Fall

This is what we moved Mama J down here for. This rushing to aid after yet another fall. Wiping Mama J’s back and bottom to clean where she peed after she fell. Letting someone else cook her breakfast. Working with a team of aides and nurses and social workers and bath ladies and medicine deliveries.

When she moved here in November, we’d spend all day working on a project. She’d accompany me to run errands all day long, tag along for lunch with friends. We’d eat dinner and play a game of cribbage before B and I went home for the evening. It was nothing to be gone for several hours during my day off with her, and we’d get back home, tired from the long day but happy at having spent the time together, mother and daughter, pals.

In the space of not even two weeks, Mama J has fallen twice, hitting her head and ripping a deep swath of skin from her forearm. She has battled an upper respiratory infection that had us calling the emergency nurse late one evening. She has stopped her morning routine of puzzles and newspaper reading. She laments her lack of interest in or ability to work on a project but is powerless to do anything about it. Mostly, she sleeps. The confusion has returned, and yesterday included a series of unintelligible text messages and her thinking it was Saturday (it was really Wednesday) and asking B why he hadn’t asked her to attend Mass with him. She spent nearly 30 minutes last night trying to get into her computer before giving up in frustration. At lunch yesterday the nurse told me that while it is great that Mama J is still mobile and not bed-bound, she is in rapid decline.

This is why we brought her here. Now the real care begins. But I miss her already, the sassy and vibrant Mama J that took a two-day road trip with me back in November to start — and end — a new life.

Next post: Perspective