Mom and Gram, sometime in the early 1980s.
The last time I saw Mom, she was lying unconscious in her hospital bed. I didn’t know if she would ever wake up again. After receiving the phone call that Mom was in a head-on collision, I gathered my strength and arranged to fly to Middletown to see her. Now, after five days in my old hometown, I had to return home, a 1,725-mile trip. I didn’t know if I would ever see her smiling eyes again, but my life is 25 hours away from hers and I had to go.
I spent some time alone with her. I am short so I couldn’t reach over enough to give her a kiss on her forehead, the only place she didn’t seem to have bruises. I leaned in as far as I could and whispered in her ear, “it’s okay, Mom. You worry about getting better. I’ll take care of everything else. David is helping me and we are taking care of everything.”
I don’t know if she heard me or not. The words were as much for me as for her. My nephew, David, and I hadn’t spoken in 13 years. He picked me up at the airport in Newark, New Jersey at 7:28 p.m. We spoke until 3:50 a.m. The conversation will forever be between us, but we each have grown in that time and patching things up wasn’t really a hard thing to do.
A few days after I returned home, the doctors made the decision to wake Mom up and assess the cognitive damage. I had already seen the results of the broken left ankle, the seven broken ribs on her right side, the broken wrists and left arm, the gashes on her knees, and the gash from the seat belt across her chest.
A special surgeon was needed to repair the tiny bones in her right wrist. She has a scar on her left arm, from elbow to wrist. She has a permanent stabilizer in her ankle. All of these things will heal in time.
We don’t know when the watershed infarcts happened. Many strokes in many areas of the brain. My aunt, uncle, nephew and I think it could have been the cause of the accident. The truth, the neurosurgeon said, is we will never truly know. He also told me, “with one stroke, we usually know within a week where a person’s baseline is, but with your mother, it could be up to three months. We just don’t know.”
It’s not an answer you want about your mother’s cognitive abilities. You want definitive answers, but, sometimes, life just…is. All we can do is be there as much as possible for Mom and hope for a better future.
Before being moved to a long-term rehab facility, Aunt Elaine put her phone up to Mom’s ear and I said, “Hi, Mom.” I wasn’t expecting much of a response. In a strained voice, Mom said, “Hi, Irene.” She tried to say, “I love you,” but got stuck on the “l” sound. I couldn’t speak anymore. You can’t control your tears in situations where your heart is involved. The tears flowed and I was choked with the joyous sound of my mother’s voice.
The following week, there were many little moments where she recognized someone or spoke just a little bit. Some days, she didn’t seem like she was there at all. I imagine being doped up on a variety of drugs and the pain from the accident revealed themselves in the days she didn’t speak or respond. I honestly don’t know.
She was transported to Northern Metropolitan in Monsey, New York, about 45 minutes from Middletown. She didn’t speak there at first either. After about 10 days, her speech therapist called and said she was happy she was able to get Mom to complete an assessment. I was happy, too.
The day before I returned to Middletown, I was awarded guardianship over my mother. I’m still waiting on the official paperwork so I can pay her bills. I am also the health proxy and power of attorney for Mom’s long-time boyfriend, Ed. He has been in another long-term care facility since April after being diagnosed with dementia.
These past six weeks have been a lot. It’s been a strange, stressful, and surreal experience that I am still trying to process. Though I have yet to reply to the messages from my last post, I have read them all several times. They provide me with hope and strength when the days are hard.
The plane ride back to New York on August 24, was not a fun one. I woke up that morning to a message from Aunt Elaine reporting Mom had fallen out of bed. X-rays were done and, thankfully, no more broken bones. I didn’t know this at the time and spent nearly four hours in “airplane mode.” No notifications. Your brain takes you to places you don’t want to think about when you hear bad news and cannot immediately respond or get more information.
While the nurses were washing Mom, they also found a lump in her right breast. She’s had an ultrasound and we are now trying to arrange a mammogram. My thoughts will remain positive until I know I need to worry.
I was only able to return for four days. I spent every single one of them with Mom. There were more moments of talking, more acknowledgment that Mom is still fighting. It takes some time for her to respond and patience is a key – something I’m not entirely good with – but her speech therapist has high hopes for her.
Yesterday, I went down a rabbit hole and watched some videos about tribal people who watch music videos and give their opinions. One video was of Heart playing “Stairway to Heaven” at the Kennedy Center during the concert where Led Zeppelin was honored. Robert Plant was crying throughout the song. One of the tribal gentleman, Mashoque, said, “You can’t control your tears in situations where your heart is involved.” He said clearly all that I have been feeling since I received that call on July 15.
Though I have my personal struggles with growing up in New York, which resulted in my PTSD, I’ve been thinking about the positives of that time. My mom has always been there for me when the shit hit the fan. When I was eight years old and spent eight days in the hospital an hour away from home, she was there when I fell asleep and there when I woke up. As a single mom, she found a way for me to go to college. She opened her doors to me when I was 25 and my only other choice was homelessness.
She rode to the police station next to me in the back of the trooper’s car when I was cuffed and arrested for assault on an asshole who fucking deserved it for trying to punch my mom. When I came up a little short on my house down-payment, she was there, too. We made jokes about how she had become “Miss Moneybags,” a far cry from the lady who picked up aluminum cans on the side of the road so we had grocery money.
We didn’t have much growing up. You wouldn’t see the latest fashion in our house or a camper or a fancy car. You would see jokes and smiles and lessons on how to fish, how to cook and bake, how to sew, how to be responsible and ethical. You would see kindness and compassion toward others and the joy of doing good things. You would see a woman who gave of herself so someone else would have a better day. You would see the love of a mother trying her best with the shit hand life dealt her so her daughter might have a better go at things than she did.
Aunt Elaine recently told me, “I once told your mother, ‘Margaret, I could never do what you do. You take care of everyone and I just can’t do that.’” It’s true. Mom has spent her life as a caregiver, both in her career and in her family. She spent 27 years taking care of developmentally delayed elderly people before spending another 10 taking care of people with mental health issues in the local hospital’s behavioral health unit. She doesn’t think twice about helping others. It’s just what she does. Now, it’s time for us to help take care of her until she can do it herself again.
As Mashoque also noted in the video, “How many of the thousand things should I share with you from my heart?” as I speak about my mother? I could go on for hours. The short of it is, she has been there for me in some of the toughest and worst times of my life. Sometimes, we didn’t say a word. Some things we still don’t talk about. Sometimes, I don’t think she knew what to say, but I always knew, regardless of what path my life would take, she would be there for me with a helping hand or cheering me on.
It’s time now for me to be her cheerleader. Her recovery is going to be long. We still don’t know quite where her new baseline is, but Mom is there. She’s just a little slower than before. We hope all of her cognitive abilities will return, but we have to be patient and realistic.
Even as I write, I can’t control my tears. My heart is too involved. The good memories are constantly flooding through whenever I think of her.
Northern Metropolitan has set up video time through Whatsapp with Mom at 9:30 a.m., every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Aunt Elaine, Uncle Dick, and I can see her when we can’t be there in person.
On Sunday, I spoke with Mom alone. The nurse asked Mom if she knew who was on the video call. Mom nodded her head. I noticed she was trying to speak. Two seconds later, she said, “that’s my daughter.” It was hard to speak again. My heart was too involved.
I wait patiently for each call, each moment I get back with my mom. I suspect my tears and my heart will be there, too.