Maiden to Mother to Crone

Story by Lisa Pullen Kent

The following excerpt is from my manuscript, Death, Rock Me Asleep: A Memoir. To give some context, in 2015, I scrolled through my iPhone calendar with my mother to find a date for her death. She wasn’t dying, but she was done living. At seventy-one, after suffering most of her life with chronic, progressive multiple sclerosis, she no longer wanted to go on. She refused to become a burden, to lose her mind. Adamant to retain control, she was convinced dementia would undermine her choice if she waited any longer. And so, she planned her death.

VSED, the voluntary stopping of eating and drinking, is the medically supported, legal method for ending one’s life which she chose. Under the care of a physician, my mother set the date. My siblings and I flew in from around the country and, on a Sunday, she ceased all intake, including water and ice chips. She died the following Saturday.

This scene opens on Wednesday, mid-way through the week of her dying process. My sisters and I are deep cleaning our mother’s one-bedroom apartment at the assisted living complex in which she resided the last few years of her life. My brother has taken the bedding to the laundromat. Our project is intended to make her more comfortable as well as mitigate the significant allergic reaction I’m having to Mom’s cat.

I am the oldest at 52. Thomas is 51, the only brother. Heidi is 47. And Sarah, 20 years younger than me and, from a second marriage, is 32. Our mother is 71.

From Maiden to Mother to Crone

It occurred to me recently that my days seem filled with a constant repetition of one- and two-step tasks, of just moving things from here to there and back again. I often find the massive amount of labor required to simply maintain life exhausting. The Zen Koan my mother often quoted resonates with deeper meaning the older I get: “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”

She’s been parked in her easy chair, drifting in and out, while, all around her, we purge heavy emotional energy along with the cat hair. Thomas seems resigned to her decision now, but the conflict reverberates in the air. His help with the laundry feels conciliatory and gives him a reason to be absent.

Hospice is coming later for a visit, although, Mom has requested they stop daily check-ins and vitals after today. We sisters agree we can handle it and will call with any needs or questions.

In the midst of our frenzied cleaning, Mom says to me from her perch, “I want to be clean when I die.”

I remember my mother-in-law saying that same thing, voicing her desire shortly before the pull of unconsciousness lured her under for good. “I’d like to be clean when I pass,” she’d said to her own daughters. I was moved then by the quiet, dignified request.

Now, as I consider the logistics, my initial reaction to my mother’s wish is a familiar flash of irritation. Hospice services provide medication, counseling, nursing support, and medical equipment. But Mom, reasoning in her convoluted way, dismissed their recommendations. “It won’t take long. I don’t need a hospital bed or a portable toilet or a shower seat.” And, as usual, her choices became our burdens.

I pull my sisters aside. “Mom is insisting on a shower,” I say, slightly annoyed. “But she’s getting weaker.” They both give me a knowing look. It goes without saying that negotiating a last shower will be an exercise in patience for all concerned.

“I’ll help,” Sarah says and puts aside her cleaning.

She and I get Mom to her feet and gingerly shuffle into the small bathroom, the three of us a unit. Each footstep is coaxed in soothing tones, moving us mere inches forward before we stop to rest.

Looking to the shower, I puzzle out the execution of our task. Thank God we don’t need to try and get her over the side of a bathtub. Just a year ago Mom had the foresight to replace her tub with a standing shower, an acknowledgment of her increased fall risk. But managing once she’s in the shower remains an issue.

“I’m not sure how we’re going to do this, Mom,” I say, wondering if we could talk her into a sponge bath. “You can’t stand up by yourself,” I point out. But a shower is what she wants and we are her daughters. We will give her what she wants.

In the middle of the bathroom, crowded by the sink, toilet, and shower, Sarah holds Mom by the armpits and helps shift her weight onto one leg. I gently remove one sock, then the other. Carefully, I lower the elastic waist of her jeans over her hips along with her underpants. Sarah encircles Mom around the waist so I can carefully pull the T-shirt over her head. The role reversal swiftly becomes painful poignant; how many times did she do this for her children? For me? Now she stands naked and barefoot on the cold linoleum floor.

