The morning after I helped move my mother into Memory Care, I woke up early and ran to ‘Jefferson,’ — as we always referred to it — where a lifetime ago I went to elementary school (kindergarten through sixth grade) and junior high (seventh and eighth). The track, which used to be made of cinder, had been resurfaced, and the field was lush and green, nothing like the balding, uneven pitch I remembered. The sky was beautiful after the rain. It made me feel more predisposed toward the church on the hill. What had I believed when I was twelve, and how had my beliefs changed?
When I was in sixth grade, the teachers went on strike for a few months. We weren’t required to come to school for several months, but that fall, a group of us showed up anyway, and we somehow ended up playing a version of ‘cops and robbers,’ which became increasingly intense as the days passed. It felt like we were and weren’t playing a game as we chased each other around the school and up and down the hills, which back then were covered in tall grass. Probably because I was known to be fast, I was always a ‘robber’: on the run, desperate not to get caught and dragged back to the tennis courts, where I would be imprisoned and guarded with my fellow captives. Every afternoon, I went home dirty and exhausted. If my mother asked me what I had done all day, I would shrug and say ‘nothing.’ How could I explain something I barely understood myself?
I knew that I was on the cusp of a new phase of life, which is a feeling I have once again as I consider the likelihood that my mother has made her last move.
When she’s gone — and in many respects, she already is, such is the nature of dementia — there will be no practical reason for me and my brothers to convene. Given that we share nothing beyond a desire to keep my mother as comfortable as possible in the final stage of her life, it’s hard to say why we would want to. When I’m in their company, I feel misunderstood and despised. Am I right or wrong to feel this way? The question used to seem important to me — I wanted to prove to them that I’m worthy of their admiration and respect — but I now see it as irrelevant. There are so many other, better ways to spend my time.
The trees were now thick and impassible with vines.
As much as a path into the forest, I realized, I had found the path out.
