In the first blog post, I discussed, at length, the events leading up to, and during Rosh Hashanah. As Paul Harvey used to say, “and now, for the rest of the story:…”

Yesterday was a banner day, insofar as I entered my mother’s house for the first time in probably 15 years. But, let me take a step back.

When I was growing up in New York, my mother and I shared a one bedroom apartment. First, on the East Side of 34th street, and for four years, the West side of 34th street. In the West side apartment, and on the East side after my 5th or sixth birthday, my mother gave me the bedroom, and she slept on the couch. She said it was important that I have my own space. However, my mother was not very savvy in the ways of keeping up an apartment. Cut to the chase – my mother is a slob. A slob so bad that she could make a teenage/college aged boy blush at her untidiness. My friends knew, and I rarely had them over because I was so embarrassed.

When I was old enough, I asked some of my friends (and their mothers) about things like: how to clean a toilet and tub, how to get the starch out of the pasta colander, how to clean windows. I had no formal training, and there was no YouTube, or internet for that matter. We basically lived in filth.

When my mother moved to upstate New York, and I to college in Rhode Island, I was so relieved to be free of the filth. Never fond of cleaning, I nevertheless abhorred mess, and did my best with the skills I had, and learned more on the way. I stayed briefly with my mother when she had double knee replacements, and my Uncle and Aunt came up from Staten Island to help me try to dig my way out of the mess she made her home into. I felt the cracks in my psyche begin then.

When my mother sold her home Upstate in 2000 to move to Rhode Island, I nearly died when my friend Marcia came with me to help pack her up and move her. We tried our best, but I wound up paying a cleaning crew $2000 to clean her house before the new people moved in.

My mother hasn’t let me into her home in Rhode Island since my husband and I dated. At least 15 years. She slyly meets me on the stoop, and won’t open the door until I leave. But I know what’s in there. And she knows I know. And we don’t talk about it.

Fast forward to now. Given her hearing issues of the day before, I asked her to call me every day to check in. When she called yesterday, she told me she saw her doctor, and got a referral to see an audiologist for her hearing problem. The issue is that the one she wanted to go to (who was in the same building as her PCP) couldn’t get her in before October. So she was going to use the phone book to find someone now. I offered to look and book for her. I told her to keep checking her phone (she can’t hear it ring) so I could leave her a message regarding an appointment. I found a place that could see her in a few day’s time, booked the appointment, printed the acknowledgement, with directions, and drove to her house to deliver it to her.

When I arrived, the window in the front that is in her living room was open, and the radio was blaring. I grabbed her mail, and stood by her open window, shouting at her. Nothing. So, I went to the side door (can’t use the front door – see my previous post) and banged on the door. Still nothing. So, I knew I would have to enter her home.

I took a big breath, and let myself in, trying to focus on the task at hand (getting her the doctor’s appointment info) and not on the condition of the house. But it was hard not to notice. The house was absolutely filthy. Garbage all over the floor (but not as piled up as I imagined). The kitchen countertops were covered with a layer of sticky grime and littered with stuff. Pots on the stove with ingredients unknown and sitting there for an indeterminate amount of time.

As I rounded the corner to the living room, I could see that she had created a “safe” path to walk from the kitchen to the hallway, through the living room to the chair by the window. This used to be the chair my grandfather sat in. It’s a beast of a wooden mid century chair with a thick, upholstered seat and back cushion. These have long since been covered in garbage bags (back when my mom had “unruly cats”) and had thick blankets draped over that. The chair was always a decent size, but to see my tiny, shriveled mother sitting in it made me gasp. There she sat, the radio cranked up to full volume and cradled in her arms, her head resting on the radio, trying to catch a whisper of sound, a means to feel connected to the outside world.

I called her name, softly at first, then louder. When she didn’t respond, I walked up to her, and gently touched her leg, so as not to startle her. She lifted her head, opened her eyes, and looked at me the way the guest starts on “Touched Like an Angel” looked at Roma Downey and Della Reese, when they reveal who they are, angels sent from God, while a warm halo of light surrounds them and they impart words of biblical proportion. My mother looked up at me with the most wonderful smile. And my heart broke in two.

I told her (through shouting and pantomime – after turning down the radio) that I had found her an appointment for the audiologist in three day’s time, and gave her the paper with the information. I asked her if she could find it, and she said, “can’t you take me?”

Of course I could. My husband and I were supposed to leave for Maine the day before, but that would have to wait. So I told her to be ready for 7:30am to go to the audiologist, and I would pick her up.

I practically keened on my way home afterwards. Keened for the inevitable next chapter. Keened with selfishness that my life was no longer my own, and everything I would now have to give up. Keened for the fear of my marriage suffering from the burden. The money that would need to be spent. The time that would needed to be invested.

My mother and I are not close. Far from it. She has spent a lifetime pushing me away. And I am resigned and content in this way of life. But that now has to change. This needs to be a new and different relationship. I just have to decide how much I can handle on my own, and how much I will need to seek help to do for her.