Visiting My 94-Year-Old Mother Generates Lots of Feelings and Ideas for Living the Rest of my Life
A Seventyish Woman’s Story
This week I am spending some time with my 94-year-old mother. I wrote this entry in my journal today:
My stomach clenches and my throat tightens lest I say something before I mean to. After 95 years this woman deserves to take the time she needs to talk, walk, think. It pains me to see the decline of her sharp mind as well as her physical form. I wish I felt calm and objective about it but instead feel it like my own decline. I slide into my mother…
My intention is to accept her as she is – to allow her slow path to insights or questions, her repeated ”what did you say?” when she tries hard to be polite. Or the scowl and dismissive flip of her hand when she knows the conversation has moved on without her again. Everything she does exhausts her – to stand, take a few steps, sit, talk. She has stopped emptying her chamber pot or picking up discarded diapers. They drop out of her mind as they fall off her legs. I clean them up on the sly, not wanting to embarrass her.
Yet, when she sees me, she smiles her same sweet wide smile, tries to engage, listen, respond, even make little jokes with me. Right now I am sitting outdoors on the back porch because her ”church service” – a…
