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carose59Who Else Loves You Enough To Send You Notes Written On Cats?*
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Wednesday, I went to visit my mother. With me I took her fuzzy pink blanket, her rosary, and the Humphrey Bogart bag.
In the late seventies, Humphrey Bogart was very hot. You could buy things with his picture on them, and Pat bought a canvas bag. She had it when I met her.
When my mother was in the hospital with her broken leg, I gathered up the things she wanted and took them in the Humphrey Bogart bag. After that, Humphrey became my mother's companion whenever she was living away from home. She wasn't all that crazy about him as an actor, but she was very fond of him as a companion.
My mother was happy to see her fuzzy pink blanket; with some help, she spread it over her legs. She was happy to see her rosary and she fingered it earnestly the whole time I was there, moving her lips. But she wasn't saying the rosary. Maybe only a Catholic school girl would be able to tell the difference, but it was like watching someone turning the pages of a book, knowing they weren't actually reading: you can just tell. It was what I was expecting. I didn't bring the rosary for her to pray with; I brought it because she's told me how much she likes it, the way it feels in her fingers. I brought it for the same reason as the blanket: sensual comfort.
I was more hopeful with Humphrey, but she didn't recognize him. I brought him home again.
Yesterday evening, I went to visit my mother.
She was making an "Rrrr-rrrr" sound, very agitated, when I came into the room. They were restraining her wrists. She had been pulling out her IV and peeling off her heart monitor stickers. She's been in a-fib the whole time she's been there and they're giving her something for it, so she really needs to keep that IV in.
If you're going to read the next part, please read it through to the end.
Listening to my mother making frightened, pain-filled sounds, seeing her uncomprehending eyes, my heart broke. There is nothing in the world that hurts me like an animal in pain and not knowing how or why. For most people who react strongly to animals in pain it seems to be their innocence that's the big thing. For me it's the incomprehension that tears me up, that helplessness that comes from not knowing why you hurt. More than anything my mother seemed like a good old dog, hurting and abandoned and not knowing why this had happened to her.
There are people who would be appalled that I just compared my mother to a dog. But I don't consider humans better than animals. And I know my mother wouldn't be offended by it.
My aunt Shirley once asked if my mother wasn't worried about me being the one to make her end-of-life decisions and my mother said, "If she treats me half as well as she does her cats, I'll be fine." I got my value of animal life from my mother.
Today I just came home from work. My mother has been moved back to the rehab place she was in before, this time for something called Comfort Care. It's not rehab. She's not going to get better. Possibly she'll be moved back to the hospital. She won't be coming home.
I don't know how I feel.
*Jenny Lawson
-:- -:- -:- -:-
Wednesday, I went to visit my mother. With me I took her fuzzy pink blanket, her rosary, and the Humphrey Bogart bag.
In the late seventies, Humphrey Bogart was very hot. You could buy things with his picture on them, and Pat bought a canvas bag. She had it when I met her.
When my mother was in the hospital with her broken leg, I gathered up the things she wanted and took them in the Humphrey Bogart bag. After that, Humphrey became my mother's companion whenever she was living away from home. She wasn't all that crazy about him as an actor, but she was very fond of him as a companion.
My mother was happy to see her fuzzy pink blanket; with some help, she spread it over her legs. She was happy to see her rosary and she fingered it earnestly the whole time I was there, moving her lips. But she wasn't saying the rosary. Maybe only a Catholic school girl would be able to tell the difference, but it was like watching someone turning the pages of a book, knowing they weren't actually reading: you can just tell. It was what I was expecting. I didn't bring the rosary for her to pray with; I brought it because she's told me how much she likes it, the way it feels in her fingers. I brought it for the same reason as the blanket: sensual comfort.
I was more hopeful with Humphrey, but she didn't recognize him. I brought him home again.
Yesterday evening, I went to visit my mother.
She was making an "Rrrr-rrrr" sound, very agitated, when I came into the room. They were restraining her wrists. She had been pulling out her IV and peeling off her heart monitor stickers. She's been in a-fib the whole time she's been there and they're giving her something for it, so she really needs to keep that IV in.
If you're going to read the next part, please read it through to the end.
Listening to my mother making frightened, pain-filled sounds, seeing her uncomprehending eyes, my heart broke. There is nothing in the world that hurts me like an animal in pain and not knowing how or why. For most people who react strongly to animals in pain it seems to be their innocence that's the big thing. For me it's the incomprehension that tears me up, that helplessness that comes from not knowing why you hurt. More than anything my mother seemed like a good old dog, hurting and abandoned and not knowing why this had happened to her.
There are people who would be appalled that I just compared my mother to a dog. But I don't consider humans better than animals. And I know my mother wouldn't be offended by it.
My aunt Shirley once asked if my mother wasn't worried about me being the one to make her end-of-life decisions and my mother said, "If she treats me half as well as she does her cats, I'll be fine." I got my value of animal life from my mother.
Today I just came home from work. My mother has been moved back to the rehab place she was in before, this time for something called Comfort Care. It's not rehab. She's not going to get better. Possibly she'll be moved back to the hospital. She won't be coming home.
I don't know how I feel.
*Jenny Lawson