The Measure of a Mother's Time

The Measure of a Mother’s Time

I pause outside of "Ruth's" door. The sun is cutting through her window shades, engraving lines of lights across her already stern face.

"Ruth" sits in a wheelchair now. When I first met "Ruth" she had been walking, though with a wobble.  Then, she transitioned to a walker. And now, a wheelchair, and not the comfortable kind.

The condition of the residents here is how I measure my mother’s time.

The ones that have left. Rosemary, who passed way. Peyton with her dog, whose family transitioned her elsewhere.

Those still here whom I wish the universe would offer a little more grace and take swiftly.

Families that come and go. The families that never come at all. The loved ones that hardly ever leave.

This is how I count days with my mother at her care come, over these past three years.

My time slows once inside her residence, as I easily adapt to a different stride.  Between the gaps in activity, I observe how my mother’s hairline closely resembles mine. We share cowlicks and thinness.  I count the ways in which we are similar, ways in which I never would have admitted to, as a young woman in my twenties. But my mother’s old age, and mine, has given me this gift to declare.

I grasp at her hands and note her slender her fingers, long nails she used to shape and polish before her night out on Saturdays with my father. Her extremities are unlike mine. I add up the ways in which we differ, and there were so many I used to bragged about in our past.

There have been days of endless wondering about my mother’s condition and countless taunts from her about my hair or shoes. There have been multitudes of moments we celebrated (fresh peace juice dripping down her chin). There have been a sequence of small stuff that I sweated, waiting, for her, or me, to change.

I have whispered incalculable confessions: Mom, you were right. Wearing a V-neck shirt makes you appear thinner and taller.  Still water runs deep.  The best way to pick a husband is to watch how he treats his mother. And battled with her on a few other fronts. Mom, spit that out, its chicken grease.Mom, running track was not going to make my thighs thicker, they were going to be thicker anyhow.  See photos of your own mother for proof.  

I have heard my mother tell another resident, who had been cursed with an endless blank stare, “Now don't you start that with me,” and have had to scurry Mom away in a another direction before the woman could pull at Mom’s finger. I have smiled at Mom’s simple acts of beauty, as she caresses the face of another resident with gray, tired eyes.

I have survived tornado and fire drills amidst 12 women plus caregivers, with obstacles such as wheelchairs and walkers squeezed in the laundry or shower rooms, explaining over and again why so many of us were crammed into a tiny space. “When you were younger in school, your school always had fire drills. This is like that.”  “Oh,” they sigh, with slight reminiscence. Then they ask, “why are we here,” once more.

I count the caregivers that have come and stayed. They have been the dedicated majority.  Each one adores Mom's smile. She will casually smooth her hand across their brown or tanned arms and repeat back whatever phrase they have uttered to her.  “Jean, the Bean,” they say.  “Jean, the Bean,” she says back. It’s a melodic call and response.

I tally up how babies can make her day, either prodigy of visitors or residents, but especially Prince George and Princess Charlotte, who grace the cover of every other People magazine I carry in for Mom to read.  I tally up too, the other People magazine covers, as a way to measure time, Pope Francis, Leslie Gore, B.B. King, Omar Sharif.

I rely on the fact Mom still mentions the silver vent hood atop the roof, and stops to admire the pink and green beech tree.  She is want to point out each garden stone with pebbled glass missing, assigning the stone a number, then counts ones that are not present.

We have moved on from listening to strictly Sinatra. With so many music apps on my iPhone, I can mix up the playlist to include Nina Simone or Dean Martin, Bette littler or Louie Prima, and keep track of the names that cause her to respond.

Mom wants to be held more. She grabs on to me longer when we hug. I count her hugs, and the number of seconds in which they last – all day if I let them. She nestles her face into the crook of my neck, appreciating the sense of closeness. A feeling that is three years gone for her.  Sometimes, she still pats me on the back or backside, like she did when I was five.   

