She has not had to deal with me in a whole half a year. She eats what she wants, when she wants, usually cookies, too much coffee, and too little water. She takes, or doesn’t take, her medicines as she remembers or doesn’t remember. If she sleeps, it can now be in her chair in the living room. She doesn’t have to bathe. If her bills go late, they call. She is back to paying late fees, but she doesn’t have to deal with me… cleaning her clothes, or the house, or making her wash herself, or bothering her with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with me piling her pills into her hand and waiting for her to take them, with reminding her to drink her water so she doesn’t end up back in the hospital like when she was so very sick, and I had to come care for her 6 months ago. She doesn’t have to deal with me kissing her forehead every night, and telling her I love her…
She hates to be told I love you. She says, “I don’t want to feel like I have to say it back.” I say, “You don’t. I know.” She says, “I know, too, so stop saying it.” I say, ” Just in case an airplane hits my side of the house while we are sleeping…” She says, “I’m not gonna sleep tonight, so we are okay.” I kiss her on the forehead again, tell her I love her. She tells me she loves me, too, and asks if I will being her cookies. I say, “No, but hoe about peanut butter toast and tea?” She snorts, “I’d rather have the cookies, but okay.” I bring her toast and tea, tell her I love her for a third time because I am going to lie down. She rolls her eyes like a teenager, “Leave your door open?” “Always, Mom.”
Twenty minutes, and she calls for me to help her to the bathroom. Twenty more, and she is back in her chair, having scoffed at the notion of her going to bed. This will happen in another twenty minutes. I offer her water, a kiss… a new I love you. She doean’t understand that all three of those things need to be fresh at all times when you reach her age. She is quiet…
But, shw doesn’t have to deal with me anymore, hasn’t had to in 6 months, no dealing with me making protest signs on her living room floor, or organizing marches and brainstorming gatherings to try and save baby humans from a government takeover. She doesn’thave to see me, a physical reminder, a product of her once compassionate, humanistic parenting.
She doesn’t have to be reminded of the indifference and apathy that fills her heart now.
There is no voice of reason, or sanity, or logic in her home now, keeping her well and sound. She has opted out of me, in preference of one more likely to give the cookies without a thought… and the salty trade off ian’t so bad. The trade off for not having a heathen like myself hold her to the tenets of well being and kindness to herself and others is actually a glorious beholding.
She can preach to the people on Jerry Springer reruns all night long now, and holler down the hallway to my sister on her knees in the bathroom, smoking drugs, praising jesus, and not hearing her calls at all. She will never once have to be reminded that there are many beautiful things about herself that she has forgotten… those same many things she hates to see come out in me… her antichrist, that she might remember if she picked up just one of those 7 dust covered bibles sitting on the table next to that chair of hers.