2-29-20
Nervously
fidgeting yet making a conscious effort to breathe in a controlled
manner,
my husband and I get out of the car in front of an old but still
decently kept apartment complex. We'd had a pleasant trip from St.
Louis to
Kansas City but with this visit, Mom won’t be there. For
her next season of life, she will be residing no longer in this place, but instead, will live in a home
for the elderly which also has memory care and physical therapy services.
The door to her apartment was wide open and an insurance restoration company's air mover
industrial fans were blasting so loudly we could hardly be heard as we entered,
proclaiming our arrival so as not to startle the two women inside. The reason
for the deafening noise was the result of a pipe in Mom’s closet which had
burst due to cold winter temperatures and no one was home to open the door and
let the warm heat prevent the imminent flood.
We are greeted by the Senior Advocate Mom hired a few
years ago to be a liaison for communication between my sister and me and her, since
Mom had chosen to completely shut us out from any information about her unless it was
something of a serious nature which would then be relayed by this woman.
Neither my sister nor I nor the Senior Advocate herself understand why Mom
chose this route as there was no threat or anything negative being instigated
by my sister or me.
The Senior Advocate
then introduces us to Mom’s Care Giver. We conduct courteous small talk along
with thank you’s for caring for Mom and then it’s time to begin what we came
here for.
I look around the room, trying to not be overwhelmed because
of so many assaults against my senses and my personal need for order and peace
in an environment. I’m also trying to
understand how this is my mom’s home, as I clearly got the need for everything
clean and in its place from her! But
what I see and smell instead is so far removed from how my mom would have lived
that I have to take a minute and refocus.
Crowded in this tiny space I see a few pieces of furniture,
some I recognize, some unidentifiable substitutions since these living quarters
she had been moved to would not accommodate all of her personal things. Plus, most of her belongings had been sold in
an estate sale we had no knowledge had occurred until after the fact. Heart break… get in line with all the others
related to my mom.
I just keep picking up on offensive odors, some of which is
due to the flood, some is due to the age of these few belongings which have endured
a lifetime of use but some is due to an elder’s body that is no longer cooperating
with dignity.
Before accepting the invitation to walk around and take what
I want from the meager few belongings that are left, I self soothe as I sense a tear trigger coming. So, I stroke my own forehead as a mother who
brushes the hair and scary things away from her beloved child’s mind. Did my mom ever do that to me to bring comfort? I have no memory of it ever happening.
I glance over my shoulder to the kitchen as my possible
first place to begin and peer through the
petite space that barely left room to walk, let alone have items jammed in which had been cleared
from other rooms. Suddenly, I detect alarm on the countenance of the Care Giver as our eyes
meet and I soon learn why she wore that face of fear. She is perched at the teeny laminate
countertop, hovering over pieces of paper which were squares of sepia,
yellow, black and white and other faded, muted colors.
These papers are curled and torn, and I quickly realize those were our
childhood pictures. In trying to salvage
them they are being ripped apart from having become stuck together when they got wet in the flood.
Attempts to uncurl and separate only led to them snapping right back to
attention into a tight roll or removing parts of pictures leaving a blank white piece of paper instead. This tear trigger is too difficult
to hold back, and the mist begins to sting my eyes as I declare out loud, “No,
no, no! Those were the only thing I
truly wanted that was left!” Never having been granted
access to possess any of them before, now that they are mine yet I can’t devour every detail
on them is just too much! I feel the memories I need to refresh my mind slip
through my fingers.
I dab my eyes and decide to explore what I can see. Is that my brother as a baby? Here’s me!
There’s my dad holding me! Here’s
all of our family! That’s my sister, not
me. Who’s that guy? I show my husband a few of me so he would know
what I looked like as a baby, toddler, and little girl and flash back to a few
sweet childhood memories. The tears are now
more than a mist, and a few betray my attempts to hold them back and slip over
and down my cheeks.
My husband, Kurt, is my gentle yet strong partner in life who now
comes to my rescue. His background in Insurance
Restoration for sixteen years kicks in gear and he comforts me with more than his
arms. He reassures by informing us that
we need to not try to pull them apart but get them to a freezer and then to a
company that can process them in a way that will salvage some. The ones where faces and other images were
already ripped off, unfortunately, even though done with good intention, are beyond
restoration.
It’s time to move on so I carefully step, avoiding objects
and equipment as I move through each tiny section of this apartment. This is foreign to me and I believe this would
have never been a choice of my mother in her pre-dementia life. I've been assured by the Senior Advocate that she's done her best
with what she had to work with which wasn’t much since a previous Care Giver
had stolen not only thousands of dollars and probably other items from my mom,
but also stole her opportunity to live in a place of the standards for which mom
would have chosen for herself.
