Mother's Day

 

 My mother died, peacefully, in the early morning, 31 May. I will write more of this in another post. But the weeks prior to this were very difficult. She had had a fall - pushed by another resident - and ended up in hospital. 24 hours in the hospital, most of which we spent in Accident and Emergency, was very traumatic for Mum and she never recovered. She never walked again. We never had another conversation. When she got back from Aroha she began howling and screaming. This continued for over six weeks, all day and most of the night. The most terrible animal sound. The medical team at Aroha were beside themselves as she disturbed all the other residents. The doctors and psychiatrist couldn't decide if this was pain or anxiety. No medication seemed to help. I was at the rest home every day, trying to feed her, trying to distract her and give the staff and other residents a break. On Mother's Day, I wrote this.

xxx 

Today is Mother’s Day. The day began with a text from Em (and later a post on Instagram), then a video call with Lizzy late morning. Rose and the Takaka crew sent a video, and Ed rang this evening. This Mother’s Day precisely how I want it: no big fuss, no presents, but everyone touching base gently, comfortably in some way or another. “Quite different to the pressures I felt about Mother’s Day!” I said to Ed when he rang and asked about my day. “Is that why you don’t want a big fuss on Mother’s Day?” he asked. And I realised yes, that’s exactly why – I don’t want my children to feel that anxiety, to feel like they can never please.

The thing about my mother and Mother’s Day was that she was highly competitive about presents. In particular, she was competitive with her best friend, Margaret, who didn’t have a competitive bone in her body. Whatever I bought her, Margaret’s children did better, as far as my mother was concerned. I particularly remember the year I bought her some nice hand cream and shower gel from the Body Shop, which was her favourite shop. I was sure I had nailed it this time. My mother looked disgusted. “Margaret's children made her hanging baskets for Mother’s Day!” she spat out.  And that was the other thing about Mum. If my children forgot Mother’s Day, I wouldn’t let them know I was hurt. I’d take a deep breath and swallow it, perhaps have a private moment. I might say something gently a few weeks later when the sting has gone out of it and I could say something lightly, with humour. But my mother always let me know that she was disappointed, that she was angry, that whatever I’d done wasn’t good enough. I’ve thought a lot recently about how anger was her default setting. I sometimes wonder whether all this screaming and howling is just the rage that was always just below (or often above) the surface. 

 One year I got it right. It is still one of my happiest memories. Ed and Rose must have been about 7 and 9. We set out early – I remember driving through the gorge in the fog – and we got to Napier in time for the start of Mass at St Thomas More church. This had been my plan. We slipped in the back and Mum didn’t see us until we went up for communion. “Happy Mother’s Day!” I whispered as we walked back down the aisle. By the end of Mass, somehow every person in the church knew Jean’s Mother’s Day present had miraculously walked up to communion. Everyone made a great fuss, and Mum was very very happy. But I have occasionally wondered whether what made it so special for her was that everyone had seen.

Incidentally, my mother’s competitiveness with her best friend and my inadequacy wasn’t confined to Mother’s Day. A few years ago, she was complaining that Margaret was “bragging” about her daughter Anna taking up painting and how she had one of her paintings hanging up in her lounge. (Knowing Margaret as I do, I know there is no way Margaret was bragging – she was just – or so she thought – sharing happy news with her best friend). “Why can’t you be a painter like Anna??” said my mother, furiously. She really meant it. She was, really, furious. “Because, Mum,” I said, “I’m a professor!”. 

 

I didn’t go to see her today. Michael is here for his 20-hour visit, so I’ve stayed away. It has been a relief to not go to Aroha today. Not to have to sit beside her while she stares at me and howls and shrieks. The doctor has kept upping the medication, but still she howls and writhes. She’s better during the day, apparently, but by the time I arrive about 4:30pm she’s back to this. Things have changed though. Where in the past I have been able to reach her with a song or a poem, now she just carries on howling. A couple of days ago I had this bright idea that perhaps she was unhappy in the noisy room – after all, she was an introvert. She always liked silence. It made her mad when Dad had the TV on in the evenings – and at Aroha the television (and sometimes the radio as well) is always on. There are people shouting, carers moving about, noise from the kitchen, trays being wheeled around. I have sometimes thought that constant noise would drive me crazy if I had to live in it.

So, I linked one of Lizzy’s portable speakers to my iphone and found some scented hand cream, and put my knitting in my bag. I thought we’d find a nice quiet space – perhaps her room or the smaller lounge area – and I’d put on the Messiah, just quietly, and massage her hands and then just sit quietly with her and knit. It made no difference at all. In the quiet confined space of her room, the howling seemed unendurable.  Rose had suggested that perhaps Mum’s howling was just her letting out all the feelings she had about her life, and perhaps my job was simply to sit with her and let her express all those feelings – as she sometimes does with Xavier, when he’s upset about something. She said she sees her job, in those circumstances, as being to be the bigger person, the adult, who isn’t trying to take away the feelings but to make him feel safe with them. I thought that was a helpful idea, so I tried. 

 But – I don’t know. Children don’t behave like this: the bulging, staring eyes, the constant animal-like howl, the writhing, clawing body. It seems strange to read what I wrote only 4 days ago, about wanting to be a loving presence. Now I find myself fighting back anger and horror and feelings of complete hopelessness. Just leaving the house, driving there, parking the car, and walking through the doors, putting on a smile, greeting the other residents and carers, pulling up a chair – each of these things in themselves are hard, require an act of will. And then to sit, to try to be loving and reassuring, when none of it makes any difference at all….

And then I feel ashamed. Has all my effort actually been about myself, about feeling I could reach her, love her, make a difference to her? Several things have played in my head as I’ve tried to process this. One is the imaginary Joy in my head saying “this is your mother’s journey, Lisa, you can’t make it for her. You can’t take away her fear and anger”. And the other thing came to me on Friday morning, when I sat in church for Adoration and looked at the monstrance, and it came to me that I should lay all of this down at His feet. That I was at the foot of the cross. And the words in my head said, “Remain in me”. I feel like I’ve reached my limit. Perhaps my job now is to trust her to God. To recognize I can do no more – that He has this in hand. And he will carry her along this journey, He will be her companion now. And of course I must continue to work with the doctor and carers, advocate for her with the medical team, sit with her. But with no expectations that I’m doing any of the important work on this part of the journey. 

 While all this has been going on over the last month, Bruce and I have also been in the middle of processing the harvest. I have bottled 85 litres of tomato passata, and various amounts of apples, pears, made jam from black currants and haskap berries and damsons, and jelly from apples and grapes. This weekend we were working on the honey harvest. As we were spinning the honey frames, I was absorbed in thoughts about my mother. I thought about how difficult it is to extract the honey, how the honeycomb must be systematically broken, and then the frames spun at speed, and the mass of honey and honeycomb sieved through multiple grades of sieves until the honey comes out, golden, fragrant, glistening. I thought perhaps this is what death is like, the hard shell being broken, and spun and sieved through finer and finer mesh, until the beautiful soul can be released. I don’t know. Perhaps this is altogether too fanciful a metaphor. I’m struggling to find anything positive to say here.

My mother has said only one sentence to me in the last four days: “I don’t know how to die”. I felt as if my heart was breaking.  I said softly, “I know, Mum. But your body does know how to die. You just have to let go. Perhaps you need to stop fighting. And Jesus is with you – he will show you the way. He will.” There was a moment of quiet. And then the dreadful howl began again. This is my mother. Raging and raging against the dying of the light.