Mom’s Spoiling Nana

Okay, this is not an original idea, but did you ever really stop to consider the amazing strength of women?

 I’m in Kentucky for two weeks to help get Mom’s affairs in order. My sisters, Stacy and Heather have had boots on the ground with Mom since she broke her leg while visiting me in California three years ago. She’s been confined to a wheelchair since then and lately there has been a gradual decline, a mini-stroke this August, another one following on its heels, episodes of low hemoglobin levels and high heart rates, endoscopies, oblations, three hospitalizations in the last couple of months. After the last trip to the hospital, she hunkered down in her wheelchair and claimed you won’t get her back to that place again, she’s had enough of that nonsense.

Stacy, Heather and Mom’s caregiver, Jenny make an imperfect but powerful team in the game of caring for Mom. Jenny waits on her hand and foot, and while we all disagree with this technique and wish she would make Mom do it for herself, Mom holds the checkbook and calls the shots with her employee. She loves Jenny and says she can’t live without her. Dropping down into the middle of their circle of care, I can see so clearly the sacrifice and accommodations they all make in their lives to assure that Mom’s comfort and dignity is maintained. They put aside their own needs and often the needs of their own families to tend to the weakest among them. 

When my husband is faced with trouble of this nature (his Dad suffered a stroke at our house in the middle of a visit to our house and stayed for three months), he reminds me of a turtle. He pulls his head down into his shell and disappears. My dad grieves today because he couldn’t face visiting his own mother while she lay dying inside an oxygen tent. Women show up. We have the stomach for pain and sorrow and messiness.

My sisters and I hold one another up. At our Grandmom’s funeral twelve years ago, we stood unsteadily at the altar together to read the eulogy I had written for our precious and beloved Grandmother. When my throat constricted and I couldn’t speak, I handed the paper to Stacy, then when she got choked up, the paper went to Heather. The paper circled among us until we accomplished our task. We are doing that now with Mom. Stacy’s in charge of doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, financial planning. Heather takes emergency calls when Mom can’t reach her cigarettes, her oxygen line is tangled, she can’t remember the password to her bank account. I research leg braces, send her pants and curling irons from Amazon, and am the one willing to ask her if she wants to be cremated and to take her to the funeral home to make the arrangements.

When I need extra support, I reach out to my college roommates. We have instituted a weekly Zoom Happy Hour which is now my favorite night of the week. I never cancel even when I am visiting my family. These three incredible women have seen me through all kinds of tragedy. Our laughter heals all us. They have known me for 40 years and our shorthand is a blessing when experiencing painful events. They place their wisdom gently over me like a knitted blanket over a sleeping baby. Nancy encourages me to make sure all the necessary paperwork is completed, living will, bank accounts, power of attorney, all of it because she knows from experience what happens if it’s left undone. She lost her sweet mother three years ago. Her compassion endures. Beth, who has barely recovered from the death of her own mother, understands when I cancel a trip to visit her in Versailles, saying, “Stay, enjoy your mother while you can.”

Deb tells us about her Aunt Rita who is standing vigil at her husband’s bedside in hospice up in Louisville. Deb’s Uncle Eddie is in his final week and Rita knows from the expression on his face that he is not resting comfortably. She takes matters into her own hands and buys an air mattress. She lugs it back to his room, blows it up and, gently, easily lifting his body, scoots the mattress beneath him. He thanks her with a lift of his eyebrows, Eddie’s remaining means of expression. This is what women know.  

If I were a more educated person, I might know all the cultural and political and sociological explanations for this phenomenon. I could probably find all the historical reasons for the ways women behave in these situations. Is it evolutionary? Possibly my celebration of it flies in the face of feminism. All I know is what my own brain directs me to do — take care. In the weeks following Mom’s broken leg, she recovered at my house and my son, Omar told his cousin, “Mom’s spoiling Nana.” I was simply treating her the way I’d want to be treated if I were injured, afraid, helpless and far from home. It’s in our DNA to handle these situations with assurance, competence and kindness. It doesn’t even seem like a choice.

It’s sometimes not pretty and mostly not easy. We sometimes complain, we gossip, we argue.  We call, we cry, we question ourselves and God. We encourage, we visit, we take a walk, we help one another say goodbye, we dry our sisters’ tears and we look around and wonder at the strength in the feminine. My burdens are eased when shared with these strong women.