The Quiet

Letter to R
#1

Okay, it is just me now. Some instant verse for you:

I hear the carwash noise of dishes coming clean,
Agitating towels,
A loose vent cover as the heat swooshes behind me on the couch.

Both dogs sigh
Roll over in their sleep
As Thisbe the brain-damaged eldercat

says “mer… mmmm… mer”

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Your HipMama piece was extraordinary. Thank you for including our Mule in your bio. I love it when ya’ll do that. I knew it would be tough times for you then, and the best I could do was send cards while in Costa Rica. Not much, just a little — but you did know I was thinking of you, right?

I am recovering from this. Even before it is over. I dream of Momma dying - every night with scenes of how I am to cope, of how she reacts - it’s as if she’s watching herself slowly stop breathing and telling me how to manage what is next. Each time I am surrounded by laughter. The hardest part is losing, piece by piece, 91 years of her.

C4 has stepped into my place at Britthaven - in a way I did not think possible. Every day she goes and teaches Momma how to pull herself up and get into the wheelchair, how to go to the toilet. How to clean her dentures. She paints Momma’s fingernails with bright pink polish. Puts sparkly barrettes in white halo-hair. At night, she lays out Momma’s nightgown, and sets aside tomorrow’s clothing. Everything matches… she tells me button-down Oxford shirts command respect and Momma’s in a pink one today.

Emmett is entranced with Grandma’s new apartment. Assisted-living. It is Assisted-Living. Jane has created two remarkable little boys. The medivac helicopter lands in a field outside Mom’s window and he gets to stand on a chair, eating a DumDum sucker, (Ollie’s at pre-school) as he watches “the patient, Nana… see? First there is a patient who must go to a hospital… to see the doctor but this patient does not ride in Mommy’s car like FarFar did when he had an accident…” and all this is accompanied by rowdy hand gestures, facial expressions worthy of Douglas Fairbanks or Rudolph Valentino, and dripping chin sugarsyrup. Boys with stay-at-home Mommies learn how to love more easily, I think. He’s two but recently became E3 and that is…

sublime.

Oliver arrives from nearby Montessori School. As he waves to the chopper while they cross the parking lot, the helicopter flashes its lights on him. Grandma lives in the best place in the world. At four and two, all eyes are on eyes. He pats hands of wheelchair-bound residents and has learned to use the Purell by himself, squirting just enough and then getting on with the visit. He sits in my lap while Grandma sleeps and we watch TV on the Blackberry. What will his number be?