[my mother comes to visit]

The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought.
.......--Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948

My last day at work was June 18th, and I've been moving at warp speed since then, clearing the cosmic débris that had accumulated in my path while I was so busy selling my lifeblood to the state. Monday afternoon I collided with an asteroid: my mother came to visit.

For several years I have observed my mother in a decline of unknown origin and trajectory, yet I have seen within that cognitive slippage patterns that have been present in her mental makeup all along, among them a depressive tendency, dependency, and an abhorrent avoidance of taking even the teeniest speck of responsibility for absolutely anything whatsoever. I don't know whether the cause of this vexing behavior is organic (she refused more than a year ago—no, two—to cooperate with an assessment her doctor wanted to perform) or whether, as at least one of my siblings thinks, she has willfully abandoned any obligation to accountability simply because she can. At any rate, I find her unplugged vagueness and lack of sapience absolutely crazy making. On the other hand, they are so pronounced that even I can recognize my own faint capacity for understanding and compassion as chilling.

Monday was hot, and I served dinner --molé enchiladas and fresh fruit from my garden-- outside. My friends Portia and Nerissa brought a beautiful tossed salad. I set up the table and chairs in the middle of a large wading pool, and we all had fun splashing our feet in the water while we ate. Erica had already eaten, but she brought the baby, and Mike joined us later after his workout. Portia had a court hearing to attend in the morning, so she and Nerissa left soon after dinner. The rest of us lingered, conversing and enjoying the cool of the evening as the sun slipped toward the horizon. I pushed my chair back and splashed silver arcs of water up into the air, to the baby's delight and fascination. I tried dipping his toes, but he recoiled from the shock of the cold water. My mother didn't say a lot, but nodded knowingly and agreeably at appropriate points in the conversation. Afterward, when the stars came out and the mosquitoes started their infernal mating whine signaling a need for blood, we gathered up our things and headed toward the house. My mother couldn't find her red sandals, which she had kicked off on the lawn. Erica fetched them for her. "Are those mine?" my mother asked.

My mother has never been particularly self-aware, and that has always bothered me about her. I don't know what I expect from her at this point in my life, or why I should even wish for anything different from what is, or even how I came to this place of tight, steely resentment. I hate being this way! What is this about?

Tuesday morning at about 8:30 I knocked on my mother's door to wake her so we could get to Erica's by 10. I found her sitting on the edge of her bed, no telling for how long, obsessing about an incident that had happened over a week earlier and had actually prompted her sudden, unannounced visit. She had worked herself to a near frenzy about it this morning, because, she said, other people were taking control of her life. I tried to calm her, pointing out that she was here now and that she had been planning to visit anyway, and that by thinking about the past she was unable to enjoy what was happening in the present. At the brink of tears, she said something unintelligible about never knowing where she is in the present. I let the remark go, coldly judging it to be a statement of victimhood, not an indication that she really wanted anything to be different. I fixed her some oatmeal for breakfast. She left the unfinished part in her bowl on the stove, sparking petty annoyance in me over a memory of moldy pans that accumulated on our kitchen stove when I was a young girl, and of my having to remove their slimy, noxious contents when I needed something clean in which to prepare a meal...

A lot of what makes me feel so alienated from my mother is the fact that we share so many traits, and the fear that knowledge inspires in me.

My eyelids felt irresistibly leaden, and my finger still throbbed from my having cut it that morning slicing fruit. Erica and the baby came to visit us in the afternoon. I flung the doors wide open in order to try to get some of that heavy, sultry summer air moving through the house. I yearned for nothing more than a long afternoon siesta. No one had much to say, and my mind wandered briefly to that air conditioned cubicle I'd abandoned. Erica cut through the slow silence by suggesting that we go get a 4-generation picture taken and, perhaps too hastily, we all agreed that was a great idea; so she phoned for a sitting. Problem: my mother had not had her hair cut in several months, and she was anxious about her unkempt appearance. I considered cutting it myself but hadn't wielded scissors in a long time and didn't want to be responsible for botching the 'do. So Erica took grandma into the bathroom and lovingly gave her a neat comb job, with a little bouffant action and plenty of hairspray to lacquer her thinning white hair into place. Belatedly and guiltily, I remembered a walk-in salon practically next door to the photographer, though by then we didn't have time to get the haircut before having our pictures taken.

It's been at least twenty-five years since I tried to break the ice with my mother by starting a discussion about how SHE could change HER behavior so we could approach our relationship differently. She was unwilling to discuss it with me, mirroring her own desire for me to get over whatever it was that made me so uncomfortable for her to be around. Only all too recently, with the onset of her current cognitive fragility, have I come to the realization that I alone am responsible --and always have been-- for finding my way home in terms of reconciling this primal, conflicted relationship in my own mind. I can't change my mother --nor should I wish to-- but I can choose a way of relating to her that recognizes the essence of what lies buried beneath the wreckage of our old wounds, frustrations, entitlements, and insecurities. Kind of like Dorothy and the ruby slippers after an interplanetary object fell out of the void onto the Wicked Witch of the East.

My maternal grandfather died from Alzheimer's Disease, which seems to have a genetic thumbprint, as did one of my mother's sisters. I don't know if that's what's responsible for my mother's odd behavior or not. Some days she seems more present and capable, while at other times her conduct is disquietingly vague. Even if we didn't live so geographically distant from one another, it would be hard for me to untangle long-time tendencies from others that might be indicative of... what? Of what use is a label if one is unwilling or unable to use it as a point of departure toward further action? I can't control my mother, and maybe naming her issues is irrelevant. Maybe what matters is taking responsibility for my own by simply letting go.

After we had our pictures taken, Erica dropped us off at my house and I took my mother out again for bubble tea and a cute, breezy, blow-and-go haircut before driving to the rose garden so we could stroll by the river in the lengthening shadows. We ended the evening atop Skinner's Butte. As we gazed out over the city, a latina family started setting up fireworks on the concrete terrace. Pleased at this excellent bit of timing and luck, we leaned against the wall with mom and abuelita, ducking away from stray sparks and cheering the daughters as they lit off rocket after rocket. Smoke drifted lazily southeast on a cooling breeze while mosquitoes awoke and lights winked on across the city. I swatted something hungry off my arm. "Están grandes, los sancudos," the grandmother observed. They certainly were.

Robert Tubbs photo from www.bigthings.ca/manitoba/komarno.html