘Top that!’
    “Yea, Mom, you're right” I say, “I could die in my sleep tonight, but you have a hell of a lot better chance of dying tonight than I do.”
    Hrump, says her face.
    Arguing with a drunk. I’m the idiot.
    I put the remains of her milkshake in the frig, dump the dead flowers I gave her in the trash, wash out the flower vase, talk with the staff for a few minutes, letting them know that I’ll be out of town for ten days. (“Oh my,” says the weekend nurse, “Mary will freak out.” “I know. I’ll call her from the road,” I say.) A church person has just arrived so Mary is talking with her and I make my exit.
    Truth? I thought Mom was dying. Now she’s not. Now she’s back to being the Mother-I-Never-Liked-Very-Much. And this may be the only mother I have for the remaining days, weeks, months, years. I’m running a marathon but the end of the race isn’t 26 miles, and I’m at milepost 20. Nope. The end of the race is a secret, only known to the race officials, to the Gods. But I still have to run it, finish it, whether I like it or not. I’ve been running pretty hard the past few months. It’s time for me to back down and begin to jog.
    A long ride to Chicago to be with old friends just might do the trick, but I doubt it. More like, when I return, I’ll need to back off from Mary a little bit. Back to four times a week, not seeing her every single day. My soul needs a break from her entitlement issues. And hell, Old Mom complains about everything, whether I’m there twice a day, or hardly at all.
    I start up the Buick. Good car for the long haul across the prairie. I turn on the car’s CD player. The Band Of Heathens sings about eight more seconds on The Golden Calf. I sigh. Be nice if I had someone to share this road trip with. Be nice If I had someone to share this life with. Be nice to have someone to share my bed.

    Oh, Christ. It’s going to be a very long drive.

"The New Old Mary"

“The New Old Mary” (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

    “She said that he needs to get his ass in here,” says the caregiver, recounting what my Mother said right before I arrived. The nurse thinks it’s funny. I don’t. I don’t tell her that I don’t think it’s funny, for this is the Old Mary that I’ve known for 55 years, minus the six months recently when I had the Sweet New Mom. But I think the caregiver is reading my face pretty well. I ain’t smiling. She sees that.
    “So the Grumpy Mom is here today,” I say to Mary, whose at the dinner room table, waiting for lunch to be served.
    “I guess so,” Mom says.
    She then goes off into a Dreamland reverie. A stream of conscience thing. No, that's not right. She seems to be telling me about a dream she had, but she doesn’t think it’s a dream. She knows it happened just last night. Her visions, whether sleeping or awake, have no different validity, than the oatmeal she had for breakfast. The Oatmeal and the Sex I Had With A Man Last Night, are both real, both true, both substantial.
    I listen to her account, and then she just stares at the ceiling. I’ve seen her do that a lot in her bedroom. It’s extra special eerie when she does it with all the other residents around, also waiting at the table for food, also staring off into space. And I can understand why the staff finds Mary funny. She’s the only one of the residents who actually can carry on anything like a conversation. Most of the other nine people who live in this house never speak, rarely acknowledge anything, at least while I’m there. Their Dreamland is long and extensive. Mom’s is getting there, but is not there yet. She can still talk.
    And it’s unfair to say it’s the Old Mary. More like the New Old Mary. The Old Mary, the entitled Southern Belle who comes from landed gentry is here, but the New Mary is too; truly happy to see me when I’m here, truly wishing to respond as best she can when I talk to her, truly able to listen with compassion when her son speaks with her. Yet the Old Mary will arrive for a few minutes at a time, but then Mom descends, as if she sinking into the deep end of the ever-shrinking pool that is the front of her brain.
    Lunch is coming. I have to go to the desert to pray. I really need to leave. This isn’t a good day for me to spend a lot of time with Mary.
    “I love you Mom”
    “I love you, too.”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “OK,” she says with a smile, a New Mom smile.
    I kiss her forehead. She kisses my cheek. I head for the door.

