STANDING ROOM ONLY

Thursday, April 14, 2005

MV05: CLOSING THE BOOK

She’s gone.

Man, oh, man. This was a tough week. Way more taxing than I expected. Silly me.

There’s recently been concern in my family about my Mother’s mental state perhaps due to her age (71). Part of my Unspoken Mission on her trip here was for me (as the person who’s spent the most time with her) to ascertain the problem. After a week with her, my Official Report is “I have no fucking clue”.

Some things seem part of a (natural) aging pattern of forgetting, an issue I deal with personally. However she apparently lacks Wanting To Remember. She’ll proclaim in the middle of a movie or while I’m sleeping in the morning “Where’s my purse?” before stopping to look or think. To be brutally honest it sometimes seemed selfish. There, I said it. Selfish?!? She’s your Mother. She raised you! Yes, yes, yes. All that too.

My head hurts from thinking about Morality. Life and Death and Family and Responsibility. My cup runneth over, poring and poring. I realize my Mother no longer “Brings anything to the Party”. Not communication, not interest, not opinion. When she was younger, she was The Tall Pretty One with model looks and a great rack. She was a stunner and a popular party girl. Then there’s Time and then came Now.

I was certainly not The Pretty One when I was young. I was the Funny One or the Smart One. Later in life, those puppies were my Back-Up. If it had been about my looks, I would be in Very Deep Shit indeed.

My Mother reapplied her lipstick four times a day despite us not going anywhere. She reminded me the neighbor said she looked like my sister. Roll Your Eyes moments. Then there’s her inability to sit still, her constant need to eat. Dr. Phil 101 : Food as something to keep you occupied and away from That.

My Mother foraged the entire time. Polly was on constant alert for the sound of crackling paper or plastic while my Mother scavenged the cupboards. She resorted to the hundreds of fortune cookies from Chinese Take-Out over the months leaving small rectangles of paper scattered around the apartment. YOUR PERSONALITY IS FUELED BY THE FASCINATION YOU FEEL FOR LIFE. 05 13 25 28 34 44. Ah... good times.

Oh, she bought me a new iBook. She’d brought it up for months now and we went to the Apple Store and got it this week. I’m sending my old(er) one to my sister. My new iBook is a boy and his name is Bruce.

“Did you eat all the cheese in the fridge?” I asked her in the car on the way home from the Dog Park.

“NO, I did not eat all the cheese. Why?”

“Cause I’d stop and get some if we needed it.”

“I BOUGHT YOU AN iBOOK.”

Eat all the cheese you want. In fact, I encourage it. Thanks for the iBook too, Mama. I love it. It’s clean and sparkly and oh, oh so Pretty. I only wish it didn’t weigh like the world.

1:37:34 PM

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