Every Sunday I get in my zippy, little, red
VW Golf and drive on NJ Route 7 from downtown Jersey City to Upper Montclair.
This ride takes me through Jersey City’s Journal Square, the section I
endearingly call Baliwood, on to the desolate marshland swamp stretch of
Kearny. This stretch is my favorite: an
abandoned radio station’s lonely tower sits hopelessly waiting to beam again
someday, a Wild West truck gas station is open for business, and business
warehouses of what business I know not dot the road. From here, it’s a hopscotch of various small
towns quilted and strung along together: Belleville, Bloomfield, a bit of
genteel Glen Ridge and finally, Montclair.
Montclair is a diverse town which houses
a university, an art museum, many yoga and pilates studios and finally one of the
oldest Whole Foods stores in New Jersey.
I make the 40 minute trek from Jersey
City on Sundays to participate in a community hot yoga class. I do this on Sundays because it’s now become
a tradition: I forgo the eggs, bacon and bloody mary's brunch for a sweaty,
stretchy, spiritual space. I really enjoy this time, but, ultimately this is
not the real reason I come all this way so often. After class, I ride up the
hill from Montclair to Upper Montclair to the Van Dyk Manor.
Van Dyk Manor is a lovely 3-story quasi
antebellum, Greek Revival structure with an adjacent parking lot. It started out
its life as a home for upper crust ladies recently widowed. Somewhere along the
way, Van Dyk became a nursing home and
healthcare facility. Approximately 4
years ago, my mother became a resident here.
I usually arrive between 3:30 and 4:00PM
on Sundays. Although I’m never quite sure what to expect, I usually find my
mother sitting by the nurses’ station right in front of the 2nd floor elevator.
A big TV is usually blaring and most of
the 2nd floor residents can be found there sitting with their walkers or sitting
in their wheel chairs.
Since this is the time of day, right
before they get taken to the dining room for dinner, I can usually expect to
find Rose, a red headed Irish lady, (are there any other kind?) lurking next
to the elevator on her wheelchair chariot waiting to be the first in line to be
taken for dinner. As soon as I step out Rose typically blurts out: “what
time is it?” or “hi honey, how are you?” “your mother is a lovely lady”.
I thank Rose and then I spot my mom, not
too much farther away, sitting in a chair with her walker nearby. Sometimes she
has dozed off. Sometimes she is awake, but, I suspect she doesn’t see me
because her eyesight is no longer so good. When she hears my voice, she
discerns it’s me so she usually looks up and recognizes me. Lately, she either doesn’t hear me or the
voice recognition sensor is starting to fade.
This, concerns me. My mom at 82, looks
amazing, She’s been through a quadruple bypass and broken both her wrists at 74
and her hip not too long after that. She has had her upper intestine nipped, is
a diabetic, has high blood pressure, and
suffers from Alzheimer’s .
Today, she is awake and notices that I’m
here when I step out of the elevator. She is in a feisty mood, makes edgy
comments about the old residents (she doesn’t consider herself one of them) and
wants to leave the nurses’ station to hang out with me in her bedroom. She gets a little disoriented on the way back
to her bedroom, she is not fully sure of
which bedroom she needs to go into, but, I gently goad her in the right
direction. It’s a fine line, dealing with Alzheimer’s. Who knows what’s right or
what’s wrong, all I know is that I want my mom to feel loved and not stupid.
We walk into her bedroom which she shares
with Sofia, a nice but somewhat anti social Italian American lady, who is slowly
warming up to me and my sister, but seems to be mainly reporting and observing my mother’s
activities. Today, as usual, Sofia is sitting in her side of the bedroom,
watching TV and reading her Kindle. We exchange hellos as my mother shuffles on
her walker past Sofia, the TV and the Kindle to her side of the room with the
window, bathroom and silent TV.
As soon as my mom, reaches her side of
the room, she tells me in Spanish how she thinks Sofia is not the friendliest of
sorts. Then she goes on a tirade about Cuba, the black people in Cuba: how nice
and smart they are or they were and how nice and smart they are now. Time for Alzheimer’s patients seems to
regress, but, more interesting, at least in my mother’s case, is a ceasing of
time as we know it. Her time has no boundaries and she can skip her way from
one decade of time or space to another.
