Missing Mom
I opened the door to Mom’s apartment with my key. My feet froze in the entryway. Her body was hunched over in the dining room chair, her head on the table. I could not move toward her. If I crossed the threshold this impending nightmare would turn into a reality.
“Mom??” My voice trembled. That was all I could manage.
She looked up, face slack, eyes blank, unfocused for the longest moment. A familiar blue bathrobe hung open over a worn flannel nightgown even though it was mid-afternoon. Uncombed white hair was wild around her face. This person in front of me looked smaller, vulnerable, like a lost child.
“Sue, is that you?” she asked quietly.
My stomach clenched; a sucker punch knocked the breath out of me. How could she not recognize me, her own daughter?
It couldn’t have more than a couple of months since my last visit, since I drove from Los Angeles to her assisted living facility in San Diego. Mom seemed like she was managing pretty well, living independently with the daily help of a home health care worker for a few hours each day.
What had happened? How had I missed the signs that Mom’s Alzheimer’s had progressed to this point. Sure, she sometimes forgot words, lost things and confused on the phone, but much of the time she seemed like her old self.
We stared at each other in silence listening to the antique clock ticking away the seconds.
“Mom,” My words began with rational logic. Of course she would understand what was happening. She always did. This was all just a misunderstanding.
“I called this morning when I left Los Angeles to tell you.. I stopped abruptly. Not sure I could go on. My next words choked in my throat. Once they were spoken aloud between us there would be no turning back.
My cheeks reddened. Tears threatened “Remember?” She had to remember.
I was desperate for her to remember. Mom was the one who remembered all the family birthdays, anniversaries and trivia. It was only a two- hour trip from LA to San Diego where she lived. How could she have forgotten about my visit already?
“Sue, what are you doing here?” she finally asked, her voice puzzled.
I willed my legs to move toward the unfamiliar figure in the chair. This couldn’t be my mom. My mom was always carefully dressed, with every hair in place. I gave her a hug. Her large breasts hung loose under the nightgown. Her bones felt fragile like they could easily break. The air around her was heavy with sweat and fear. Papers were scattered across the table. A purse lay open on the floor. There is no way this could be my mom. My mom was always in charge, in control.
“Thank goodness you’re here Sue. Someone robbed me last night. My wallet. My wallet is gone. They took it. I called the police.”
Mom took my hand in hers, “How did you know to come?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Sue, people have been stealing from me.”
In the next breath, her eyes came alive with anger. “My car is gone, too.” She stood, walked to the window and shook her finger at the empty carport. “Look, it’s not there anymore.”
I shrank back. There had been plenty of clues that mom was fading in the year leading up to this moment, lost jewelry, forgotten appointments, bills unpaid, repeated stories. The distance between us both emotionally and physically allowed me to deny; allowed mom to cover up the worst of her symptoms. I could no longer avoid the reality but still I tried.
“Mom, you gave your car to Jess, remember?
No, I didn’t, I would never do that. Jess stole it.” she snapped back. A long pause.
“Who is Jess?”
“Jess, Jess is your granddaughter, my daughter She just graduated from college.” I spoke slowly, nodding my head as if slowness might jog her memory. “You wanted her to have your car because you aren’t driving?”
Oh, she replied, already settling back into a more familiar version of herself. “How’s Larry? What’s new with the kids?” she asked her voice now calm and conversational. But there was no going back, Alzheimer’s had already eaten away the person I thought I knew and understood.
Almost twenty years have passed since that moment of reckoning in Mom’s apartment. Day by day I creep closer to the age when she first began having memory symptoms. I worry if the seeds of mom’s Alzheimer’s have already begun to take root and multiply in my brain. I keep a mental score card. Each name, detail, or complicated task I accomplish counts as points for me. I do a little victory dance, pat myself on the back, and exhale the words, “Whew, not yet. I’ve still got it.” But on days when things don’t go quite right, I believe the attack has begun and I am on the losing team.
A few nights ago, I awoke in the middle of the night, my body in a cold sweat, heart pounding. I was certain something bad was about to happen. My eyes darted around the darkened room. Everything appeared quiet, in place. Something was lost. Oh, yes, I remember. Just my sunglasses. No big deal. Right? Still, the entire day I had searched my house as if my life depended only on those glasses. Where were they? They had to be here. I wore them yesterday. No yesterday was cloudy. Must have been the day before. Let’s see, Was it cold? Maybe I wore the sweater with pockets. My eyes scanned the corners of the bedroom, peeked behind the nightstands, searched the shag carpet. I hid my head under the comforter hoping that Alzheimer’s couldn’t find me there. Nothing could hide me from the thoughts. Was this how Mom’s Alzheimer’s began? Did it begin with something as trivial as a pair of lost sunglasses?
The next morning, I stumbled into the bathroom, and reached for my watch in its usual spot on the windowsill, Nothing, no watch. My fingers swept the windowsill from one end to the other, the floor, under the rug. Bare, blank empty. The watch was missing. Two possessions in two days misplaced. Gone. Disappeared.
For the next two days, I did my best to pretend everything was normal. I went to classes, read books, exercised, chatted with friends. Meanwhile my brain kept poking at my losses like a tongue searching for a missing tooth. Time after time, I reached for my sunglasses on my head. Over and over, my hand swept the windowsill for my missing watch. During the day, I grieved my losses. At night, I checked my Alzheimer’s scorecard and it didn’t look good. My dread wasn’t about the glasses and watch. Those were things that could be easily replaced. Pieces of myself were crumbling away, missing and I wondered when the day come when I would lose my wallet and find it on the floor in front of me, or worse, forget my own grandchildren?
The sunglasses turned up in my husband’s car. “Oh, my god, thank you thank you” I gushed, I hugged, I practically danced when he handed them to me. Life felt lighter now that I had my glasses back on my face where they belonged.
The watch appeared several days later as I sorted the dirty laundry in the bathroom hampers. Colored, colored, white, white….silver. My watch! It must have gotten caught in my dirty shirt, a perfectly logical explanation, too. It’s not like I found the watch on the butter dish in the frig. I quickly slipped the band on my wrist before it had another chance to disappear.
Grinning from ear to ear, I felt victorious. For the moment, I’d beaten back the Alzheimer’s Invader. I’m back in the game. but I must keep vigilant in case of future attacks. This time around nothing was lost. Nothing missing-but mom.
.
