Shelley Smithson

Shadow on the Sundial

by Shelley Smithson

She lies in bed, the Midwestern morning light highlighting the surprisingly few wrinkles on her eighty-five-year-old face. Her expression is neither of contentment nor sadness, but some space in between, an affect that has been emanating from her face for much of the past eighteen months—An acceptance? A peacefulness? A resignation? One would think that the daughter would have a strong intuition about what that withered quiet look means or hints at, but frankly, I am mystified, if not angry at times. I want to shake that increasingly frail frame and ask, “What are you thinking about inside your head? What memories are floating around?” I want to know when she is going to start talking again, more than her small utterances here and there of one or two words. I want to yell, “Do you remember that Dad has died?” because maybe that’s part of what is going on here. Mostly, I want to scream, “How can we help? Clue us in!”

Life goes on as usual, at least for what “usual” has become. In attending to her needs, there are twelve-hour-a-day care shifts, with a sibling living at the house as well. Then, there are the visits I occasionally make, my face staring out the train window as I approach Chicago from Michigan, watching all those verdant fields and picturesque barns, the countryside undulating with life. Then the train winding through the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, and finally slowing down to snake through the south side of Chicago into the myriad of tracks that mark the end of the line. Then, to the suburban train and out to the quiet tree-lined streets and into the house that has the slight stench of urine mixed with the smell of body lotion that reminds me that I am the daughter of a mother who is, for all intents and purposes, paralyzed, except for her face and neck, living in a bedroom that serves as the sundial for my mother’s life. As the caregiver prepares and feeds meals, turns my mother, rubs her gently with lotion, talks soothingly to her in her melodic Haitian accent, and is the most successful of all of us in getting my mother to express herself verbally, the light changes on those bedroom walls, highlighting the Mexican artwork in the morning and casting shadows on the African art in the afternoon, and bathing the room in a golden hue at dusk. The volumes of books on nightstands and shelves show a thick layer of dust.

The visits grow depressing and the inevitable begins to intrude. Conversations lead to worries about finances, as the payment for care and maintenance of the home is a staggering monthly cost, hence the ultimate decision to sell the beloved home of my parents, a home they had designed and built, every square inch telling their story.

The reality is that a declining life, of what quality we cannot measure, is persevering and the bank account is getting frighteningly lean. Where will my mother live if not in the home she has loved with all her being, a house that tells her story within every square inch of it? The sale of her home will yield funds for her continued life, a life that is defying all the odds and marching on in some semblance of comfort and meaning.

And so it is that life-altering decisions have to be made. I know that the act of kindness would be to move her, if possible, to a family home, my home being the easiest to access, just four hours from Chicago. Yet, through the years of connection, there has been the caustic sarcasm, the sadness of her too-early-in-life aneurysm, her strange detachment over the years, the intellectual whip of her mind, and her own form of loving—it is all there with an edge I choose not to confront. We opt for searching for a skilled nursing home instead, with my stunningly clear awareness that I am not moving on a plan to bring her to my home. My brothers have no expectation that my house would be the next landing in the journey, yet I rake myself on the insides with criticism and self-contempt.

We are all on board. On the day of the move, my mother loves the ride over to the nursing home, clearly not yet comprehending the impending turn of events, smiling at the handsome broad-shouldered men taking such fine care of her. The medical transport ambulance has such shiny fine equipment, all designed to save or extend life. Within minutes, it seems, my mother is transferred to a bed in a quiet, somewhat austere room with a large window. I am thrilled with the window until I realize that, although daylight will pour in on my mother, her apparent lack of visual depth will mean she won’t see the far-off trees with their soothing foliage. She might not even see the few pieces of framed art or the large pottery planter we have brought from her bedroom to make her feel more at home. If she could see these, would they simply be sad tokens of a life now behind her, forever?

For fourteen weeks, there are visits, there are calls, and a constant churning that I feel in trying to make a skilled nursing facility feel like a home. There’s her skin that erupts with blisters, a geriatric skin condition often associated with stress in the elderly. The rash evades any treatment. And the food is all pureed. And no matter the instructions we impart to staff for music to be kept on, or chocolate to be given from the treats we leave, or meals to be fed without hurry, our wishes are not attended to with much adherence. Fourteen weeks of this, of not having been able to absorb the shock of the change that has been imposed on her, my mother is now dead.

Shelley Smithson is a female writer and psychologist, practicing as a psychotherapist full time in East Lansing, MI. She holds a BA in Spanish, and a PhD in Counseling Psychology. She writes for both children and adults. Previous work has appeared in The Sun, Garfield Lake Review and Psychological Bulletin.