For Mama with love

from Jannie Annie

 

Copyright 2010

     Gazing across the livingroom of her home of 56 years at the framed faces of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, she pronounced, “I’m taking those pictures with me.”

     After a moment’s pause, she began to fret, “How am I ever going to pack all that stuff?”

     She needed to go home, she insisted. “We have to get a truck.” There was no convincing her that she was already home.

     The last few days had been a real roller coaster. Nearly a week earlier, her husband had tried to hold out and resisted for hours, ignoring the growing pain in his chest and the increasing difficulty in breathing. The nitroglycerin he kept popping was not doing the job, and the home health care worker finally insisted. His blood pressure was too high and the ambulance would have to come.

     It was upseting for her to see him go with the emergency responders. She could always depend on him, even when she couldn’t remember for sure what to call him. He was Johnnie, he was her husband, he was Daddy, he was that guy who was here a minute ago.

     She worried the whole time he was in the hospital. But she was told over and over he was getting better and would soon be home. And eventually he was.

     Informed that he would be released from the hospital later that day, she asked again and again, “What’s taking so long? He should be here by now. Maybe you’d better call and see what’s going on.”

     A minute or two later. “Where’s Johnnie? What’s taking so long?” She was as excited as a girl anticipating the arrival of her first prom date.

     When nothing else worked to get him there, and when she had forgotten entirely what to call him, she reverted to asking, “Where’s that soldier guy?”

     He returned walking a little slower, looking a litle paler, but smiling broadly. He was home.

     She couldn’t stand to greet him. She couldn’t stand at all any more without help, and then only long enough to get with assistance from her chair to the wheelchair or back. But she reached out in relief at his return.

     It was not long before the relief faded.

     “So, Johnnie, are you about ready?” She was ready to go home. They needed to pack.

     It would have been easier to ignore or placate her if she had not insisted on trying to get up. She had packing to do, and by golly, she was going to get up and get it done. Or she had company to feed, and she was going to get up and find something for them to eat. Or there was laundry to do, floors to sweep, dishes to wash. She just couldn’t accept that she was no longer expected – or able – to do those things she had always done for her family.

     Sometimes her insistence was dangerous. She was going to fall. As her agitation grew, she just knew that everyone there was trying to hold her prisoner. She needed to go home and these people, whoever they were, would not let her. In one incident while Johnnie was hospitalized, she battled her home health care worker. She hit and she tried to bite, though the effort produced little result because she had abandoned her false teeth.

     Days later she would take a swing at her beloved youngest child, splitting the daughter’s lip.

     She fretted about so many things. Something in the looks on the faces of her assembled children convinced her that something terrible had happened and no one would tell her what it was. She cried, sobbing endlessly, getting more tired and more convinced that the world was all wrong. She called out for her mother. She called out for the next door neighbor, who came and did her best to salve the perceived hurts.

     Eventually, the medication went down, buried in some applesauce and the worries subsided.

     As her second daughter, I was there on a visit from Montana, a visit I knew would be my last to see her smile, to hear her voice. Sometimes she knew who I was. Sometimes I was just another one of her tormentors.

     On the final afternoon, I offered her the only comfort I could. I cut her hair. She had been wanting to go out and get a haircut for quite a while, at least whenever she remembered it. As I wrapped a towel around her shoulders to protect her from the falling hair, almost too thin and lightweight to fall, she suddenly transformed. Sitting as tall as she could, she was quiet. She resembled a five-year-old who had been promised going to the beauty shop would be a treat. She only needed to be a big girl and sit straight and quiet and she would be gorgeous when it was finished.

     Smiling at me as one would to be polite to a stranger, she asked, “What shopping center is this?” I was her beautician, but I knew she appreciated the care.

     An hour or so later, she was back, knowing that I was her daughter about to leave for Montana. “You guys come back whenever you can,” she said. I assured her we would.

     Days later, she was gone for good. She had her wish. She was home.

     Don’t worry, Mama. We’ll take good care of all those pictures and the people in them, especially that soldier guy.