My Mom

I’ve moved a number of times in the last decade or two, primarily in an effort to stay ahead of the ever increasing rents in this ridiculously expensive town. Each time, my mom has insisted on being in charge of the kitchen. Everything from measuring, cutting and installing shelf paper to unpacking and putting everything away. It’s been a huge blessing. And it’s fun to figure out where she put everything and realize that it’s all exactly where I’d put it.

About three moves ago, as she’s unpacking dishes, she gets to the box of coffee cups and asks,

“Robin, why do you have SO DAMN MANY coffee cups?! There’s only one of you!” She starts tucking them into a cupboard tightly, clearly hoping they all fit.

True, I own enough coffee cups to serve tea to an entire rugby tournament but I live alone save for an occasional visit from my son. And my cat. So why do I have so many and why is it so hard to part with any?

My mom has never been a sentimental or nostalgic person. She is very organized and practical. Her Corelle Ware dishes came with a set of red cups and white cups and that’s all she has. I think there are four. She lives alone save for an occasional visit from an offspring. And her cat. So one by one, I pull a cup out of the cupboard.

“THIS,” I announce, holding up a dark orange cup with a tan handle, “came from the Grand Canyon. And THIS one,” I declare, holding a flared-top white cup with red and black Northwest Coast Native artwork of an orca, “came from British Columbia”. The next one is a beige topographic map of Death Valley on both the inside and outside of the cup, sent by my dear friend Erin when she worked there. And the delicate china black bear cup from the Canadian Rockies given to me by my son. Each one is full to the brim with a story that bathes my morning ritual in memories.

“THAT’S why I have so many.” Over the next few years, she slowly began to understand. She lived in a senior apartment complex, alone and fiercely independent for the last 35 years. As more neighbors moved into one or two bedroom apartments at the tail end of a painful downsize, she was fascinated by what items these people insisted upon keeping. She gradually began to appreciate how things can trigger memories of times long passed. This was especially important for the much older neighbors who had trouble remembering some things without a little visual or tactile nudge. She’d nod knowingly when we joked about my coffee cups.

This last move was in mid-August, 2021. The day the movers came to my apartment, my mom and her friend and neighbor Judith ended up in the Emergency Department because my mom had suddenly started speaking in made up words. I felt awful that I couldn’t be there but by the time the movers were done, she could tell me in real words that everything was fine. Judith, a former hospice nurse, had insisted the hospital admit my mom overnight for observation. Given the COVID-19 state of affairs, they’d tried to send my mom home. Her blood pressure was elevated but otherwise she was fine. No one said anything to her about the “shadow” on her brain MRI. I picked her up the next day and took her home. She insisted that there be no guilt. That we just take care of each other the best we can and no guilt. OK Mom. OK.

A week later, I played hooky from work to take her to a doctor’s appointment in the morning. Normally, she’d drive herself but she was feeling a little clutch-shy after her trip to the ED. She’d sent me on an impromptu errand first thing that morning. Seems she was having some very unusual incontinence. The appointment with her doctor was rushed but she was cleared to go for her last appointment with the orthopedic surgeon for hip replacement surgery. No mention of the shadow or the rogue pee. We spent the rest of the day going all over town to stock her pantry with as much of her favorite foods as we could so no one would have to do major shopping after her surgery. Which wouldn’t be for at least 2-3 months. So why the rush? We put everything away and then we brainstormed how she’d get someone to clean for her and shop for her and then we went and did her laundry and she showed me how to do each step. Back in her apartment, it was time to medicate her 15 year old calico Nefret for her thyroid issue and some other thing or two. My mom showed me how to measure out liquid and grind tablets and mix them… and I just turned away in the small bathroom. I refused to pay attention. There was no reason she had to show me this now, today. She drew the concoction into a syringe and squirted into Nefret’s angry mouth. As we walked out of the bedroom, my mom stopped at looked at her beloved cat settling back into her spot on the bed.

“You know,” she said kind of wistfully, drifting off into thought. Then she continued in a soft voice, “I supposed the kindest thing might just be to have her put to sleep… if something happens to me.” No, not going there, no.

“Mom, nothing is going to happen to you.”

“But she hates everyone, she even bit me at the vet’s office! Who is going to want her?” she chuckled and looked at me with the sweetest eyes.

“We’ll figure it out, Mom. Don’t worry about it right now.”

“Right now, I’m pooped. I want a shower and a snack and to crash,” she said. It had been a long eventful day. We hugged and kissed and said I love you. She asked if I’d drive her next week to the surgeon and come in with her to hear everything. I said of course. More hugs and love.

