“Are you two related?” she asked me, expecting the typical response. “You look so much alike.”
Trying to keep my voice from wavering, I answered, “Yes. I’m her daughter.”
The intensity of Mother’s response took even me by surprise. She jerked to attention on the bed and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Don’t tell them you’re my daughter!”
The scene that ensued would have been hilarious if not for its tragic history. The cheery lady with the clipboard was speechless with astonishment, her mouth dropping nearly to her chest. The roommate gasped, and the attendant who sat beside me froze in mid-breath.
I spoke again, in placating tones. “Please, Mother. Don’t be silly. You know I’m your daughter.”
The woman with the clipboard regained her composure and managed to complete the interview. I could imagine her thoughts as she left the room in a hurry: “I’ve met my share of crazy people, but these two take the cake.”
I knew Mother would deny me. I had meditated about it, worked on it in therapy, told my close friends and my children that I was sure I’d have to confront her rejection once again. Yet despite all my preparations, I felt the blood drain from my face, my emotions in turmoil. I felt cursed again by my own mother, under her old spell again.
I took deep breaths, trying to restrain my tears, but one escaped and meandered down my cheek. When a small moan slipped from my lips, the roommate’s attendant looked up at me with kind, soft eyes and said, “There now, it’s all right. It’s all right, dear.” She touched my arm. “Don’t let it get to you, honey. Some people can’t help themselves.”
Her simple kindness brought on even more tears. I allowed myself to weep silently, comforted by this stranger who had witnessed my mother’s denial of me. For the first time in my life, someone objective was validating my perception that Mother’s behavior was wrong. This woman’s sympathy and support convinced me at last that I wasn’t the one who was crazy. In that moment, an old, old weight was lifted from my shoulders.
But Mother’s abuse wasn’t over. The next day she slapped me for not handing the phone to her on demand, and she let me know that I was still persona non grata with her friends. “Don’t you try to talk to anyone about me. No one knows about you, and it’s too late to start now.”
I spent hours pacing up and down the hospital halls.
Mother’s moods were mercurial, as always. The first evening at the hospital, she lay on the bed, curled up like a child. She looked small and helpless, her dark hair spread on the pillow. Poor little Mother, I thought. She seemed so lost. She smiled weakly at me and asked me to rub her back, returning us to one of the few tender things we had ever shared. She moaned under my touch, telling me how good it felt. I had been trained in recent years as a masseuse, and I suspect she noticed my expertise. Nothing more was said, but for many minutes we were connected as mother and daughter once more. When I tucked her in and fluffed her pillow, she looked up at me with such innocence. “Where did you learn to take care of people like this?” she asked with a kind of awe.
“I had children, Mother. I learned by taking care of them.”
I don’t know if she caught my deeper meaning, that children can teach us to be tender and loving, something she didn’t allow herself to experience. She only smiled again and said, “You are very good and kind.”
I walked away in a peaceful frame of mind, grateful for her acknowledgement. What would be next for us, I wondered, on this journey to her death?
The day of the biopsy, Mother was upset and irritable, as one would expect. She hated to have to wear a hospital gown, she hated having to do what others told her to do. She fought and complained all the way. When she returned from the procedure, she put her street clothes back on and told me stubbornly that she was going home. I knew better, but didn’t argue. In fact, I had no idea what arrangements were being made for her.
As we had feared, the spot on her lung was cancer, but the doctor told me it was the brain tumor that would kill her. My breath caught in my throat at this news. Right now, Mother’s will seemed so powerful. She was certain that she would live, and it was hard not to believe her.
The doctor went on to say that Mother had been disruptive the night before, sending nurses home in tears. He assumed the brain tumor was causing her erratic behavior.
“Oh, it’s nothing new,” I told him. “She’s always been abusive and nasty, but usually she just focuses it on me.” I gave him a few examples of her bizarre behavior patterns.
“Let’s get a psychiatrist up here,” the doctor suggested. “We’ll see what he has to say.”