“Mom,” I say softly, bending down, lowering my gaze to make eye contact. “We need you to help us, okay?” I’m once again amazed by her shrinking stature. When did she become smaller than me? For how long has she been disappearing? With eyes soft and unseeing, her awareness comes in and out of focus. Then her knees buckle and we quickly lower her to the toilet seat.

Whether she had an ear cocked or felt an intuitive hit, Heidi sticks her head in, a rag thrown over her shoulder, spray bottle in hand. “How’s it going?” She steps into the tiny bathroom.

“One of us has to get in with her,” I say with a sigh. Mom sits slumped and vulnerable on the commode, disoriented, and looking every bit the little old lady she adamantly did not want to become. “I don’t see any other way.”

I kick my sandals off, preparing to get my clothes soaked, but Sarah has already stripped down and stands nude in front of Mom. Stepping to the front, she bends down and guides Mom’s arms over her shoulders and pulls her up like a backpack. “Lean on me,“ she says and Mom does, closing the gap so they are skin to skin.

In that instant, the task shifts from inconvenient chore to sacred ritual. A rite of preparation for the passage ahead. It is not lost on us that the first time our mother has allowed us to care for her so intimately will also be the last.

Watching Sarah with Mom, I see the cocoon of their universe, containing just the two of them. We older three were grown and gone and Sarah was raised as an only child. By the same woman, yes, but one vastly compromised by her disability. Her youngest, late-in-life child, quiet and unassuming, served as an emotional and physical crutch and Mom unwittingly leaned on her, heavily at times.

“Come on, Mom. Let’s walk.” Sarah says, starting forward, her strong back welcoming Mom’s weight. Heidi and I flank the processional toward the open shower curtain. “Just a little step,” she says soothingly, then waits when Mom stops. “Okay, good. How about another one?” She pauses. Patient. Calm. “Another.” We breathe slowly in sync as Sarah guides our mother.

Once in, Sarah turns Mom’s back to the spigot and pivots to face her, keeping Mom’s arms anchored on her shoulders. I reach for the detachable shower head and adjust the temperature, then lift the hose above Mom’s head. She closes her eyes and tilts her chin up, sighing quietly as the warm water runs over her hair.

I soap a loofah and lovingly caress the back that has borne so many burdens. Her skin is fair and unblemished but for a long surgical scar covering her spine from mid-back to tailbone. An exploratory back surgery split her open in search of the source of chronic pain when she was just twenty. The tissue paper skin spreads broadly, like a fat centipede, the suture marks dotting its sides like legs. No conclusive evidence was discovered. It would be thirty years before she’d have the answer: multiple sclerosis.

I crouch to wash each leg. Her skin holds her flesh, but loosely. I look up through the water to see Sarah, head bowed, silently sobbing.

Coming around the front, I reach between their bodies to wash Mom’s soft belly, then very gently, between her legs. My muscles cramp from squatting, a penance I accept for my earlier irritation.

I push to standing with a grunt. Mom helps now, holding her own weight a little, lifting off of Sarah. I move the sponge across her neck, her décolletage, then sweep beneath the beautiful sagging breasts that nursed four babies. Breasts that look remarkably like my own. Tears mingle with the spray misting my face and my clothes.

She can no longer hold herself up. Like a wooden thumb puppet, at the release of a button, she collapses forward. Sarah turns again to offer her back and Mom drapes her body in surrender. I begin to wash her hair now, caressing the short locks, working the shampoo into a luxurious lather while Heidi keeps the water off her face. I see that she, too is weeping.

Mom’s eyes remain closed. She seems not merely weak, but starting to detach, to float away as we tend to her body. The body in which she’s traversed a lifetime, from maiden to mother to crone. The body we, her daughters, will walk to its journey’s end.