She's Responsible.
I know who is responsible for most of my troubles.
I paid the nursing home a visit. She was rocking in the chair under a hideous afghan. She caught my gaze with a spark of recognition, and a grin that would have disturbed even if it covered more than the right half of her face.
“Hi, Mom.” I could sense her planning, one good eye darting around the room, her Valium-addled brain looking for dirt to kick up inconspicuously. But hey, you couldn't be hard on her, she’d had a massive stroke, and it was a miracle that she could even sit up, and that her language had been spared. Doctors had virtually assured me she would be in the ground by now. I was dying more quickly than she.
“Oh, darling!” She spoke in that peculiar post-stroke manner, as if the limp syllables were falling out of her mouth into a muffled pile on her blanket. “I’ve been feeling so lonely.”
“I came yesterday, don’t you remember?” Every visit was a guilt trip. They were putting drugs in her coffee, even though she had swallowed mouthfuls of pills on her own for over 40 years now, or the nurse beat her, just like Dad, or I hadn’t come to see her enough, even though I had and she just “couldn’t remember, stroke patients have trouble with those things, you see,” and there was nothing worse than leaving someone after such a tragic accident to wallow in their own shit, as half a miserable person, except enjoying the fact that she deserved it, every ounce of her wrinkled carcass due this utter misery.
“Oh. That’s right. I used the bathroom on my own today, but the nurse refused to let me get dressed on my own. Please get me out of here.” Not that you didn’t refuse to let Dad access his own finances, or torture us every day with the deliberate timing of your gossip, or pit our entire family against each other only to emerge as some benevolent mediator fixing the cracks you’d hacked open yourself. An opening, I know she's not self-sufficient. She can't even use half her body.
“Did you remember to wipe?” I ask this as she stares off in two separate directions, and the good half of her mouth falls open in realization. I think I did it, I think I really damaged her dignity this time. I think the deliberate nature of her humiliation has finally passed a wretched synapse.
“No, I didn’t,” she said, raising her arm to her forehead. I rang the nurse.
I paid the nursing home a visit. She was rocking in the chair under a hideous afghan. She caught my gaze with a spark of recognition, and a grin that would have disturbed even if it covered more than the right half of her face.
“Hi, Mom.” I could sense her planning, one good eye darting around the room, her Valium-addled brain looking for dirt to kick up inconspicuously. But hey, you couldn't be hard on her, she’d had a massive stroke, and it was a miracle that she could even sit up, and that her language had been spared. Doctors had virtually assured me she would be in the ground by now. I was dying more quickly than she.
“Oh, darling!” She spoke in that peculiar post-stroke manner, as if the limp syllables were falling out of her mouth into a muffled pile on her blanket. “I’ve been feeling so lonely.”
“I came yesterday, don’t you remember?” Every visit was a guilt trip. They were putting drugs in her coffee, even though she had swallowed mouthfuls of pills on her own for over 40 years now, or the nurse beat her, just like Dad, or I hadn’t come to see her enough, even though I had and she just “couldn’t remember, stroke patients have trouble with those things, you see,” and there was nothing worse than leaving someone after such a tragic accident to wallow in their own shit, as half a miserable person, except enjoying the fact that she deserved it, every ounce of her wrinkled carcass due this utter misery.
“Oh. That’s right. I used the bathroom on my own today, but the nurse refused to let me get dressed on my own. Please get me out of here.” Not that you didn’t refuse to let Dad access his own finances, or torture us every day with the deliberate timing of your gossip, or pit our entire family against each other only to emerge as some benevolent mediator fixing the cracks you’d hacked open yourself. An opening, I know she's not self-sufficient. She can't even use half her body.
“Did you remember to wipe?” I ask this as she stares off in two separate directions, and the good half of her mouth falls open in realization. I think I did it, I think I really damaged her dignity this time. I think the deliberate nature of her humiliation has finally passed a wretched synapse.
“No, I didn’t,” she said, raising her arm to her forehead. I rang the nurse.
