Mom Update

When I first spoke with her, the morning after being admitted to the hospital, she was so weak and breathless she could not finish a two word sentence. I cried when I realized the strange gasping on the other end was her, trying to say Hello. She sounded very far away and frail. She got tearful when I told her that her kids still need her, and need her to take care of herself. We’re not ready to be orphans, I told her. Dad can wait a little while longer to see you. 

Karen said mom said she dreamed of dad but the third time I talked to mom - she can now speak in sentences and is feeling better though still wracked by coughing and on oxygen 24x7 - I found the truth a bit spookier. No, I didn’t see him, mom said in answer to my question, What did he look like? I wondered if he was young dad, or younger old dad, or dementia dad (though I somehow knew it wasn’t dementia dad).

I didn’t see him, but I knew it was him - I heard him coming down the hall and stopping at the door just before coming into the room, she said. Your dad was such a heavy footed walker for such a small man, remember that? 

I do. Dad had three pairs of shoes he mostly wore - his brogan work boots were steel-toed and paint-splattered and apparently indestructible, they were his Dadurday shoes, his projects-around-the-house shoes.

Then there were his wingtips with their dark rapping of the leather heel on the dining room floor. My mom would sometimes threaten, Wait til your father gets home! Those shoes tapping across the linoleum sounded like a punishment on the way, you could hear their message, I’m-home, I’m-home all over the house. Pair number three were his converse high tops which he wore on days he played softball or volleyball. He sounded young and fast in them. Dad was always fast, even in the beer belly years he was fast like a bear - that is, surprisingly so.

These were the footfalls of my youth. I can hear them all as clearly as if they were pictures. 

It was a weird dream, mom says. I didn’t see his face. But it was definitely your dad’s footsteps, the way they sounded before the dementia. 

I keep wondering, mom kept saying. How did i get to this point so fast? She is as shocked as we are, at her close call. But she sounds like her old self now, or mostly. She’s doing PT and breathing exercises.  My heart no longer hammers in fear listening to the punctured sound of her voice. She feels bad but better, she says. She watched the ball game with Karen. Her sisters stopped by. 

The thought of getting another text from my sister freezes my heart inside my chest. It couldn’t possibly be so soon after dad, could it? 

How sad when you lost your dad and grandma within a year. I wish I’d known, I’d have flown home. I wonder why no one told me but then again I’m hard to keep up with. When you reached out to tell me you used the email from two jobs ago. I finally saw it months after the fact and called you and you were already on the downward slope. 

The world has never felt quite right with you not in it. I wish we could have had one last afternoon to talk, to reminisce. I am now the sole keeper of so many memories where you were the only other person present.. I wish I could know you were okay. I wish I could’ve seen dad one more time. I wish mom didn’t suddenly seem so frail to me. I’m not ready for a world without her strength. She is the only one who knows when I’m upset just by the way I say Hi mom. She always makes me feel better. I’m not ready not to have that, not for years. And years.

I wish mom could come see the place in Portugal. I don’t know if she’s up for the strain of travel. She surprised me by agreeing that adopting a small breed senior dog could be just the ticket. How she loved Harpo, and Jake. 

While we chat she eats her lunch and narrates her thoughts and what is going on in her room.

There’s the nurse, she says. I like her.

She calls a politician a big fat pig then says she shouldn’t have then mutters But it’s true.

She says she will always be a Missouri girl in her heart.

She says, These mashed potatoes are good.

Look at the size of that grape.

Karen brought tea from Panera and I went crazy for it.

I can really eat soup if I have a mind to.

Helen went straight to heaven, I just know it.

She wants to go home soon, she says. She has a lot of things planned - like cleaning the windows which we did in June and it’s only been three months. I have to clean one then rest, she says. The doctor made me promise.

I listen fondly. She talks about shopping and needing a winter coat and shopping the boy’s section for sweat pants. Why not? she says with a giggle. 

I want baseball next season, she declared and I promised her that she would watch every game, every single one.