Peace Plants and Passing Gas
What's it like spending time with an aging parent? Absurd, poignant, bewildering, and beautiful--it's a lot of things.
June 1, 2018, Friday
This afternoon mom wanted to show me the orchids and peace plants in the sun room. Over the winter the plants died. No one could take care of them. Now that mom has stabilized mentally and physically she has repopulated the room with orchids and peace plants.
I thought mom wanted me to go to the sun room on my own but, no, she wanted me to take her so I pulled her off the couch, steadied her to her stroller, helped her pivot into the seat, and then pushed her through the kitchen and bedroom to the sun room. Mom doesn’t tip the scales much beyond 80 pounds but pushing her takes some effort, especially against the resistance of the dining room carpet.
Being in the sun room was a refreshing change of scene—lots of windows and natural light, lighter and brighter upholstery, the knotted beadboard ceiling, the fan, no smoke, a nice view of the yard. Glancing out the window at one point I saw a rabbit stand up and sniff over the tall grass.
I complimented mom on the plants and the furniture, the overall pleasantness of the room, and we just bantered a bit. Mom asked me to pull a couple of withered leaves from the peace plant near me so I reached over and wrenched them free. Most of the orchids stand at attention on the trunk in front of the couch, some still with their delivery cards staked into their pots with those long, clear plastic, three-pronged picks.
June 5, 2018, Tuesday
When Polly and I arrived to visit mom this past Sunday afternoon she was snoozing on the couch, arching over on her left side across the cushions. Sitting at the kitchen table Sylvia saw us and opened the door. “She woke up real early this morning,” Sylvia explained.
Deciding that letting mom continue to nap was best, Polly and I talked with Sylvia in the kitchen. She had arrayed about two dozen lottery tickets on the table. She was sorting through her winners and losers. “You play the lottery?” I asked her. “Yes,” she giggled. “Do you play the ponies too?” “No!” she averred.
Sylvia reared back in her chair and shook her head from side to side. She was about to break even on her lottery tickets. I joked with her a little more. Sylvia took it in stride. “So you gamble,” I said, “I think you’re still a good person.” “Thank you,” she giggled again.
Polly and I went into the t.v. room. Despite the noise from the t.v. there—showing a James Bond movie—and the t.v. in the kitchen.—tuned to “Cops”—mom continued to sleep. Polly took a seat on the red couch. I sat in the chair next to the brown couch. I muted the t.v. We began our vigil.
Although the air was clear of smoke, Missy was gassy, and as the odor gradually dissipated I tried to decide which was worse—mom’s smoking or Missy’s flatulence. Smoke wins. Gas passes. Smoke sticks to you. It gets into you. It stings.
I also knew that it was Missy rather than mom I smelled, just like when the children were younger and I could identify them by their scents and sounds—that weird, eternal, maternal ability to identify who is doing what by the way they smell or the noise they make.
After about five minutes mom woke from her nap. I was looking at the t.v. “Polly!” mom said. She saw Polly before me. Polly came and sat on the footstool in front of the couch. She smiled so that mom could admire her teeth, without braces for the first time in two years, and then Polly showed her some pictures on her phone, scrolling through the images and holding her phone so that mom could see them.
I remembered mom’s brief attention span the last time Polly showed her some pictures. Sunday mom seemed as if she could look at pictures all day. Just before we left I took a picture of mom and Polly together on the couch. Mom fluffed her hair, leaned toward Polly, and smiled. “You look wonderful,” mom said to Polly. “You look good, too,” she said to mom.
June 6, 2018, Wednesday
Mom was a lady of leisure yesterday when I came by after taking Polly to golf. She and Anita had been to Pieology for lunch, Donna had just done her hair, getting her new crowns yesterday was “no problem,” and now she was removing some polish from her nails to re-do them.
“I had the ‘Bambino,’” mom said of her lunch. “The baby?” I asked. “The baby!” mom answered. “I can eat all of it except just one piece,” she said.
I handed mom the bottle of nail polish from the table between the couches, tuned the t.v. to an episode of “Chopped,” and plated her a few Bordeaux on one of her coffee cup saucers. The cooks on “Chopped” had to improvise an entree with skate wings, pickles, funnel cake, and canned haggis. I don’t remember who won. But they all did what I would have done—used lots of onions and their deep fryers.
