My mother always put on a big spread for Thanksgiving. Besides turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy and carrots there was always cabbage rolls and perogies too. And of course pie and if anyone has had my mother's pie, of any type, they'll tell you how incredibly flaky her pie crust is.. I'm cursing myself now because I could never master it. Anyways Thanksgiving was a big deal. Not this year. This year my dad, my brother Doug, me and of course mom had dinner together at mom's extended care home. The centre was offering a plate of turkey dinner for 2 bucks to any family member who wanted to join their loved one for dinner. My dad of course jumped at the chance to have something close to normal again and Doug and I were not going to disappoint him.
The four of us had spend the afternoon together. Doug and I sat on either side of mom, both of us holding one of her hands. Her hand would tremble and shake in mine and she would aimlessly stare at either Doug or me. There was never any expression on her face or any sign of emotion, just a blank stare. It was unnerving and saddening and once again I broke down. Doug whisked me outside where he held me and let me cry in his shoulder. He didn't comfort me though, he simply reminded me that I have to accept the reality. The reality is that our mother is in end stage Dementia. Her body will continue to deteriorate. Her muscles will get more rigid. Eventually she will lose the ability to swallow properly (that's already happening to mom) and if pneumonia doesn't claim her, an infection might or if we are lucky, she'll just peacefully pass away in her sleep. All I could think was that I'm not ready to lose her.
And so the four of us sat for dinner. A care attendant came and asked if someone would be feeding her and my dad nominated me, I shrunk inside. They fit mom with her adult size bib and placed her plate of food in front her. It was minced turkey (it resembled dog food), mashed potatoes and puree of beets. I watched mom just stare at the plate and I was thinking, this poor woman must know what's in front her and she must be crying on the inside too. So, the child became the mother and I proceeded to spoon feed mother. My hand was shaking at first, it all seemed so surreal, but after a couple spoonfuls mom and I had a system. Mom kept staring at dad's turkey dinner and watched intently as he gobbled it down. I watched her watch him and I could see the wheels still turning inside her head. Mom was thinking 'why you do get a proper turkey dinner and all I get is this mush?'. My father could see this too and so I watched as he fed mom little bits of food from his plate and even a couple bites of pumpkin pie. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen.
After dinner we took mom back to her room and we all kissed her good-bye. As we walked away she blurted out "love you" and again, tears welled up in my eyes.
I couldn't sleep that night, the days events kept running through my head. I kept thinking about what Doug said, that I need to accept the reality, and so I decided that I will spend as much time as I can with mom, feeding her, caring for her and just being with her until the time comes. Then, in my mind I started to write her obituary because I came to my place of acceptance. I drifted off to sleep.
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