My sister is in town this week from Boston. She's staying at our mother's condo. We ordered Chinese food from a local favorite restaurant, and I picked up the food on my way over to visit and have another “family discussion” about the maternal parental unit who is the center of our orbit.Darkness is especially dark when it's raining. I suppose it doesn't help that my eyes don't work as well after dark. Still, I managed to avoid hitting the pedestrians who scrambled across 82nd Avenue in pitch black night, heading for the bus stop. Victory for me. And them.
At the restaurant, the woman behind the counter said she'd be right back with my order. While I waited, a young Chinese man handed me a nickel and pointed at the tabletop fountain on the counter.
“Make a wish,” he said.
“What? A wish?” I said in confusion.
“Yeah, make a wish for me.”
I studied him. It occurred to me that perhaps he was a slow thinker. His voice sounded a bit slurred. But his smile was open and genuine, despite some broken teeth. He looked mid-20s, not very tall, and pretty well dressed. He didn't smell. He looked like someone's goofy kid brother.
“Okay,” I said. I took the nickel from his fingers and held it poised over the fountain. I said the first thing that came into my mind. “May you have many friends.”
He smiled. “Then what do I do?” he asked.
“Be a good friend,” I said and dropped the coin into the fountain. I sat down on the bench by the door. He grinned and sat down next to me, maybe just a little too close. It occurred to me, maybe he's not mentally slow, maybe he's on drugs.
“Is he bothering you?” The woman behind the counter sounded concerned. “Your order's almost ready.”
“Thanks, no, he's fine,” I said.
“She doesn't like me,” the kid said to me.
“Why? Are you making trouble?” I asked him.
“She doesn't want to talk to you,” said the woman, looking angrily at the kid.
“Maybe you ought to move on,” I suggested gently to the kid.
“Your order's ready,” the woman said, holding up a white plastic bag.
“I just want something to eat,” the kid said.
I thought, uh-oh, homeless, hungry, and on drugs. I thought of the money I had on me, wondered if I should give him some money to buy food. Then I thought, no, the woman would probably not appreciate my altruistic gesture if it meant he wouldn't go away. I sat paralyzed for probably a full 10 seconds, staring at the smiling Buddha sitting smugly on a shelf behind the counter, thinking through the scenarios. Finally, I stood up and handed the woman my mother's debit card to pay for the order. The kid stood up and went back to the fountain.
I did nothing. I paid for the order, turned my back on the whole thing, and went out into the rain.
Later, after dinner, after cigarettes, my brother and I were getting antsy to be gone. My sister got the drift. She wrangled Mom from her bat cave and computer games and enticed her to sit on the couch. Time for the family discussion. Oh boy, said the pot stirrer.
“We want to get a sense of where you are at in your plans to stay in the condo or move to a care home,” I said loudly, speaking at my mother across my brother. She's conveniently hard of hearing sometimes. From a certain angle, I noticed her head looked like a skull with very little skin, an animated skull. Weird.
“I want to stay here at least for the summer,” Mom said. “You can check out the places and if we find one we like, I might consider moving in the fall.”
Of course, it took many more words, shrugs, interruptions, questions, comments, and eye rolls (on my part) to arrive at that conclusion. I'm giving you the abridged version to protect your delicate sensibilities. You are welcome. So, that was the gist of the discussion. No surprise. Nothing's changed. Essentially, she wants to stay put until she can't function anymore.
It's all good, right? I think it's good for her to speak her decision out loud, so she can hear that it's her decision, not ours. It's good for her to feel that her children are actually listening to her. It's good for her children to get a sense of how her world is shrinking inward, narrowing in scope and depth, like a baby planet nucleus imploding on itself.
There probably will be less and less flexibility, less tolerance for ambiguity, less willingness to learn new skills. I expect to see her desire to manage and control increase as she tries to keep things from unraveling. I expect to feel increased frustration and fear, which I predict I will mostly manage to keep hidden from my mother as I dump on my siblings to relieve the pressure.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. I could get hit by a garbage truck tomorrow. Unlikely, but possible. You know what they say: Don't count your chickens... until they tear your lips off.
