Quietly We Go

Friday and Saturday I spent as much time as possible with Mom and Dad.

Friday she ate small amounts and appeared depressed and tired. She slept a lot. I went over a short time before their lunch, and quietly fluttered about - putting a load of linens and last weeks sweater in the wash, whipping through the breakfast dishes, sweeping up the floor in the kitchen and hallway. As they ate their lunch that Dad put together, Mom distracted by the Turner Classic Movies channel, I snuck upstairs to the little storage room and scrounged around for more Christmas decor. I came down with a pile of Christmas table cloths and linens, plastic greenery for a center table arrangement.

Quietly, so as not to rustle Mom out of her chair and her lunch, I stripped the Thanksgiving table cloth and arrangement and worked on dressing the dining table area in a Christmas theme. I had to redo it a few times to get it right..  Mom was always so good at putting together just the right look, her creative eye so tasteful. I try one look, then another, and finally get it good enough for now, the days leading up to Christmas, when it will, no doubt, be redone in an even grander fashion. In the years past, if I was to take on this task, I would have worried that Mom would not approve, or would perhaps, edit or readjust  some of my choices. Now, sadly, it doesn't matter to her anymore.

Though, when she finally did acknowledge the decor, after she finished her lunch and passed by with her dishes, she complimented the look, and especially loved the dried greens arrangement. A sliver of my old Mom - ever approving, supportive, Mom.

That afternoon, after lunch, Dad ran out to the post office. I offered to read to her, a short story in the latest New Yorker. "Costello," by Jim Gavin. A story about a plumber, and it isn't until we are halfway into the story that it is revealed he is a widower. It is a long story, and Dad comes back from the post office and quietly sits down on the couch and listens to me read aloud the latter half of the story, he chuckling aloud in spots, while Mom sits mostly with her head down and her eyes closed.

But she is listening, I am sure. Towards the end of the story, there is a passage about the last moments of his wife's death, how he wishes his memory of her was the woman he loved before her illness, not the memory of her faded, ashen person, stripped of color and life by the cancer. How he wished that he had been able to kill her before that wife took over his memory. As I am reading the passage, I realize it's hitting a bit close to home; Mom exclaims out loud, "Oh!" I know what she is thinking, I remind her that the character's wife was sick with cancer... it's an awkward moment, and I hurry to finish the story.

Friday morning, in an effort to keeps our reading material light, I gather a book of Emily Dickenson poems, two worn A.A. Milne books of children's poetry, and two little "posies," little friendship books I've carried around with me since my childhood. After making and serving them (at the dining room table) a simple lunch of soup and crackers and grapes, I sat next to her in her chair and we read together the little birthday poems and passages she, Dad, and my siblings and childhood friends wrote in the books so many years ago. Then we read aloud together a few of our favorite A.A. Milne poems. She remarked that she remembered the poems so well. "I do, too," I said. "You used to read them aloud to me when I was a girl." The poems still resonate within us both.

Dad snuck out to shop, and Mom wanted me to read some more to her from the book we started the other day, a novel about a Native American indian family living in current times. I can't remember the title right now, but it's typical, mystical Native American indian writing, with a lot dialogue and characters. Hard enough for me to follow! I read aloud for almost an hour, and stopped when Dad came home, and surprisingly, when I asked her if the story was hard to follow, she said, no! This is a book that her sister had read for a book group, so it's nice that Mom is hearing the story, too. In some of the columns of the pages, there are notes written in pen by her sister.

Soon, with Dad home and the groceries put away, Mom said she wanted to sleep. Dad said he did, too. He went downstairs to the little daybed in the basement, I settled Mom first into one of the couches. I sat quietly and read a magazine. After a few minutes, Mom got up and said she wanted to go to her bed, where "it was quieter." I helped her get settled into her bed, then, tucked her in and kissed her cheek, then went back to the living room and read quietly some more. After ten minutes or so, she was up again, saying she still couldn't sleep, wanted to try the other couch. "Where's Dad?" "He's downstairs taking a nap." "Okay."

I tucked her in for a third time in the other little couch. She said she was tired but she couldn't fall asleep. Finally, she settled down, and after a while, I decided to sneak out. As I was putting on my coat and hat and gloves, she called out to me. "Are you leaving?"

"Yes, I'm going to go home now, okay?"

"Okay, thank you."

"I love you Mom, and see you tomorrow."

"Okay, I love you, too."

"Bye bye."

Quietly, I go. Over the well worn path, my footsteps in the light blanket of snow, doubled back and forth, so many times over.