From The 2009 All Souls' Procession

From The 2009 All Souls' Procession, Tucson, Arizona (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

[All images by Stu Jenks, except the bottom one of me in a kilt, taken by Tom Willett]

 

"Now That's Good"

“Now That’s Good”, (c) November, 2009, Stu Jenks

    There seems to be no telling which way this disease, this dementia, will go. A few days ago, the Old Old Mary was back. The day after that, it’s as if she was never there. A couple days ago, Mary could hardly speak. Yesterday, her speech was clear and easily understood. Today, I don’t know.
    I’m pretty burnt out after a year of this. Yesterday, I gave her some flowers. She said ‘Thank you.’, but there was very little loving energy behind the comment, not because she didn’t love the flowers. She’s burnt out too. Her appetite is back. Her thinking is clearer, yet the engine is still running down. We just have no idea when the engine will stop. My hope of Mary’s eminent death has faded away.
    I fear too much now: Afraid that the money will run out. Afraid that Mary will suffer much more than a couple more weeks, a couple more months, that Mom could linger for years. Afraid that I’m not really up for The Long Haul, of a couple more years of this. Maybe more. It’s beginning to take its toll on me. It’s very hard to watch someone you love, someone who prays for death everyday like she does, be denied that which she wishes for: To cross over to the Other Side, to see Dad, to see God.
    In a week I’ll be driving to Chicago to have Thanksgiving with a couple of my best friends. I’ll be gone for a week, maybe less. Not too long ago, I thought of canceling the trip, since I thought Mary may die within days or perhaps weeks. Now, I’m going. Mary’s not going to die anytime soon, it appears, but frankly, who in the hell knows? I don’t.
    And I’m one of the lucky ones. We have money. Mary can be in a nice home, with a well-trained staff. So many in America and around the World don’t have money, are having to put a parent or spouse in a health care hell-hole, or having to care for them, themselves, losing their own independent lives, to being a caregiver twenty four, seven. I can pursue my Art career, take care of business and then see Mom every day, whenever it works for me. If we had no money, or no access to a Medicare home, Mary would be living with me. I’d only be leaving the house to get more supplies or when someone was there to watch her, so I could pursue my own dreams, if only for a few hours at a time. I’m so fortunate, but I don’t feel so lucky today. I haven’t felt lucky for a while. I’m not ungrateful, mind you. Just really fucking tired.
    I was the speaker today at a spiritual support group I belong to. I talked about the middle path, the spiritual discipline I try to be faithful to, the journey that is the most fulfilling when I listen to the Quiet Voice Within, not the Monkey Mind of my Ego. And I shared some of the journey with Mom with them. Told a funny story or two. Told a sad story or three. Spoke of my gratitude at being able to help, to try and be giving with few expectations, to being able to be there for my Mom. And then I told them the story of The Highball Request, and then ended with the story of the Medicinal Scotch.
    “So I went and bought the Dewer’s,” I said to the group. “I have been out of the loop for 24 years. Last time, I bought a fifth of Dewer’s, it was ten dollars a fifth. Christ, it’s $30 now!” They laughed. “Anyway, I took the Scotch up to Mary’s place. Two fingers, over ice, big splash of water, and a straw. Found out my mother has her own straw. Go figure. Anyway, I take the plastic cup of Scotch and Water to my mother, to her bedroom. It was after dark. I elevate her bed, elevate her head, and put the straw in her mouth. She sucked and sucked and sucked on that straw. You could see the level of the liquid slowly dropping in the cup. And on she sucked. Then she released the straw from her mouth, threw back her head slightly, and let out a big ‘Ahhhhh.......” They laughed again. “And then, clear as a bell, clearer than any words she had spoken all day, Mary said, ‘Now that’s good!’”

"So Go Ahead!"

