Like a Child

Mother lay in her bed half asleep, her chin tucked against her chest.  The heating unit hummed away blasting tropical temperatures into the room despite the ice and snow outside the window.  Mother stirred as we entered and reached out her hand to me.  So like a little child wanting to be picked up and cared for.

I sat on the bed beside her, and my husband sat in the chair beside the bed.  Today was a quite day.  Only one or two words formed slowly on Mother's lips, and even her smile was slow in coming.  But the iron grip of her good hand was as strong as ever.  She grabbed my hand and tucked it under her chin.  If I moved at all, she grabbed again and held my hand tight against her as if she needed the security of our presence.

So, we sang to her.  We sang Joy to the World, Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Hark the Harold Angels Sing in uneven harmony, and then she began to sing in a growling whisper, "We three kings...."  That was all she could manage, so we took up the song for her.  Her lips would form a word now and then, and she would look at us with the fascination of a child keeping her eyes on our lips and trying to figure out what would come next.  Then she closed her eyes, still gripping my hand, and there it was.  The faint half crooked smile like a baby just falling asleep.  She was happy and content.  Music, touch and a room the temperature of the tropics.  Merry Christmas, Mother.

Oh, Mother!

It is difficult sometimes to remember Mother as she was - strong, in charge, running rather than walking, bright and sunny, ready to laugh, her interests wide as the sky.  I look at her now, frail, virtually silent, her interests limited to the moment, her memory confused and clouded.

Now Mother is more like a small child who has found a new game and cannot be distracted from it.  We sit on her bed side-by-side sharing a lunch sized bag of corn chips.  She winks.  Now we play her favorite game, noses and foreheads touching and looking into each other's eyes.  She pulls back only long enough to grab a corn chip and chew.  Back and forth we go.

Up close I notice even her once clear blue eyes are fading.  They are becoming almost white in places like a pair of long loved and well worn pair of jeans.  Only the edges of her eyes hold their true color.  I wonder if they reflect the shrinking of her brain.  Is there only a small rim left that holds her true self?

We touch noses back and forth for more than 20 minutes.  "Oh, Mother!" she sighs and cuddles into my shoulder.  I rock her and sing.  My poor Mother child.

Like a Child

Mother's behavior becomes more and more child like.  This past week she had one of her most lucid days in over a year, but the next day she threw a tantrum about taking her medicine.  I didn't get to witness the tantrum, but the evidence was all over her face.  Most of her medicine is crushed and put into a paste, but there were streaks of orange something across her forehead.   She had rubbed the same orange concoction in her hair.  I hadn't seen anything like that since the children rubbed their baby food in their hair as they were beginning to feed themselves.  In the laundry I found a shirt with pieces of have chewed pills dotting the sleeves. The aides said it had been quite a struggle to get her to take her medicine.  She had spit and fought against taking her pills.   It is difficult to understand how her mind can be so lucid talking about her favorite restaurant one day and then the next be so absolutely infantile. She eats with her fingers more and more.  Even ice cream is dipped with her finger and then sucked off.  She stuffs her mouth and cheeks with food as she eats and has to be reminded to chew and not overfill her mouth.  More and more Mother is becoming like a small child.  But in an adult this behavior is so difficult to deal with.  There is no way to teach her better.  There will be no improvement.  There will only be more decline. It is difficult to see such child like behaviors in this once elegant woman now chewing the corner of her blanket with food and medicine streaking her hair. I leave the nursing home on such days drained and bewildered.  I don't know what to do.  I think that love should cure this, but it doesn't.  Love just wipes the mess out of the hair, puts the spoon into her hand, changes the wet clothes and rocks her when she cries.