This is a post I wrote a couple of years ago. At the time, I was acutely aware that it was the last opportunity I’d ever have to do what it was we did. Today I find myself so very grateful for this precious memory. I hope you enjoy…
The original title of this post was “Joyride with a dutiful daughter”. It’s a long one. Ready?
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It’s been a trying week. Got a message from my brother’s wife telling me that my Dad was in the hospital, and that my mother, who suffers from (amongst other things) vascular dementia, had driven herself somewhere. I called Mama to discover that my sweet darling mother was scared and not doing well at all without her constant companion of the last nearly 56 years. I cannot in all good conscience leave her alone at a time like this. I call my clients and business associates, reschedule everything, worried and anxious to get to my parents so far away (it’s a 4+ hour drive).
I packed a bag, some supplies and the Moose into Lucille and off we went willy nilly to the High Sierra where they live. Dad was hospitalized in Grass Valley with an infection which required IV antibiotics but was not life threatening. He’s also preparing to be treated for prostate cancer and has diabetes. Meticulous about both his own self care and that of my Mom, he was mostly bored and so was not as great a concern as my fragile mother who was home alone. He’d be out in a few days.
I stop on my way to their house to see him in the hospital. He seemed fine, though obviously worried about Mom and relieved that I had come up to care for her. After reassuring myself that he was well enough for me to relax a bit, I hurried on to see my mother.
I arrived with all my usual good humor, wanting to put her at ease. I comforted and reassured my Mom, and settled in for the duration. Mama is calmer with me there at the house with her, and I’ve had a couple of important conversations with my Dad while he’s been hospitalized , so this is all going well. As the smart daughter they’re so proud of and the first born, it falls to me to be the one initiates the hard talks about difficult subjects. Good thing I do what I do for a living. We make plans for moving them closer to medical services, doing more estate planning, all things that are long overdue in my opinion. This is good.
Daddy calls multiple times a day to talk to Mama, and that makes her feel better. With her dementia, she asks after him over and over throughout the day, and worries over the silliest things, but I comfort her and love her and answer her every time, because I know she needs the reassurance.
I call my brothers daily and let them know what’s going on. I have a good family. My brothers are both good men of strong character with very nice families of their own. My folks did good with us. It hurts us all to see them decline into old age after so many vibrant, vital years. Quite sobering.
Wednesday morning is going okay, but Mama seemed off. Her neighbor and friend Clancey was visiting and was worried about how Mama looked and was acting. Mama suddenly got flushed and sweaty and -very- shakey. I took her pulse, which was highly irregular. Uh oh. Off to the clinic in the nearest small town 5 miles away. They take eleventy hundred EKG’s and then recommend she be taken by ambulance to the same hospital my Dad is in.
We compare notes about Mom. After examining the evidence at home, we come to the same conclusion. It seems Mama, with her dementia, was claiming to have taken her very important morning meds but was not. She’d forget. I had no idea about that since Daddy was calling each morning to talk to her and tell her to take her meds. No one had any idea that this glitch was happening. After 5 days untreated, her body was starting to react badly. Off she went. Poor scared lamb. I do my best to reassure her, but cannot go with her in the ambulance. I follow the ambulance containing my mother closely for the one hour ride to the hospital. On the way I call Dad to let him know what’s going on.
Oy.
Dad is discharged 15 minutes before Mom arrives by ambulance, so he is there to greet her. Tears and embraces ensue between them as the EMT’s unload her stretcher. To me (as their twice divorced daughter), they have been married all their lives (she was 17, he was 21). They are still very much in love, which fills me with awe and admiration along with all the love I feel for them. She is so frightened, and so is he, and they cling to one another. My heart fills and breaks and fills again. I love them both so very much.
Mama’s heart arrithymia requires tests that promises to keep her 4 days in the hospital. On the 3rd day, I take a drive alone down out of the mountains in my miata to visit, bring her some personal things, all that. The doctor arrives after an important test and declares that she passed, and can be released immediately.
Mama pleads, “Don’t tell Daddy, let’s surprise him!”. Noooo Mama, you’ve got a very bad back and bad knees and bad hips, we can’t get you into the low and small miata without hurting you.
“Please” Mama asks.
Mama has never ridden in my miata before, though I’ve had it 6 years. With her considerable physical limitations it never seemed feasible. But okay, let’s give it a try. I figure I can always call Dad and have him drive down their van and get her if she can’t get in easily enough that we can get her out again without causing her too much undue pain.
The nurse wheels her out to the side entrance while I put the top down and fetch an extra pair of sunglasses (the ones with the rhinestone frames) and my wide brimmed driving hat out of the trunk. Carefully we get her into the passenger seat. I spray her and me with sunblock, she jams the hat over her short white hair, slips on the gaudy sunglasses, declares herself to be a movie star and off we go back up into the mountains. It’s a beautiful afternoon.
I have a friend who leads a swing band, and his album is in my car’s cd changer, so on it goes and Mama’s hands and toes start tapping. Before she was so crippled she was a great swing dancer. When a song comes on that we both know, we both sing it together, loudly and with big smiles.
Every so often, Mama or I exclaim, “Daddy is just gonna CRAP when he sees you/me!” and then we both laugh uproariously. We’d raise our hands straight up over our heads ands wave them just because we could. Joyride in a convertible, helping my Mama surprise her Love. Richness.
I remember thinking how precious this hour was, and how I would remember it always.
After a beautiful ride into the splendor that is the High Sierra, we arrive home. I honk and honk ’til Daddy comes out. I shout from behind the wheel, “Look what I brought you!”.
He looks and looks again to see who it is in that hat and glasses beside me, bursts into tears and hurries to her side of the car. They embrace and murmur sweet “I love you’s” and cry on one another’s shoulders before the car is even turned off. So much in love. Such good friends. Finally he opens her door and gently, gently, helps her out of the car and slowly up the stairs to their front door. Together again.
I do not need to tell you what I learned, what I gained, what I felt, how it was. I just want to tell you all how blessed I am, and how honored I am to witness so epic and ordinary a lifetime of love, and that I wouldn’t trade this last week for all the money in the world.
A dutiful daughter? Yes, and a grateful one.
