From the Brain of Dr. Nicki: Remembering Mother’s Journey

On January 22^nd, 2012 my husband and I from one side of the country spoke to my mother's Dementia ward team on the other. Technologies invitation. At that point I was left standing in a gentle pool of gratitude. At least she can’t burn down the building. At least she’s being watched over. At least it’s not me doing the watching.

Mother hadn’t changed much really. Her mind was gone but her perspective remained the same. To the end she continued to be belligerent, blaming, self-righteous and man-loving. What was towards the end added was that her inside mechanisms appeared visible on the outside. Like a sweater worn with the seams showing. Her fear could be seen. Unlike all during her life, her tears flowed freely and her screams were out loud constant. 

At 90, she had no job. She’d always worked. The dementia ward staff asked me what interests she used to have so they could offer her activities.  To make money, was all I could tell them. Money was her most constant, fervent lover.

Who was she in those final years, then? Who are we, any of us, when all that we have known ourselves to be gets ripped from beneath us?

As with many dementia folk she refused to eat, getting thinner and thinner. Perhaps she might just finally fade from view, I’d thought. One morning they’d go to her bed to find only a tiny sliver of nail or brush of emaciated hair or press of perspiration upon the sheets.

One could hope.

Probably that sounds disgusting to hear said. Truly though, it felt like watching a film about the horrors of the dammed. She’d tell you so herself all the time in her way -- saying over and over she wanted to die. What part of her refused for so long, that’s the mystery? 

And I’m afraid too. Afraid that will someday be me. Afraid that all my “good works” and consciousness efforts have been not sufficient to the task of over-riding my interior furious mother. Afraid that I will end badly. And alone.

No one went to see my mother in her final years. Who would? She pushed away all too long ago. Sure, there were some who verbally gave her a pass, crediting her vile ways as simply old age. Projection I’d call that. And wishful thinking. In case it happened to them. Maybe they’ll get a pass too. Besides that was within circumstance. At the bank, or liquor store or local market. No one need take heed towards the end.

Mostly though, after our chat with the caretakers who do the unthinkable day after day – those who stood in the flood of her vitriol encouraging her to eat one more bite, reminding her she was indeed not married to the fellow down the hall, getting her into her wheelchair amidst her vicious complaints so she could sit in the day room with the other residents she hated and thought to be crazy as she was not – I was left feeling a profound grief for her. There were other paths to take – other ways to greet her pattern. All along she chose a dark road.

Today I am mostly reminded of my one only continuing job – to discover what I can and must offer back to Life in gratitude for what life has given to me. Most of me feels confident that in doing such, my ending also, as with mother -- as with most -- will describe my many-decades journey.

Unless something else happens. Something unforeseen. What if when my sweater seams turn inside out they show frayed and moth eaten putrid rather than Holy as I’d prefer. Well, then, I suppose, I’ll simply have to hope to get a pass.