For the most part, Mother treated me like an interloper. She ordered me not to get involved in her care, not to make any decisions. She said she had an attorney who was in charge of everything. I didn’t challenge her, but I ran my own show behind her back. She was clearly not fully capable of making her own decisions. I had behind-the-scenes conversations with each of her doctors.
One afternoon, Mother let me know that I was not welcome in her room. “I’m expecting company,” she announced. She smoothed her best dress and put the finishing touches on her blush and eyeliner. Obviously, the expected visitor was a male.
“Who’s coming to see you?”
“None of your damned business.”
I took a deep breath and asked, “Mother, don’t you think it’s time you introduced me to your friends? After all, I’m here to help take care of you.”
“It’s just too awkward,” she snapped. “People like John from the restaurant don’t know about you, and it’s too late now.”
“Let me see if I understand you, Mother.” Here I was, fuming again despite my intention to stay calm and cool. “You’ve never told your friends that you have a daughter or grandchildren?”
“I’ve told you before!” she snarled. “It’s too late. They’ve known me for fifteen years and they’ll wonder why I never told them before. It’s too complicated. Just go away for a few hours.”
I slammed out of the room and took a cab to the Chicago Art Institute, where I tried to soothe myself with art. I saw such beauty in the paintings of the Impressionists, my favorite artists, but I couldn’t surrender to the experience. I ached with the knowledge that, even as she approached her death, Mother could casually toss me aside in order to keep up her pretense. I stormed through the museum, at times inspired by the light and color of the exhibit, but mostly weighed down with misery.
I was still steaming when I returned to the hospital. I stepped from the elevator and immediately saw Mother charging frantically up and down the hall, clutching an unlit cigarette. She started screaming at me on sight. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for hours!”
Full of my own frustration and fury, I shot back. “I got out of your way, Mother. Like an idiot I continue to do as you tell me, disappearing conveniently when you want me out of the way.” I stood a couple of feet away, glaring at her. “I am your daughter, do you understand me? I left my work and my children and flew here to help you because you are my mother and you needed me. How can you pretend that I don’t exist?”
Mother and I went on shouting as we paced the hallway. People looked at us aghast, but I didn’t care. This was my last chance to say words I’d never spoken, and I wasn’t about to stay silent.
“Mother, you’ve pretended you didn’t have a daughter, you’ve refused to introduce me to your friends. Stop denying that I’m your daughter. I can’t stand it any longer!”
By now we were standing in a waiting room, looking out at rain falling on the rooftops. Suddenly, she fell silent for a moment. Then, in a childlike voice, she asked, “I did those things? When?”
Instantly, the fight drained from me. I’d said what I needed to. I wanted Mother to say she was sorry, but I could see that she had no recollection right now of what she had done in the past—whether from the brain tumor or simple denial, I couldn’t say. All I knew for sure was that she was dying. I put my arms aro
und her and held her close.
“Mother, don’t worry about it. Let’s go have some lunch.”
Her demeanor had completely changed. She seemed at that moment more like a little girl than a grown woman. Finally I had told my Mother the truth. I had stood up for myself.
Emptied of the feelings I’d always suppressed about her rejection of me, my heart felt peaceful as we walked to her room, my mother small and helpless beside me.
The Diagnosis:
Manic Depression
The psychiatrist was a soft-spoken man in his late forties. He was handsome, with dark hair and eyes and a gentle, well-bred demeanor. Mother had spent all morning preening, putting on her make-up and fixing her hair. When Dr. Hart greeted her, she minced a couple of steps toward him, chattering wildly. She carried her unlit cigarette aloft in a haughty gesture, acting every bit like Gram used to in her over-the-top way.
Mother flirted shamelessly with the doctor, sashaying across the room, acting so much like an out-of-control teenager that my face flushed. Didn’t she realize that her every word was being noted and analyzed? Did she really think that he would be romantically interested in her? I watched in fascination, but soon she waved me away, desperate for his full attention. I motioned to him as I left, affirming a previously made arrangement to talk on the phone after his meeting with Mother. She shouted after me, “Now you stay away. Don’t you talk to him behind my back!”
