Words and photo by Michelle Fitzgerald
How’s your mum?
I’ve been meaning to ask – how is your mother doing?
Is mum doing well?
How
is
my
mother
doing?
It’s been 10 years since her official Alzheimer’s diagnosis at age 68, though she suffered silently long before that prognosis. On average, a person with Alzheimer’s disease lives for 4 to 8 years. Reaching well beyond that time frame might be a celebration under different circumstances, but there’s no cake and balloons to mark this milestone.
How is my mum doing?
Mum’s on morphine.
She has severe scoliosis – curvature of the spine. She has emphysema from a long-gone pack-a-day habit.
She is wheelchair bound.
Now basically non-verbal, though the odd word or phrase may pop out, without warning.
An ‘I love you’ floors me. I am completely undone. Unravelled. I try to stuff my insides back, but it’s impossible. I cannot re-bundle this ball of red thread.
The red thread, the matriarchal line.
Some days she can’t open her eyes.
There are glimmers of joy. A wry smile, a tapping leg in time with the Big Chill soundtrack blaring from my Bluetooth speaker. A gentle squeeze from her as we hold hands and listen to the music together.
Wildly wheeling her from the dining hall back to her room, I managed to hit every single obstacle like a crazed chauffeur, over-served on whiskey or wine, the sound of her laughter was sunshine to my soul.
The sound of her laughter was sunshine to my soul.
Mum’s on morphine.
Palliative care.
I hesitate to take my four-year-old Thelma with me now to visit her, though she is generally unfazed by it all. She’s been coming with me since she was born. The care home is just ‘Nanny’s house with all of her friends.’ Her friends, floating like ghosts in and out of Mum’s room, crying, babbling or laughing dementedly. Friends who sometimes scream down the empty hallways of the Dementia Wing followed by thumps and bangs, then tears.
Thumps and bangs, then tears.
My heart thumps and bangs.
Then tears.
A woman clutches a baby doll, protectively, a former nurse from another life.
‘When will Nanny not be sick anymore, Mummy?’
Nanny will always be sick, I tell her.
‘Why can’t Nanny open her eyes? Is she sleeping?’
No, Nanny isn’t sleeping, I tell her. She’s on strong medicine to help her pain.
‘The pain must hurt Nanny.’
The pain does hurt, but the medicine is helping her, I tell her.
‘I feel sad for Nanny, Mummy.’
I feel sad for Nanny too, I tell her.
Holding hands, we walk back to the car in silence; an unspoken understanding hanging between us. My daughter is facing her first ending. Her beloved Nanny is leaving us. Slowly, slowly. Gently, gently. Cruelly, cruelly. I buckle her into her seat and as I close the door, a sob escapes me. I try to hide it from her, but she’s spotted me through her tiny triangle window. She palms her hand against the glass. I palm my hand to hers.
We stay like this in quiet palmed understanding for seconds. My grief laments into the cold, concrete car park.
She mouths I love you. I whisper it back.
Hand to hand.
Heart to heart.
I hop into the driver’s side, quietly shaking. I’ve opened a valve I can’t re-seal.
Through my rearview mirror, I see Thelma looking at me. Not with worry or fear. The stoic compassion I see staring back at me has me completely unmoored. How can a four-year-old comprehend this loss? In her wise blue eyes, I see that she does.
My four-year-old death-doula daughter is walking me through the shadowlands of this immeasurable loss. Of time and memory. Love and loss.
Where everything begins and ends.
The art of letting go.
I wish for Mum to let go.
I wish for Thelma’s beloved Nanny to let go.
It’s time to walk her home.
I unravel the red thread, connecting us. It no longer binds us. I let it go.
Suddenly Thelma claps her hands, joyfully.
‘I know what we need Mummy! Milkshakes! Pink ones!’ She laughs wildly at the sheer genius of her idea.
She is right. Milkshakes. We need milkshakes. Pink ones. We head to a nearby café.
We share our shakes. She holds my hand. She holds my heart, as all at once, it swells and breaks.
