The Right Thing?

I hang up the phone with a medical billing department and I go to stand in front of the fire. I stare into it for a few minutes until my husband asks what is wrong. I am overwhelmed I respond. A few moments pass and the darkness descends once more. Why is it, I ask, that it’s times like these that I start to think about my Mom, and miss her so hard? I don’t know Babe he says.

But I do. What do you do when you are overwhelmed? When you need to talk to someone? When you need advice or a listening ear? You turn to your mom. You call her up and it’s like a warm hug coming across the wires – or airwaves now I suppose. Her very voice is a calming balm. The way you instantly know she’ll do whatever she can to help. The way she says I love you. Nobody ever loves you like your mom loves you. Nobody can listen in just the same way. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself, except her. You know what you need? She asks. A long, hot bath and some time to yourself. Everything will be alright – you will get through this, you always do.

Her presence in the house my Dad lives in is strong. Her bedroom is unchanged for the most part. Her closet has clothes and shoes lined up. Boxes of pictures, wrapping paper and the old Wade Family Bible are there as they should be. A candle from my Granny’s funeral. An old doll and her leftover aura are there. Her bathroom drawers hold make up, hair products and her electric toothbrush. Some old creams and eyeliner pencils gather dust. Sometimes I look in these drawers, but the only thing I have thrown out is some expired medication and a bottle of face cream that smelled bad.

I wonder about the headboard that was left in the old house. I think it was very firmly attached to the wall and that is why it was not brought to the new house. I put her favorite yellow rose plates, cups and pictures – the ones that have not been broken – into the small wooden cabinets that belonged to her mother. I dust the pictures of her grandchildren, of my wedding and the blue glass vases she loved. I hang up some paintings and embroidery pieces I find. I am not deterred by the fact that she will never live here again.

I am racked by guilt over the way we moved her out. It was December 2019. My dad was very ill and I could no longer cope. Her caregiver and I devised a plan. She would take her to get her nails done, then drive her over to visit my Dad in his skilled nursing unit. My husband, my friend Kathy, and I would pack up her things and take them to the place we had selected in Frisco. We would get her room all arranged and take her there after she had seen my Dad. We even took the cat, Margaret. When we brought her upstairs and showed her her room she was, of course, very confused. Monte, the caregiver, stayed with her a long time. We told Mom she only had to stay there while Dad was in the hospital then she could come home. A lie that continues to haunt me. I remember when I had to leave she asked Monte if she was going to stay and Monte said “I’m not going anywhere.” But I have such terrible guilt imagining the fear my mom must have felt when Monte did leave late that afternoon.

How could I have done that to her? How could I have left her there? I thought she was in good hands, and I thought it was the best thing for all of us. But over and over again I look back and wonder if I did the right thing. I still can’t believe that I did. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t cope. But what about Mom? She was overwhelmed, confused and scared. My Dad was too sick to have a say. People now will tell me that she doesn’t remember any of it. But does that make it right? I don’t know. I don’t know how to move on. I don’t know how to let go of that pain. I KNOW she’s in the best hands possible NOW and that offers a modicum of relief. But somewhere in the distant past I promised I would never do that to her, I promised she would just come live with me when she got old. We joked about just taking her out with an Uzi if it got bad. She said she’d rather that than end up like my Granny.

And yet, here we are. A million times worse than my Granny ever was, and a million times harder because Mom and I were so close, whereas she and her own mother were not. I promised Mom I would take care of her. I promised.

And I feel like I lied.