For Now

Rachel waved goodbye to the receptionist and walked into the bright sunshine. The automatic doors of the nursing home shut behind her. She sat in her car for a minute and thought about what had just happened in there. Was she really about to do this?

Was she a terrible daughter? She knew in her head that she wasn’t. But her emotions told her something different.

How do you end a relationship with your mother who is 87 and in a nursing home? Who does that?

Evidently she does. Does she?

She stopped at the store on her way home to pick up some salmon and corn for her and Bryson’s dinner that night. She knew that he would applaud her actions today, even if she wasn’t doing that. She was so grateful for that man and his support in her life. Especially at this stage of the game. She was 64. Healthy but still 64. And just exhausted from taking care of that woman for her entire life.

She pulled into the driveway and was immediately greeted by Casper who jumped on her, licked her, and proceeded to run around in happy circles all over the yard. She watched him, smiling. “Oh to be able to be a dog,” she thought. “So full of joy. Able to live in the moment. All day long.” She sighed and walked into the house.

She shucked the corn, threw the salmon into a marinade, and poured herself a glass of chardonnay. She and Casper went and sat outside. Bryson wasn’t home yet so she closed her eyes and thought about today. And her mind wandered to years past.

She had caught her mother in a lie, which was nothing new. Her mother was a true narcissist - always had been - and lying and gaslighting everyone around her went with the territory. Daughters were not excluded.

But, even at the ripe old age of 64, it still hurt. And, today, Rachel was just done. She had quietly picked up her water bottle, told her mother she was leaving and not coming back, and had walked out of the door to the room and the nursing home leaving her mother screaming and crying behind her as much for attention from staff as for her daughter’s benefit.

She thought back to her relationship with her mother for as long as she could remember. Walking home alone from kindergarten at the age of 5 to find her mother “sleeping” on the couch with no clothes on. She remembered her mother stumbling around every night, walking into walls and slurring her words. Waking up to the sound of vomiting every morning.

At 8 years old she had figured out what was going on and stood quietly as her mother screamed at her for pouring out the bottle of vodka that was in her sweater drawer tucked between the neatly folded sweaters.

She thought about the years that her mother was married to Max. He was verbally abusive to them both. And had molested her when she was a teen.

There were periods of sobriety which were less chaotic but she was still left to her own devices. Her mother was driven and loved her work and the accolades she got from those around her both at work and at AA during her sober times. Being a mother was not a priority.

As an adult, she understood why she hadn’t told anyone what was going on in their house as she was growing up. She especially hid it from her father because she knew if she told him, he would get her out of there. As much as she loved that thought, it also terrified her. What would happen to her mother if she was gone? And what would Max do to them if somehow she was sent back?

A tear escaped her as she remembered how scared she was - nearly all of the time. And how that morphed into major anxiety in her adulthood.

When she turned 60, several years ago Rachel realized that she had lived more years than she had left to live. She began, on that birthday, to actively make plans for how she wanted to live the rest of her life. She retired and began to write, which had been a lifelong dream that she hadn’t followed up until now. She spent more time with her grandchildren, reading, and going to the beach with her husband. Continuing to care for her mother, as she had for her entire life, wasn’t part of that equation.

But, in true form, her mother became ill and required her daughter’s help, yet again. And, yet again, her daughter stepped up and was there.

This time, though, she had taken the steps SHE needed to take for herself, rather than the ones that her mother would have liked for her to have taken. She worked hard to get her mother accepted into a decent place that took Medicaid. Her mother’s daily care would no longer be her responsibility.

Her mother didn’t like it. But that was okay. She didn’t have to. Her daughter knew she was safe and well cared for.

She visited several times a week for a couple of years. But, that ended today. Right?

It had been a small lie, as lies went. But, evidently, she was done with the lies. And didn’t even realize it until she got up and walked out of the room. Her mother had gone out with a friend “for a ride around and some lunch.” Today, it came out that she had manipulated the friend into taking her to a store for marijuana gummies. She wanted to try them to help her pain and didn’t want Rachel to know.

She relayed the day to Bryson, and, as she predicted, he was very pleased with the fact that she had walked out and had no intentions of returning. “You have spent your entire LIFE taking care of that woman. You have changed plans, moved things around, put things on hold. You are at a stage in your life where you need to stop doing that. You deserve better.”

She nodded. She knew he was right.

For the next several days, her mother called and texted multiple times throughout the day. Begging. Apologizing.

Why was it so hard to ignore her? She thought about how she had been ignored and neglected throughout her childhood.

As Rachel thought about it, she understood that it was hard to ignore her because she was not her mother. She cared about people. Although this woman was awful, it was her mother. She’d done a lot wrong, but as she considered her life’s trajectory, she was happy and she wouldn’t have changed a thing. And that was indirectly because of her mother.

She shared this with Bryson who adamantly shook his head in frustration. “Your life’s trajectory is YOU! YOU made that happen. Not her. YOU! Since the day you walked home by yourself from kindergarten. You have created this life IN SPITE of her. Not BECAUSE of her! Give yourself some credit!”

She knew that he was right. All her mother had done throughout her whole life was to create chaos and ask her to put aside her own priorities. And she did.

But, not anymore.

She wished she had estranged years ago. There had been so many opportunities. But, she’d hung in there, probably in hopes of maybe one day having the mother/daughter relationship she’d always so badly wanted.

It wasn’t going to happen and she knew that. But, she also knew what she was capable of doing and not doing, and she knew that this wasn’t something she could see through.

She sat down with Bryson and told him that the next day she was going back to see her mother. He nodded, and said, “I figured so.”

The next day, she walked back in through the main doors, greeted the receptionist, said hi to the nurses and walked back into her mother’s room. She sat down, looked her her mother for a minute and said, “I will always come back. I’ll always be a part of your life. But it will be on my terms. Not yours.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. But, she knew that she continued to need that now 64-year-old child of hers. As much as she had needed her when she was 5. So, she would play along with the rules as much as she could.

For now.