Recently, the nurse noted Mom needed an annual check-up with a doctor.  I decided to switch to the in-house doctor at that point, to reduce the challenge of moving Mom from point A to point B when seeing her original doctor, Dr. Graff.

The in-house doctor phoned one day to jot down Mom’s medical history.  “About how long ago did she develop dementia,” he inquired.

Her timeline eludes me. I used to recite actual dates and times for when I noticed the occurrences. When did I know? When she balked at changing clothes, taking a bath or listening.

I gave him a generic answer. “About five years ago.”

But I have relinquished any formal answer to Mom’s calendar, the one where she dutifully kept religions holidays, birthdays and anniversaries of loved ones living and deceased, hair and dental appointments for five kids. She didn’t need Google Calendar, then or now. Her life is no longer measured in time slots or a stretch of days, but in human interactions.

I have spent more time with her these past three years, than in some entire decades of my younger years. And yet, it’s hard to imagine, I still have days where I depart from Mom’s care home in tears, usually because our day together was near-magical, or that she wanted to hold tight and not let go.  She has been a near-perfect muse, and I have only gratitude for the immeasurable amount of words it has taken to capture her essence.

A week ago, I received a call from Mom’s care home. “Your mom had another seizure.”

“I’ll be right in.”

So, throughout the week, along with nurses and staff, I waited and counted and forced her to drink water or Gatorade or anything. She was also diagnosed with a UTI, and in the midst of X-rays due to complaints about her back, the radiologist discovered some arthritis in her back.

We managed to keep her out of the hospital, and she responded slowly, her gait unsteadied and present mind still obscured.

But her recent situation challenged me back into the space of unknowing. If death had slipped from the subtle grasp of life Mom held on to, I would have sent her off with my blessing. She was already filled with peace, nothing left to add.

Until today, when an arrow traveled through my heart as she pushed a strand of hair behind my ear while I hugged her.  Count one more day I wanted her back.

Baby Doll

“Hello, baby,” Mom said, with a broad smile and wide eyes that had surprisingly become part of her character as of late.

The words, the phrasing, the inflection all reminded me of Mom’s sweet tone she used while cooing to the grandchildren when they were little.  How she would scoop them up into her arms, toned from years of ravioli rolling, and nestle them into the crook between her collarbone and cheek.

When our son Davis was born, Mom, or "Nanna," rocked him to sleep many afternoons, as he was somewhat of a fussy baby.  He eventually grew to sleep even in cars, when not behind the wheel. Observing Mom as I entered into her living space, I recalled how she used to call Davis, her little snuggler (Sorry, Davis).

Standing over her now, I realized, she wasn’t talking to me. She was speaking to the baby doll resting in her arms. A plastic baby doll. No, her behavior was not bizarre. In fact, it was quite normal.

“Put something meaningful in the person’s hands,” wrote the authors of You Say Goodbye, We Say Hello. TheMontesorri Method for Positive Dementia Care, Tom and Karen Brenner.

About a year ago, a companion caregiver who visited Mom regularly, and treated Mom like her own, hit upon the idea to gift Mom the doll.  The doll was wearing more clothes then than she had on now. But the doll’s frilly pink dress and blue eyes enticed Mom, who, every once in while even slept with the doll.

Occasionally, I brought in People magazines for us to read, because of their large print. But also, the cover sometimes featured a celebrity who had given birth, along with the new baby. “Oh, there, that one. Isn’t he something,” Mom said about Prince George.  

Recently, there had been a cover picturing Christine Aguilera, with her daughter Summer Rain. While Mom was not pleased with the name, she adored the baby wearing a tight pink hat and sporting startling blue eyes.

Sometimes, with my iPad and Mom seated at my side, I search Google Images, using the term baby. Mom is so taken by the plethora of images, she is overwhelmed and speechless.  She giggles and can’t seem to settle on which one was her favorite.

But, when I heard Mom say, “Hello, baby,” for a split second, I thought she was directing her hello at me.  Instead, she was swinging the baby doll back and forth, as she rocked in the “maternity rocker,” and peering into the doll’s eyes, saying, “Hello, baby.”