There is a blurring that happens when she tells stories now which is
quite liberating but shocking to me. Prior to this, my mother was a stickler
for details, history and precision.
To get her off this tirade, I whip out a
chocolate bar which I bought for her at Trader Joe’s on my way to see her. My sister, who lives very close by and is a
housewife, is my mom’s main caretaker.
She is taking some time off to spend in Florida in her new apartment
with her family. So this week, I’m all
my mom’s got. My sister is in the habit of getting my mom chocolate bars, so I
decide to keep it up. My mom’s face
lights up when I tell her I have a chocolate bar and wants to tear into it. I
tell her she can have some after she comes up from dinner.
Just in time, the nurse on duty, a lovely
young Filipino lady who always seems to be happy comes in to the room to check
on my mother’s sugar. Today the sugar is high, so she administers both a long
term insulin needle and a short term pencil dosage. She kids with my mom who responds to her in
Spanish, (my mom does not know the
difference between Spanish and English now) and the nurse just quietly laughs
it off. I remind my mom that the nurse doesn’t speak Spanish. My mom has a moment of recognition, but
continues to speak in Spanish.
I decide this is a good time to bring her
down to the dining room. Some of the
residents have already been taken down so I use the back elevator to get my mom
to the first floor. Upon arrival at the dining room, the usual cast of
characters are present. Rose, the peppy Irish lady whose lewd comments
always break the ice; Julia, my mom’s previous roommate who is in a wheelchair
and extremely demanding; Eleanor, still pretty sharp, pretty mobile and with a good sense of humor; Mrs. Clemente who speaks some Spanish and
once told me that she and my mom knew each other from high school; and of
course, Sarah, who barely speaks but has no need to do so, as her son is there
every Sunday doing the talking for her. Her son is a nutty-professor-type with
falling pants barely hanging by suspenders, eyeglasses on the bridge of his
nose, and barely missing getting his head bopped with the dining room’s
chandeliers. He generally goads Rose and their sparring tends to create a lively banter that entertains all the
residents and the aides.
Dinner is uneventful, no one drops their
food today, although Rose takes the napkins from the napkin holder
rearranges them, hands some out and puts the rest back in the holder. While
doing this, she looks up at me, tells me that I’m very pretty and that my mom
is a lovely lady. Mrs. Clemente is unusually quiet…maybe her drug cocktail is
too strong and her family has not noticed or complained yet. Eleanor tells a
story about living in upstate NY ….My mom just politely stares and eats her food
and talks to me in Spanish.
Once my mom is done eating, I take her
upstairs myself. I don’t wait for the aides to do it. Since my mom had her intestines nipped the
digestion process has speeded up. So, I
prefer to skip the resident’s elevator rush hour to accommodate my mom’s needs.
Once safely upstairs and in the bathroom,
my mom, is now reverting to childlike behavior. Sitting in the toilet with her
pants and diaper down to her ankles, her rosy complexion and rounded shape she resembles a child with
slightly worn skin.
I wait for nature to take its course, put
on rubber gloves and clean her up.
I am careful not to hurt her but also make
sure she is not soiled and help her dress again.
When I started doing this, she would
apologize that she should be the one doing the wiping. Now, she’s more
accepting of it and doesn’t complain anymore, just quietly and happily accepts
the help.
Initially, not having had children, I was
repelled by this. Now, I am certain that this experience closes a life cycle
and I’m grateful that I can give back just a little to the person who gave me
everything.
I change my mom into her pajamas, turn up
the room’s heat and put Mom to bed.
Sofia’s TV is still on, but now Sofia has
dozed off in her wheelchair. I turn down
the volume on Sofia’s TV and kiss my mother goodnight. My mom seems happy and ready for sleep. I
turn out her lamp and go down to my zippy, little, red VW Golf for my trek back
home.
