The Long Goodbye

Looking at the sparkly ring on my finger brings a pang of pain and guilt. It’s my mom’s white gold ring with three gleaming diamonds. She had it designed about 15 years ago by Anne-Marie Warburton who works at the Alton Mill. Transforming three diamonds and a couple of small chippy ones into a modern design kept the memory of her mom and my dad’s mom with her, everywhere she went.

The ring is gorgeous and I’m happy to wear it, but on my hand it feels more hefty than its actual molecular weight.

About a month ago, my mom’s hands became so thin that her rings would no longer stay on. This was after a serious battle with Covid. She lay in her bed, feverish, delirious and unable to get up. My husband, Derrick, and I took turns sitting on the tiny wooden chair in her room and looked in on her for a few hours a day, every day we could. We gowned up, with mask, face shield, booties.

My mom moved into long-term care in August of last year. Years before, her dementia had progressed to the point where she needed 24-hour-a-day care. My dad stoically took on the task of caring for her as her needs grew. We all became acutely aware of the burden on him and offered to help, and did help, where we could. But dementia is a peculiar disease. It’s pervasive, and the needs of the person with dementia are nuanced and change from moment to moment – leaving caregivers feeling useless a lot of the time and a burden themselves.

My dad, Jim, and my mom, Carol, had screeched into a condo in Orangeville after she broke her hip from a fall, and the weather and challenge of living in rural Everett became too much to handle day in and day out. My dad had lost his driver’s licence at the same time due to his decline in eyesight. It was not a celebratory time as we greeted people in this lovely new condo full of lively people. Covid had chewed up how people were relating, and the move felt like a shock.

Soon the critical care my mom needed could wait no longer. Working with community care folks to arrange her move felt like a puzzle, even with our awareness of “the system.” My dad, Derrick and I all have good language and advocacy skills, but still it felt like the ground was shifting under us in the swirl of balancing home care, help and next steps. I can’t imagine what this journey would feel like if a person was on their own without advocates or struggled with language. As we forged toward the day of her move, it felt a lot like we were walking into a tunnel, where the sounds are screamingly loud and muffled at the same time. We bundled up my mom and put her in my car.

Now, she’s tired and it all feels so soon. She’s been very well cared for, but her body and brain are fighting what feels like the final fight. Dementia hits people in different ways – wildly so. Some of her humour and love still come out, but only occasionally. Her moods can still seem so surprising. A lot of discomfort, anger, and complex layers of feelings surface for her as she still finds her own way to advocate for herself: “I hate how this tastes.” “These people are greedy!” “This sweater is awful; undo the zipper!”

I hate that my son, Adrian, sees her like this, and he hates it too. His Gramma has always been kind, giving, sweet and generous. She connected him to the world of animals from an early age – showing him how to groom her horse, Kiera, and how to feed the barn kitties, look after their whippet, Jet, and then their greyhound, Zara. She asked him to fix her computer or TV and he obliged. She only cooked the food he wanted, gave him as much syrup as he liked, allowed sugar cereals, and met him with a smile on vacation. We placed carrots out the front door in Florida for Santa’s reindeers when we visited at Christmastime.

We want her to live forever. And we know she can’t. She fights a fever to get up and take a walk, and this is when I see she’s still my forceful and spirited mom. I imagine her brain lining up chores to do, animal whispering to be done, a horse to tack up and take for a trail ride with me through Mono Cliffs park. She will lead the way, and then when we’re home, we’ll drink tea and discuss the weekend ahead.

This season of her life has been so unexpected, and yet it shouldn’t be, as we’ve already been on a long and relentless journey.

I move her halo of icy blonde hair that lies softly on the pillow, and twirl the twinkling, heavy ring around my finger. I carry you with me every day, Mom.