Often, when the baby doll is in her arms, other residents stop and ask, “Boy or girl?”  “Can I hold her?”  “What’s his or her name?”  They tower over Mom with jealousy and wistfulness.

Mom doesn’t typically respond, but I do. “It’s a girl.”  Or, “About three months.” Or "Would you like to hold her?"

“How lucky,” Mary Lou responds.  “Isn’t that something,” Big Jim says.

The doll didn’t come with tag stating her name. I’m not certain a name would have stuck. Her name is Baby Doll, and that works for Mom. Occasionally, Baby Doll has gone missing.  Meaning, one of the other residents has taken off with the doll.  Sometimes, the staff has to put out an APB for Mom’s doll.

Put something meaningful in a person’s hands, I harken back to. Sometimes its coffee, or a snack, which is how I learned to not complain about Mom’s eating, unless it’s the whole hunk of brie she once tried to consume at Christmas. Eating is a meaningful act.

In their stories, the authors included other meaningful items, such as baseballs, violins, trains, pipes and wrenches (for a former plumber). When Mom visits my house, I put a wooden spoon in her hand. She still loves to stir a good pot of sauce. And despite the lack of babies in our family (no rush, kids), she still loves good hugs. If no one else is around, the baby doll is a fair substitute as her little snuggler.

A mother never forgets how to love. And she never forgets how to love a baby, even when the baby is a forty-nine year old daughter resting on her shoulder, asking the big questions about life.

She will wrap her free hand around my cheek. “Well, there. Its there,” she'll respond, and hold up her baby doll.

You Say Goodbye, We Say Hello. The Montesorri Method for Positive Dementia Care, Tom and Karen Brenner.  Read more here….

Buon Compleanno Vinzenzella

Today, my mother, Vinzenzella Jean Giuliani Januzzi, turns 87. She no longer lives at home, though I call where she lives her “care home”, but the blessings of these past years, when she has lived in a state of forgetting (who doesn’t), are countless.

She will dance and sing to Hey Mambo, Mambo Italiano with the best of Italian accents. She no longer speaks from her mind, but from her heart. She forgets how to be sad, though sometimes she can become VERY angry, mostly at someone telling her what to do. She hugs more, and shrugs less. And has yet to meet a cookie she hasn’t devoured.

As of late, for whatever reason, even the center’s chaplain has noticed a lightness in Mom’s demeanor.  He asked me one day, What did I attribute her change to?  And all I can imagine is that, in the midst of all her letting go’s, she is becoming closer to the perfect state of being, that is, of being human.


To be in her presence during these times is an awe-inspiring event, such that I am often brought to tears for no particular reason. She and I exist in this state between my grief, and her pulling towards home.

My mother was named after her birth father, Vinzenzo, who lost a battle to meningitis before he met his little girl.  Some of Mom’s official documents note that her birth name was Vinzenzella, and not Vinzenza, as originally thought.  This came to light a few times over the decades, as she pursued a passport for our trip to Italy.  As I went back and read through many of her personal papers, including high school reunion programs, I immediately sympathized with her, and the fact society continued to rebrand her first and last name constantly.  Misspellings abound.

Ironically, when I call her Vinzenzella, she repeats the name so fluently, it is like song coming from her heart.

And so I return to the chaplain’s comments, and my conclusion. Perhaps Mom is arriving closer to her birth name of Vinzenzella, and thus, nearer to her state of perfect being.

A Scuffle with My Mother - And a Poem

A Scuffle with My Mother

Yesterday, I got into a fight with my eighty-six year old mother.  You ask how is this possible and I say, its completely so.

I had an hour between meetings near her care home and the sun was a glorious golden orange for the afternoon. My mother loves the sun, and in my heart, I know it helps lighten her attitude.

