The Hourglass
May 5, 2010, by Prudence Baird
Prudence Baird paints a picture of mother and daughter—in roles rarely revealed
Two figures move as one under a hot January sun across the steaming asphalt of a medical building parking lot. This is the kind of day that brings hordes of winter refugees west following the televised New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena, California.
One of the figures is a frail old woman collapsed in a transporter wheelchair—a conveyance with four small wheels, made for transferring from place-to-place those whose self-propelling days are history. The other is a middle-aged stick figure; her veiny hands grasp the heavy rubber handles of the transporter, pushing her load gently in the unseasonably warm mid-morning air.
When the conjoined pair reaches an unwashed silver Volvo, the ambulatory woman expertly backs the transporter into the space alongside the passenger side of the car and stops. The middle aged woman—who, if you haven’t guessed by now, is me—rummages for her keys in a worn black backpack hanging by the handles of the conveyance.
A click of the medallion, and a few moments later, my mother, for that is the skeletal old woman in the transporter, is expertly pivoted and strapped into the front seat. Because of the heat, I leave the door open wide while, in an oft-rehearsed routine, I roll the transporter to the rear of the car, open the trunk gate, kneel to swivel and unhook the removable foot pads, unlock the frame, and collapse the chair into a manageable 12-pound package of chrome steel, rubber and vinyl, ready to be loaded into the trunk.
While hoisting the chair, a shiny new maroon Cadillac Seville with tinted windows pulls alongside. The passenger side window silently descends and a tawny faced woman of about 60 leans across the gleaming leather front seat. Her hair, a shade of orange unknown to nature, sticks up in unraveling, dehydrated curlish clumps and her red nails rap nervously on the steering wheel.
“Is that your mother?” she demands.
I nod, wiping a trickle of sweat from under the nose bridge of my sunglasses.
“How long have you been doing this?” she jerks her head in the direction of the chair now on its side in my trunk. We both know what she means.
I pause, counting not the years, but instead seeing multiple images unfold, all etched in needle-sharp pricks against the backdrop of my forties. And with each piercing, I feel again the juice of vitality bleed from my veins, leaving me a pale shadow of the apple-cheeked woman I had been at 40.
Although I know that each moment of maternal care and gentle handling scoops from my life a nourishing drink I would rather bestow on my children, my husband and myself, I cannot stop myself from giving. Each smiling moment and lingering touch, whether a softly delivered sponge-bath or an outing to the pet store to hold small animals, crafts black moments when I am neither wife nor mother, but caregiver to a departed woman who lovingly, distractedly and, at times, somewhat misguidedly, raised me and whose ghostly, guilty presence is more of a draw and more of a drain than anyone who has not been here can understand.
“Five years,” I reply in a mechanical voice, suppressing whatever feeling might come with the confession that I have let pass five crucial years of my children’s lives while the unforgiving and ungrateful chasm of my mother’s need has grown wider and wider still.
The rear window of the Cadillac now descends revealing an equally orangish, shriveled crone, her mouth agape, strapped into the back seat. Her sunken cheeks are crisscrossed with lines and her eyes have a frantic wildness I see in my mother’s.
As we near death, I wonder, do we try to see it coming with these widened eyes? Or are those bulging eyeballs simply more evidence of the gruesome, drip-by-drip drain that empties our corporeal vessel, rendering improbable—to those who meet us in these last stages of our lives—the very idea that we were once full-bodied, beguiling maidens whose organs, hard parts and soft orbs were suspended in a fertile sea?
The driver jerks her head towards the withered woman in the back seat. “Ten years!” She gasps, looking at me in horror. “Ten years!”
I stare into the car’s interior, not sure if a shadow of pain doesn’t flit across the parchmentlike forehead and yellowed sclera of the elder figure in the back seat. Silently as they descended, the windows rise together and the two orange women are gone with a screech of wheels on the hot pavement.
I close the trunk, open the driver’s side door, lean inside, start the engine and air conditioner. My mother looks at me, silent as usual but her eyes hold a question I dare not answer. I squeeze her bony elbow, “Somebody just asking a question, Mom.”
I trot around the front of the vehicle so that, if she wishes to, my mother can see me and not fear that I’ve again abandoned her. I lean inside, making some inconsequential last adjustments of her seat belt. I smile into the face of the person I first loved and whose life was devoted to me, my two sisters and her husband.
“Hi Momma,” I coo, trying to make up to her for a world of wrongs and hurts that have long been relegated to her own forgotten history. A pair of bloodshot light blue eyes follow me and a faint smile plays across lips thinned by age.
Just as they couldn’t send us, when we were incorrigible teenagers, to Moscow with a note pinned on our sweaters, we cannot now abandon those who gave us life but who, in their decrepitude, puncture our very beings with unquenchable need.
