Left foot

After I wrote my first post I realized I had missed an opportunity to be specific.  My mother pointed to her left foot when she asked if it was Doris.  I have no idea what her right foot is named.

That is just a tiny fraction of what I don’t know about my mother.  I always thought she was relatively blunt, quick to form and offer her opinion, and easily read.  When she was mad, you knew it.  She didn’t pout or hide, she flew what my father referred to as her “red flag,” a facial expression and demeanor that was a clear warning that danger existed if you felt inclined to take her on in any way.  Her anger dissipated only after tears, furious harangues or quick, violent actions.  She threw things.  She screamed.  She made chase if you ran from her.  So I stayed away, a habit that developed into a lifelong desire to avoid confrontation if at all possible.  But it also led me to expect my mother to be always truthful and open and emotionally available.  And this capacity, that I still anticipate, seems to have vanished. 

She is predominantly a mystery now. 

Before my grandmother died, my mother used to declare, “Don’t let me go there.  I don’t want to live like that.”  “Like that” seems relatively tame to me now.  My auburn haired grandmother lived in a lovely, old home in the “granite capital of the world,” a small town in northeast Georgia.  The house had been adapted and expanded to accommodate about a dozen elderly residents.  All were relatively mobile, able to dress themselves and attend meals in the dining room.  My grandmother lived amongst a selection of items from her own home, took care in her appearance and was both friendly and docile.  She forgot pretty much everything she said right after she said it, so she repeated herself a lot.  This drove my mother crazy and amused my father (who toyed with her good naturedly). 

Before my father died, my mother used to declare, “When your father dies, I’m going to kill myself.  I don’t want to live without him.”  When her house sold earlier this summer and we were culling and packing her possessions, we found a book about suicide that she had ordered.  I don’t know if she even read it, or that she meant to really do it.  But she kept the book in its padded mailing envelope on the shelf near her bed and she continued to bring the subject up with me until one of her friends finally convinced her to stop.  After that, she started drinking heavily and all attempts to help her ended in stony silence.  She had ceased sharing her feelings with us. 

Now she can’t seem to access those feelings.  She goes blithely through the day with the false hope that she will be going home soon and that when she gets there, my father will be waiting for her.  Although why he doesn’t come to visit vexes her when she has occasion to dwell on it.  But that momentary aggravation doesn’t even break the surface of her new stillness, which is white and vast and without a shore for me to stand on.