Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

An excerpt from Mothering Mother

Other Days

On a good day, Mother shuffles around with a fair gait, surprising us all. Parkinson’s is like that. The way I understand it, the brain stops producing the dopamine it needs to jolt the tiny charges that connect synapses and allow thought and movement to synergize. So, sometimes Mother can walk pretty well, and other times, she’s frozen or jerky. We’re grateful for the good days when she explores the house, the furniture and whatnots, as if browsing in a fine department store, acting like she’s never seen these items before. I often find her standing in my pantry, hand deep in the Cheeze-Its.

Other days—bad days—I hear her faint call from her apartment at about eight in the morning. I am not Miss Cheerful in the morning and avoid all conversation until at least nine, sometimes ten, not until my two cups of coffee have made a full lap around my bloodstream. I rise from my couch after her third call, lay my journal on the table, sip one last drop of the divine, and allow myself to become her human walker. She claims that canes are useless and walkers are cumbersome and, after her many attempts to get them to do as she commands, she winds up tossing them across the room.

I have agreed to stand beside her, her fingers digging into my wrist as she hovers frozen in her bedroom doorway. Changes from carpet to tile, walls to doorjamb, shut down the delicate firing pistons. And so we stand here, silent, shaking and waiting.

I try to treat her when the Parkinson’s flares up as I would a stuttering child, with patience and tenderness. She’s broken out in a sweat as she’s attempted to walk from the bed to the doorway. I close my eyes, still half dreamy, nestled in thoughts of my own bed. I swoon and remember where I am, still waiting for her to move, my head tilted and rested on the doorframe.

After her medication has kicked in, she toodles around her apartment rearranging this and that. She loves to whistle and is quite good at it. I like hearing her whistle because it means she’s in a good mood. Sometimes she’ll come over to my piano and play. She played in church for years and years. Her repertoire consists of old hymns and a few hits from the forties. Her cascading runs hide the occasional mistake of the damaged pinky finger. A serene look comes over her face when she plays, and I hope she’s imagining she’s some place else.

I ask her if she’d like to play me a song, but she says she wants to read the morning paper. I help her to the chair, get out the bowl, put in cereal, slice the banana, and lay out a spoon. I slip the paper out of its green plastic wrapper and lay it on the table then walk back to her nightstand to get her glasses. I stand next to her and hold out her glasses. She tilts her head to the side, indicating that I should put her glasses on for her. I take the arms of the glasses and glide them past her hair and around her ears, then position them on her nose

“When I get me a stove I can cook my own meals,” she says, looking up at me.

I haven’t found a way to tell her that I don’t think it would be a good idea for her to cook. I’m afraid she’ll catch herself on fire, or an oven mitt, and burn down the house. I avoid the subject, but she’s getting annoyed.

I put a large towel in her lap; milk on a spoon has a way of ending up on her gown. She eats while I unpack. She must wake up lonely because that’s when she asks me a myriad of useless questions.

“You’re moody in the morning, do you know that?” she asks.

“You think so?” I’m being facetious.

“I’m the same all the time.”

You can say that again.

I turn on the TV to a Christian station. She perks up, content with breakfast, paper, and a preacher to listen to. She’s anxious to go to church. She asks me several times a day. I tell her we’ll find one soon. I’m still trying to find my socks.
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Carol D. O’Dell (Florida U.S.A. is a creative writing teacher and inspirational speaker focusing on writing, spirituality, caregiving and adoption issues. Visit her website at www.mothering-mother.com.

Carol D. O’Dell’s . . . memoir Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir (by Kunati Publishing) is for the “sandwich” generation” and all those who are caregiving those they love. Mothering Mother overflows with humor, grace and much needed honesty . . . . Her fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in numerous publications including Atlanta Magazine, Southern Revival, Blue Moon Review, Margin Magazine, The Pisgah Review, and AIM, America’s Intercultural Magazine. She is a 2005 scholarship recipient for the Summer Literary Series in St. Petersburg Russia and the 2006 John Woods Scholarship recipient for the Prague Summer Program. (Information supplied by the author.)

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