Tucked In

So that she wouldn’t be alone and the women who helped me care for her during her decline with Alzheimer’s could prepare for and enjoy the holiday with their loved ones, I brought my mother to my home for the extended Thanksgiving weekend. For several long and temporary nights, and because it was the closest room to a bathroom with no steps, we slept in the living room, she on a twin size bed I prepared for her and me on the lived-in sofa. Each night I tucked in my mother, pulling the sheets and coverlet close to her chin as she requested. She smiled. Thanked me. We kissed good night. In the twinkling light of the Christmas tree that served as our night light, she watched me with worry until I laid down on the sofa with a pillow and blanket, my back sinking between the worn cushions, their welted edge irritating my back waistline. Even with fuzzy holiday bear socks on them, my feet were chilled under the mediocre blanket. But the pillow. At least my bed pillow I brought down to my makeshift bed backed me as I stared into the tree lights as if they were the stars that pattern a clear night sky with hope that, as if she were an infant, my mother would sleep through the night.

Good night, Marie, she whispered from five feet away. If I get up in the middle of the night, don’t worry about me.

Good night. Sleep tight. Of course, when she got up once, twice, how many would it be that night I’d wonder, I would need to guide her to the bathroom.

We laid facing the Christmas tree. The glow of the room, silent as it was, held us with the charm of a lullaby of memories. My mother’s eyes locked on the angel draped in a ribbed rosy gown with a braided ribbon trim. She had an affection toward angels and the color mauve. I fixed my eyes on my two childhood ornaments: a red violet glass ball wrapped in an aged bronze mesh with a random sprig of tiny gold leaves and a bejeweled gold-lacquered coiled serpent. This night, I was as intrigued with these ornaments as I was when I hung them on the tree each year when I was a young girl. Purple was my favorite color when I was five. For several minutes, I studied the shape of the glimmering serpent, her head held tall, tail pointed north, the whole of her body creating an open space such as a womb. Her ruby eyes were round and brighter than her garnet face that resembled more of wide-billed duck. Her sapphire, emerald, turquoise, amber, and diamond inlays reflected the shimmering lights. My mother’s extended inhales and exhales lulled me to sleep but not for long.

Within an hour and a half, the sounds of a long night stirred. The tussle of sheets being pulled away woke me. The creaking of the metal walker being moved to position alerted me to sit up. The fiddling of feet slipping into rubber soled, clog-style slippers told me it was time to walk over to my mother’s bedside. With heavy eyelids, we began the first fifteen-minute sleep intermission of this November night. With her despised walker, my mother shuffled away from her bed, me at her side, and I led her to the bathroom.

Creek…Thump…Shuffle..Pause…A look up at the braided ribbon trim near the angel’s feet.

Creek…Thump…Shuffle…Pause…A glance at the red violet ball with gold mesh and leaves that always reminded me of the envelope of a hot air balloon.

Creek…Thump…Shuffle…Pause…A bejeweled serpent? Why my mother chose this ornament for me all those years ago baffles me. She was poised with steadfastness. And her eyes watched us as if they were the Mona Lisa’s. Rather than walking my mother to the bathroom, I wanted to walk us to the Christmas tree, climb up into the hallowed space of the coiled serpent where we’d sit swinging our legs in the unencumbered air, and watch the timeline of our days together, the past that felt like the speed of lightning and the present which often passed like a day of steady rain.

My mother woke up six times that glistening night. She would not remember in the morning how many times we slow-paced across the floor together in the Christmas light while above us on the second floor, my children and husband slept through the night.

I didn’t get up six times last night! she’d declare.

Does the amount of times matter? If she got up ten times, I’d get up with her and find time to take a nap the next day. The holy nights and year-long holidays of caregiving and caring, whether for the aged or someone living with a challenge or the challenge of living with what once was, are a collected gift of moments with a never-ending return.

For it was my children, while helping me prepare this year’s Thanksgiving table, who reminisced about the living room set-up we created for my mother three years in a row. Maybe they remembered her sitting at our round kitchen table snapping green beans for the green bean casserole. Perhaps it was setting a place setting before her usual chair at the dining table. Maybe in the floorboards they heard the echoes of the nightime creeks…thumps… shuffles…pauses…

Since my mother’s death, I donated the angel tree topper with the thought that maybe someone else needed her more than me. But year after year, it is in the unveiling of my two childhood ornaments from the storage box that make me teeter-totter whether to find space on the tree to hang tender memories or to mingle with the idea if this is the year I will part ways with them.

Over the weekend, when I pulled out the red violet ornament and beautified serpent, I twisted and turned them in my hands as if it was the first time I saw them. I tucked them in the tree and am rereading them like a soothing book I return to as if it were home. If I were crafty, I could piece these ornaments together and create a peculiar, if not glamorous looking hot air balloon stitched with experiences of nostalgia. And wonder. And time.

Tis’ the season after all.

Until our next kaffeeklatsch, I hope your December days sparkle with priceless gifts. Every day is a beginning. Rush slowly and be surprised.

Marie