For the next hour I wandered the halls, circling around the nurse’s station, going down the elevator and coming back up, curious about what the psychiatrist would say. To my knowledge, no mental health professional had ever assessed my mother. A few years earlier she had told me that a doctor suggested she see a psychiatrist. She’d laughed uproariously in her trademark cackle. “I don’t need a psychiatrist. Why, they’re all crazier than anyone, aren’t they, Linda?” It was a typical dig, her asking me, a psychotherapist, to agree with her outrageous statement.
Eventually, I spotted Dr. Hart talking on the phone. He waved and told me to wait for him in the next wing. Ever vigilant, Mother yelled from down the hall, “Don’t you dare talk to him. Go away. You’re nosy and rude!”
I ran off to our secret rendezvous. It was farcical, Mother chasing the doctor around the halls, trying to keep him away from me; Dr. Hart and I surreptitiously making arrangements to talk. I hiked to the next wing, and he joined me a few minutes later. We sat in comfortable chairs that faced each other in a room dimly lit by sunlight filtering through Venetian blinds. He gave me a conspiratorial grin and said, “I don’t think she’ll find us here.” He leaned on his elbows, his eyes the most striking thing about him as he asked me about our history.
I told him the whole story.
“My mother was abandoned as a baby when her mother left her to work in Des Moines, then Chicago. I don’t know much about her early life, but I was told that she wandered from place to place, living with her great-grandmother Josephine, for whom she’s named, and with an aunt on her father’s side. When Mother was thirteen, my grandmother finally brought her to Chicago, where she felt unhappy and out of place. They had a violent, screaming relationship. Mother ran away to get married when she was seventeen, but her mother insisted the marriage be annulled.” Dr. Hart listened silently, occasionally jotting something down in his notebook.
“I don’t know anything about her young adult years, but she married my father when she was twenty-nine and soon had me. They divorced when I was one. I was with her for only four years. For a brief period we lived with Gram in Wichita, but mother decided to go back to Chicago and we never lived together again. She would visit me occasionally when I was little, but once I got older and started coming to Chicago, she didn’t want anyone to know she had a child or grandchildren. She won’t let anyone she knows meet me even now. I don’t know what we’ll do when she leaves the hospital; she’s told me nothing about her arrangements. There’s some attorney she’s having an imaginary love affair with who’s supposed to take care of things.”
The doctor watched me attentively, absorbing it all. I went on.
“Gram, her mother, who raised me from the time I was six, sat in a hole in the couch for years, crying, raging, and ranting. She hated my father and tried to live her life through me. Mother and Gram were a lot alike, negative and critical, staying up half the night, ranting and raving for hours when they got mad.” As I talked I realized how much Gram and Mother approached the world, and me, in similar ways.
When I had finished pouring out the story, he was silent for a very long moment. “Your life must have been very difficult,” he said, his eyes reflecting his compassion. Laying out my entire life in one sitting to a stranger had a profound affect on me. I felt like crying with joy and relief. He had seen with his own eyes how my mother acted; he understood how it had shaped my whole life. I bowed my head and thanked him. Then Dr. Hart delivered his assessment.
“My diagnosis is bipolar disorder, but manic-depression better describes the mood swings, the ups and downs. I’d say your mother is hypomanic.” He went on to say that there was underlying depression, but that Mother was more obviously manic in her behaviors. I asked him about Gram, her moodiness, her bouts of crying, the hate letters. “She was more melancholic, more on the depressed part of the spectrum, but it all falls under the same diagnosis.”
I stared at him in silence, all the puzzle pieces fitting into place. The monster that had haunted my family for generations finally had a name. I had given both Gram and Mother a dozen different diagnoses over the years, but this one suddenly made perfect sense. As I sat there absorbing Dr. Hart’s words, it dawned on me that medication existed for this illness. I asked if treatment could have helped them.
