“Stuart Jenks, Dia de los Muertos, Nogales, Arizona”(c) November, December, 2009 Stu Jenks
“It was just terrible that they didn’t tell me that Stuart was dead until just yesterday, “ she says. “It was just two months ago that he died, they said.”
Welcome back from Chicago.
“I thought you were dead too.”
“No, Mom, I’m alive and kicking. And Dad’s been dead since 2001. You were there when he died.” [This is probably the 30th time I’ve told her this. Won’t be the last. I really don’t mind.] “But I need you to make a phone call with me. You see, for some reason, The Marine Corps thinks YOU are dead. I got a letter while I was gone that said ‘We heard that Mary Jenks is dead. So, can you send a death certificate?’ Well, Mom, I talked with a nice lady and she said that if you can have your mother talk with us on the phone and answer a few questions, that that will do, so we will reinstate Dad’s military retirement payments. Do you think you can do that?”
“Sure,” she says.
“Well, let’s go over a few questions they might ask. What is your social security number?
She rattles that off with ease. She’ll know her Social twenty minutes after she is dead. Very good.
“When were you born?”
“Yesterday.”
Oh boy.
“No, it wasn’t yesterday.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Nope. You were born on Halloween, 1922, I mean, 1926.”
“That’s right. 1926,” she says.
She knows that. Okey Dokey.
“Well, let’s give it a try.”
I take my RAZR cellphone from the watch-pocket in my jeans and begin to dial. Might as well see if this works. What I’m not telling Mary is if she can’t verify on the phone, who she is with the Vets, it’ll be a very long drawn-out process to get her benefits reinstated. I dial, get connected, go through a tons of menus and finally get a live human being on the other end. I explain to her the situation and that I talked with someone earlier in the day. She seems like a very nice civil servant too. She says, ‘Let me talk with your mother.’ I place my cell next to my mother’s ear, still holding it. Mom puts her hand over mine. I can hear what the woman is saying on the other end. The volume’s up.
“Hello, Mrs. Jenks?”
“Yes. How are you?
“I’m fine. I need to ask you a few questions.”
“OK.”
“When were you born?
“I was born...now, when was it...oh yes...it was October 31st,... 1926.”
Great. Now go for the social.
“Mrs. Jenks, when did you husband die?”
Oh crap. Sometimes she thinks Stuart died last week. Sometimes she thinks he’s still alive. Sometimes she thinks I’m Stuart.
“Now, let me see...I can’t really....say...”
“Your son can help you. He can write it down, for you to read,” says the civil servant.
Great. I hastily write down on the back of an envelope: “Sept. 4th, 2001.” I hand the paper over to Mary. She looks at it.
“Well, I don’t know. I can’t read this! What does that say? I can’t read...”
Fuck. My crappy handwriting. Thanks an f-ing lot, Miss Riano, for changing me from left handed to right handed in the first grade. I scratch out what I had written and wrote in large block letters: ‘9 4 2001.’
“Nine, Four, 2004”
I put up one finger and mouth the word ‘One.’
“One. 2001,” says Mom.
“Thanks very much,” say the kind woman. “May I now talk with your son?”
“Why certainly!”
I take the phone back. The civil servant and I talk for a while. She faxes me some things. I fax them back and my Power of Attorney too. Seems Mom hasn’t been getting her usually $781 a month for the past two months. We don’t play it that tight financially, but I didn’t notice that they weren’t coming in. Really glad I called. Really glad Mary and I fixed it. Really glad I talked with a real live caring human being on the other end of the phone.
“All fixed,” I tell Mom a half hour later.
“That’s good,” she says.
The next day, It’s the New Old Mary this time. Mom: 3.0. Still pretty sweet and kind but with just a bit of manipulativeness, more than a bit unhappy, complains loudly but then she lets it go pretty quickly, or rather her mind focuses on something completely different. Fuck, I’d complain too, if I knew I was losing my mind, and that only God knows when I will die, even though I’ve been praying for death to come for months.
This following morning, I bring by some more pics of people that she cares about, to add to the photos tacked to the wall of her bedroom, of her son, and of a close woman friend of mine. Today’s pics are of an ex-girlfriend who is very active in Mary’s life. And of one of her cats. Mary likes one image of her, but not the second one with the cat. First image it is. One thing I’ve learned is you shouldn’t argue with a dying person. Give them what they want. Even though I think image number two is better, Mary likes the out-of-focus second image. Within reason (and sometimes, without), Mary gets to have what she wants. Hopefully she’ll get a visit of Death soon.
After pinning the photos to her bedroom wall, I come into the living room where Mary sits on the leather sofa, watching something on the Cartoon Channel.
“That girl just said Bat Shit. I’ve never heard such a thing.”
Judging from the kid’s show that’s on at ten in the morning, I doubt the character said ‘Bat Shit’ but I let it go.
Mary tends to ramble on now, or at least she has for the past two weeks. Sometimes it makes sense. Most times it doesn’t, but it doesn’t take too long for me to figure out she thinks I’m Stuart. At least she not calling me Courtney, her pain-in-the-neck brother. She’s been calling me Courtney for the past five years. I’m Dad today, it seems.
“I’m Stu, Mom.”
“I know, but let me tell you, Stuart...,” and she continues with a story about me at age five.
“You had so much fun with Stu that day...You remember it, right?”
Something about a ‘Big Thing’ and something we were chasing. I have not a clue.
“No, Mom. I don’t remember.”
“I remember everything.”
“You’re good at things long ago. Not so good with what happened yesterday.”
“That’s true,” she says, with just a tad of acceptance to that fact.
“It’s OK. You have me and the staff to remember what you need for today.”
She smiles.
I smile too. It’s OK that she thinks I’m Dad sometimes. She loved Stuart. She loves me. It’s all good, as the kids say.
“Time for me to go. I got a bunch of things to do,” I say.
“OK. I miss you all the time.”
“I know you do.”
I bend down and kiss her forehead, and she kisses my cheek.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
As I open the front door, Mary yells over.
“Are you getting dressed tonight for dinner?”
“No. Love you, Mom.”
I walk toward my car. It’s a beautiful overcast Fall day in the high desert. A big snow storm roars up North. Maybe some rain today. Maybe tonight. I give a weak smile, and sigh like I always do, when I leave Mary’s place.