Overture
My mother was a music aficionado.
She was a woman of many talents.
She was a woman who lived through many horrors during her lifetime.
Prelude
When my mother was a very young girl, her appendix ruptured. It was a life and death situation. Back then, there was no such thing as antibiotics. And so, when peritonitis set in, her family prepared for the worst. But she survived, though the next three years would prove extremely challenging. She was sick and confined to her bed, unable to do any of the things her friends were doing.
When she finally became well, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. My mother looked after her through her illness until she died. My mother was just sixteen. She never complained, just did what needed to be done, which now was to look after her father and siblings. Her father then took to the bottle, so my mother was again left to manage things at home. This was during the depression. He had his own business but it quickly dissolved due to the drinking and gambling that he and his brothers were involved in. In time, the family was evicted from their home in Toronto, left out on the street with only what they could carry. As fate would have it, my mother’s aunts, who were all spinsters and lived together, took the family in. And so, they were saved yet again from another disaster. At least they wouldn’t starve. (The aunts were always a part of my mother’s life – several years later, one of them would move in with my mother and father in Montreal.)
Largo
So this woman, my mother, eventually married my father Arthur and they had six children. Two of them died – one of spina bifida, the other was a stillbirth. Another child, my older brother Paul, was intellectually handicapped.
My mom had many hobbies and talents. Apart from being a wonderful cook, she was a fabulous entertainer and would throw the best parties in town. She could sew and knit, and could grow anything, anywhere. She could also run a business. She was what many would call a woman of courage and determination and was, in so many ways, ahead of her time. She was a woman whose strength helped build many essential services in the West Island community of Montreal. She was given several awards over the duration of her lengthy career, including the distinguished Order of Canada.
She could also be stubborn and opinionated.
Adagio
At 85 my mother fell into the dreadful hands of a very subtle enemy. That enemy was dementia. Or was it Alzheimer’s? It doesn’t matter what you call it, it has the same impact. She was no longer the woman she used to be. And it all seemed to happen so fast, almost like it happened overnight. It didn’t though, it was a slow process over several years. We, the family, (my mother included) just didn’t want to see it.
Because she was afflicted with dementia, my mother could no longer speak to me the way she used to. I cried more often than not when I left their apartment. My father looked sad and lonely though he never left my mother’s side. She was in a world all her own. She believed there were several apartment buildings that she lived in. They all had the same furniture, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out how they got the furniture from one apartment to the other. This was her mind playing tricks on her.
She had supper with her dead father as well, who she feared, though he’d been dead for fifty years or more. She was often visited by those that were long dead. She carried on, telling amazing stories about their demise, stories of suicide and train wrecks. Sometimes she spent her days just thinking, wondering about things like butter tarts and how to make them. She hadn’t cooked a meal in a long time and at this point, wouldn’t know where to find the stove or how to turn it on.
My mother was always running away a lot. She would leave the apartment when my father was resting, and would be brought back home in the dead of night. My father took to putting furniture in front of the door so she couldn’t escape. She would leave the building and go looking for people and things and places that no longer existed. She wandered in the night looking for something, agitated and suffering, her mind playing tricks on her as she walked like a zombie in the night, shuffling along, looking for peace. My father didn’t want to place her in a home, he wanted to look after her. I called, though, and talked to the social worker about getting things in motion, against my father’s wishes. I was depressed, anxious and worried about them both, about what they were going to do. How could they find some peace? This was not how you should live out the end your life. This was not the way it should go.
My father, at 88, continued to take care of my mother, as she was unable to do the things she should’ve been able to do on a daily basis. Without him, my mom would be lost. She would forget to eat or shower or take her pills. She would be lonely without him around, a ship lost at sea. My father would be lost without her too, as she was his life. He knew that he had to get up every day and start all over again because he knew if he didn’t my mother would not be able to handle the day-to-day tasks. My father lived with a woman who repeated things over and over. She confused him and often thought he was someone else. She ran away from him thinking he was a stranger. Yet he comforted her even in her confusion.
We had to bring my mom to the hospital one night because she was up wandering around again. My dad followed her until six in the morning. He couldn’t do it anymore, so he called me. My husband and I went over and took my mom to the hospital but there was nothing wrong with her, just that she was no longer my mother. She was another woman who I didn’t really know very well. She was repetitive, and spoke in low tones about odd things. My mother was gone somewhere. I got glimpses of her; snippets of her personality.
Where would it end? Well, for my parents it ended on July 31st, 2006 when, after a very long and difficult day with my mom, my father had a shower at midnight and fell asleep on his bed. Exhaustion had overtaken him and he crashed, literally, that night onto the floor. It all happened in seconds, and as he lay on the floor in pain he asked my mother to call the ambulance. When he told her to dial 911 she went to phone but then forgot the number. Finally she managed to get help.
Within days their lives changed drastically. My father had broken his hip and underwent surgery. He then had to go to rehab. My mother spiralled further down the rabbit hole as the stress of the situation took its toll on her mental health. We waited for social services to find a bed for her in a nursing home. Sometime later a place became available and my sister and I took her. It was a difficult and emotional ride to that nursing home, one I won’t soon forget. My mom had no idea where she was going, and probably didn’t really know where she was. It was hard to figure out what she understood or knew.
My father did well in rehabilitation and was released six weeks later, back to the apartment he used to shared with his wife. He tried to come to terms with her illness. He felt guilty for falling and for putting the whole placement process in motion. My father was a man who never forgave himself for anything, even though it would no doubt have come to placement eventually. He wouldn’t have been able to look after her for much longer. The stress alone would have done him in.
So they were separated now, emotionally and physically. He visited my mother as often as he could, but it wasn’t the same. It’s not like having your loved one with you ’til death do you part. He missed her. He worried about her. How my mother felt, who could tell. She talked less, and when she did, she asked questions like “how did you cross the ocean? “ She couldn’t put sentences together.
Grave
My mom’s life changed dramatically that night on July 31, 2006. Since that time, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away a year later on April 27, 2007, after a valiant fight on his part. I was told by the nurses that my mother wept that afternoon at 3:15pm, as though she knew on some level that he was gone. But she never asked about my father. She fell deeper into her own world and spent all her time in a wheelchair.
Where did my mother go? I knew she was there, some part of her, frustrated that she couldn’t get the words right. She would look at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers, searching my face for some sort of recognition as I searched hers, hoping for her to give me one last piece of advice, one last gem of wisdom, one last gift of “I love you”.
Many are struck with this disease, one that takes your loved one away from you and leaves you with the shell. How do you deal with that? It’s a disease that affects the family and has such an emotional impact. How does the person feel who has the disease I wonder? I guess we’ll never know. But I wish I knew where my mom went. It would be nice to call her and ask her if I can freeze lemon tarts, or is it alright to use a bundt pan instead of a cake pan to make a raisin cake.
My mother lived until July 2011. She was 90-years-old. The last years of her life were not what you would call quality, but she had a good life.
My mother was not one to give up easily!
Photo Credit
Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved
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