Gasping for Air

I woke with a start before light this morning. Mom’s breathing had changed. She was breathing through her mouth and it was wide open. The sound was louder and even though I was in the next room sleeping in my La-Z-Boy, I heard it. I went in to check on her and she was breathing evenly but it appeared to be labored. I moistened one of those swabs and did her lips and teeth and put salve on them. She shut her mouth, of course, the way she has been doing when presented with food or drink and when I finished, she started breathing through her mouth again.

I thought about what to do and decided it was not an emergency so I would not call anyone, although now I realize I could have. I woke again at a little after 8:20 a.m. when the phone rang – I am a very popular person because my days and nights have been so full that I have not had time (or the presence of mind) to sit down with the bills. Plus I had to close one checking account and open another and have a limited supply of checks.

I missed a small payment to Lowe’s and although I have explained this to each person from Pakistan or India who has called – they call regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 8:15 and 8:45 -- that I have had my hands full on account of mother. On Friday, I got a bill for $61, two payments and a late fee. So we are talking about serious money here. I know Lowes is anal retentive having once been late with a $15 payment and, as a consequence, been unable to charge a can of spray paint. You know, Lowes could probably cut the price of their merchandise substantially if they were not supporting so many collections callers on the other side of the globe. When this is over, I think I will write and suggest that. Comcast, on the other hand, has called several times about a bill of $17. No one at Comcast looked at the computer record of payments and found that about every three months they get a check for $50-60 so they will go away for a while. But the last caller was someone who could think for himself; I asked what I owed and when he told me, he agreed it was just a little ridiculous to badger someone over such a piddly sum. It’s not like they have not always gotten paid. But someone else at Comcast did not get the message and called again this evening -- but I did learn that they will come and pick up the check and save me 41 cents! Hooray!

My intention was to pay the bills over the weekend but I had a crew of volunteers helping me clean and neaten the house to get ready for what’s coming. I thought the most logical thing to do was to work with them to get things in shape while I had help. They still left me with a number of half-finished tasks that only I can do and that now I have to do since they have been started. But, the place almost looks like it did when Mom kept house. And now that I can get around in my office, it will soon look like it used to, also. A student who visited me on Sunday was shocked at the mess in my office and said that the mess told her a lot because she recalls how neat and orderly my office was at school.

But I think Phyllis put it into perspective when she outlined what I HAD to do: cook, do laundry, do personal care for Mom, etc. and try to freelance so I could afford to buy groceries, that I was doing about all I could manage alone. I wish I had had so many helpers to come over the past year, maybe not all at once, but one or two at a time. Things would be in better order. And, frankly, when I had a moment or two to do anything, I cleaned the kitchen, Mom’s bedroom and bath, or I went out and weeded the flowers for a few minutes. Once in a while, I even ironed a few clothes for Mom or me. Every week, and more often in the summer, Mom got her hair washed and styled, a manicure and pedicure, a bath from skin out and we used to joke that I "anointed" her with skin lotion because her skin had become so dry. I massaged her feet and legs and we joked about the level of service she got. In the summer, she always got a second bath if not hair washed. She didn’t do much but it’s still important to feel fresh and clean. Mom has been unable to do any of that for herself for more than two years now.

She always thanked me profusely and when I was teaching, I had night classes on Tuesday and Thursday so we did baths on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. Before she graduated, Ariel came every Tuesday evening and Mom always told her she’d had her hair done and her bath -- it was a major highlight of her week. On Saturdays, we went out to eat and then to shop for groceries until it got so that Mom could not walk around the store with me. Even then, we sometimes managed by putting her in a wheel chair with a basket on it. As her condition progressed, Mom had great difficulty getting in and out of the tub and she often did not want a bath, but she put up with it and always felt better after. The “carrot” of dinner at some place where she could eat with her hands (such as Chick-Fil-A) was a suitable reward for what she had to go through. We sometimes went to IHOP but that became difficult because feeding her across the slightly too wide table or from directly beside her was difficult and she had trouble after a while not only cutting her food but managing the fork. After a time, she would opt to sit in the car while I grocery shopped, which worked until one evening she got out of the car with assistance from two total strangers -- luckily I returned to the car as they were coming from it and nipped that in the bud. I don't think they meant any harm but I felt very uncomfortable and, after that, Mom stayed at home on her own while I rushed out and shopped maybe half of my list and rushed back.

It seems to me that she went down hill very quickly. It was less than two months ago that we ate together at IHOP. I had to feed her but she ate most of her dinner. She loved pancakes with sweet stuff, syrup or cooked fruit. She was failing but she was mobile. I suppose I should be thankful that this stage is going by quickly. And the early part of the week when she refused to eat forced me to accept that she is going, and soon. “To everything there is a time and a season under heaven....”