Written two years before my mother's death.
Is one's essence defined by the age of the body or their culture, economic status or gender? What are we without context time, gender and culture?
My mother has gone through a true metamorphosis and continues to do so. She wears different costumes of the mind. Each costume is unique and from a different time in her life; drawing upon different life experiences. Alzheimer's disease has sponsored my mother's time travel.
My mother was the provider of the family, thanklessly working two sometimes three jobs to make ends meet. Now her life has turned itself upon its head for she is completely dependent upon the family for her basic survival needs.
I am painfully aware of my mother's constantly changing context of time, emotion and libido. The self my mother is most ill at ease with, is within the glare of the here and now. Although I feel relieved each time she returns, it is a selfish relief for her face is filled with angst of awareness of her debilitating disease. The overwhelming grief she feels comes in thrusts. She experiences her life's memories slip away one by one, dissecting each factor of her being-forever irretrievable. She fruitlessly clings the echoes and shadows her memories leave behind.
I went to the mall to buy a birthday present for the daughter of a friend of mine that was turning four. I spotted a Raggedy Ann in the window of a toy store. I dodged and weaved my way through the toy store, bought it and slipped out. As I passed headless manikins, saleswomen spraying perfume in the air, my claustrophobia broke lose to the noise of a herd of giggling teenagers I saw marveling at each window display they passed.
Suddenly, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I would give my mother a make over. I quickly made my way to the nearest cosmetic counter and bought some make up, lotions, sprays and hair styling artillery all inspired by imagining my mother's joyful and excited expression. I saw myself as a skillful surgeon, about to rescue my mother's libido; the ego had landed.
When I arrived at my mother's door, I knocked for what seemed like fifteen minutes. I was always nervous about the possibility of confronting yet another unknown version of my mother. My favorite version of my mother is her at thirty-five. It was the tremendous power of nostalgia yet it was more. It made me a wide-eyed innocent eight-year-old once again. At thirty-five my mother is a real dynamo. She is a combination of Audrey Hepburn from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and Elizabeth Taylor from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?"; a powerhouse with elegance.
I remember when I was actually eight seeing her as possessing all the secrets of great womanhood..of life. Now at forty-three, I'm able to talk to my mother, frozen in time and realize that there are no secrets to her greatness; this is merely experiencing her "essence". My relationship with my mother is one that deals with the variables of our conscious mind and the psyches of one another set in a maze of time.
My mother finally cracked the door open just enough to peer outside. She squinted at me like a mole struggling to see within the sobering sunlight. Upon my entrance, my mother walked slowly back to the couch, stooped shouldered, head hanging in a quiet sadness and mumbling softly to herself. I watched her increasingly small frame as she sat down on the couch. Her fragile body, meek and helpless, dwarfed by the portrait of her at twenty-two that hung on the wall behind her; mocking her. In the painting, she wore a stunning emerald green, floor length evening gown. It's Dracula-like collar stood high behind her neck. Her fresh ivory porcelain skin was set against the stark blackness of her hair. Now, she sat below her portrait, her gray skin looking washed out; blending into her dull gray lifeless hair. She wore a hair net with a few dangling bobby pins. Her pink terrycloth robe was showing bit from her breakfast that morning.
I opened the windows as I always did. I often would wonder whether I was trying to let fresh air and sunlight in or trying to let the dark, malodorous funk of depression out. I started to feel the musty darkness wrap around my throat. I sat down next to my mother and told her about my makeover idea. I spoke, carefully not to appear neither insulting nor condescending, I had to ask myself for whom would I be doing this deed? She tried to appear pleased with my idea, however I think she was just happy to have the company.
I started to remove the bobby pins from her hair. I asked her if she would also like to have her finger and toenails polished. She nodded. Like a zombie she stared at her feet that were nestled within two pink fuzzy slippers. I stood behind her and picked up the hand mirror and placed it in her hand. We both found our reflections. She turned away; eyes wild and frantic. I gently removed my mother's hair net and started to brush her hair. I kept flashing back to when I was a child and used to watch her skilled hand as she painstakingly and with expert precision, put rollers in her blue-black hair; every roller planned, every pin in place. But now my mother's hair reflected the absence of color from her life.
Suddenly, my mother bolted forward. She stood up and raced to the bags I had left by the door. Her body language had clued me in on a shift in psyche. Many who spend time with my mother mistakenly compare her to one who suffers from multiple personalities. My mother's "personalities" are all her, just at different times in her life...different ages; multiple contexts.
With her back to me, she sat down on the worn carpeted floor. She started to rock back and forth making a cooing sound. I rushed fearfully around to face her. She was cradling the Raggedy Ann doll with her eyes closed and smiling.
Suddenly, she opened up her eyes, frowned and looked at me, "MINE!" , she protested. "This is MY dolly!". She put it under her robe.
"Mom! Are you O.K.?", I said, already realizing the absurdity of the question. She slowly took out the doll and began to disrobe it, all the while keeping a very watchful eye on me. It finally sunk in that she was herself at about the age of five or so. I had not yet experienced her at this age. I didn't quite know how to deal with it. I smiled as I watched her as I had the ironic, memory of so badly I wanting her to be my playmate when I was a child.
"Do you like my dolly?", she asked me.
"Yes. I know you are a great mommy too!", I told her.
She giggled like a little imp. She took the brush from my hands and asked if she could brush my hair. She told me that "just yesterday" her mother had taught her how to braid hair.. I complied.
She
brushed my hair as she had done millions of times before but this
time singing little girl songs all the while. Although my mother is
dependent and feels powerless most of the time, that afternoon, she
taught me a lesson that no other mother would have the tools to
teach; a lesson that transcended Alzheimer's disease; that
transcended time. That afternoon I realized that I have a unique
opportunity to connect with another person's essence regardless
of any specified context of mother/daughter. adult/child or decade in
society. This exceeds the boundaries of the normal human-soul
connection.
I
felt that if I could be unselfish long enough to stop mourning my
mother, that I would see that I was thinking too small. My mother
will no longer be defined by the restraints of age. I was in awe of
the fact that I could know my mother as a seventy year old woman
confronting her own mortality in 2003, a thirty-something emerging
feminist of the 1960's, an awkward adolescent who's naivete knows no
bounds of the 1940's, or a bright-eyed child of five; pure and
un-jaded by time of the 1930's. It's almost as if the powers that be
struck a deal with my mother....she is only allowed to have a given
memory if she surrenders to it with complete abandon.
----
Since
I wrote that, it's been almost ten years since I time traveled with
my mother. I had to let all of her go..
My
mother taught me that there is one constant within the human
experience: whether we call it a spirit or the soul, that there is a
part of us that cannot be changed by time, age or circumstance.
