Feeding Mom

The caregiver arrives late-ish on Saturday, so Claire and I tag team the morning routine. I see Claire coming out of Mom’s room and ask, “Should I make Mom breakfast?”

Well, I gave her a banana and she’s just holding it.”

I go in and find Mom clutching a chunk of naked banana in her clawlike hand. She looks at me expectantly. Claire brings in applesauce and pills: two for pain, two for regularity, one for mood.

I pry the banana out of Mom’s clutches and toss it onto the bedside tray. I bury the pain pills in a spoonful of applesauce, send up a prayer for a smooth journey, and lift the spoon to her lips.

She takes the applesauce well enough, but works the pills up onto the tip of her tongue and brings her forefinger and thumb up to her mouth as if to remove and discard the pills. “No,” I say. “Eat them. Swallow those down.” I don’t usually issue commands like this, but I am not in the mood to think of new ways to spirit the drugs into her bloodstream. I pull her hand gently away from her face.

She finishes that mouthful and I quickly embed the remaining medications into spoonfuls of applesauce. Even the fat red senna pills, which are relatively large and bitter tasting, go down without any resistance. She crunches the disgusting senna pills and looks a bit perplexed. The meds down, now I can concentrate on calories.

How many calories does an eighty pound woman need? Not many, it turns out. Still, getting them in is an arduous task.

I scoop a small chunk of banana onto the spoon and lift it up where she can see it. She asks, “What is that?”

“It’s a piece of banana.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Eat it,” I say, commanding again. “Put it into your mouth and swallow it down.” I left out the part about the chewing, I think. I hope it’s okay.

“It doesn’t look… mouthy,” she observes.

“It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She eats it. She chews the banana slowly and thoroughly, as if it were a piece of steak.

A few minutes later I repeat my offer of a teaspoon-sized morsel of banana. She is staring out the window. When she finally focuses on the food she asks, “What’s that?”

“A piece of banana.”

She laughs. “You kill me.” But she eats it. Another marathon of chewing and swallowing ensues. I sit back and wait till she is quite done.

The next time I offer banana, she asks, “Is this more pig?”

“No, it’s banana.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She eats, chewing slowly. She points vaguely in the direction of the foot of the bed. “Is that one, over there?” she asks.

“Is that one what?”

“Is that an egg?”

“Where?”

“Over in the corner.”

“I see pillows in the corner,” I report. “Not an egg. Have some banana.” She opens wide.

In this way I feed my mother half a banana and two tablespoons of applesauce in forty five minutes.