How Will I Remember My Mother?
This question weighed heavily on my mind
My mother lived with me for the last 20 months of her life. Taking care of her was a privilege and a hardship; a challenge and a joy.
At first, she was able to get around, shoving her walker determinedly forward, forcing her legs to work against the equally determined pull of her aging body and advancing dementia.
I showered and dressed her, attempted to curl the sparse, wiry hair that defied my best efforts, prepared her meals, and warmed her pajamas in the clothes dryer.
“You warmed my clothes!” She exclaimed every time, like it was a big, delightful surprise.
She was not the independent, intelligent woman she had been only months before. At 99, she had lived by herself, done her own taxes, and cooked chickens for the Historical Society’s Brunswick stew fundraiser.
At 100, she lived with me.
She was no longer the same woman who took a keen interest in everything her children did. The three of us, my siblings and me, had appreciated the sounding board she provided for our rants, our failures, and our victories, but now our words elicited vague, confused responses.
She no longer cooked, and at Christmas, we missed the buttery biscuits and toasted pecans she brought with her during holiday visits.
Small Consolations
The toasted pecans came from three pecan trees more than a century old. Every two or three years they rained a bumper crop, pelting the yard like manna from heaven. Mama rushed to beat the squirrels, gathering as many pecans as she could, then shelling, packaging, and freezing them. The ones she toasted, coated lightly in oil, salted, and stirred, were delicious.
We missed her homemade offerings.
But there were small consolations after she moved in with me. Mama and I watched Hallmark movies and laughed at silly things. She liked chocolate chess pies, so I baked them.
One day my sister came over with peach martinis, and we sat in the kitchen, tipsy and content. “I believe I’m drunk,” said Mama, who never drank, and her straw hat slid sideways, giving her a rakish look.
I would look back on the days of peach martinis and Hallmark movies as “the good old days,” because worse was to come.
The Downhill Slide
Each day was a steady slide along a slippery and inevitable slope. One day, she could no longer walk. Another day, she stopped eating, even when I diced her favorite foods into bite-sized portions.
The steady slide became precipitous, I hired expensive help, and my mother fought and railed against the indignities that helplessness and dementia imposed.
One day she said she hated me. Sometimes my desire to be kind and patient was overwhelmed and subsumed by negativity, and noble thoughts scattered like leaves in a hurricane.
A time came when she no longer said anything. Her smile and her voice were gone.
My fluttering and ministrations went unnoticed, or maybe they were merely annoying, and she didn’t have the energy or the ability to say so. When she finally slipped away, it was a soft leave-taking; a tiptoe over the threshold that keeps us earthbound.
Then, amidst equal measures of sorrow and relief, I had a new and alarming thought. How would I remember my mother?
Would I remember her as the woman she was when she moved in with me — dependent and failing but grateful for warm pajamas and Hallmark movies?
Or would I remember her as she sank further into dementia and helplessness, angry and unhappy, stunned by life’s slow ebb toward eternity?
The answer, it turns out, is neither.
How Will I Remember?
The other day I was digging deep in my freezer when I pulled out a bag of pecans, lodged in the back and several years old. A gift from my mother.
Suddenly she rose in my memory, not as she had been during those final 20 months, but as she had been when she collected pecans from beneath the gnarled branches of ancient trees.
I saw her hustling inside when her bucket was full, leaving a bounty for the squirrels scampering in her wake. There was so much still to do — biscuits to bake; chickens to cook. But despite her chore list, she was unhurried and unperturbed when one of us called. She listened with rapt attention to the ramblings and mundanities of our everyday lives.
The memories of her last 20 months are fading, like the pale hue of a waning sun. Instead, as I tug forgotten pecans from the freezer, she emerges in my mind’s eye as the smart, independent woman she was; the mother who loved her children unconditionally.
Taking care of my mother was a privilege and a hardship, a challenge and a joy. Remembering her is a journey informed and directed by messages as inconsequential as a bag of pecans.
Bebe is a former newspaper editor and current freelance writer who has published 3 books and is working on a fourth. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother of 12 who enjoys hiking, kayaking, and anything outdoors. She is grateful and overjoyed that you have chosen to spend a portion of your valuable time reading her work.
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