Today I reveled at the faces in the elevator, surprised at what some of the dog owners I've known for months actually look like. A new neighbor introduced himself, and it took us both a moment to realize we had spoken at length only weeks ago, hidden behind our masks. I reveled as I strolled along the lakefront toward the river, not just at the mosaic of faces but at the palpable sense of renewal, of a city being reborn.
My revelry is tempered, of course, not quite as unadulterated as I would like. For two years, all of us -- my brother, my children, and I -- have taken every precaution to ensure that my elderly mother would not become an untimely covid statistic. We celebrated her 90th by zoom, and a few months later, about a minute after I received my second shot, I traveled in for a real hug. We convened for her 91st in person, about a week late and complicated only by the need for a wheelchair to transport her. That was only a month ago. The tussle over the wheelchair seems quaint now.
I resent the jarring twist of fate that suddenly stopped her in her tracks after two years of extraordinary prudence. A twist of fate having nothing to do with covid and everything to do with age and a deteriorating spine and a bunch of other "stuff" -- to be technical -- a twist of fate that I suppose should hardly be jarring. I'm not a mathematician, but I can do basic math, and I was pretty certain she was somewhere on the back nine (as am I). I chided her repeatedly when the threat would temporarily abate, told her to get out and live because, really, what was she waiting for. And she did get out, with some trepidation. And I kept my fingers crossed each time she did, because, realism notwithstanding, there is a piece of me that always believed my mother was immortal, and why mess with that.
In what seems like a blink of an eye, my mother is now confined to a bed in a hospital, existing in some ill-defined space between the mental coherence my brother and I crave and her dire need for pain medication. A blink of an eye for us, though knowing her she has likely been "playing through the pain" far longer than we realize. We don’t know if she will ever get better, and we don’t know what "better" might look like. We don't even know what we want it to look like, but, lucky for us, that's not our choice to make.
With somewhat divergent manifestations, my brother and I are devastated, and we will wallow together and separately in our sorrows as we need to. Geography and disposition have long allowed him to be far more attentive to our mother. This, with a sense of finality far greater than any illness or accidents we have dealt with before, has forced us both to reckon with our differences. Sometimes, I think we exaggerate our reactions to our newfound despair, if only to emphasize to the other -- or to ourselves -- that our own way makes sense. But none of it makes sense. If anything, though, these past few weeks of far too much time together in a hospital room followed by surprisingly therapeutic dinners together in a nearby Italian restaurant have helped us with that. For that, I am grateful, and I revel to the extent I am able.
The river is bright green today, and, thanks to a controversial feat of engineering at the turn of the last century that reversed its flow, neither that shade of green nor the algae- and clay-induced mud green of normal days will ever spill into the crystalline sparkle of our lakefront. Still, under the surface, the water is murky and the tides shift, no matter what we do.
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