“Medication could have helped, but the problem is making the diagnosis. These kinds of people stay away from psychiatrists. Most of them don’t like to take their medication anyway, especially the manic ones—they like their highs. Nevertheless, I plan to recommend it for your mother.”
I sat with him for a while longer, trying to comprehend the full meaning of what he’d told me. Naming Gram’s and Mother’s disease swept the scattered ashes of my childhood into orderly boxes. There could have been solutions, if anyone had named it before. There might have been a better outcome… “if only,” I thought. I saw Gram and Mother through a new lens now—they were mentally ill, unable to control and come to terms with their own pain, urges, wishes, dreams, and ultimately their very lives. The sorrow of it all weighed heavily on me. I also saw my own struggles anew—my dark nights of the soul and the ups and downs of mood. While not as striking as theirs, they were still a significant influence on my life and my children’s lives. This illness has lived in our chemistry, an unwelcome but real guest in our family. All this was so complex. I knew from my studies that the disease includes an alive, creative, and exciting element. What a paradox.
Mother no longer needed to be hospitalized, but the psychiatrist agreed she wasn’t ready or able to live on her own. When I explained that she wouldn’t let me make any arrangements for her, he said that he might be able to help.
It was a strange day when my mother officially became a psychiatric patient. An entourage of attendants and I led her from her room in oncology to the geriatric psychiatry ward. She had been told that she would be more comfortable there. She said she loved the “nice, kind, doctor.” I suspected it was because on some level she knew she needed the kind of help he could provide. One person in the little parade was a jive-talking orderly who obviously enjoyed kidding around. He noticed the family resemblance and asked if the patient was my mother. I said she was, watching mother’s reaction carefully, prepared for her scream of denial. This time she said nothing.
I settled her into her new room. The nurse’s station was in the middle of the ward, with patients’ rooms splayed out around it like the spokes of a wheel. I saw families gathered around some of the patients, and wondered about their histories. How had their lives been affected by mental
illness?
Mother became disturbed when a nurse wanted to take her purse. She didn’t understand why, and clutched it to her chest. The nurses, used to handling irrational patients, finally convinced her to let it go, but Mother was too nervous and disoriented to sit and talk with me as I prepared to say goodbye to her. I had been in Chicago for a week and needed to go home. I stood a few inches away from her, wondering what to say, aware that we had so little time left. Never one for emotional goodbyes, Mother turned her back to me. I tried to hug her, but she just kept murmuring, “Why did they take my purse?”
I kissed her on the cheek and walked away, my mind reeling with the astonishing idea: “Mother is in a psychiatric unit. She really is mentally ill.”
After so many years of her bizarre behavior, I felt great relief with this new diagnosis. At last she was in a place where she might feel understood and accepted. It was easier now for me to feel compassion for her, to comprehend more deeply how difficult it must have been to be so alone with her demons. I didn’t know my mother, not really. I had no inner knowledge of her as a person, and perhaps she didn’t know herself either. She was lost, and always had been. Those were my thoughts as I walked away from the hospital, not knowing if I’d ever see my mother again in this world.
Mother was happy in the psychiatric unit and often told me on the phone how much she liked the “lovely” doctor, but after two weeks she was scheduled to be released. In the meantime, I’d had several conversations with the attorney she had recently hired. This new young and handsome attorney was shocked to find out that Josephine had a daughter or any living family. He had said during our first phone call that he would discuss nursing homes with her. I warned him of her bad temper and stubborn will, of her irrationality and furious demands. At first he wasn’t concerned, but after a week he was calling me for advice nearly every day. When he suggested a well-appointed nursing home as the next step, Mother would have none of it. It almost amused me to watch another person go through the same kind of hell as I had with her. The lawyer was persistent, however, and finally—with the help of the nursing home director, an angel named Margie—Mother moved in.
Don't Call Me Mother Page 27