I cannot but give, even though the very act robs me and my family of breath. All is forgiven, Mama, I whisper to myself, as I fasten my own seatbelt. And I wonder as we head home, when the hourglass turns, will those who render my care forgive me as well?
May 5th, 2010 at 6:28 am
My mother, age 94, has been in our care for the past ten years. My sister and I share caregiver responsibilities and there are times when the responsibility is more daunting than either of us can admit. Thank you for this beautifully written, intensely personal, honest, painful reflection. My husband and I have been blessed with lots of family to help care for our aging parents — some now deceased. For us, the difficulty is helping them through the process and knowing, as you described, that we aren’t far behind. My daughter, at such a young age, is exceptionally aware, that we need to treasure every moment and honor the elderly — in spite of their shortcomings. My mom, who had to take care of her parents (they lived with us Italian village style), is always grateful and never demanding. Her mother couldn’t have been more difficult or demanding if she tried. It certainly makes caring for her much more pleasant. Thanks for sharing this. It’s helpful.
May 5th, 2010 at 7:35 am
My mother did not linger. I am grateful for that fact. Your beautiful/bittersweet rendering of this time has, on this day, made me grateful for a body (my own) which has taunted me with what seems like an ever increasing fullness. Today I choose to view this fullness as life giving and affirming. Knowing acutely this will not always be so.
May 5th, 2010 at 8:40 am
I am grateful that my mother left this life quickly and sweetly, with people who loved her all around. I wept when I read this, Pru, for her suffering and yours and our inability to know how to travel through this last journey of ours. I wish your family peace.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Your inability to stop giving and your giant heart is what makes you so unique. Your mother was one lucky lady, Prudence. Beautiful words. Excellent piece.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Beauty.
May 5th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Being a mother. Being a daughter. The well never runs dry. Prudence, your artistic strokes on the canvas of life are superb. I can feel and touch every nuance. Thank you.
May 5th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
you made your churlish husband cry. i will get you for that– get you whatever you want for mother’s day. love, me
May 6th, 2010 at 1:13 am
Prudence. Prudence. You have such a gift – thanks for sharing The Hourglass, it hits very close to home for me…
May 6th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Beautiful, Pru. I have passed this on to others who will appreciate your writing and sentiments.
May 6th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Thank you for this beautiful Mother’s Day card.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Thank you for the poignant article. I sit here on Mother’s Day
still burning inside for the Mom, who did not know how to love
me. Her emotional body was frozen or itself deprived. Oh, I served
her up until her last breath. Then I climbed into bed and collapsed
for years. I am writing a book on the topic for those who live without this awakened candle in their heart.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
You are just extraordinary, Prudence; I loved your piece–and, yes, I well remember knowing you through those days. Happy Mother’s Day, to one of the most deserving mothers I have known.
May 11th, 2010 at 9:41 am
It has taken me a week of re-reading The Hourglass to be able to write about it. Prudence, your words and images are deeply affecting. Thank you the love you put into your words and the honesty of the emotions behind them.
May 14th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Prudence a most impressive writing about something so special and so important to millions today – caring for our aged relatives. You will touch many with this writing as I felt I was there watching the scene described. God Bless you for all you have done as a daughter.
May 16th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Dear Prudence – Isn’t that a song? Anyway…Thank You for sharing your experience with your aged mother. I also have two sisters and an 83 year old mother in need of care. She moved to a retirement community recently but seems to be requiring more care than we expected. I am considering moving her in with me in the near future. Your story gave me courage as well as fear. You see, I cared for my first husband who was phsically disabled, for 11 years…until he died in ’94. I know how difficult it is!
May 16th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Thank you, everyone, for all your thoughts. I firmly believe that the most loving gesture we can offer our children and family members is to prepare in advance for our own decline, especially by down-sizing our possessions and scale of living.
My parents left a garage that was packed to the rafters with both crap and treasure, and a house to match. Although I had two sisters, neither helped, so it took me three years to sort through everything. So many times I wanted to turn to someone and say, “Remember this?” and reminisce. But there was no one there; just the ghosts and echoes of my own adolescence and childhood.
The other way we can be kind to those we leave behind is to drop dead immediately and not linger, wearing down friends, family and depleting resources that can be better used by those who can put them to productive use.
I find that those most horrified by these practical assessments are those who rely on others to do the heavy-lifting. You’d be surprised at how many family members spend an inordinate amount of time critiquing those who do the caregiving, all the while going on with their lives as if it is completely normal for someone else to pour her vitality and essence into an ever-growing black hole.
June 4th, 2010 at 12:54 am
You are just extraordinary, Prudence; I loved your piece–and, yes, I well remember knowing you through those days. Happy Mother’s Day, to one of the most deserving mothers I have known.