WHERE DID MAMA GO ?

                                         
    Time is a funny thing. Memories bring me back to a long-ago day of treasured youth.  I vision myself playing in the neighborhood park with my big brother and younger twin brothers.  The familiar voice of Mama calling us home for supper rings through the late afternoon breeze.  Racing across the street and through the well groomed yard, I climb onto the porch.  I am determined to beat my brothers through the old screened door of the little wood framed house. Mama warns us to slow down before we break something. She feigns a frown, but the sparkle in her pretty green eyes betrays her sternness. I can see through that one raised eyebrow (we always wondered how she could do that) and I know she is delighted in our playfulness.

    The smell of meat loaf and gravy, the hum of the old attic fan, and the sound of Daddy’s deep voice playing with our baby brother and sister tells us we are home.

    Mama is scolding us recent park-dwellers for having dirty hands, so the four of us pile into the small bathroom. We crowd around the old porcelain basin and scrub obediently. You never want to disobey Mama. The results of such actions are unspeakable.

    Mama shuffles the last of the dishes of mashed potatoes and corn and biscuits from the kitchen to the dinning room and announces it’s time to eat.

    Daddy rises from his favorite frayed, overstuffed chair and switches off the old black and white TV (no remote controls in those days).  He approaches the table with a look of anticipation for a nice, peaceful supper with his beautiful wife and six kids.

    The most important member of the family is stretched out under the table, wagging his poodle tail and guarding the scuffed, clean wooden floor against any morsels which may fall his way.  Click doesn’t know he is a dog and we let him hold onto his illusions of humanness.

    Mama finally takes her seat next to her baby daughter’s high-chair.  She looks tired and hot from her kitchen duties, but seems proud of the feast she has placed before us.  Daddy reverently recites the Blessing for the family’s bounty. Forks are lifted, bread is passed and the conversation is light and fun.  Everyone is excited about the upcoming, weekly visit to Grandma’s house this Saturday, just across town.

    We all start talking at once about our day, our dreams, our expectations.  Mama listens to her little family with delight and love.  The fur ball under the table begins to bark so Mama stands up in her chair to get our attention and announces there is dessert in the ice box and it’s my turn to do the dishes, and everyone laughs at Mama standing in her chair. It is the summer of 1963 and life is good.

                          ===================================================================================

    Then, as if the passing years were no more than a few blinks of an old cat’s eye, it was the winter of 2005.  The vivid colors depicted on a beautiful tapestry of a family’s life together began to fade.  Daddy was long gone.  Cancer and old-age, accelerated by hard work and sacrifice to provide for his family had taken him away.  The twins and the baby brother and sister had families of their own.  Mama began to show signs of confusion and agitation.

    She retired from her career as a church secretary and gave up driving in the early 90s (we never did find out why she hung up her car keys). I took her shopping, to church, to family get-togethers, or where ever she wanted to go.  She shopped for hours in the grocery store purchasing items which she already had stock-piled in her pantry at home. I often questioned this behavior, but she assured me that she needed each and every item.

    Mama loved to read and she belonged to several book clubs. She loaned me books and we talked often about the characters and the plots. One day, I noticed she had three copies of the same book and I asked her about it. She became defensive. “I know what I’m doing. I purposely bought three copies of Stephen King’s “IT” in case I lost one.”  I didn’t question her reasons; after all, she was --- well --- Mama.

    I visited her after work several times a week. I noticed the little table she sat at (lived at) in front of the blaring TV was piling up with mail. With each visit, the piles grew bigger. One day, when she got up from her little table to go into the back of her house, I sneaked a peek at the piles of mail. My heart was pounding for fear that she would come back and discover me snooping into her business. At 58 years old, I still feared Mama’s authority. I saw that these piles of mail were unpaid bills. Tactfully, I asked her if she needed me to help her with her bills. “I was a church secretary and bookkeeper for thirty-five years and I sure don’t need help paying my bills.” Ok - Point well taken. I backed off and returned to my own house just down the street. But the possibility that something wasn’t quite right with Mama kept gnawing at me.

    Weeks went by and the unnecessary groceries, the piles of unpaid bills and the overflowing shelves of purchased books were stacking up. I began to notice the untidy house and she obviously wasn’t taking regular showers. I knew it was time to act.

    Doctor visits revealed Mama had mild vascular dementia. Well, there it was. The diagnosis was heartbreaking to me and my siblings. There was no cure and it would get progressively worse. The center of our family, our educator, adviser, companion, nurse, comedian, and friend -- my Mama -- was losing her mind, the essence of her being.

    In the summer of 2006 my older brother and I sold our houses and helped Mama sell her house and we all moved into a big, nice, brick house in a northern suburb of the city. Mama was reluctant to move, but eventually resolved to the arrangement.  In her mind, she was going to be taking care of us.

    During the next two years things got worse, but my brother and I were determined to take care of our Mama at home. She denied anything was wrong with her, but I could see the fear in her eyes.

    She blamed ‘mishaps’ on others. “I didn’t throw all my jewelry in the toilet. The man next door came in and did that,“ she would declare - or, “I left the water running in the sink for an hour on purpose to clean out the pipes.“  When I took her check book away from her and straighten out the mess which had developed from months of accounting neglect, she cried and said I was stealing her money.

    We had to take the knobs off of the stove and hide them because Mama got up at night and tried to cook frozen meat right out of the freezer. We had to lock the doors so she wouldn’t try to take her youngest daughter (who is now forty-five years old and living across town with her husband) to school at 4:00 in the morning.

    She began to see things and people that were not there. She began to hear voices singing Ave Maria and couldn’t understand why I didn’t hear it too.

    She became combative, abusive, rude, and uncooperative - all traits uncharacteristic of the Mama I knew and loved. We tried home-nurse care but Mama called them witches and told them to get out of her house. My brother and I took turns staying up all night to make sure Mama wouldn’t wander around and hurt herself.

    After meeting with doctors and counselors, we knew it was time to let her go where she could be properly and professionally cared for.  Mama’s six children were able to place her in a warm and caring nursing facility close to home.

                      ====================================================================================


    The days are different, now.  The family hierarchy is missing its leader.  My siblings, their children and I visit her often and Mama still knows who we are, but she does not remember that she has great grandchildren and more on the way. She does not know I lost my job or that I ever had a career.  I can’t talk to her about my dream of becoming a writer.  I can’t ask her advice about a new hair style or whether she thinks Obama will be a good president.  These things are beyond her understanding.

    She doesn’t know if it is summer or winter or what year it is. She doesn’t read or watch TV anymore. She can’t dress herself or brush her teeth. But she still laughs and smiles and loves and prays.

    I walk her around the nursing home and listen to her talk about things that are only real in her mind.  She gets upset because Daddy hasn’t been to see her.  She begs me to take her to see her Mama.

    She still has her sense of humor and the nurses love her character and spunk. Part of her is still in that confused tangle of a mind somewhere; and in the quiet of the night, as I remember her standing on a dining room chair and making us laugh so many years ago, I wonder --- Where did Mama go?

                                    *************************************************************************************************************