You are me

   The hospice nurse called to report Mom has lost two pounds since last week.
   When I saw her this afternoon, she was quiet, lying flat in the bed with her pink elephant. I had a coffee table book of flower photos to share, and she did study the pictures earnestly, saying sometimes, "All the beautiful roses."
   Sunny was squawking in the restroom, complaining because she wanted an aide to help her and also just yakking. I hung close to Mom's face so it was easier to hear.
    She said, "I love you and you're my mother."
    Cognitive misfiring?
    My hair was hanging down and it brushed her face. I don't imagine Granny as ever wearing her hair loose, but she must have. I remember sneaking into her bedroom and seeing a big thick-bristle hairbrush on her dresser and (I think) a matching comb, with beautiful brown handles. I've never seen another hairbrush like that, so possibly it was a clothing brush. The bristles were thickly packed, like horsehair but soft.
    I was 4 or 5, but it's a clear memory.
   What was Mom's relationship with her? Did Granny lean in, smile to make Mom crinkle her eyes, place a cold hand on her forehead? I think of Granny as a reserved character, not big on the PDA; but of course she would have cuddled little Mom, who would have been adorable, a pretty, funny little girl.
    Mom's room is becoming less like a place and more like a time zone, if that makes sense. A time zone where old time and new time exist side by side and both times refuse to stand still.

Rainy Monday

   "The ice cream is all gone and now everything is terrible."
   And she meant that, too. Over and over, she meant it. Everything was terrible.
   It must have been strawberry ice cream because there was a pink stain on her shirt.
   I leaned in close, searched her eyes and said, "The ice cream is all gone and now everything is terrible?"
   She laughed and laughed.

Getting married

   When the aides park Mom in the hallway, they point her toward the side door, through which she can see a bird feeder I hung up last summer and keep forgetting to refill, a tool shed, a parking lot, distant playground equipment. 
   Large rabbits live under the shed. They nibble around out there, and scratch their ears with their feet.
   She stares at the door and mutters.
   Her tone is endearing, as though she's explaining something to a child. There's a "smile" in her voice. I can make out the words as I approach her from behind. 
   "Julia Loyall and Sunny Darden are getting married.
   "We love each other very much.
   "Father Tom has given his blessing to our union."
   
   Something to know here is that Sunny is Mom's roommate. She was born with a seizure disorder. She uses a wheelchair, and her elderly parents can no longer help her into and out of it. They visit her every day and take her home on Sundays. 

    "Julia Loyall and Sunny Darden are married," Mom says, as though reading, while looking past my head.
   I turn to follow her gaze and see the name card on the wall outside her door. Below the room number, it reads: "Julia Loyall/Sunny Darden."
   Whenever they park her in the hall where she can see that card, she becomes the new and/or prospective Mrs. Darden.
   
   "What is Sunny like?" I ask her one day.
   "Tall. He is very nice. He likes flowers a lot," she says.
   "Really."
   "Julia Loyall and Sunny Darden are getting married and Father Tom has given his blessing, so all we have to do is climb into the big black car. And now, we are married."
   I don't say anything for many seconds. I can feel myself trying to think, but then a clear voice in my head says, "Oh, why not?"
   "OK," I say to her. "Julia Loyall and Sunny Darden are married. Do they have children?"
   "One day, I guess," she says, as though she hasn't considered it before.
   Just then, Sunny propels her chair from the Bistro hallway. 
   "Julia!" she says. "We are not married. I am a girl and so are you. I am your roommate."
   Mom smiles her inane smile and looks past us to the card on the wall.
   "Julia Loyall and Sunny Darden ..." she reads.
   "Yes!" Sunny says. "We are roommates."
   "... are married."
   "No, Julia, no. I love you and I am your friend, but I am not married to you. We are roommates."
   "Have you met Sunny?" Mom asks her, sweetly. "We love each other very much, and one day we will have children."
   Sunny looks at me. I shrug.

These flowers are dead

These are dead flowers.

