Love Endures

A couple of months ago, my husband and I, my sister, and another couple close to us went to visit my mother. My mother is nearly 89 years old now. She had lived her life as a working artist since I was a very young girl. An extraordinary artist who explored media as some people explore the planet. Although she never received national recognition, she was well-known in our little world of San Diego County and in our home town of Escondido, an active part of the effort to support and expand the arts there through an organization called Showcase of the Arts. She took prizes in many juried shows throughout the county, taught painting, and studied new methods with many teachers herself.

Mom was also a spiritual seeker, exploring as avidly as she did art the invisible worlds and the philosophies that supported that exploration. She became a very skilled spiritual astrologer over the years and was sought out by many for spiritual guidance, sharing her wisdom freely with anyone who asked.

At the age of 76 or so, she began volunteering to read to residents in a skilled nursing facility where I worked in Portland, Oregon. One day the activities director of the facility handed out questionnaires to all her volunteers, asking them to write about why they enjoy volunteering with the residents. My mother wrote, "I love helping the elderly—they so appreciate the attention and care they receive."

"The elderly!" She didn't at all imagine she belonged to that group.

In her very late 70s I began to notice in my phone calls that she was repeating herself, telling me each time about events she had told me many times before. By her early 80s, she was using complicated verbal workarounds for words she couldn't remember—"that thing you put your clothes in when you travel" instead of "suitcase." She wasn't eating well and began to have episodes of weakness or loss of consciousness and falling. It took several hospitalizations before all the family began to admit to themselves that Mom required more care than anyone was able to give, and we began to look at options, settling on a move to an adult foster care home in Portland, close to my sister.

The descent speeded up after that, and within a year, she'd been through a euphemistically-named "memory care" facility, a hip pinning in the hospital, and ensuing move to an intermediate care placement in a long-term care facility. By then, she was pretty difficult to understand 98% of the time.

This particular day, the five of us sat in a semi-circle around Mom in her wheelchair in the lounge of her very nice nursing home. She laughed and babbled on and on, mingling made-up words, pure sound, and recognizable English. It is still interesting to this day that some of her most common "connecting" expressions persevere.

She stopped talking for a moment, looked deliberately at each one of us, clasped her hands to her breast, and said, "Oh, I love all of you so much!" Momentarily stunned, we stared at her for a moment, tears filling our eyes, and then responded almost in unison, "We love you so much, too!" We all sat silently in wonder at what had just happened. Then Mom picked up her nonsensical thread of talk and everything went back to what has become normal for us.

It's been at least two months since that day, and I still tear up thinking about it. Somehow, the right combination of synapses had fired at the right time, and Alta, our mother and friend, had gotten her message through. I will treasure the moment forever!