Well, recently I posted that my mother has downsized from a room to a womb. I regret that statement. A womb is a place for potential to develop. An embryo is a developing organism. My mother is not developing and nothing is womblike about her rehab space. A womb takes on it's embryo's individuality. Every womb is different, based on what the molther ship lades in. Every embryo changes in a different way from the food, based on its genetic potential. Every monozygotic twins develop different fingerprints, based on their time in the womb.
A rehab is the prelude to the tomb. There are no individual differences. Each room is the same. Every individual there is a tragedy. A different tragedy, to be sure. But a tragedy. There will be no developments forthcoming. Some will go forth into their nursing home, with a "higher" level of care required. Some will no doubt perish, of their conditions or of their care.
My mother has not cared to personalize her room when she was in assisted living. She had a horror of it. I had to force her to accept a mezuzah. I brought her cards, stationary, pens. She put them away and never used them. She refuses to read books or do crossword puzzles. She no longer listens to radio programs. She is not interested in buying curtains, sheets, or comforters. She has no past, no present, no future.
Of course this is depression. I cannot get a psychologist in there. Of course, she would probably reject that, but I would insist to both that they try to make a go of it for four sessions.
Of course this is probably triggering her traumatic past. Saying no is her only control. Reject others--then they can't hurt by leaving you. Soon after her birth, something happened and her mother was put in an O2 tent--they regulated it poorly and her lungs scarred. She was in a hospital for ages. My mother was cared for by indifferent aunts, who put a cookie in her mouth to stop her crying or ran a vacuum to punish her for crying (hmm--maybe the wound vac is a retraumatization). Her mother was in and out throughout her pre-school years. The summer before she started Kindergarten, her father took her to Florida (from Brooklyn) to be cared for by a grandmother. He told her he would be back soon. He returned right before school started. Years later, she upbraided him for lying to her. He said he didn't want to upset her with the truth.
By the time she started kindergarten, her baby teeth were rotten and she was overweight, a problem she fought until my father's death.
By Kindergarten, things normalized. Her mother was able to be cared for on an out-patient basis and she gave my mother a little brother, who died six weeks before my father almost six years ago.
By age 14, the ceiling caved in. Her mother developed some sort of cancer (stomach, maybe). All I know is there is a photo of her at a cousin's reunion and she is gaunt. She died before my mother was 15. Then, my grandfather asked her if she wanted a grandmother to come and run thehouse. My mother refused--and did the running of the house, the caring of the men, the cooking of the lunches and the dinners by herself. That is the mother I knew growing up--the competent, take charge, I will do the caring for everyone. The mother with a capital M.
And that's how it was until six years ago.
And that's all over. She's dead but she doesn't know it yet.
The picture above is my parents in Virginia Beach, visiting the woman who set them up so long ago. Although my mother is smiling, she still appears tense.