Oooooh, Oooooh, Its Happening Again

"Hi Judy, this is your sister-in-law, Mary. I’m calling to tell you that your mother broke her hip and is in the hospital having emergency surgery tonight." I immediately dialed my brother’s phone number wanting more details than the brief message Mary had left on my voice mail. Failing to reach my brother, I called the hospital. "Sorry, we have no record of a Hilda Wiseman having been admitted. Check the emergency room."

After twenty minutes of listening to Musak, while waiting for an emergency room nurse to return to the phone, I gave up and called the nursing staff at The Home For Jewish Parents. After three failed attempts to find out if they knew where my mom was, I slammed the phone down and plopped onto my favorite upholstered chair.

Staring vacuously out into the moonless night, I broached two particularly noxious thoughts: "Maybe she’ll die on the operating table. And, if dad dies soon, there’ll still be lots of money from the sale of their house." Both of these thoughts had wickedly freeing appeal to me.

The next morning, driving to the hospital (having confirmed that my mother had been admitted and operated upon), my attention divided itself between my longstanding heartlessness towards my mother and listening to my six year old compose an excoriating letter to the manager of an indoor playground facility("The Jungle is so dirty my mommy says I can’t play there unless you clean it")

Before pulling into the hospital garage I’d managed to loosen a few bricks from the wall of separation between my mother and myself. I’d long resented her self absorption and constant expectation that I "kiss her ass." And she withheld all interest in me, save for those times when I succeeded in doing something that pleased her. "Weren’t both of our hearts in cold storage each of us at once the isolator and the isolatee?

And with that small epiphany of sameness, I could finally invoke, for each of us, compassion by grace.

Wending my way through hospital corridors my daughter’s hand tucked warmly into mine, I found room 3061. The room smelled of shit. My frail mother was holding tight, with trembling arms to a triangular bar above her head. She looked frightened, lost.

"I’ve just come to visit my mother, Hilda Wiseman, "I told the nurse. "She’s got herself plastered to some kind of bar. Is she supposed to be like that? She doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing or why."

"I told her she doesn’t need to hold on anymore," the nurse answered curtly. "We had her holding on so she could have a bowel movement into the bed pan."

Returning to my mother’s bedside, I gently peeled her cold translucent fingers off the bar, "You can let go now, Mom. It’s OK. They’ll come clean you up in a minute.

She lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes. I took her hand and stroked her forehead. "Are you in pain, Mom?" She said nothing. I squeezed her hand. My daughter climbed into my lap and put her arms around my neck. Mom, it’s Judy and Melissa. We came to visit you. " She said nothing.

"Oooh, oooh, it’s loosening up again." my mother cried. " I don’t want to hit my nose on that bar." "Ooooh, ooooh, it’s loosening up again."

I stroked her forehead and tucked the hanging bar on its overhead rack. Returning to the nurse’s station, I said, "My mom seems pretty confused and worried about that bar over her bed. I hope it’s OK that I moved it. Will someone come clean her up. She’s always had control over her bowels."

The nurse, still writing her report, never looking up, replied, "Someone will be there shortly." As we turned towards my mother’s doorway, the nurse, now smiling, looked up and asked Melissa, "Was Santa good to you, honey?"

My mother lay there silently, arms trembling, eyes closed. I punctuated my small talk by squeezing her hand gently. "Melissa was writing a letter in the car on her way here. She can spell almost everything herself, now."

Speaking for the first time since arriving, Melissa told her grandmother, "Bubby, I’m writing to the manager of The Jungle. I want him to fire that man who wiped snot on his hands when he gave me my shoes so mommy will let me go to the jungle again."

Failing to respond to Melissa, my mother repeated, "Ooooh, ooooh, it’s happening again. It’s happening again," my mother cried. Removing my hand from hers, I brushed away tears that I could no longer restrain. "Are you in pain, Mom? Is there anything I can do?"

We sat there, the three of us, silently. It was an awkward, thick, silence broken only by, "Ooooh, oooooh, it’s happening again."

Forty- five minutes passed. "Mom, Melissa and I are going to go now. I’ll come back to see you on Monday. I’ll try to bring Rebecca, too." I gently removed my hand from hers and reached for Melissa’s hand.

"Whatever’s convenient, whenever you can," my mom replied. As we walked out the door, her eyes still closed, "Oooooooh, oooooh, it’s loosening up again. It’s happening again."

Melissa, taking the lead, happily retraced our now familiar path to the elevator. Walking towards the garage, I took a huge breath, and instantly, all the tears I’d been holding back, gushed down my cheeks. Melissa, hearing me sniffling, wiped the tears from my cheek.

I picked her up, and pressed her heart against mine. "Let’s go sit on the bench over there. It’s not OK for me to drive when I’m this sad, baby cakes. I want you to always let yourself be sad when you’re sad. Tears are good. Mommy’s fine. I’m just very, very sad about Bubby. "

And we sat there, beneath a leafless Sycamore tree until my tears dried. "You’ve been very patient this afternoon." I said. "Let’s go to Lakeshore and see if they have any toys on sale."

"The store where I get to do art projects while you shop?" she asked excitedly.

"Yes, honey, that one."