“So Go Ahead!”
November, 2009

    Oh crap. We have the Old Mary Jenks back again. Not the Old Mary Jenks of the past few months: the sweet, attentive to others, kind in her comments, genuine woman. No, it’s the Old, Old Mary Jenks from a year ago, all the way back to the day I was born and beyond: the manipulative, demanding, entitled, selfish, dishonest person.
    Today, when she speaks, she gets halfway through a sentence, starts talking jibberish, but now she has major mean-ass attitude attached to it.
    “What...is...important...to...me...is....gib ....gab ...gob ...blek.”
    “Mom, I don’t understand what you are saying.”
    “It...is...important...to...me...that...blink ....bonk .... bah ....zip,” she says, louder, angrier, meaner now.
    “Mom, just let me talk and you can respond. You do that fine.”
    “No...It’s important...to...me....bip ....bap ....boop ...baaaaa.”
    She is insistent, doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. Just demands attention. The Old Mom. The Mary I’ve been distancing myself from for almost half of my life.
    I try the old funny story with her, about taking her out into the desert and shooting her myself to ease her pain, in which, in the past, she has been very sweetly concerned that I would get caught, and that she loves that I would do that for her, that I cared enough to end her suffering. Today, I get back: “So, go ahead.” with the defiance of ‘Just you try it, buddy!”
    I bring up to her, that yesterday, she thought I was dead, that ‘It really upset you, Mom, that you thought I had died, but when you saw me last night, it made you very happy.’ I get a look that says, ‘You were dead yesterday. Don’t you tell me I was wrong.’
    I try and leave after a while, not because I have that many errands to run (what I told her), but because I am getting angry about having Selfish Mary back. At one point, when she was saying that she wanted to die, but doesn’t know what to do, (or I think that’s what she said), I bluntly said, “Mom, just stop eating. You’ll be dead in a few weeks.” In the past when we have had intimate talks about how to die, she has taken mental notes, with a sense of grace: ‘Oh, if I stop eating (or if pray for God to take me, or if relax into Death,) I will die. Very good. Thank you, son.’ You could see her wheels gently spinning, over the past few weeks, with the hope of a peaceful and easy death, shining on her face. But today, she had a look of incredulousness, like, ‘How dare you want me to die!’
    “Mom, I want your suffering to stop. You are suffering, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’ll stop when you die.”
    She doesn’t like that answer today. She wants Door Number Three. She’s been looking for Door Number Three, all of her life. The have-your-cake-and-eat-too Door. The Door that opens without any effort on her part. The Door thats all about her. The Door before I came along. The Door before she married Dad. The Door before everything. Fuck me.
    As I leave the house, the part-time weekend caregiver speaks to me from the kitchen.
    “I was getting ready to call you, when you came in. She was yelling; “I want my son!”
    Great.
    “And she ate well today, too,” says the caregiver.
    “That’s too bad,” I shoot back.
    The caregiver’s voice changes. She now knows she doesn’t need to blow smoke up my ass.
    “Yes, I know,” she says.
    “Me too,” I say.
    “See you tomorrow,” I say.
    “Yea, take care,” she says, with true empathy in her voice, this time.
    She knows. I know. We all know.

"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

"Two Sisters & A Daughter"

"Two Sisters & A Daughter" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

[Top Image: "Pamela, visiting from North Carolina, talks with her mother about who-knows-what; Mary's a little confused."; Bottom Image: "Virginia compares her arm size with her sister Mary's, to see who is the thinnest Belle at the Ball; Virginia's nurse smiles; Pamela comments on the comparison."]

Photog's Note: Being real skinny isn't the best thing when you're in your 80's, but these two sisters have been competing with each other ever since they were teenagers. Mom has always felt like Virginia was the Pretty Sister. Perhaps. But Mary was the one with the rocking figure, back in the day.

"Mary Gazes At Her Hand"

“Mary Gazes At Her Hand” (c) 2009 Stu Jenks 

[Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009]

    It’s after dinner. Mary’s sound asleep. I wake her up. She’s happy to see me. I’ve been told that she has rallied.

