The Thief of Lost Time

Chapter 27: "Children are the Cruelest Critics"

When Mom entered the nursing home, we hoped the rehabilitation would make a positive change in her life. Whenever I visit, I ask about her progress and encourage her to keep plugging away. Mom expects to be discharged and return home. She'll say, "I think I'm getting better. I should be able to go home soon." I say nothing definite and never speculate as to when this might happen. Leslie also avoids the subject. We can't make any promises about when she'll leave, not knowing what criteria determines her fitness to go home. Dad can sign her out of the facility at any time, but I've never been there with Dad when she's discussed going home.

Dad is happier now with Mom in the nursing home. He was fearful for her safety when alone with him in the apartment. In an emergency, he hadn't the strength to help her. As much as I want to see Mom leave the facility, I'm sympathetic with his concern. Dad, Leslie and I agree that considering her present infirmities, remaining in the nursing home is the best resolution, although none of us has the courage to tell her. We remain silent or change the subject when she prefaces a sentence with "Once I get home..." or "When I leave here..."

***

It's not long before the rehab director tells Dad that Mom is complaining about her exercises. She makes the minimum effort during her sessions and won't accept that she must push herself if she wants to improve. "She says the exercises hurt her legs," the rehab director explained to Dad, "and she wants to be left alone."

Dad requests that Mom's schedule be changed to the afternoon when he can attend the sessions. He encourages her to work harder, but this only makes her more irritable. Finally, he stops going. Dad asks the staff to continue her exercises, but I suspect they don't do so for long.

The physical therapist must be frustrated and consider it a waste of time. I can't blame her. Who wouldn't want to spend more time with those residents who go the extra mile? Once she decides against doing something, Mom is stubborn and paranoid.

When we visit, we insist that Mom use her walker. We proceed slowly forward. 'Creeping' is the way Leslie puts it. I stay beside the walker ready to support her if she stumbles. My own sense of balance is not reliable and walking slowly aggravates my instability. I want to scream with impatience, but she'll never improve if we give into her. But, time after time, we arrive to find her in a wheelchair. We realize that she isn't trying to walk on her own anymore. I'm tired of arguing.

***

As the months pass, she stops talking about going home. Knowing Dad, he'll never tell her point blank that returning to the apartment is out of the question.

I wonder how many of her friends leave the facility. Some residents with significant disabilities can't leave and others leave escorted by Death, but there must be several in Mom's situation. Do any of them go home? But then I remember Mom's condition. She can't prepare simple meals, walk without danger of falling, use the bathroom alone, wash her clothes and on and on. This is not a recipe that demonstrates independence.

I expect it's a vicious cycle: little by little she gives up pushing herself to walk, which limits her mobility, which in turn reduces her hope of leaving. Perhaps she willingly gives up the frustration and pain of rehabilitation in return for sacrificing her expectation of returning home. Will there be a day when she understands with devastating clarity that she will never leave? Her room here is 'home' and will be until she dies. Her future possibilities are diminishing. There will be fewer and fewer surprises; her life will become the numbing routine of the nursing home ticking off the hours she has left.

We never sit down and say, "From now on Mom will use a wheelchair." Mom makes the decision herself and eventually, we accept it. Perhaps it's only a matter of time anyway. Once she relies on the wheelchair, she'll never try walking again. She must have made her decision to stop walking when she finally lost hope of going home. Perhaps this gives her some peace, but I cannot believe there can be any comfort in that.

***

There's nothing wrong with Mom's arms which surprises me. I expected her to sit passively in her wheelchair waiting for an aide or a candy-striper to push her where she wants to go. This is not the case. Mom masters the technique of wheeling herself down the hall to the TV room or a meal in the dining room. She takes mischievous delight rolling along in front of us, forcing us to walk faster and faster to keep up. But like most elderly people using walkers or wheelchairs, her peripheral vision is unreliable. She never turns right or left at a corner without catching a wheel on the baseboard. She purses her lips with defiance and, like an octogenarian driving a car in Florida, she backs up and pulls into traffic without looking. Every wheelchair should have a beeping signal when in reverse.

I understand she's proving to us that she's independent and still has control over her life. I grin watching her maneuver among the tables and other wheelchairs in the dining room. Her weaving is surprisingly successful, but there's a comical element in her determination which saddens me. Finding humor in a depressing situation helps one face reality. At family get-togethers, we adults regale ourselves with the misadventures of our parents. Children are the cruelest critics. Our parents remind us that we'll become like them whether we want to or not. In the face of that horror, humor helps us face the future. And the incantation: "I won't be like them."

Mom's wheelchair independence deteriorates over time. Coming in to visit after lunch, we find an aide wheeling her back to her room. We make no comment. Eventually, she asks us to wheel her around the facility when we visit.

When spring arrives, I wheel Mom across the dining room through the French doors onto the patio. We stop and watch the birds at the feeders. The fresh air is invigorating after the stuffy odor of pills and elderly bodies. I bundle Mom in a coat and sweater, and we sit in the sun with our faces shaded by a patio umbrella.

To help pass the time, I wheel Mom to the edge of the patio, the wheelchair pulls on my arms as I steer her down the ramp through the parking lot. I enjoy walking on the main street past the enormous houses, each with its own architectural oddities. Once single-family homes, they have been converted into offices for doctors, lawyers, and CPAs.

On the way back, I stop at Dunkin' Donuts to buy an iced coffee for Mom and a mocha for me. She can manage to drink the coffee herself if the cover is tight and she uses a bent straw that prevents having to tilt the cup.

Pushing her back to the nursing home, I enjoy a satisfied feeling. "You're a good son, Mark, taking your mother for a walk and buying her a treat," but at the same time, I'm plotting to leave as soon as she's safe in her room.

This reminds me of taking my daughter, Jenn, for a walk in her stroller. We'd flag down the ice cream truck as it rolled along the street, tilting perilously at corners and replaying the same circus tune. "You're a good father, Mark, taking your daughter for a walk and buying her an ice cream." But all the time hoping that, once home, she'll take a nap, and I can have two hours of peace to read.

Steering the wheelchair back to the nursing home, I'm overwhelmed with a sense of loss – sorrow for my mother's physical and mental decline but also regret that the days when my daughter was young are over. Sometimes my thoughts are unbearable, and I trot along the sidewalk speeding toward the ramp, trying to outrun my despair. I don't want to frighten my mother with the speed, but I need to exhaust myself, to shout and laugh. Life is a trickle of water evaporating in the heat of the day.

***

When the weather grows colder, Dad continues driving her to a restaurant. Instead of going to the park after lunch, he takes her back to the apartment. When I tell Leslie this, she's upset. "I don't want to spoil Mom's outings, but one of these days, she'll refuse to go back to the nursing home and what will we do then? Dad has to think of unexpected results."