Author: Hilarie Page 22 of 31

Days

On December 26, 2011

6:30am
The alarm on my cell phone rings. As I reach over to turn it off, I think, “OK, I made it through another night without any middle-of -the-night phone calls.”

A new day begins.

My schedule here at Monroe Village is pretty much the same each day: Wake up at 6:30, shower, get dressed, put on my face and by 8:30 or so head out the door to the “cafe” for my complementary breakfast. I’m a regular there so all I have to do is show up, for Laurie or Michael to see me and say “the usual?” and in a few minutes there are 2 eggs, scrambled, with toast, bacon and a cup of fruit on my table. I get the coffee myself.

By the time I get to my mom’s room, they have already served her a breakfast of various colored puréed foods of which they managed to feed her a small portion.

I go over to her bed and say hi to her. I stroke her cheek, trying to get her to see me. Often she is talking out loud when I come in but not speaking any real words, rather just some kind of nonsense mixed with moans and crying. Sometimes when I say her name Evelyn, she manages to respond with a weak “yes” so I feel that she is in there somewhere. But she no longer has much ability to express what is going on inside her. I think of the Science Fiction story by Harlan Ellison called, ‘‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’’.

The rest of my day is spent there in her room. I feed her lunch, give her something to drink. While she sleeps I often sit at my computer but when she is awake I mostly sit by her side, talking to her, trying to reassure her, to calm her. Often I just sit there looking at her. And I think. And the thoughts are not good ones. They make me feel like a terrible person, a terrible daughter, self-centered and selfish.

And this is what I think: Three weeks ago, my mother’s doctor told me she had a few days to a week to live. Within days I rushed over here. And that was 3 weeks ago. And here I still sit, by her side, waiting, waiting, waiting…… Why is she still alive? How long will she live? My time here in New Jersey has a limit. She needs to die before I have to leave and I need to have time to organize a funeral. And I feel like a terrible terrible person – that I want my mother to die. I try to convince myself that I am thinking of her. That it must be horrible for her to just lie there, unable to move or talk or to be truly alive. But really its me that I am concerned about.

And as I sit there, trying to spoon baby food into her mouth, I sit there with this terrible weight of guilt on my back. And yet, at the exact same time I also know that I am being a good daughter.

What one feels and what one knows to be rational and true are not always the same thing. You can feel one thing and at the exact same time think something completely different. Is this the kind of complexity that makes us truly human?

And then another day is over.

Bright

By Hilarie

On December 23, 2011

In Uncategorized

Wednesday December 21.
My thirteenth day at Monroe Village

Today I went out for a walk. It wasn’t a very long walk – just from the Health Care entrance to the Main entrance – maybe 5-10 minutes. Its warm for this time of year, in December. The aids were in the process of attending to my mom – changing her bedding, giving her a sponge bath and a clean gown. All of this involves moving her. And moving her the slightest bit makes her scream out in pain. They are very kind and try to work fast. The first few days I was here, I stayed with my mom, talking to her, trying to comfort her while they worked on her. But now I can’t. I leave and usually go sit in the hallway. But today I decided to go outside, into the sunshine, no coat, just my indoor clothes. There was very little wind and the sun was very bright. I walked along the white curving sidewalk, green grass on both sides and the landscaped scenery all around me. I stand up straight, taking long, slow strides, feeling the fresh air surrounding me, up close against me, the sun on my face. I even hummed a bit as I walked. The image of Julie Andrews on her mountain top in the Sound of Music crossed my mind. I felt alive.

As I came up to the Main entrance, there were two residents sitting on the bench waiting for the jitney bus to take them shopping. The woman hailed me and asked me how my mom was doing. I told her “not well”. We spoke for awhile about the inevitability of life. And the conversation ended with, “Oh well. What can you do?” I said goodbye and headed inside.

I walked past the concierge’s big desk by the front doors and said a cheerful hello to Terry. She’s the concierge here and I imagine her as the spider in the net. If you need to know anything, you go first to Terry. If she doesn’t know she knows who to send you to who does know. I tell her its a beautiful day outside. She agrees and we discuss the strangely warm weather for awhile. She asks about my mom and I tell her “still the same” then wish her a good day and continue on my way.

I keep walking till I get to the start of the hallway up to Health Care. There, I bump into Candy. She’s the one who stands at the entrance to the dining room and assigns tables to residents coming in for dinner. I give her a friendly hello and she asks how my mom is doing. She tells me how much she liked my mom. We stand and talk for awhile and I tell her how I think that everyone here at Monroe Village has been so friendly and helpful. As she leaves she turns back to me and says that if I want to come down to eat in the dining room to just come down and she will make sure I get dinner. I thank her and tell her she’s a doll and I really appreciate it.

Finally I arrive back in my mom’s room. I sit by her bed, thinking – trying to determine what is it that I have learned about life in these 60 years I’ve been practicing it.

I think back to when I worked as a cashier in the admissions department of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. I was in my early 20s and I was one of those people that sat at the admissions cash registers where you paid in order to enter the museum. I discovered a really strange phenomenon back then. On those days when I came into work in a really bad mood, every single person that came up to my cash register that day was really obnoxious to me – mean, nasty, rude, you name it. And, on those days when I came in to work in a great mood – happy and cheerful – that day everyone who came up to my register to pay their entrance fee was so nice and friendly to me.