I found her exiting her room, following lunch and a clothing change by one of the caregivers.  As she approached me, we exchanged hello’s, she with faint recognition of me. Since she was already making forward progress, and she gets easily distracted, I immediately coaxed her towards the door to the courtyard.

“Let’s go outside, Mom.”

“Why?”

“Why? To get some sun?”

“But I don’t want to get sun.”

“But you love the sun.”

“No, I don’t.”

Exasperated, but determined, I knew her time in the sun was waning, as colder weather approached and she tended not to venture outdoors at the slightest chill, not understanding she simply needed a coat or sweater.

She grabbed my pinky finger and began to twist it around. Her face curled up in snarl.

“Ow. Mom that hurt.”  I scolded her.

“Well. Well,” she replied with little knowledge of the pain she had inflicted - and why.

“Oh, Mom. I know you hate me telling you what to do, but just trust me.”

And suddenly, her eyes brightened.  “Yes,” she answered. She followed me obediently towards the door, though it wasn’t clear which she was responding yes to, my bossiness towards her or her trust in me.

I maneuvered around her body, as she still had my hand in a death grip, to lead her to a chair in the sunshine. She no sooner sat down, relieved, closed her eyes and muttered, “Oh. That sun today is something else.”

Yes, it was something else. She was something else. For between those moments of loving each other, we both fought for control, we were both something else.

An hour later, I left her seated on the chair, snoozing with glass of strawberry Gatorade in hand, wondering if she would spill it on herself when she woke.  I didn’t care. I will lose this war with her dementia, but at least for the day, I won a small skirmish. She, in the glorious sun, won a little battle too.

This piece was inspired by the declining number of days in which I know Mom will be able to sit outside at peace.

Opus Dei

Her head drops

amidst the blue screen of sky,

as if her crown has landed

on a white pillow of down.

Eyelids closed,

she is the picture of infant innocence

even past eighty-six.

God has painted her as art today,

a stained glass creation.

Close up, diamonds of skin

are flushed in flesh.

Her lips have been brushed with a faint rose.

Her ears softly fold over pixie-cut

gray hair. Brown lashes and brows -

near invisible lines -

He has deftly touched

to define what she can still see.

Occasionally, His masterpiece

wakes to the chirp of a bird

then returns to slumber in sun,

his final touches glazed in bronze.

She will never be more beautiful

than in this

moment of mastery,

subject of the maker’s brush.

Alive Inside: The Movie and My Mother

Musis is…truth (Kerouac), magic (Rowling), the existence of God (Vonnegut), the food of love (Shakespeare).  Music is the self still alive, as evidenced in the documentary Alive Inside.  Alive Inside is the story of a social worker, Dan, who uses music via personal music players, to awaken the inner lives of those afflicted with dementia or other diseases whose existence is limited to a nursing home or long-term care.

From our earliest beginnings, scientists have discovered patterns in a baby’s cries which mimic those of a mother’s voice. The power to imitate, to repeat, to be moved. That is music.

I have spent hours with my mother, seated at her side in her care home, where the strains of Tommy Dorsey, Billy Holliday, and her beloved Frank Sinatra float between us. I can say with certainty, a surreal recognition glides over her face, whether she is at rest, in the sun, or in bed, recognition far more powerful than recognition of my face, or that of my father in their wedding picture. It is a recognition of self. 

When Dan interviews one of his clients and asks, “What is it you don’t remember, or would like to remember,” she replies, “Who I was, after I was a young girl.” Dementia, Alzheimer’s, old age takes many back to the far reaches of youth’s shore, but there are lost years that cannot be accessed by a photograph, a spoken memory, even a daughter.

As outsiders, we don’t know which years are the lost ones. But we can rule some out, speculate about others, and use music to zero in on a few.

Were I to develop some kind of dementia, and my spouse or children planned to place a music player to my ears, they for certain would know to play The Boss, right?

