I walked up the three flights of stairs to Mom’s floor at the nursing home instead of taking the elevator, feeling my stomach tighten with sorrow. With guilt.
It’s not as if my siblings and I had any other choice for Mom. She had dementia and cancer. None of us could take care of her on our own. My brain knew that but my heart resisted. Lord, have we really done the right thing? I wondered. Have I?
I took a deep breath and pushed open the heavy door. I spotted Mom in the lunchroom, sitting at a table with some other women. I waved and her friend Rosa waved back. “Jean, your daughter is here!” she told Mom loudly.
The room smelled like a school cafeteria: meatloaf, milk, peas, mashed potatoes. I nodded hello to Janelle, the only aide on duty today. As usual, they were running shorthanded.
I pulled up a chair next to Mom’s wheelchair and kissed her cheek. “Hi, ladies. How’s lunch today?” I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt.
“Delicious,” Mom said. At least her attitude was good. Be grateful for that, I said to myself. I told her what her grandchildren were up to, reminding her who was who and what ages they were. The others chimed in with stories about their own children and grandchildren—stories I pretended to hear for the first time.
Mom looked across the room at Janelle. “I love her,” she said. “She is beautiful.” Janelle’s face lit up. For a brief moment I could see the mom I remembered, the woman who always had a kind word for everybody. But then she turned back to me and frowned.
“I need milk,” she said, agitated. She’d already had her milk. I looked around for something to placate her. Antonia, another of her friends, slid her own milk carton across the table. “Here,” she said. “Give this to your mom.”
Elsa, my mom’s roommate, handed me a straw for the milk carton.
“Thanks, Shirley,” Mom said.
“I love how your mom calls me Shirley,” Elsa said. She and Mom broke into giggles. “My mother always said, ‘Lachen ist gut medizin,’” Elsa went on. “Laughter is good medicine.”
“Shirley is German,” Mom whispered to me.
Lunch was over. I wheeled Mom into the lobby. She was impatient now. “I want to go to sleep,” she said. “Put me in bed.”
But I couldn’t do that on my own and all the aides were busy. The familiar feeling of helplessness, of my own inadequacy, came over me. Mom had taken such good care of me at the beginning of my life. It didn’t seem right that I couldn’t do the same at the end of hers.
Then Frankie hobbled over and plopped down in a chair. Frankie is from South Philly, a former mummer and a real kidder.
“Hey, Jean, where are you going all dressed up?” he asked.
“I’m dressed for the cemetery,” Mom muttered.
“Not yet,” Frankie said. “You have to stay here with us in Suffering Springs.”
A feeble joke but it worked. They both laughed. Then it was time to go. The minute I stood up, Mom said, “Don’t leave,” and I felt guilty all over again, as if I were abandoning her. I bent down to kiss her and Frankie started in on a new joke.
Only when I was in the car did I put it together. Her friends, her sweet roommate, Frankie and his jokes, Janelle and the other aides…they were almost like family.
Mom’s care was too much for one person, but I didn’t have to worry. She had a whole team to look out for her—and of course, the One who looks out for all of us from the beginning to the end.
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