Flash forward to the mid 80s. I have just been hired to work as a production manager on a big slide show for a company in NY. I come in to meet with the designer and rest of the staff. As I’m standing there talking with them, a short, husky guy with a handful of camera-ready artwork storms into the room yelling at someone about something. I am told that that is the cameraman who will be shooting all the artwork my team will be producing. I cringe in fear but decide that I am going to “nice” him to death. Two weeks later, halfway through the production, same said cameraman enters the production room with hands full of art, once again yelling at at least 3 different people as he makes his way through the room. And then he looks up, sees me, gives me a big smile and says “Hi Hilarie. I already shot all your work. The slides are on your desk”. Nicing worked.

I never was much of a country person. I escaped the landscapes of New Jersey for the towers of New York City as soon as I could. But I’ve come to love the countryside around our summer house at Stavsnäs. Sometimes as we drive the 45 minutes it takes to get there, the sky is grey and heavy with clouds. The landscape too seems grey and dreary, barely alive. But on other days, the sky is blue with a bright shiny sun spreading a brilliant glow over exactly the same scenery. The world seems so alive.

So this is the thing that I have learned. Like the sun making the world a more beautiful place; a kind word, a smile, a silly joke making people laugh also make the world a better place. And the people that you speak kindly to, smile at and make laugh give that back to you, triple-fold. And the world becomes a little bit brighter.

Chanukah

By Hilarie

On December 22, 2011

In Uncategorized

Tuesday, December 20 – the 12th day I am here with my mom and the first night of Chanukah. And I am not with my son or husband this year to take out the candles and organize the celebration or even to make latkes. But my husband called me on SKYPE and asked where the menorah was and if there were any candles. I told him where the menorah was kept and that candles were in the same place. So after about 15 minutes he SKYPED me again and I could join them for the Chanukah candle lighting and watch Bevin say the prayer. Its a Star Trek world and videophone is alive and well. But as far as latkes are concerned they will probably have to wait till I get back home.

Last night I met with my mom’s doctor. I want him to tell me how my mom is. Actually, I want him to play God – to know how long she has left, to tell me for certain. But he isn’t God – just an ordinary, geriatric specialist type of doctor and he doesn’t know. I asked him if we could take a few blood tests to see how her body chemistry is but he said if we do that and discover how badly she is doing then he would have to do something to try to fix it. Because he is a doctor. So we will just let her be, let her body do what it has to do.

So I wait. I sit in her room, sometimes next to her bed, sometimes in front of my computer. I help to feed her. She is given puréed food now. She would at least open her mouth when she felt the spoon near her lips. But now she is hard to wake up for meals. She sleeps. Peacefully. Seemingly without pain. And I wait.

December 30th keeps coming closer. That’s the date on my return ticket. Whenever I think about it I get very anxious. Worried. Scared. What will I do if she keeps continuing this way? I can change my ticket but not for too much longer than that – I have a job I need to get back to. A life. Do I leave, only to have to return a week later? Do I stay longer but its still not long enough? I can feel the anxiety building. So once again, I tell myself “One day at a time, just take it one day at a time.”

And tonight has become Wednesday already, the second night of Chanukah, commemorating God’s miracle of light.

Good shabbos

By Hilarie

On December 19, 2011

In Family

Friday December 16

Today I told my mother. At first I thought I shouldn’t. I told all the nurses and her aids not to tell my mother that Marty had died. But he hadn’t been to see her since I first arrived here and perhaps even before that. He called Mom’s room phone the day after I got here – in the morning – to say he wasn’t feeling so well and wouldn’t be coming by. But he didn’t talk to my mom – I answered the phone for her. I gave her the message though she seemed barely aware enough to understand what I was saying. He called the next day also, in the afternoon, to tell us he was in the hospital. Two days after that, on Monday, he called again to say he was leaving the hospital and was going to be placed in Health Care, where my mom is. Monday evening, the nurse came over to let me know that Marty had arrived and settled in and I went over to see him and meet his daughter who, like me had gone to Pratt. The next day he was dead, gone, so shockingly quick.

Until the day he died, he called mother practically every day to let her know where he was and when he was coming over. A friend of my mom’s told me of the time my mom was down by the entrance to the dining room expecting to meet Marty there but he was late and my mom got very upset, not knowing where he was. But now he’s not calling or coming any more. And my mom is still here, lying in her bed asleep and waiting. So I told her. So she could stop waiting. So she would know that he hadn’t decided to abandon her.

The question everyone seems to ask me is “How did she take it? How did she respond? Do you think she understood you?” I have no answer for those questions. I’m not sure. I think she heard me. How much she took in, I don’t know.

On Friday afternoons at 4:15, some of the Jewish residents here gather to hold a Shabbat candle-lighting service. I attended one in August with my mother. It was a lovely service. I felt I needed to go again, tonight, to welcome the Sabbath, to say hello to God, just in case he’s listening. I entered quietly. I sat towards the back, off to the side, picked up the booklet they created and use and the service began. The two women in the front, the leaders, lit the candles, saying the blessing. Then they chose people from the audience to read passages from the booklet they use. “You there, Evelyn’s daughter, from Sweden, I don’t remember your name, can you read the next section?” I did and that felt good – to be included, nameless or not.

As the service was about to end, I saw from the first row a friend of my mom’s, who she used to play canasta with, motioning to me with hand gestures as though to say do you want to eat with us. I nodded my head and met them outside the auditorium. I had been adopted and was being asked to join them for dinner. At their table they had challah and a bottle of kosher Manicheivits Concord grape wine. One of the women at the table said the blessing over the wine and the challah and we continued to eat our Friday night shabbas dinner. It was a good way to start the weekend.