Hotel California / Eagles
After the dinner fiasco, I was a little jaded. When Mother would tell me E and his wife asked of me, I'd snort and didn’t believe it. I'd express sympathy for their youngest daughter L. and never tried to make contact again. Though I also believed that most of my negative experience was due to the wife. She'd never been nice even to her own children. So, while hurt and disappoint and certainly disenchanted I still believed E and the kids to be 'good people'. I had just the realization I was not 'their people.’
The last time I saw Mother, E and his wife also visited. It was definitely the start of a path.
It was Saturday, late July. M. and I went to visit Mother in the nursing home. The nice nurse was at the desk and looked at me suspciciously.
When I walked into Mother’s room, she was on the floor, babbling incoherently. Grasping up at me, she kept saying “Blue, Blue…”
I had no idea what she was trying to say and she had ironically, since being sick, she'd gained too much weight for me to get her into the bed myself. I got the nurse and we got her settled and her brain fog started to clear. We talked about nothing for a while, until the nurse called me to the phone.
The phone? No one I knew, would know to call me there. No one I knew would even consider it. No one knew the name of the facility except maybe G?
“Hello?” I answered at the nurses station, unable to fathom the call.
“Hi!” I recognized the cheery, clueless voice of B.“How are you?” She asked.
“Okay.” I answered tersely.
“So, what are you up to?”
I’m standing at the nurse station, taking up their phone. I was not happy.
“Why did you call me here? How did you even know I was here? What do you want?” I asked tersely, embarrasse, trying to focus, and not merely be angry.
“Oh, I was just calling to check on your mom, and they said you visiting, so I thought I’d say Hi.”
I was speechless for a second. How could she, then a woman in her late forties at least, be so self centered to not realize she was calling a business to have a chat ? Or that if I was there, it was to visit my mother, not to catch up with 10 years of no contact with her.
“Call me later at home if you want.” I snapped and rattled off the number. She seemed still not to be aware. “I need to hang up now.” I answered and hung up on her, apologizing to the nurse at the desk, who looked completely confused.
Mother was more alert when I returned from the phone call, and asked about it. I told her it was B. and she rolled her eyes and shook her head. We joked for a few minutes about B. “the artist” who had never exactly joined the conventional world. We were back talking about trivialities, when B’s folks, E and his wife appeared in the doorway. I was thinking, this was definitely not my day.
E and his wife stayed about an hour. It was a painful visit. E. bounded around the room, refusing a chair. He spoke with the slightly too loud, too jovial air of someone uncomfortable and avoiding particular topics. He talked about the weather, the color of the walls, all as if he were delivering the funniest of jokes. His wife, on the other hand, fussed on the edge of the bed, engaging in her own conversation. She shouted at Mother as if she were deaf, annunciating words and choosing her words carefully as if she were talking to an imbecile. I was biting my tongue trying not to speak. Mother was ignoring her.
What did come out of this visit, was just how little E and his wife knew. Mother would ask a question. They would flounder. I would answer. I was pleased that I could understand my mother, know what she referred to, and knew the answers to her queries. However, it was clear that the more I demonstrated this, the more E and his wife became uncomfortable. Finally, Mother had started to ignore both of them as indicate they were boring her, and they left.
“Good god, they are a pain in the ass, aren’t they?” She said to me. I laughed and agreed.
At that point, mother seemed her old a good day self. It was someone I hadn't seen in years. Someone M. had never seen before, and commented on it later. He didn't believe she could be that person. I didn't understand why she wasn't that way all the time.
We stayed a while longer, but clearly Mother was getting tired. As we were about to leave, she looked at me and smiled. Thanking me for coming and for all I had done. She seemed clear headed again, and told me she loved me and was proud of me. That she was glad she and I were doing okay.
I said it was no problem. We were good. I told her I would see her again. Sometime. If not there, somewhere and that everything was fine. I think I said some other reassuring and mushy things, but I don’t remember.
She was happy when I left and I knew that I would not see her again. Out in the car, M. told me what I had said was nice. It clearly had helped her. Had I meant it? It was hard to say. I hadn’t been lying, but had I really spoken truth as well? Even I wasn’t sure. By that point, my feelings toward my Mother were neutral. She was a sick dying woman. If I had helped that, that was a good thing, and it didn't matter who she was, what I had said, or if it was real. It was the same as the kindness of strangers.
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