"Mother and Child" by Mary Cassatt

On permanent display at the Wichita Museum of Art in Kansas

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"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time." - Clara Ortega

"Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them." ~Oscar Wilde

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Just returned from visiting my family in Kansas. Mom has been placed in a health care facility. I was impressed by how wonderfully she is being cared for as dementia slowly robs her of alertness, clarity of thought, and communication abilities. Two therapy dogs and five beautiful cats wander through the halls at the speed of its residents, slow and leisurely, while five caged birds sing in the small day room. I love the animals' presence, a touch of homelike normalcy in a very abnormal environment. I observe the "O" sign as mom slips in an out of awakeness with her mouth wide open as though trying to take advantage of every molecule of oxygen in the room. She has a nasal cannula in place providing an extra supply to her damaged lungs and enlarged heart.


I think mom might sometimes identify with the caged birds, being locked away in an unfamiliar place that she resists when her moments of lucidity surface. Perhaps thinking, like so many of the people I cared for in my nursing career, that if only they could return to their home, the familiar, that everything would be as before and dissipate the fogginess clouding their minds. I wonder if each family member who loves mom, particularly dad, her husband of sixty years, perceives this metaphor on an unconscious level?


"Connie (dad), go pull the car around. I'm ready to leave," mom declares as she tries to pull her frail, weakened body to a sitting position so she can be wheeled from her room, through the locked doors to freedom and return to "before". Mom doesn't remember her journey inward to the isolation of sleep, watching television, and smoking...or, maybe she does...three years of detachment from others and her distancing descent into a world of inactivity and intractable pain of spinal stenosis.


Whether mom remembers or not, it doesn't matter anymore. My heart aches to see the pain in dad's eyes each time he leaves her behind, knowing that he cannot care for her at home any longer - a violation of the pact they made years ago when grandpa had a stroke and, after his death, grandma developed Alzheimer's and was placed in a care home. I would imagine that mom and dad could see the possibility of future health issues for themselves. The flaw in their agreement was the common misconception that working hard and saving for retirement would somehow protect them from a similar fate, along with their very human inability to foresee any situation that could force them to make such a decision for each other in the future.


It seems strange, in some ways, that such an agreement existed when the usual pattern in our family was to declare problem behaviors unmanageable, even dangerous, and send them away to be "fixed" or cared for somewhere else by someone else. As a child, this pattern was frightening. My take away message was that that it was better to be invisible than to risk being sent away if I wasn't good enough. Now, with adult eyes, I have a better understanding of the choices made in context of the times, circumstances, and capabilities of those involved. I am sad that I have not been able to share with mom that I do understand, even though I still disagree with some of her decisions.


Mom and dad's promise to care for each other at home forever does not seem so unreasonable. Mom had to make those decisions for both of her parents and each time it was difficult, even guilt provoking. Guilt is the exact feeling dad expressed when we talked about how he is managing the daily stress of placing mom in a care facility, leaving her there when he leaves, and adjusting to her absence at home.


Unfortunately, we rarely know what life has in store for our future. It is so much easier to think that we have some control over our future than to accept the reality that life is a gift full of unknowns. The only guarentee is that of impermanence. Change is inevitable and
unpredictable. The present moment is all that is certain and our struggle to prove otherwise creates unnecessary suffering. Perhaps, if I repeat this often enough, I will truly and completely receive the wisdom that gets dad through each day - pray, let go, and leave the rest to God.

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"Women seem to focus more on the constant question, "Are we close or are we distant?" When I talk to women about their mothers and daughters, almost in the first sentence, every single one tells me, "We're close," or "We're not close," or "I want to be closer than I am, or closer than I was to my own mother."

"As our mothers age, and we do a lot of physical caretaking, many of us come to look at our mothers in a new way. Taking care of another person in that basic way fills you with a kind of love that I don't think you feel in other context. I think it's quite a bit like what mothers feel taking care of young children."

"You’re Wearing That?" by Deborah Tannen