But would they know to play ZZ Top, who I saw in concert in college, with my ultra-conservative roommate Janice, and we played air guitars to Sharp-Dressed Man, or would they play Robert Palmer, for when my sister and I dressed as the Palmer girls one Halloween during my first year living in Cincinnati?  Would they select Joshua Kadison’s Beautiful in My Eyes, from my first wedding, The Servant Song, from my second?  Would they know, when Seger’s Against the Wind plays, the song conjures up memories of high school track, and from then on, every life challenge I ever met and surmounted?

Or would they play Sinatra, as homage to my mother, and the times she and I journeyed together and separate, seated in the sunshine on worn wooden benches, each of us lost in a world our minds created?

Dan, the social worker has a worthy goal for his Music and Memory program, placing personal music players inside 16,000 nursing homes across the U.S.  I don’t know if this goal also includes long-term care centers such as my mother’s. And there are plenty of logistical challenges to this, yet centers across the U.S. are implementing this program every week.

A few weeks ago, I told the activities director at Arden Courts, Becky, and the corporate nursing director, Jesse, about Alive Inside.  I had been an early Kickstarter funder for the movie, despite receiving no scrolling credits at the end.  But I invested because I believed in its mission. I had witnessed it firsthand.  I cheered when the movie was accepted at Sundance, and said, “Of course,” when Alive Inside won the Audience Award.  I badgered the producers, When will you come to Cincinnati, because the movie had been out since July and only now, has it appeared in a local theatre. Columbus got the screening before Cincinnati did.

Becky is now looking closely at the program, seeking funding and discerning training methods.  Offering to assist in these efforts, I have spurred her on. After all, Becky is the person who approached me, about bringing Matt Snow, Cincinnati’s Sinatra, to Arden Courts for my mother’s birthday, while throwing a Spaghetti Dinner party for residents.

I am a bit young, by demographics, to be the daughter of a woman of near 87.  Many family visitors are ten to fifteen years older, and have not been exposed to technology that can make an impact in the life of someone with dementia.

Even if Becky does not succeed in implementing the program, the next generation of family caregivers, those in my age bracket who can maximize technology and whose parents are approaching the age in which they might not access music on their own, will stimulate continued development of programs like Music and Memory.

In ten years, Dan’s personal work will still continue to inspire the likes of me, as I sit, grounded with my mother, and select just the right song for her.  She has a CD player at her bedside, and one of my favorite past times, when she doesn’t feel like rising from bed, is to play Louis Prima because he tosses Italian phrases into his music that she repeats, and understands. Another unrealized benefit to music is that music in a foreign language reawakens another part of the mind, in particular for my mother when her parents spoke Italian. I’ll also play a little Mario Lanza, just to throw her a curve. She laughs when I sway at her bedside, and some days, she will join me. It is the sweetest of times.  

I have specific playlists for Mom, and make unwise use of Pandora, which is why I have more data usage than the rest of the family. I load up YouTube videos showing Frank actually singing with the Rat Pack, or with just Dean Martin, and a drink in hand. When Mom visits our home, Mark cues up Sinatra on our sound system so that “Frank” is playing before she walks in the door, and she knows is she in a home that embraces who she is.

I can’t make my mother’s life perfect, and despite her best efforts to do so when we were younger, it never was.  Sometimes, I neglect to make an appointment for her haircut.  She has gone without matching socks for a few weeks, because I forget until I arrive, then am too tired when I leave to go shopping and return.  She doesn’t drink purple Gatorade, “tastes funny,” but I show up with wrong color anyhow.

But the days we dance and sing and she nods to strains of Sinatra are the best days, when I leave weeping and beaming. Tears because I am so desperate to know that person in her lost years. Smiles because in some small way my mother has found, or recognized, herself as being whole in those moments of music.

When the movie was over, I walked out, and the only words out of my mouth were, “Well, at least I didn’t cry for all 78 minutes.” 

The stories were heartwarming and heartbreaking, but I cried only with joy. The one small gift I can my mother over and over, is the gift of song, when my mother’s physical welfare takes a back seat to the well-being of her soul.