{"id":6075,"date":"2020-06-04T07:41:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T11:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=6075"},"modified":"2020-06-04T07:41:44","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T11:41:44","slug":"a-patch-of-clear-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2020\/06\/a-patch-of-clear-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"A Patch of Clear Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May 1993 my mother was in the last stage of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. She needed to be fed by hand, so I timed my visits to the nursing home where she then lived so that I could feed her lunch. This is what I wrote after one visit. I am sharing it with readers with the hope they may see that there are moments of grace even in end-stage dementia<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I feed her, she will sometimes open her mouth when the fork gets near. Other times she needs to be prompted by a slight touch on her lips. I feed her in a recliner because she can no longer hold her head up or sit up straight; if she sits in a wheelchair or ordinary chair, I need to lift her head for every bite. That annoys her and wearies me; dead weight, heads are amazingly heavy. But a recliner in the upright position has enough backward tilt that, though her head is still down, she\u2019s not completely bent over and I can reach her mouth. <\/span><\/p>\n

As it is, she will often doze off between bites. Then I lift her forehead just a bit and she awakens enough to open her mouth again. Or, if she has fallen asleep in the middle of a mouthful, gently tilting her head will start her chewing again.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I eat my lunch and feed her hers, I try to remember to talk to her\u2014on the chance that something may get through. But she doesn\u2019t turn toward me, and she doesn\u2019t see me. This still and unresponsive figure is hard to reconcile with the nervous, scurrying pleaser my mother used to be; but the long slender fingers, the long legs, and the curly silver hair are all unmistakably hers.<\/span><\/p>\n

When my mother is finished eating, I wash her face, place a pillow behind her neck and recline the chair all the way. Even when she is supine, her head stays forward until, by massaging her neck and shoulders, I can ease it back onto the pillow. The strain makes her squeeze her eyes shut, but in a moment she begins to relax. Then she may fall asleep. <\/span><\/p>\n

But if she opens her eyes again, there\u2019s a chance that she\u2019ll see me now that she\u2019s horizontal. I hope for it, but I\u2019ve learned not to expect it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s as though thick clouds fill my mother\u2019s mind, and they shift day by day, hour by hour. Sometimes when the heavy clouds part, all I can see in her eyes is a blank haze, and she focuses on nothing. Other times there\u2019s turbulence and she stares at me, troubled and barely able to be comforted by a loving touch but reaching out to hold on to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet there are times when a patch of clear sky appears. Then she smiles when she sees me, though it\u2019s doubtful she knows who I am. And when I kiss her, she tries to kiss me back. She makes contented sounds when I hug her or stroke her cheek, and she eagerly leans her head on my hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

At those times, her face is as I never saw it before: uncharacteristically open, without the worry that usually furrowed her brow and the tentativeness that checked her affections. As I stroke her and talk to her, she looks at me with uncomplicated love.<\/span><\/p>\n

She is suspended in a moment of pure pleasure in being loved, like a baby gazing into her mother\u2019s face. But she has not returned to infancy. She hasn\u2019t a baby\u2019s future. She has lost all that a baby has to gain, most of what gives dignity to a life. And she hasn\u2019t a baby\u2019s clean slate: as she declines, her slate is marked forever with signs that she once was more.<\/span><\/p>\n

But she has also lost some burdens: her need to please, her fear of being herself, her fear of conflict, her hesitancy to touch, her need to hide her feelings and tailor her responses to what she thought you wanted to hear; in short, her whole strategy to be safe that kept her at a distance and left me not knowing how to be close to her.<\/span><\/p>\n

All that is gone. Though vulnerable now in every sense, she no longer knows vulnerability; and her elaborate defenses have disappeared.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, though I see before me the ruin of my mother, I also see a part of her that only now has a chance to be. That we can, in those brief moments, love each other unselfconsciously brings me joy. I grieve for both of us that it took such devastation to free her, and me. And that it came so late, almost too late.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May 1993 my mother was in the last stage of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. She needed to be fed by hand, so I timed my visits to the nursing home where she then lived so that I could feed her lunch.…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more A Patch of Clear Sky<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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