There is an ache at the base of my skull, the point at which the 10 year chronic pain I have had in my head radiates out from, that felt especially twisted as I spoke on the phone with the director of the facility I called today. I called there to ask about setting up a tour for my family so we could decide if this would be a good place for my mother to live.

“It’s a terrible disease,” the director said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“So hard on the family.”

“Yes.”

“Blah blah blah…” she went on, “…care for Mom, services provided, blah blah, we will love her for who she is…” 

I began to be acutely aware of the stubble on my leg I should have taken care of and how prickly it feels inside the calf of my pants. It was easier to let my mind drift towards that and the ache in my head, than the pain of calling a facility for my mother. This was my first call to a facility. It will not be the last.

My father went to Texas last week, to be with his people, and I went home to share shifts of taking care of my mother with my sisters. I played guitar and sang to her for hours. Mostly the blues, because she would tap her feet and bob her head to that genre more than to the emo singer-songwriter stuff I usually gravitate towards. My mother’s mouth is usually constantly running, non-sensical words come flooding out like wild rushing water from a busted pipe, only occasionally connecting syllables that make any kind of sense. But when I play her the blues she is quiet and content. She likes Bonnie Raitt and Sippy Wallace’s “Women Be Wise.”

“Women be wise,” I sing to her, “keep your mouth shut, don’t advertise your man…”

“Uh-uh” my mother will respond.

“Don’t ever sit around, holdin’ no conversation, explainin’ what your man do to you…”

“Don’t!”

“Cuz these women now days, they aint no good, they laugh in your face, then try to steal your man from you…”

“YES!”

“So women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don’t advertise your man”

“NO!”

Mandolin has been my primary instrument for the past few years, even though I started playing guitar 35 years ago. The songs I have pulled out of my ass the past week have been buried deep in my brain, I have had to work to remember how they go and what the lyrics are. But they slowly came to the surface, and I began to challenge myself with new and creative ways to play. It was sad and interesting to watch my own mind expand, while hers contracted, right in front of me.

When I wasn’t playing music for my mother I was trying to get her to not eat her salad with a pen, or put checkers in her food, or be frightened from glimpses of things she saw on the TV. We settled on watching the food channel, that was safe. We also watched some Cross-Fit show where very athletic shirtless men climbed ropes and lifted absurd amounts of weight. She liked that too.

My mother wanted to go for a ride, but once we got in the car she wanted to go home. And once we were back home, she still wanted to go home. She tried to communicate with me that she was afraid my Dad was dead, or having an affair, and because she can not understand my attempts to tell her otherwise, it was best just to pick up the guitar and divert her attention.

She would get angry at me, and shake her fist, and glare at me like she hated me. I was amazed at how blue her eyes were when she hated me. And since I often couldn’t figure out why she was mad I just stared at her, struck at how beautiful and tragic at the same time.

It is so weird to have that disconnection with your mother. To sit close to her and feel the warmth of her body and her energy and know in your soul this is “Mom.” And to call her name, Mom, and have her turn and look at you. She knows that is her name. She earned it. And yet she is different, not who she was.

“That is what is so hard on the family, they love the person for who they were,” the director of the facility told me today. “We will love them for who they are now, and who they will be,” And I said ok, because I did not know what else to say. Next time I need to remember to tell them that she likes the blues. And I will be there to see her with my guitar.