    “We think it was the Depakote. She been off it five days now. We have to puree all of her food but she ate three meals today. I have to feed her, though. Then again, she may have had a little stroke...” Sounds like Jessica thinks she's getting better. I pray Mom’s not.

    I thank the caregiver as she leaves Mary and I alone. I close the door to her room. I reread her birthday cards to her. I read them to her first, on Halloween, but she was completely unaware of them, and me, that day. It was just four days ago. She turned 83. Tonight, she knows the names of her friends, at least for a few seconds or so.
    We talk and Mom hears me. Says a few words in response: “O, yes,” and an “O, my,” or two. “You got that right,” was the longest sentence she said all night. She can listen to what I’m saying and occasionally respond, but she can’t complete any of her own sentences. Where before she would get confused by the verb: “What I need to tell you is...” and then get lost, now, she gets lost in the first noun: “I, I, I, want...want...I...I...” and then she stops trying.
    “It’s OK, Mom,” I say, but it’s not. Not for her, who wants to speak to her son. Not for me, who wants to hear what she has to say.
    I finish with the cards. I talk about the new Hoop Dancing book that was printed last week, and she seems excited. I talk about how I thought she was close to death, last week.
    “Me, too.” she says.
    I talk about the girl in California, and how I know now there is no future for us. She seems sad and confused. She liked, when over the past few weeks, my eyes brightened when I spoke about the Woman on the West Coast. Mary’s reading my face now as much as she's hearing my voice. She sees I’m very sad. She’s sad too. And confused about what happened between me and the girl. I don’t go into many details. I’m a bit confused too, about how it all came down.
    I talk about how I don’t think she has a long time to live now.
    “No,” she says, not disagreeing with me.
    “Everything is taken care of. There is plenty of money for everything. Your funeral will be back in Virginia.”
    She smiles at that.
    “I heard you talking with Nannie, over the last few days,” I say.
    “Yes...”
    “Maybe she’ll come over from the other side and help you some,”
    “I hope so,” Mary says.
    I mention that I’m getting a fine wooden casket made for her ashes, like the one we had made for Dad. She nods.
    “I’m sorry this is so hard, Mom.”
    She rolls her eyes, saying nothing.
    I laugh out loud.
    “You think funny,” she says with the first big smile I’ve seen on her mouth in days.
    “Yea,” I say, “I’m laughing because you’re the one who's dying, not me. You have the hard job.” I laugh again.
    She smiles and gives a bit of a shrug.
    “I hope Stuart comes to help you too.”
    She looks away. She misses Dad.
    “I feel his presence sometimes,” I say.
    “Do you?” she asks.
    “Yea, I do. I hope he visits.”
    She just looks at me. With a ton of love in her eyes.
    “I love you, Mom, and I’ll love you after you’re gone.”
    “I’ll....love....” but that’s all she gets out.
    “You’ll love me too, after you’re gone.” I say, completing her thought.
    “Yes...”
    “Well, maybe I’ll feel your presence too, after you’ve died.”
    She seems surprised and slightly delighted by that idea.
    “I love you, Mom.”
    “I love you, too.”
    We talk for a bit more and then I say goodnight. I kiss her forehead, like I’ve done a hundred times before.
    “Give me a kiss,” I say as I put my cheek to her lips.
    She has a tough time tonight, brushing my cheek slightly with her lips. I back away.
    “Not...much...of...,” she quietly says.
    “Not much of a kiss? Well, try again,” placing my cheek again to her mouth. This time she makes firmer contact.
    “There, that was good,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    She smiles. I turn out her bed-stand lamp and walk to open her bedroom door. She’s a little spooked at first by the complete darkness but is quickly calmed by the ambient light from the hall.
    “It’s OK, Mom,” I say from the doorway.
    “Good night, Mom”
    “Good...,”
    And the rest just fades away.