Tear triggers come in waves as I see books on shelves that
speak volumes of what was going on in my mom’s mind and heart. I see titles for soul healing, how to get
peace, how to get the love you want, how to have joy with stress, why bad
things happen to good people. I see one
I gave her back in the 90’s for how to live and not die when she was given only
3 months to live with a death sentence of Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. (That’s a story for another time of God’s perfect
love, healing and miracles.) There’s another book I gave her of how God sings over
us with his beautiful and unimaginable love and I try to remember mom
singing. I don’t have memory of her
singing to us but I remember her humming as she would cook. What a great cook she was and I love that I
inherited that from her as does Kurt’s and my kiddo’s tummies! I see the infamous vintage, red Betty Crocker
Cookbook and I grab it, delighted to discover some of her own personal recipes
tucked inside. I open it and run my fingers over the food speckled
pages of her favorite choices.
I move to furniture with drawers and slowly pull each one
open, hesitant, slightly afraid of what I might discover. I really wasn’t
sure if I wanted to see these hidden things of hers that may have been meant
for her eyes only. More tear triggers as
I see her distinctive cursive handwriting on legal pads…she wanted to get Invisalign? Why didn’t she just go ahead and do it? Again, I see where I got something from her,
with my previous misaligned bottom teeth just prior to me getting Invisalign. Meal plans, doctor appointments and other random reminders lace the pages. I continue to turn in hopes to catch glimpses of notes she
had made to herself that would give me more insight into her life since
most was private and not conveyed to us kids.
I didn’t discover much more that made sense to me but I caught myself smiling
at the realization that she randomly places diagonal notes all over the
pages. I do that too! I’ve never understood why I do that when note
taking, (unless I know someone is going to read them and then I’m more
intentional to put them in ordered fashion). I snatch her retro flip open address
book, thinking maybe I will discover a distant relative I know nothing about as
mom shared very little with me about our family members.
I move to her closet and feel that dreadful distress seizing my soul again. I take a
deep breath and boldly look at what remains on the hangers.
These are her clothes. I smell
her too sweet perfume intermingled with the unwelcome odors of the apartment. I have to stop, and now my head bends with the
heaviness of a shoulder shake cry. This
time I don’t even try to block the sobs.
The Care Giver quietly leaves the room to give me space.
I take a bit of time and then look up. In front of me, I see
her flashy belts and another smile takes over like the sun’s rays bursting through
the clouds. My mom had her own classic
style. I look at the intricate details
of the blingiest belts and I feel joy creeping in. She
didn’t care how old she was, she was gonna wear those belts by golly!
A little refreshed, I move on
to a hall closet and see a flamboyant cane hanging, with its imprints that shimmer like the iridescence
of mother of pearl. I choose to look at it not as a crutch for a woman who
could no longer support her own weight or move without its assistance but instead
welcome the fact that it has its own brand of beauty. I smile again that my mom selected a cane with that flair.
On her wall still hangs the portrait she had made of herself, large and in charge! I’ll be honest. I never liked it as to me it represented one
of the things I felt defined my mom and our relationship. I used to glance at it and see a woman who
was totally self-absorbed, only caring about her own needs. I used to see a narcissistic woman who refused
to reach out for any reason unless it profited or benefited herself in some
way. But today, instead of looking away in disgust, I move closer and instead
see a woman who was lovely, energetic, took great care of herself, there’s that
classic style, the white frosted nails that were ALWAYS her color of choice,
the nose where it’s clear I get mine from, the large brown eyes where again, it’s
clear I get mine from.
And then I see it! I
move in even closer and study that vivacious expression on her face that is
relatable to me as well. That sass is actually
proclaiming, “I will go on until I can no longer, and I will face what the world
gives me to the best of my ability.” Although
truly it was self-preservation in it’s destructive form, I realize, that
although from my perspective it was failure as a mother, I can see from hers,
it was the best she could do to keep going in a life that gave her fear and
pain. It was her way to dig down, pull strength from her resolve, ultimately survive
from whatever she had to and persevere.
This was the graphic on the wall, down the hall a bit from her room:
So although this day was excruciating to me because of
decades of emotional abandonment, I can be grateful I was given enough glimpse
into my mom’s heart to give me better understanding of her. This is a gift which also gave me more understanding
of myself as well as a place of beauty and peace.
God is able to turn all things around for our good so in
that I am grateful that He is still in control.
I can trust He’s got all this, He’s got my mom and He’s got me. He’s got all my loved ones, so I can rest in
that, giving every tear for him to place in a bottle, (Psalm 56:8). My heart matters to Him and He is there to
catch and heal every wound. Nothing escapes His grasp and I am grateful He
brings peace through His sweet and lovely presence; through the heart and
arms of my husband, through my incredible children who are my treasure and through
others who are so gracious to pray or offer their heart connections as
well.
We will all have life events that we wish we could avoid, but I
am so thankful we have the WAY to work through it and process in a healthy
manner that eventually leads to freedom and gifts for others when they go
through life events they wish they could avoid.
I am thankful for this day with my mom and the few things that were left
of hers through which I had the gift of revelatory doors as well as the door to my heart opening wider than ever before. It is well with my soul.