   Mom consistently works on remembering who the president is. Do you suppose this is because she knows "who is the president" is a question asked of confused people to test how confused they might be?
   Today we had this conversation, over and over. She started it, by the way. She must have been thinking about "who is the president" before I arrived:
Mom: "Obama is the president."
Me: "Yes, we need to enjoy him while he lasts. In two weeks it will be Donald Trump."
Mom: "? ... "
Me: "Obama has to step down. Under the Constitution, he can only have two terms. He had two terms."
Mom: "Obama served two terms?"
Me: "Yes. So we had to elect somebody new, and Trump won the election. He beat Hillary Clinton. So the next president is Donald Trump."
Mom: "How do we spell that?"
Me: "T-r-u-m-p."
Mom: "Obama had two terms. Now we have to learn how to spell Trudeau."
Me: "Now we have to learn to spell Trump. T-r-u-m-p."
Mom: "Obama had two terms. Now we learn to spell ... Garry Trudeau."
Me: "Now we learn to spell Trump."
Mom: "The president is spelled ... ?"
Me: "God help us, it's Trump. T-r-u-m-p. In two weeks."
Mom: "Obama is the president."
Me: "For now. In two weeks we swear in a new president. Donald Trump."
Mom: "And you're sure about that?"
Me: "Yes. It's a done deal. The next president is Trump."
Mom: "Obama had two terms and now we have to learn to spell ... Trudeau."
Me: "Close. It's T-r-u-m-p."
Mom: "And you're sure about that?"
Me: "I'm very sure."
Mom: "Obama is the president."

Morning Bells Are Ringing

    I have to try to write about Mom again because tonight we sang "Frère Jacques," it reminded me of an event from about 57 years ago and I had a epiphany. 
   Epiphanies must be observed.

   There was a moment 57 years ago, or so. We lived in a clean little house in McLean, Va. Daddy was away at sea. My mother was in the front bedroom where my sisters lived. She was looking for dustbunnies, I think, under the beds, and she was singing: "Frère Jacques," switching back and forth from English to French. 
   "Are you sleeping, are you sleeping," she sang, "Father John? Father John?"
   I stood in the doorway and sang it with her, after her, learning it.
   Sometime later, one of my sisters must have heard me and corrected "Father" to "Brother." I don't remember that re-teaching, but I do remember deciding that my Mom had sung "Father" instead of "Brother" out of some Irish or Catholic tradition or bias. Her upbringing was specially influenced by both of those. She came from an older, better world than the rest of us.
   That someplace, Father was correct.
   How did we get into "Frère Jacques" tonight? I had been showing her photos of our grandbaby Clémentine, whose Mama is a native French speaker, and I'd told Mom how interesting it was to see the baby follow directions in French and also in English, and Mom had said, "I never knew any French," and I'd said, "Of course you do, silly" and then wracked my brain recalling French words I've known forever because she taught me: tout de suite, for instance.
   Somehow that train of recall led us into the "Frère Jacques."
   She repeated the phrases after me, singing after me. I would sing, "Brother John? Brother John?" and she would repeat, "Brother John? Brother John?"
   After maybe 15 minutes, she changed the final line.
   We sang, "Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Brother John? Brother John? Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing." But when I sang the ding-dong bit, she sang, "Father John. Father John."

   At once, that long-ago bedroom bloomed in my mind. I saw the bedspreads and curtains Mom had made, the wood floor, the dresser, the strange windows that opened outward from the bottom rather than sliding upward. I saw her crouching as though she'd been looking under the bed, one of her pretty hands pressed into the bedspread to hold her balance. In her light alto with its modest vibration, she sang the wrong words.

   Because she never knew any French.

Still

   I don't try to write about Mom much anymore. It needs me to dwell in the world that defies and yet demands description, where cadavers with godawful teeth crinkle their eyes at you in loving recognition and smile the most beautiful smiles and, clearly, relish the moments you are with them. 
   That is the world where time stops — although you didn't want to go there and feel the urgency of wanting to leave every minute you are there — time stops and you are aware you feel awe for the beauty of the smelly, wrecked person who is looking at you with too much love and yet has no idea who you are. 
   I have not been a serious enough writer. I should have studied and stocked away wisdom or quotes. There are only my own sentences, and they fail. I mean them to convey my wonder, but they just make me sound sad. 
   Of course I am sad. Everyone is. My feet fall off after every visit, and that becomes an excuse for eating chocolate and buying unnecessary sweaters. And there's the great drag of reminding myself that, really, this — this being the daughter of a dying woman with dementia — this is a privilege. 
   Also, that it is not a special privilege. Most of my acquaintances have similar situations if not worse, and while they are also buying sweaters and eating chocolate, they aren't footless. They aren't complaining in blogs, or if they are, they manage to wisdom it up with Bible verses and profound quotations they've collected from their lifetimes of quiet study.
   Also I've run out of ways to say that I miss my mother. Also I've run out of reasons to say it. It's been said.