SmokeLong Quarterly

To begin, expand your definition of mourn. A funeral is never a prerequisite, nor is a death. Stretch your mind to the task of probing Mother’s Day cards. Where is the mother who bakes whole wheat bread but seduces the man she knows you crush on? Where is the mother who presses naked ass cheeks against the picture window, mooning your first ever boyfriend the first time he visits? Where is the mother who delights goading her too-goody-two-shoes daughter but coos about her grace, her intellect? Where is the mother who sings, Hooray, hooray, the first of May, outdoor fucking starts today!? Re-rack each card.

When, after a savage thirty-five-year marriage she finally leaves your dad, detonating his psychosis landmines—his artful arrangement of family photographs, matchbox, red jerry can in the backyard firepit; his royal unhinged nakedness slapping car bumpers along Highway 33, shouting he is God—and you phone her from 4500 kilometers away to plead she get someone, a paramedic, the police, Purolator, anyone, to check on him, but instead she says, He’s no longer my problem, pay attention to the clench in your stomach threatening to loosen your bowels, the rubber-band pressure at your temples, the way your vision blurs. Get comfortable with it.

Next, ignore the dog turds littering her front hall. She lives with her new partner after all, a man who encouraged the turquoise tattoo of a harp seal occupying the wrinkly real estate between her left breast and her pants belt. He worked retail in the past but retired to professionally burn through your mother’s limited savings. Wonder the magic of her new relationship, how it rabbits a stranger from the hat of your mother.

Notice when she breaks pattern, misses phoning you the first of May to sing Hooray, hooray…

Concentrate when a policeman calls one snowy afternoon to explain your mom was picked up, coatless, shoeless, completely lost mere metres beyond her own driveway. He suggests waitlisting her for long-term care, then pauses before explaining how shocked his colleagues were at the state of her home, stuffed with hoarded clothing, porcelain teacups, costume jewelry, piles of dog shit, the stench of cat piss, a partner sporting a turquoise thong.

Yes, you admit, she’s lived that way for years.

Admire the resignation in your voice.

But is she safe?

Puzzle whether he is asking about your mom, or you.

Try not to cry.

In that long moment waiting for the ink of your signature to dry beneath “Power of Attorney” on a form officially committing your mother to a dementia ward, this place where all the perimeter doors automatically lock and all the interior doors automatically don’t, question the accuracy of the verb “commit” in this context. Is it an antithesis?

Negotiate “level of intervention” options, paltry check boxes on papery forms. No resuscitation. Checkmark. Consider drawing a happy face in the box instead. Can a happy face be a wish? When you locate your drifting mother in a communal toilet wearing only her shirt, the clothes of her bottom half soaked and crumpled in the corner, she will cry, embarrassed, but without the words to express this. Hug her close, let her tears mix with your own on your pressed-together cheeks. But suppress your wail when she sobs, I just want to be a person with pants.

In dementia land feverish conversations lack chronology, storied people of mum’s past cross decades, the long dead fraternize with the yet unborn.

In dementia land, meals are bibbed, she will stretch her lips wide to show half chewed food and guffaw. Recognise her there.

In dementia land, staff rotate holiday decorations: photos of patients on Santa’s knee, valentine hearts, shamrocks, Easter bunnies.

After countless conversations and countless half-chewed meals and the decorations are bobble-headed portraits pasted atop Halloween witches and goblins, you explain, words catching and choking your throat, you’ve finally left your marriage, feel her stiff uncertainty awkwardly patting your back. Hear yourself calling for your mother, clinging to her neck, a sobbing wreck. Lay your head on her shoulder. Turn your gaze to the wall. Meet your mother’s face there, her bobble head glued to the body of a ghostbuster.

Finally, pass the drooling barely breathing wheel chaired bodies lining the hallways as if it’s nothing horrific. Find your mother wrapped in a red bathrobe layered over 4 or 5 shirts and so many gaudy necklaces. Feel grateful she dressed herself today. She remembers the punchline, even laughs, when you sing, Hooray, hooray…though doesn’t remember your name, or know you’re her daughter. She believes you’re a greying volunteer. But listen when she tells you how beautiful you are, how much she loves you. Peel her a fresh clementine. She will think it’s the most magical thing.