Holding Hands

Bless her heart. The hands that nurtured her children, made a beautiful home, and prepared a meal every night are no longer busy. They are idle as she sits in her room and stares at the walls, angles that go up and down monotonously, as she says. The clothes in her closet belong to the previous occupant, or so she thinks. No amount of reassurance seems to convince her otherwise. She remembers her children and grandchildren but may not remember that they were there within 10 minutes of leaving.

Of course there is George, her loving husband of 71 years. She always thought she would be the one to look after him as she did through the years, but now he cares for her, reluctant to let her out of his sight. It is so sweet the way he kisses her cheek every night before bed. It completes the day for both of them.

She still talks about her little mountain home and would much rather be there, where she also sat in recent years, but with a view of the pond and the Shenandoah and mountains beyond.  It was a home that they built together and where they spent their retirement years. She continued to work, her own cottage industry, designing and sewing beautiful window treatments for elegant homes in the area. She was talented that way, having learned to sew at her grandmother’s side. Great Grandmother did not like children to be idle, so Mom learned to sew buttons and moved on to making her own clothes and then clothes for her two girls. Her home, too, was decorated with beautiful fabrics turned into things made with her skilled hands. She fed and clothed us with love and creativity.

Those hands steered me to junior high school some 15 miles from home when I overslept. My little brother, pulled from his bed, slept in the backseat of our little red VW as we made the mad dash to school. Her hands, and especially her green thumb, made a beautiful flower garden where she spent many hours working the dirt and watching seedlings push through the ground. There was continuity to her garden, because she transplanted things from Grandmother’s home to hers and dug them up and moved them to the mountain home. The blossoms were a reminder of whose hands had lovingly planted them before.

We looked at a family album, and she no longer recognizes her siblings. But she recognizes her own mother who died at an early age, too young to see her five children mature into their teenage years. It was a difficult life after their mother died. And now Mother is 95 and has outlived all her siblings. Old age is cruel in many ways and strips away dignity and a sense of identity. I look at other people in the assisted living home and know that they, too, have led fascinating lives and have many stories to tell, if only their minds allowed it.

Any time that George has been in the hospital, she thinks he has gone fishing. And when she came home from the hospital, she told everyone that she had been on vacation with her family. I thought it odd at the time, but now think that she is envisioning a happier place for each of them. George would be rather be fishing, and she would like to be with loved ones, in a place with a spectacular view. Their favorite vacation spot was an Atlantic inlet where George could surf fish and she could walk along the shore and pick up shells, tasting the salt air and hearing the roar of the ocean.

Mom, I wish I could be there every day to help you maintain your dignity and pick clothes from your closet that make you feel and look lovely and lively. We could go for walks as I push you in your wheelchair, and we could spend more time outside. You have talked about walking to the Potomac. We would need better shoes for that long hike, but maybe we can take a bus. We would hold hands.