Complication: Suzanne fears illness
Development:
1. Past threatens Suzanne
2. Suzanne rejects fear
3. Mom admits panic
Resolution: Suzanne accepts unknown
The Clean-Up Conversation
It was Tuesday. Six chairs and four people sat at the kitchen table. It had been a month since my return from Scotland, and the family dinners that I had missed so much when I was away had become normal once again. Now I longed for the North Sea.
Dinner conversation collapsed into its usual pattern with my dad ranting on about my older sister Margaret, and her mooching boyfriend Kyle.
“He’s good to Margaret,” my mom interjected, always the peacemaker at a table that has seen its fair share of battles.
She scooped my dad a heaping helping of seconds -- a peace offering -- and was quiet for the rest of dinner. Sometimes my mom becomes so internally preoccupied that she checks out from reality. That night, staring at a swirl of peas across her plate, she was lost in her thoughts once again.
After my dad finished his food he pulled his chair from the table -- a sign that we were now free to leave.
My younger sister, Mary, snuck out after him to avoid the after-dinner clean-up. I waited for my mom to offer up one of her weak pleas for help, but she said nothing. Hunched over the kitchen table, she began to put away the leftovers that would be my dad’s lunch in the morning.
Left alone with her in the kitchen, I tackled the dishes and complained about my boss.
“Joe wasn’t even in the office when I got there this morning. I had to wait 30 minutes before he even showed up!”
No response.
“And then I had to call every golf league member about the price change because he forgot to include it in the bulletin.”
No response.
I looked at my mom across the kitchen, bent over dishes, mechanically ripping off sheets of saran wrap. I rolled my eyes in annoyance, and continued to scrub away dinner scraps.
“If I get sick I want you to put me in a home.”
I switched off the water and turned around to look at my mom casually covering the spinach casserole with pink plastic. She didn’t look at me. I think she wanted to pretend that this conversation was normal. That it was like any other clean-up conversation we’ve had over the years. But it wasn't. The obvious terror in my eyes would have only confirmed it.
“What are you even talking about?”
“I want to be put in a home. You can find a nice place and visit me. I don’t want to be taken care of.”
“That’s a little dark and premature mom, don’t you think?”
She let out a breathy sigh, shrugged her shoulders, and placed the leftovers in the fridge.
My grandfather died when I was 10 after losing his humanity to Alzheimer's. Reduced to an infant, a 6’3’’ man in diapers, he could no longer walk, or speak, or remember us.
Is this what she thinks will happen to her?
My grandma took care of him at home; my mom and her siblings alternated weekends to drive up to help, until every couple weekends became every weekend. Eventually a hospice worker came to the house, but there were always family members around -- taking him to the bathroom, changing him, feeding him, talking to him.
This went on for five years. I was too young to be sad about a man I had never known when he was healthy, a man that would never know me.
Put me in a home.
At 21, the idea of my parents in a home was not something I had ever really thought about. I had never considered the possibility of my mom having Alzheimer’s, but after that conversation, the possibility consumed me. An image was stamped across my eyes and I couldn't blink it away. There was my mom, sitting in my grandfather’s rocker, her warm blue eyes faded into an absent stare.
Yeah, she forgets where she puts her keys, but doesn’t everyone sometimes?
She always asks us to leave her reminder post-its, but she just has a lot going on.
She works too much.
Yeah, she works too much.
A few nights later, during a different clean-up conversation, my mom would tell me that she was afraid.
“What if something’s wrong with me?”
I didn’t tell her that I was scared too -- scared that I might lose her; scared that she might someday forget me.
“Mom, there’s nothing wrong with you. Really, you’re worrying about nothing.”
Dinners passed, the kitchen was cleaned and eventually I stopped worrying about an illness she might get years down the road. But there are still moments, like when she misplaces her keys, that the familiar feel of panic sets in and I am terrified all over again.
She just has a lot going on.
She works too much.
Yeah, she works too much.
Word Count: 813
Intended Audience: Lives
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