I had a dream that my mother was dressed up and she came and sat on the side of my bed and scared me half to death. Today when I visited her in the hospital the nurses were all excited that they were going to get her to sit up in the wheelchair for an hour, but my stomach was in knots trying to decipher her pleas for me to look under the bed and get the “bowl” that was there and other jibberish. I don’t know how the nurses do it, day in and day out, I felt today as if someone had a noose around my neck and it was getting tighter and tighter.
The nurse asked me to bring some nail polish to paint her nails. It just seemed like the oddest request. Instead, I cut her fingernails and she placed her fingers one at a time on the towel I had spread out as if I was giving her a manicure. Then she looked at each nail as I finished.
At one point she asked me what time it was and I just laughed. Time?
I need to bring in a photograph of her when she was alive and vibrant – no one there can imagine the woman she used to be.
So sorry you have to go through this. Just whisper to her that she did just fine. And that you appreciate all she tried to do even when it wasn’t perfect. I think all mothers want to hear that from their children before they die.
Thanks Alice – that is what I continue to tell her, that she was MY mother which means she was a prefect mother!