I drove away feeling somewhat superior that I had remembered to park my car on the street last night instead of in my usual parking spot now occupied by said backhoe.I did my errands, came home, and parked my car on the street. I think I could have parked in my usual spot. As I lugged three grocery bags of food toward my back door, I saw the workers had finished laying the concrete tubes, filled in the trench, and parked their equipment at the bottom of the hill. In fact, they were nowhere to be seen. Only their little neon flags and the big Local Traffic Only sign remained. I admired the level gravel parking area. I put my groceries away, reveling in the silence. Then the cat and I took a nap. At 6:00 p.m., it was time to visit Mom. Three of my neighbors' cars now occupied all the parking spaces.
When I got to the care facility, Mom had just returned from dinner.
“I have some gluten-free macaroni to give the cook,” I said. “I'll be right back.” The kitchen is twenty steps down the hall. I put the boxes of pasta on the stainless steel table. Thirty seconds later, I returned to see Mom just settling down on the couch.
“Hey, Slacker, let's change the batteries in your hearing aids.”
She levered herself back up to a sitting position, an astounding feat considering the couch is actually a pastel flower-covered black hole. Every Monday night I remove her hearing aids, open the little trap doors, and switch out the tiny batteries. I have to take off my glasses so I can see to peel off the little coverings that keep the batteries fresh. I have a routine so I don't mix up the old and new batteries. Sometimes I have to use a little gizmo to replace a tiny tube that gets clogged with ear wax. I used to find it a little gross to mess around with my mother's ear wax. Now I don't care.
I got the hearing aids situated. “Testing, testing.”
“Uh-oh. Something feels like it needs to come out,” Mom said, standing up. It took me a scant moment to realize what she was talking about.
“Okay, do your thing.”
She grabbed her walker and shuffled around the divider wall to the bathroom. I turned on the television. Sadly, TV Land stopped running M.A.S.H. reruns last week. Now we are stuck with HGTV. I sat on the couch, tempted to crank up the volume on Love it or List it, praying I would soon hear the toilet flush. No such luck. Considering the sewer-related theme of the day, it was no big surprise that Mom went into the bathroom and got stuck there as her brain tried to figure out what to do with the poop in her pull-ups.
She called my name. I leaped into action.
It never occurred to me that I might someday be helping my mother navigate her toileting challenges. When my parents wrote their wills, I was the last of the four children to be named executor of the estate. I'm sure they figured it was the end of the road if my three siblings had somehow expired before me and my parents' care was left in my hands. I don't blame them. I was not a reliable or trustworthy daughter. Certainly I didn't seem to be caregiver material. Fast forward four decades and look at me now. I'm an expert at tearing the side seams of poop-filled pull-ups.
I removed her Merrells and pulled off her elastic waist blue jeans. I tore off the pull-ups. “Are you done pooping?”
“I don't know. I think so.” She reached for the toilet paper roll.
My mother has developed a . . . how shall I put this? A specific cleansing routine involving two carefully counted and folded sheets of toilet paper. I'm sure somewhere in her crumbling neurons are intense memories of the clog-prone toilets at our old house, which no doubt accounts for her stingy use of TP. She does not have to pay for it at the care facility but telling her that does no good. She slowly folds the two sheets in half and goes in from the front, if you know what I mean. She leans so far forward as she's trying to clean up the damage, I'm afraid she'll do a face plant, but always she bobs back up, like a Bobo doll. Then she drags out the soiled tissue from between her thighs to examine the results, which inevitably ends up on her fingers.
At this point, she's caught in a loop. She cannot resolve her dilemma. I've seen this routine a few times now and wondered to what extent I should try to intervene. Today I thought, what the hell.
“Hey, let's try this.” I reeled off a fine handful of toilet paper and handed it to her. “Scoot forward a little and go in from the back.”
She's a trooper when it comes to taking direction. She doesn't question. If she had any brain cells left, she might have said, “What, are you crazy? Hokay, here goes nothing, Einstein.”
She leaned forward, reached around with the wad of TP, and rummaged around back there for a good long while. Finally she sat up and we both examined the results. I reeled off another wad of TP and handed it to her. “One more time,” I suggested. She repeated the routine. Eventually we were both satisfied.
“Okay, great. Now stand up, and give it a good wipe with this.” I handed her a big wad of wet wipes, which are stacked in packages on the back of the toilet.
“Wipe what?”
“Your butt.” She did as directed. We checked the results. “That goes in the trash,” I said. She complied.
“Alright. Sit back down.” I got her toes into a fresh pair of pull-ups. She waggled her feet into her jeans. I could tell she has done this before. I positioned her shoes.
“Now you can stand up and hike up your drawers.”
She stood up with some help and yanked everything into place.
“Now flush.” She flushed, watching the action. I'm pretty sure she fears clogging the toilet. She closed the lid and turned back toward me.
“Let's wash our hands,” I suggested, thinking of all the surfaces she touched with dirty fingers. While she washed at the sink, I grabbed another wipe and wiped down the door handle and the toilet handle.
We watched the end of Love it or List it. I turned the channel. M.A.S.H. was on MeTV at 7:00 p.m. She decided she wanted to walk me to the end of the hallway. We sang I've Been Working on the Railroad. Partway along the hall, she said, “Jane died.”
“Jane, your smoking buddy?”
“No, no, the one who sits at the end of my table.”
“Oh, you mean Alice.” I couldn't believe it. I saw Alice just last week, looking as hale as anyone on oxygen and in a wheelchair can look.
“Right. Alice.”
We walked in silence to the back door.
“I guess that is why people come to a place like this,” I said.
“My turn will come,” she said.
I kissed her forehead. We exchanged peace signs with our (hopefully clean) fingers. I walked out to my car. She waved as I drove away.
