Rob & me with my parents, August 6, 2005
My mother’s body died today. With the lack of hospital care available to Black people at the time and parents lying to children to keep them working the land a little longer, her body was 90 or 89 or 91 years old, depending upon which document one chose to believe. I think we’re gonna go with 90. It’s a nice round number.
But the mother I knew died years ago. I mourned her then, when she died—the woman who I spent hours upon hours alone with. Just the two us together in the house after all my five much older siblings had moved out and while my father was out working his odd handyman jobs.
I mourned her when she forgot me. When she was 86 (or 85 or 84).
My mourning was mixed with resentment and anger. How could she forget me? The one who taught her how to follow a sewing pattern. The one with whom she crocheted and starched snowflake ornaments for the Christmas tree. The one whose home sporting events she attended—in spite of my mediocrity. Basketball, softball. Even one of my cheerleading squad performances at Duke though it was the bald-headed-stepchild squad relegated to cheering on the visitor side of the football field and for the women’s basketball games. Still, she was my greatest cheerleader.
So for her to forget me was inconceivable and unforgivable. In spite of the dementia. Perhaps I found it so offensive because her dementia presented more as a cross between Munchausen syndrome and major depression that felt like an attempt to manipulate us into spending more time with her rather than just saying I need y’all to spend time with me, after our father died.
We, my eldest sister and I, were so surprised. And disappointed. We didn’t expect her to go this way after our father died from a long, debilitating illness (polymyositis) that gradually took away the thing that defined him—his strength. We knew his last few years were a burden on Vivian. That’s our mother’s name. Was her name. His illness kept her from gallivanting around with Ms. Torrey, her church friend who had been widowed decades earlier, doing church activities like wedding planning and choir and other activities like her bowling team and quilting club. But after he died, it was like she needed to take on a sick role instead.
Look at all these pills I have to take, she said in her most pitifullest of voices. There was one pill for diabetes, one pill for cholesterol, and about eight different vitamins her optometrist convinced her to purchase out of pocket from him. You don’t have to take these, I said of the vitamins. Two pills is pretty damn great for a lady of 80 (or 79 or 81) I said at the time (without the “damn” of course), in an attempt to reassure her. But she didn’t want to be reassured. She wanted to be pitied, cared for, like we did for our father, and maybe like she did for us.
She went on to reenact scenes from my father’s illness, transiently forget things, and reject in-home support services arranged to keep her home. Falls and accidents so disconcerting to him, were a means to an end for her. Until one day she forgot me and then, some months thereafter, simply stopped. Stopped walking. Stopped sitting up. Stopped talking beyond an occasional shit I heard. Heard, because I never went back to visit after she forgot me.
And then she, or her body rather, just existed for about two years. Until today.
And I’m not sure if I forgive her yet.