Resilience

DECEMBER 2007
We gathered in the visitors’ area where red and gold decorations on a fake tree served as a reminder for the season. I settled into an armchair across from my sister. We crossed our eyes at each other, forcing out uneasy laughter.
         And then she walked in.
         “Oh, my girls are here! I’m so glad you came to visit!” Mom wrapped her arms around us. She stared at us, smiling. “You’re so beautiful. Katie, have you lost weight? Jen, how’s your boyfriend?”
         “I don’t think I’ve…,” I started.
         “He’s fine,” Jennie said.
         “Look at the tree, girls! It’s not like the one at home, but I still love it!” Her hands shook as she pointed out the decorations. I could see through the stretched skin. Her brittle fingernails had grown to an unsightly length, yellowed and rough from months without eating.
         Pam, Mom’s best friend for the entirety of my life and then some, settled her hand on Mom’s shoulder. “Sit, Teresa. Relax and enjoy their visit.”
         So she did. We talked about school and work. We talked about apartments and roommates and boys. But no one talked about food.
         “Just look at how fat it is,” she said, pointing at her belly. Her eyes looked at me, but I could not see any of her in them.

AUGUST 2007
         “I will not eat!” A woman in the shell of what used to be my mother’s body stormed after me. I heard her hand slap against the counter behind me. She had not eaten, as far as I knew, for three days. A month earlier, a doctor had given her an emergency shot of potassium.
         “You’ll be dead in two days without it,” he said.
         I shoved her clothes into a duffle. “Grab your bathroom stuff, Mom.” I kept the sentence short. My bottom lip was shaking and my knees knocked together. “Your plane leaves in a couple hours. Please get packed.”
         Her eyes bore holes into the top of my head as I scrambled around in her drawer, looking for something, anything to grab and keep me from looking up.
         “I’m not going!” Her tongue rattled in her dry mouth. She swayed a bit and sat on the bed.
         Tossing the packed duffle on the floor, I moved to her bathroom. “You have to go, or you’ll die.”
         She sprang into the bathroom. “Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that to me. I’m an adult, you’re my daughter.  You can’t talk to me like that.”
         “Let’s go, Mom.” I grabbed her by her pencil-thin bicep. I guided her to the car, drove her to the airport.
“Pam will meet you at the airport.” I said as I drove.
“But why do I have to go?” I turned toward the voice. Tears streaming and teeth bared,  I saw my mother as a 5 year old.
“Because she thinks she can help you.”
We waited for security to open, I watched her lurch through the line and watched her plane take off.
         And I prayed she would survive the flight.

AUGUST 2009

         Mom moved into her own apartment three months ago. She got a job one week ago. She drives a car. She lives alone and shops alone. We visit her once or twice a month.
         And she is living. Her apartment is still new to me. But it feels like home. Furniture arranged exactly as she likes it, candles burning, everything impeccably cleaned.
         Her life is nowhere near the usual confines of “normal.” It is probably not even healthy yet. But it is closer to who she was than she has been in five years.