GOOD DAUGHTER

I open the door to the bright, expansive common room. Warm autumn sun beams in from windows on the opposite wall high above the door that leads out to the tidy garden patio. I steel my churning stomach against the smell of disinfectant poorly masking the urine odor. Bent bodies barely supporting lonely, vacant faces are scattered about at the round tables that fill the large room. Reminding myself to smile, I greet those whose expressions flicker with comprehension. Weaving through the wheelchairs and shuffling slippers, my steps are quick and light. I am ashamed of my forty-something agility.

I ascend the staircase and find my mother’s room. The bathroom door is propped open, nearly blocking the entry doorway. This is undoubtedly to ensure some privacy from the nosy residents who stroll up and down the hall and peer in at her.

I nudge the door and squeeze through the narrow space silently so as not to startle her. She is dozing in the recliner my brother, Gary, and I bought her two weeks after we moved her here.

Mom awakens to my soft touch on her shoulder and gets up to offer me her seat. It’s the only chair in her half of the shared room, so she sits on the end of her twin bed. The flowered coverlet does little to cheer up the dormitory setting.

I offer her a piece of the raspberry scone I bought on the way over. She spreads open a Kleenex and lays it across her trembling outstretched hand. I set her portion of the treat in it. Mom nibbles the scone and comments that she doesn’t get sweets much here. I notice that her tremor is not bad this morning. It may be the hour, I tell myself. Her Parkinson’s medication causes noticeable peaks and valleys of effectiveness over the course of the day.

“Did you pay my bills?” she asks.
“Yes, Mom. I paid them.”
“Well, do you have the receipt for the rent?”
“They don’t give me a receipt.” I know this answer will not satisfy her.
“Then how do you know if they got it?”
I stifle a sigh of exasperation. “I bring the check when I come to visit you the week it’s due. I hand it to them in person.”

She asks nothing more; her eyes register uncertainty. I wonder if I’ll trust my daughter to pay my bills when I’m too ill to pay them myself.

We engage in small talk for a time. She asks about Kristen, my twenty-two year-old daughter. I tell her she’s fine, still dating the same guy.

After awhile she comments that it’s really not so bad here. That she doesn’t really mind staying here.

“That’s good,” I reply, unable to think of anything else to say. I am relieved she’s not unhappy. I think maybe she has accepted the change as permanent.

It was a difficult decision to move her, one that my brothers and I put off too long. When we finally accepted the fact that she needed more care than we could provide her on a drop-in basis, we convinced each other it was time to relocate her to a facility that provided twenty-four-hour care.

We never convinced Mom. She didn’t go willingly. Wouldn’t let go of the notion that one of us could care for her in our home.

I don’t tell her that I’ve begged Kristen never to put me in a place like this, just as Mom begged my brothers and me. I temper my pleas with reassurances that I will trust Kristen’s judgment, and go quietly if there is no other option. I won’t be difficult.

Still, I can’t imagine being bathed and fed by strangers, however friendly and pleasant they seem. I can’t imagine sharing a bedroom and a bathroom with a woman who wets and soils herself, whose expressionless face is the last thing I see when the lights go out.

I glance down at Mom’s bare feet and notice that her nails need clipping. I wonder if other daughters take care of these personal needs for their mothers. Mine doesn’t ask, and I don’t offer.

A young woman with a caring smile, dressed in a white uniform, looks in on us and reminds Mom that it’s time to go downstairs for lunch. I thank the woman and gather my things together, grateful that the awkward visit is over.

I descend the stairs slowly, so as not to get too far ahead of Mom. At the bottom, I kiss her soft cheek, tell her I love her and that I’ll see her next week.

“Love you,” she replies, then turns to make her way haltingly to her assigned seat.

Again I remind myself to smile and nod at the other residents as I glide toward the door to freedom.

Riding home in the car, I cannot erase the image of my mother and her lonely existence. I resolve to take nail clippers with me when I visit next week.