June 9, 2018, Friday
When I came by this morning around ten to see mom an Indonesian woman named Liana had just finished giving her a bath. In transit from the back bathroom to the kitchen, they stopped in the dining room next to mom’s bed.
Mom introduced me. “Mary Blair Walker Cochran Blakemore,” she said. Well, close enough. “Just like mine,” mom added. Well, almost there.
Mom looked washed and brushed and fresh. She wore a periwinkle shirt that so captured the blueness of her eyes that they virtually glowed in the dim, curtained light of the room.
Remembering how mom used to loathe her bath I asked her about it. Her upbeat demeanor did not jive with her earlier sourpuss attitude. “We have a secret, Liana and I,” mom confessed, “we cheat!” She turned toward Liana and double-winked at her. Liana smiled in return.
I am not sure what cheating means in terms of bathing but whatever the compromise entails seems to agree with both of them. Mom was feeling chipper despite some sleep deprivation. “I did not fall asleep until six this morning!” she said.
She proposed a theory. “I looked at my pills last night and counted them and there were not as many,” mom said, “so I asked Anita.” Anita explained that she had changed some of them. “Well, we will have a talk about that!” mom declared. I can’t say whether mom’s notion holds water but I marvel at her singular, unabating, life-long focus on pills—how many, what they do, when to take them.
After Liana finished putting away some supplies in the closet across from the hallway bathroom she came over to move mom along to the kitchen but mom commanded otherwise. “I want my daughter to take me!” she said. Liana yielded. I took her place and rolled mom on through the kitchen to the t.v. room.
On the way we contemplated the recent deaths of the designer Kate Spade and the chef and writer Anthony Bourdain. “I think it was because he had no place to call home,” mom said.
When we reached the top of the t.v. room steps mom just about leaped from her seat down the steps and then shuffled briskly along to the couch. I guided her lightly, holding her left arm and hand. Reaching the couch she sunk into its cushions with a gentle clockwise spin.
June 18, 2018, Monday
When I stopped by to see mom Friday afternoon I noticed some window slats on the green chair outside by the back door. They looked familiar but I could not place them. I asked Jamie and mom about them when I came inside.
They used to be over the kitchen window until Wednesday evening when something that Jess’ daughter Jazz was cooking caught fire and set them ablaze. Mom seemed very satisfied with her energetic response. “It got me up off the couch!” she said, “old and crippled me!” She smiled and shuffled past me to the t.v. room.
Assessing the damage and trying to learn more about what happened did not leave me with much time to talk with mom before I had to leave to pick up Polly. But I got the fire extinguisher out from the closet by the back door and put it under the side table in the kitchen so it is handy if needed again. All along we have expected mom to set herself or the house on fire with her smoking. We probably should have expected a cooking mishap too.
June 28, 2018, Thursday
Between rain storms Monday afternoon I visited mom. I thought she was asleep when I arrived but she was not. “Polly!” she called from the t.v. room. I was just on my way to saying hello to Jamie at the sink. I turned around to join mom in the t.v. room. I noticed a box from Papa John’s on the counter. “Everything,” mom said when I asked about the toppings on her pizza
Perhaps feeling sated from the pizza mom was not watching the Food Network—enough food for now. Instead she was watching the news although given that chronically depressing parade bingeing on “Chopped” or “Pioneer Woman” has more appeal.
After about half an hour mom said she wanted Jamie to take her to the bathroom. The “flood gates” that opened a couple of days ago from some Miralax acting a little too miraculously had yet to close although mom conceded that she would rather have that than the alternative.
Mom asked me if I could get her some anti-diarrheal medicine. She was vague about what Anita had said on the subject. This made me hesitate to agree. Was mom trying to pull a fast one, angling for yet another pill? Or could she just really not remember?
Either way I needed some clarification. I called Anita but I wasn’t able to reach her. Mom seemed able to make peace with being in limbo until Anita’s return tomorrow.
o read more about my time with my mother, please see Fast Food and Back Rubs, Cookies and Cigarettes, and Diapers and Depression.
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