Wednesday, July 16, 2014

The Desperation of Hope

My Mother has bright rolling laugh, the kind that where you can hear her tears welling from the initial burst as she slows down to a happy sigh and wipes her eyes. She is laughing because The Lady that lives in her mirrors has told her something funny. It makes me happy to hear her laugh like that. It happens between hour long one sided conversations and intense prolonged bouts of anxiety that leave her crying.


She doesn’t know my name or that I am her adopted son. She trusts me though, and comes to me to ask if we can help The Lady and whoever may be with her today; a second woman, a child, an adult the size of a child, all hallucinations that are as real to her as I am. She believes people are taking and eating babies and most times she states it as matter-of-factly and in the same tone as “You like anchovies?”. Sometimes she is overwhelmed by fear and disgust and can’t stop shaking, sure that my adult brother is not only an infant but has been taken.  He is her only birth child. She talks about him by name a lot. She never says my name once in the week we are together.

She craves meat when she starts shaking, stammering that she needs meat or she will die. I feed her bacon which Dad cooks 3 packages at a time to keep up with her. Sometimes I get her to eat the leftovers from her last meal, which she barely touched. She eats well once the entire time I am there. Every other meal is a struggle to get her to eat anything, mostly due to the pressure and gas in her belly that no one can explain or fix. I wonder if it’s the anxiety causing it, and then try to get her to eat or take her meds.

I lie to her constantly, telling her whatever med I need her to take is for the thing that is causing her the most aggravation in that moment. She never questions me other than to complain that she can damn well take care of herself.

Often she drifts into depression and mutters with complete hopelessness and rare clarity that it doesn’t matter as she will be dead soon. Nearly all other waking moments are a battle for her to find the right words to string together a sentence. Only in despair is she effortlessly eloquent.
My mother has two Master’s degrees and was one of the most accomplished women of her generation in her field. She invisibly helped shape Canadian society and it’s interaction with healthcare. She worked as a consultant to other nations who hoped to emulate Canada.

She is unable to tie her shoes.

My Father is a machine who was raised on a farm and is unable to find contentment without physical labor. He joined the military as a teen and made it to sergeant, where he stayed until he retired. They promoted him to Warrant Officer just before. He is deaf in both ears from his work and wears government supplied hearing aids. He dotes on my mother but this past year has worn him down as even a man who can only sleep 4 hours a night and never rests gets tired, especially at 70. I learn on this trip that they knew 6 years ago, when I left Ontario, but didn’t tell me. We all suspected but only over the last 3 years as I have watched mom deteriorate did it become certain. We had watched her father disintegrate and die from the same disease and for 15 years I wondered if it was coming for her.

My mother often mumbles when she tries to talk to my father, which he cannot hear, which frustrates him and causes her anxiety. It cycles out of control in seconds and he storms off, paralyzed in his mind and in his emotions. When she complains that she wants to go home and doesn’t want to live here anymore her he tells her she is going to a new home where they can take care of her and The Lady. I try to make him understand that she doesn’t understand. He tells me that he will not lie to her or keep anything from her.

As I exhaustively watch her for 7 days, trying to get her to eat, trying to get her to drink, trying to offer comfort when she yanks at the doors that have had the knobs removed from the locks, I wonder how he did it for this long. He throws himself at appointments and errands and yard work, all things he has not had the ability to do for more than a few minutes at a time. He reads for an hour in the evening right before bed.

My Brother is a sociopath. Prone to violence and afflicted with a mind that functions at enormous speed but with either too much or too little empathy he lives alone on a small farm an hour away from my parents. He refuses to drive himself to see them as traffic makes him anxious. My father has to bring mom to the farm and hope she doesn’t wander too far while they try to do work. Our relationship is strained at best. He is constantly callous and cruel with his words, welding dark truths that civilization breeds out of most people. He accepts no criticism of my father. He hangs up on me when I try to explain our father has the emotional capacity of a brick. I doubt we will talk again. I travelled 3000 km because my brother was unable to drive 75 km and sit with my mother for more than 5 minutes. I believe him to be a coward until I remember that looking at her may be looking at his own future.

He is right to be afraid.

The Neighbors are generally middle-aged and kind. A man named Maurice who I learn is about to go under heart surgery has brought my mother home more than once, including a cold February when she was only wearing a t-shirt. He is kind and has a wonderful home, and is very proud of his hostas.
I have no idea if he will survive and I will never be able to repay him for his generosity.
I look at the home my parents have built for the last 20 years and I marvel at the peace and tranquility. Massive trees shade a large deck that bookends two gazebos. The front lawn is wide and green and dotted with flowers and bushes. It is immaculate and beautiful like their home.

My mother will never see this place again.


The “residence” is very old and a little grimy. The staff seems to be knowledgeable and kind but they are also putting their best foot forward. Dad has taken an antique double bed that has been in my mother’s family for generations and a recliner to place in her room. The first floor view is a smattering of grass and tall bushes. Photos of her family are dots against the massive beige blank walls.

The mirror has been removed from her bathroom.

Dad busies himself unpacking her things and trying to make the room familiar for her. Her anxiety grows until she finally bursts out a rapid fire string of half formed words, to the effect that she is a grown woman and can take care of her and therefore does not understand why this is necessary.

My mother has her cruelest moment of heartbreaking clarity and asks why we are doing this to her. I fight not to cry. My father tries to reason with her.

Mom and I join other “residents” in the activity/dining room. The pass through window of this former cafeteria is boarded over almost completely, leaving only a wedge of space at the top for the staff to speak across. Bingo is happening. The other “residents” are all 20 years older than my mother. Some can’t speak and their eyes sparkle with madness. Some speak constantly. It is nearly all women.

I place the tokens on the numbers as they are called. I hand them to mom and point where she should point them. She is confused and her hands shake.

We sit in the garden for a while. It is an enclosed square with a padlocked gate. The flowers are beautiful but sparse. Voices reverberate as they are renovating the top two floors. Dad joins us and they wrap a GPS bracelet around my mother’s wrist. I learn how brutally expensive this will be for my father and commit myself to ensuring he enjoys the rest of his retirement no matter what.

He did not live through this to die poor and unhappy.

We tell my mother to lie on her bed because she is tired and I hug her for a long time. I tell her I will see her in a while. Dad tells her he will see her in the morning. I wonder if my mother will sleep tonight, alone for the first time in decades, and if she will be afraid when she wakes up.

This may the last time I see my mother. I have resented my father for week for his stoic pragmatism. I ask him in the car to the airport how he feels. He says he is tired. I ask him how he feels about this.

My father cries for the first time in over a decade. I don’t resent him anymore. I bite my cheek and try to be strong for him.

I do my crying in the arms of my wife when I get home. I talk to my therapist about how many mothers and how many times am I going to lose them.

I continue to try and process this.

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