The Old Couple at My Mom's ALF

My mother’s 93rd birthday is next week. I went to see her today at the assisted living facility. Because of my teaching schedule I’m not able to see her Monday thru Thursday, so I try to visit every day on the weekend. Today we sat out on the front patio in the sun. She looked down at her hands and said, “I’m not sure why I get these things for no reason. It’s not like I bump into anything.” She was pointing at a huge purple bruise on the back of her hand. Her arms are also covered with bruises. She looks like an abuse victim.

I told my mother about the work I was getting done on the roof of my house because squirrels had gone at the shingles like Arthur Anderson after internal Enron memoranda. Then I told her about other mundane events in my life.

“So the new thing is,” my mother began. “Well, I don’t know . . .what was I saying. Oh, nevermind, let’s not talk. Or let’s talk about something we know about.”

As my mother says, thoughts tend to slip off some neuron cliff in her brain. Well, she doesn’t say “neuron,” of course. That is one of those words no longer in that once-voluminous vocabulary.

A man and his little boy crossed the parking lot in front of us.

“Oh, look at that little boy,” my mother said, her voice full of delight.

I took her hand and she gently rubbed my fingers. She loves to touch, to be touched.

“My mother never hugged me,” she has often told me.

“My mother hugged me all the time,” I reply.

As we were sitting there, a slender man with silver hair pushed his wife toward us. He stopped not far from us and stood patiently, while his wife, gazing thru slitted eyes said, “Let’s leave here now. Let’s go. It’s broken. Let’s go. Let’s leave here now.”

He patted her arm and said, “No, it’s okay here.”

We made some room for them on the patio and he wheeled her up and sat down. I looked over at him. His eyes were expressionless. His wife was curled into herself. She began a monotone monologue, constantly repeating things. Water was a refrain. Down the hill. New York. New York. New York.

I tried to imagine her as a younger woman -- someone who ran a household, maybe had a job, tended to children and grandchildren, probably cooked. Maybe they danced. Maybe they loved each other madly.

Now here she was -- a mynah bird. His eyes met mine. He was a portrait of patience, of devotion. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hold him so tightly and say over and over again, “You are a good man. You are a good man.”

Sometimes, I get really tired of being the good daughter who comes to see her mother three times a week. I get tired of the constant expense. It’s difficult for me to make long-term plans because I don’t know what I’ll do with her. I travel for my work and for pleasure, too, but I don’t like to be gone too long. There’s this tether that’s wrapped around my heart.

But today as I looked at this man and his wife, I felt ashamed of those feelings. His wife didn’t look like she’s anywhere close to my mother’s age. I wondered if he ever wishes he were free. This woman is not the same woman he lived with for God knows how many years. But the love was there. In every tender gesture.

His wife got agitated. I don’t think she liked us being there.

“Take it easy, Mary,” he told her and patted her hand.

My mother looked down at her hands.

“I don’t know what causes these purple splotches,” she said.

“It’s just that your little veins have been on the planet a long time,” I told her. “They’re leaky.”

Then she laughed. Her laughter was as melodious as it ever was. Her eyes shone. She may not remember shit, but she was there with me in the moment fully present. I got up and wheeled her inside for dinner. Before we got to the dining room, I bent down and kissed her hard on the cheek, hugging her.

“Oh,” she crooned. “I’m so lucky.”

“So am I, Mom. So am I.”