Long and Winding Roads

Last night, as I somehow (and somewhat miraculously) merged safely onto the last ramp leading to the final leg of my journey from New York Hospital in Manhattan to my mother's apartment in Brooklyn, I wondered how I had actually gotten there. The meandering and severely rutted tangle of highways and expressways and side streets is as familiar to me as an old shoe (an old shoe? really?), but if someone asked me to lay out the route I'd be at a loss.

Mom looks a lot better than she did the last time I saw her, when she was still wearing her coffee splattered St. John suit and her face was twisted in such pain that, in hindsight, we all should have known there was more to it than just a fractured shoulder. Badly bruised and broken, she couldn't even conjure up one of her fake smiles, and believe me, a fake smile for my mother is as automatic as the drive is for me from Manhattan to Brooklyn. A few days in a hospital gown (I don't believe it's St. John, although the top gown that she uses as a cape and the gown flowing underneath it are perfectly color coordinated, which is important to her), have done her some good. She is in decent spirits and looks like as much of a queen as anyone can look in that setting.

The staff finds her endearing and amusing. Of course they do -- she's not their mother! She is a stellar and obedient patient; she's very competitive, and is determined to do well on every blood test. She was thrilled to hear from the occupational therapist that she will graduate early from acute rehab, even though my brother and I would like to see her taken care of by these people until she is completely healed. Her phi beta kappa in bone repair makes us uneasy; the thought of an eighty year old woman (a rather uncoordinated one under the best of circumstances) with a broken shoulder, a broken pelvis, and broken ribs being sent off into the world on her own is, for us, a bit frightening.

Still, it's strange to think of my mother as a hospital patient. I will embark on the mysterious drive up to Manhattan soon, and, when I see her, I will no doubt wonder how both of us ended up there.