“How did I wind up here? Alone, a nice 50+ Jewish girl surrounded by hundreds of Christian women at a Women of Faith in Orlando Florida
What I do remember is my mom calling me one day saying “I want to live closer to family”. “Mom, why would you do that, you don’t like me.” “I love you I’m your mother”. “I love you too, but …”
I spent the next week looking for a nice place for mom to live. When mom came for a visit I realized that something was not quite right. Her behavior was a bit off. Not too surprising, Mom’s behavior had always been a bit off. Mom had multiple personalities. Some of them were wonderful and the others not so much. My brother was the one to diagnosis Mom, he’d say, “If you call Mom and she doesn’t answer, hang up and call another time”. Fortunately for him, he only had one Mom and she was wonderful. I had all of them, some nice, some childlike, some down right evil.
Once Mom arrived, I quickly realized that Mom was mostly penniless. So we started looking for a different type of nice place to live. Mom was suffering the beginnings of dementia. She knew enough that she needed help; her control over her personalities was beginning to fail. We found a lovely government supported high-rise with a one bedroom apartment a few blocks from my home and my office. The waiting list was usually several months to a year, but they had an immediate opening. Thank you God!
Mom did OK for about a year but when she could no longer find her way home from the store I started doing all her shopping, cleaning and care-taking. On one of my last visits to mom’s place I realized that she was no longer taking care of herself and needed more attention then I could give her. The next Friday, done early at work I started looking at nursing homes. I know, we don’t call them that anymore, but that is what they still are, nursing homes. The place old people go to die.
After visiting the list of homes I could find locally, I went to check on mom and make her a nice dinner. She was sitting in the same spot I had left her 2 days before with vomit down her front. I pulled the stained top over her head and put a fresh one on. I went to change her into matching slacks and I realized that she and the couch were soaked. I told her that I needed to get her into the shower and when I stood her up she said, “Bernice, I can’t do this”. “Sure you can, Mom, just straighten your legs”. Down to the floor she went and began to breath labored. Her lips began to turn blue. “Mom, talk to me. Mom talk to me or I’m calling an ambulance”. No reply. I call the ambulance. I call my husband. “Mom, come on we have to get your pants on. We have company coming”. I struggle to get her pants up. I position her in a more comfortable position, she just looked so uncomfortable. In my mind I hear over and over, “It’s a gift. It’s a gift. It’s a gift”. I look up, “I hear you, I just don’t get it right now!” I yell to the ceiling. Somewhere between making calls and getting her comfortable looking, mom stopped breathing. I continue to hear, “It’s a gift. It’s a gift. It’s a gift.”
Mom was only 73. I don’t know if the gift was not having to put her in a nursing home. Not having to watch her continue to decline. Not having to deal with the many faces of Mom as her dementia continued to progress. I’d like to think that perhaps it was sending me to Women of Faith a year later where I began to speak to Jesus for the first time. I don’t know and perhaps I never will, but I know with all my heart that God was with me and Mom on that night and as always being with God is a gift.