“We need to do this more often,” she said with the face of a loving yet impish angel.

“Yes Mom, we do. We will.” I headed out to my car, exhausted physically and emotionally. What the hell was driving my mom? She had an agenda that made no sense.

About 2 hours later, after we’d both had some dinner, I texted her to check up. I NEVER check up on her unless she’s had a procedure or something really out of the ordinary. She’s 100% capable of caring for herself and wouldn’t want to be checked-up on. But it had been a long weird day. No reply. She was as glued to her iPhone as I was. Maybe she was in the shower. I waited. A bit. I tried again… Helloooo? Nothing. I text my brothers and sisters. They got no reply. I texted Judith. Please check on my mom. She said she’d rush over. I didn’t want to call. I didn’t want to hear any of those words spoken out loud. It would be too real and I wasn’t prepared for it. Judith texted back. She’d called 911. My mom was lying on the floor babbling and disoriented. The paramedics assured Judith they had gotten there within the window to prevent major damage from a stroke.

I rushed to the hospital. It had been completely remodeled so I went to the entrance where I picked up my mom a week earlier. I had to get through a COVID-19 checkpoint, put on one of their masks, show my vaccination card. At the front desk inside, a young man directed me to the ED on the opposite side of the building. I started walking, not remembering any parking on that side. The hospital took up at least 2 city blocks. I tried not to want to run. I finally arrived and they wouldn’t let me in. I’m not a visitor! My mother is in there! I need to see her. For the next 90 minutes, I sat in the dark on the curb freezing until finally someone called my mom’s last name. They finally let me in and led me to where she was being brought in on a bed accompanied by two men in scrubs. She turned her head towards me as I spoke, telling the man who I was.

Who I was. I was her daughter. Her third child of five. The first one was born in a home for unwed mothers and given up for adoption. The father, a one-night stand in the back of a Chevy, had offered to pay for an abortion. In 1958. My half sister, Susan, who found us all almost 30 years earlier. My brother Mark had come next, after my mom and dad married. Then me, then the ”little kids” after a 5 year gap. First a little sister, then a baby brother.

The doctor called my mom Winifred, her legal first name. That’s how it would be on all her paperwork.

“Jean,” I said. “She goes by Jean.” She looked at me again, her left eye drooping, her mouth slightly open but crooked. She couldn’t tell them she’d started using her middle name in high school because she hated the nicknames like Winnie and Fred. She couldn’t say anything.

“It’s ok, Mom, I’m here.” I put my hand on her shoulder. I think. Or her hand. I don’t remember a lot of details of that moment or the next two weeks. My mom had suffered a “massive” (their word) brain bleed (not a stroke, they never used the word stroke) in the left frontal area. Where the shadow was a week ago. You could almost hear the doctor whistle when he said massive. Like it was huge. Really huge. She bled so much into her skull that it shifted her brain. I learned that bleeding kills brain cells that never regenerate. She’d lost a lot of blood and therefore, a lot of brain cells. Later I would read everything I could get my fingers on online. Brocas. She bled into Brocas. Communication. Comprehension. Some gross motor control. Language. My chatty brilliant articulate voracious reader of a mother could no longer speak real words. She looked so lost and frightened I don’t think she understood what was going on. I never knew how much she understood about her condition and what was going on around her. I saw glimpses of her here and there at the hospice facility. But I never knew. Will never know.

Who I was. I was her daughter. Her companion. I was the only person who sat with her that night as she traveled over. Transitioned. Died. September 11, 2021. Age 84. Too soon. She wasn’t done here. I know she wasn’t. Someone fucked up big time. I was going to find out who.

We had very little time to go through her things. My little sister, the Executor, was in a hurry to tie up all the loose ends and call “it” done, so she could “move on and heal”. I wasn’t ready. I thought all the kids would gather at her home and sit on the floor and go through each of her things, laughing and crying, remembering and drinking. Nope, it was just me. Me and a company my sister hired to photograph, post online, and ship what we each “ordered” from the apartment photographs, then take it all away. I did a quick pass through one day. I looked through her cupboards, looking for something but not knowing what it was. Then I laughed. I took a coffee cup. A plain red coffee cup. Laughed again. And cried. My son lives with me now. I should have grabbed 2. We think so fondly of my mom, his Oma, when we use that plain red cup. Maybe now she understands. It’s not just a coffee cup, Mom.