Speak Now or What?

           Speak now! The words are screaming in my head but will not conjugate onto my tongue. Speak now!

           What can I say that will make any difference? She didn’t burn the house down.  Just because the fire alarm blasted me into cognizance at 6 AM doesn’t mean she’s trying to drive me totally insane. She was just warming a bagel in a small cast iron pan on the stovetop and forgot to turn on the fan. For the fortieth time.

           Jumping out of bed and hopping around in the dark to throw on some semblance of clothing before I ran down the hall to make sure the house wasn’t on fire didn’t put me into a great mood. Seeing her standing there with a blank look on her face as I raced into the kitchen only added to my frustration. As if she was deaf and could not hear the wake-the-dead alarm screeching throughout the narrow hallway, acting like it was totally normal for an ear-splitting sound to be emanating from the ceiling. 

           “What’s your problem?” Her face said as I came bounding into the kitchen like my hair was on fire. 

           I saw it click inside her head as soon as I grabbed the towel to fan the ceiling, trying to dissipate the smoke billowing from the frying pan she was using. 

           “Oh, yeah, I forgot to turn on the fan.” Sheepishly, she pushed the button above the stove to ignite the whir of the vent fan as if that was all that was needed to resolve the situation. 

           Shaking with anger, I sputtered, “That’s it, mom! No more.” Slicing my hands across my throat as if cutting myself with a knife. Imagining myself bleeding to death on the clean kitchen floor, I wondered if it would make a dent in her child’s mind. 

           Puffing herself up to her full 5’8” height, a look of abject defiance plastered on her face, she said, “No! It is not the last time. I will continue to use the stove and I will remember to turn on the fan.” 

           At that moment, at age seventy-one, I saw my real mom for the first time in my life. The eighty-nine-year-old mom she has hidden from me, three husbands, and herself. The defiant, self-centered, spoiled five-year-old child dementia has unveiled. 

           Turning from the crime scene, I skulked back to the comforting cocoon of my bedroom and quietly closed the door as if that small act could block out the terror of what now lives on the other side.  

           Paralysis wrapped me in a warm blanket of oblivion. The only part of my body that seemed alive were the rivers of tears streaming down my face. Mute, unable to resolve the myriad of feelings swirling around inside me like a dank cesspool of nausea, I tried to sleep. 

 Avoiding unconsciousness, my mind began its ceaseless chatter. Speak now. And tell her what? That the rules of life are changing, and she’ll just have to go along with them, like it or not. Not. Speak now. Tell her that she has become a danger to herself and to me. 

           How can a daughter tell a mother that she is losing more than the cadre of friends who have gone ahead and died, her husband of forty years, and now because her memory has abandoned her, she is losing what little freedom and self-respect she has left? 

           If I could just get some sleep maybe when I woke up for real, the world would be righted. The sun would be shining again in a beautiful cloudless blue sky. Mom would be able to remember to turn on the fan when she used the stovetop. She wouldn’t need to ask me four times in four hours what time her doctor’s appointment is today.   

           I’d caught a peek at this type of defiance one other time a few years ago before I realized that her mind was failing but had chalked it up as a one-off created by a stressful situation. It was the first time I ever raised my voice to her. It hurt me more than it hurt her. And now I know the truth. The ugly, stinking awful truth.  The woman that everyone always praised for being so nice isn’t really that woman anymore. 

           Don’t get me wrong. My mom is a nice woman. But, the mom I am living with now, is more like a dangerous animal, a potentially rabid dog you don’t want to get cornered with. Unpredictable and oozing with unattractive arrogance, she is someone I don’t like most of the time. 

           But I’m a good daughter. After her last husband died thirteen years ago, there was no one else to help her pick through the mess he had left for her, so I swooped in like a fairy godmother thinking it was a noble cause to care for my only remaining parent. Who teaches us those moronic lessons?

           She played the victim card from an early age, and it served her well. Someone always jumped in to save her. Having just realized that I am the last to be sucked into the abyss like so many before me, is daunting.  More feelings I’m going to have to sift through, hoping they don’t asphyxiate me. 

           Having endured years of child abuse because she was too weak to stand up for her children, took me years of therapy. Finding my way out of the darkness of self-hate was harrowing. Forgiveness was a rock-hard lesson to learn but I was a star pupil who kept going back for more because I wanted to live in grace.

           Now, seeing her become this other apparition, all of her petty, self-preservation tactics and weaknesses come flooding back, blocking out the brightness and dropping an explosive sadness like a cluster bomb blowing shrapnel through my guts. 

           Feeling like that ten-year-old me, frail, unable to speak up because she shushed me when I tried, I want to scream. Speak now. Speak up for yourself. Don’t let silence become your treacherous viperous friend again. 

           My head is spinning as a dim bulb comes on. Maybe caring for her is not so noble after all. Maybe I got sucked into the loop of taking care of her because I had always taken care of her, even as a child. It’s too late to turn back now.  You made that bed. Why does it take almost a lifetime to learn some of the hardest lessons?

           Finally emerging from the safety of my room after my short reprieve, she confronts me with a sassy, “Are you still mad at me? You may as well just get it out now. Tell me what you want to say.”

           “Mom, I’m going to put a sticky note on the stove to remind you to turn on the fan. But, if it happens one more time, I will turn off the gas and we will not be able to use the stove again. I don’t want to take a chance that you will forget to turn off the burner and burn down the house.”  

           Meek now that I’ve taken the wind out of her sails, “Oh, OK. Yes, this dementia is very tricky.”

           As if that solves the entire thing. Problem solved. Nothing more to discuss.

           Speak now. No point. She won’t remember tomorrow what I said today.