You don't have to like her

Cyclocross in Estabrook Park

I arrived today to find her out in the hallway in the penalty box. She was delighted to see me, as if she hadn't seen me in years, when I'd just been there yesterday and told her I'd be coming. "Well, Jon!" She clapped her hands.

I asked her if she wanted to go to chapel, and she said yes, but bathroom first. When we got there, I found she'd already gone. It was in her pants, down her legs, on her socks and shoes. Getting her out of her pants and underwear, it got all over the floor, and I threw up in the sink. It was on my sweater before a minute had passed, and I worked for half an hour to clean her up, clean the floor, the toilet, the sink. I used half a roll of paper towel, and it overflowed the trash basket. Her whole room stank.

"Didn't you feel that you had to go?" I asked.

"No."

I got her into clean clothes, she called me a "champ," and we were late to chapel, but it calmed me down.

Then to the Bistro for brunch. A lady joined us and I chatted with her, Mom listening but not talking. Julie came. Mom ate just a couple bites of her two pancakes, and when we were done, I told her I'd take her to her room, and then I would be going. "You mean this is over? Your being here is over?" I said I'd take her to her room, and then it would be over.

We got there and got her into bed. She was exhausted but too anxious to sleep. "I don't have any credit cards. Where will I sleep tonight? Are we going home tomorrow?" When Julie said she was leaving (we'd taken separate cars, just to burn more fossil fuels), she challenged Julie on what she had to do, what she was going to do, where she was going to go. Julie finally left. I said I'd stay for a while, and turned on the Packers game. She laid back but never closed her eyes, and sat up every couple minutes asking crazy crazy questions, and saying I couldn't go, what was she going to do if I was gone when she woke up? When would we be leaving for home? Would I bring her with me? I dodged and evaded and finally ignored her incessant questions and tried to watch the game.

After a while I went to the bathroom, mostly to escape her. It had been cleaned up and was smelling normal thanks to the aides. Mom and I had gone around and around for 40 minutes, and I sat there feeling my life tick away. She called to me and said one more time that she didn't think she could handle this or that, and I really lost it. "I can't stay here all the time with you!" I yelled at her.  "I can't just stay here! I have to go."

"What will you do?"

"I have to pay my bills and do errands. I have a life!"

I should have said, "pay your bills," but that wouldn't matter to her.

She was stony-faced, but still pleading. I gave her a perfunctory kiss, and left. I seethed all the way home.

I should feel bad, but I don't. It is a lifelong theme -- dependence on us. It wasn't fair when we were young, and it isn't any fairer now that she's losing her mind.

I hope, I really hope, that this ends while I can still conjure good feelings about her.

As Uncle M sagely put it, "You probably have to love your mother, but you don't have to like her."

Her window