Are You My Mother?

By Peggy Phillips

This place is surprisingly noisy. Voices seem to carry loudly down the long hallway. Her room is not too far from the physical therapy area, so there is a lot of activity and conversation outside her door. The door could be closed, but it’s hot today and with the window open in her room it’s the only way to get cross-ventilation. She doesn’t care for the room. The fabric covered lampshade of the the bedside lamp doesn’t match the fabric of the curtains, and the lamp itself is way too tall for anyone to reach the switch while lying in bed. Her spirits have gone up and down over the three days she has been here. Today she’s not interested in much and seems confused and weak and frail. This scares me. 

I sit here today at the bedside of this very old woman asleep in a hospital bed and wonder who she is. It reminds me of the old children’s book “Are You My Mother?” My mother has beautiful bright white hair that she takes great pride in. She makes sure it’s cut regularly to keep her short style chic and neat and she’s picky about how it’s cut. She uses special purple shampoos to keep the bright white from turning yellow. “How does my hair look?” is perhaps her one concession to vanity besides running a lipstick over her lips once a day, maybe twice if she is going out later.

But this woman I’m with now, she’s not the same. As she lies sleeping in the hospital bed I notice that her hair is a mess. It hasn’t been washed recently, it’s not finger styled and dried like my mom does hers. It’s combed all wrong and going in all directions after days in bed. No one would ever stop to compliment this woman on her beautiful hair like sometimes happens to my mother. 

Today, this woman’s affect is flat. She is not interested in much and sleeps a lot. CNN is on the television and she might attend to it for a minute before closing her eyes. It’s hard to tell if she’s sleeping our just wants to close the world out. It’s still painful for her to move much, so most of the last two weeks she has been in bed, and it shows. While my mother is a vibrant force of energy who laughs heartily and enjoys people, wine, and a good joke, this old woman is feeble and weak. Her hand shakes as she brings a spoonful of soup to her mouth. Her voice is soft, seemingly without much emotion. She is so tired. 

Sometimes her face brightens and she converses in such a familiar way that I think I might know her. While I sat by her bed this morning, her eyes sparkled as she told me her grandson came to visit last evening and they had a good time. That is like my mother. She adores her grandchildren and is always delighted to see them.

My mother likes people and is interested in their stories, who they are and where they came from, but this old frail woman is not interested at all in the daily parade of people who come to her room. Nurses, LVNs, nursing assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists all come and go with the barest of acknowledgements. The therapists come to help her regain her strength and balance so she can go home, something she desperately wants to do. The exercises are very easy and still she struggles; she seems to give up so quickly. My mother is a fighter. Any time she’s been injured either with a sprain or small broken bone, she’s been diligent in doing whatever was needed to recover. She’s always been an early riser and up until her 100th birthday she was still walking up three flights of stairs to work on her raised flower bed in the rooftop garden of her senior living building. 

They are so different, this woman and my mother, yet there are vague similarities that confuse me. She called me “Peg” when I came in this morning and no one but my mother calls me that. When she does smile, it’s with the same warm, brown eyes my mother has and the same beautiful smile that makes my heart smile, too. 

I’ve been here with this frail, very elderly woman for a few hours now and I’m beginning to think that, despite all the many differences, she really is my mother. The last couple of weeks have been so hard and difficult and painful for her. She wants to go home very badly. And I want that for her as much. And, if that happens, who will she be? Will she still be my mother?

This “new” her is unknown and it’s frightening.

And it breaks my heart.

Photo by Nancy Rubin

Peggy Phillips
Born in 1951