Big Protects Little

originally published: onlythejodi.com 11.28.21

Saturday night, I slept with my Ma. Sometimes she asks me to, and I wiggle out of it because she has a full, active, loud social life in her sleep. Laughing and talking and gesturing randomly in her sleep all. Night. Long. She shouts: "Hello!" or "Where are you?" or "Jack, jack, jacket! Tell your father you look nice in that jacket."

This time, it was my idea. She'd been sleeping since the night before last. There was a brief moment she got up to shower, but fell asleep in the shower chair. And breakfast, where like a junkie, she nodded until her face was almost in her food. That's not awake. Those are somnambulatory adventures. She's Schrödinger’s sleeping cat.

Thursday was Thanksgiving to the rest of the world, but Ma wouldn't know a holiday from a grapefruit. We ate delicious leftover Eggplant Parmesan she declared "nothing special." Most meals here are "nothing special." Or, "I don't like this. I don't like it real bad." Occasionally when the food is just crap, she leans over, whispering to me conspiratorially, "All they ever give you to eat in this place is crap." I am, of course, the they in that sentence.

She went to bed at 7:30 pm Thursday night, immediately starting up where she'd left off in conversations with her circle of sleep friends. They make plans to go to the movies, have dinner, and so on.

Her Thursday night social calendar would look something like this:

• 7:30  pm - Bedtime

• 9:30 pm - Wake up, Possibly pee

• 11:00 pm - Wake up, Possibly pee

• 12:00 am - Wake up, Possibly pee

• 1:00 am - Wake up, Possibly pee

• 3:30 am - Wake up, Possibly pee

• 3:40 am - "Where are you?" -Followed by an extended discussion regarding the night light in her room.

• 3:40 to 4:15 am - Fidget. Adjusts the covers. Turn the light on. Then off. Readjust the covers. Sit up. Lay down. Shout loudly: "Whee! Wheee! Wheeeee!"

• 4:50 am - Remove pajamas and get back under the covers

• 5:30am - Remember to use the walker to get to the bathroom. Forget you took it, and wobble back to bed. Pajamas back on.

Mine looked similar with small exceptions:

• 9:30 pm - Check on Mom, walk her back from the bathroom

• 11:00 pm - Wake, check on Mom, walk her back from the bathroom

• 12:00 am - Wake, check on Mom, walk her back from the bathroom

• 1:00 am - Wake, check on Mom, walk her back from the bathroom

• 3:30 am - Wake, check on Mom, walk her back from the bathroom

• 3:40 am - Wake for extended discussion regarding the night light

• 3:40 to 4:15 am - Can't sleep. Watch Mom on the nannycam until she shouts:"Whee! Wheee! Wheeeee!" Give up and try to get some sleep

• 5:30am - Wake, check on Mom, bring her walker back from the bathroom. Help her put her pajamas back on.

• 8:00 am - Wake to find Mom stuck in the hallway, hanging on to the wall. She smiles and says, "It's so beautiful out this morning." It's officially the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday.

Over breakfast she tells me about the nice young man she wants to fix me up with. He lives next door (pointing to my room, I'm pretty sure I'm that nice young man. I am frequently a man).  She gets dolled up because company is coming, one for her and one for me. I think it's a double date.

Then my heart starts to break.

Her day is focused on waiting for them. She changes her clothes. Her socks. At any noise, "Is someone at the door?" We don't go for walks, what if they come when we're out? No TV, she might not hear the door. She worries: What she will serve, does she have the right dishes, did she give them the right address, what is the address? One of the morning meds hits around noon or noon-thirty when a two-hour lay down and sleep means it will be a good day. Miss that window and everyone is miserable. Today, she fights it like an eight-year-old waiting up for Santa. Exhausted, and willful, she won't eat until they come.

She spent an entire day waiting for friends that never showed.

I was powerless to fix it. I watched as her excitement turned to disappointment and then, hurt.

I could've saved her by simply calling and being that "friend," making an excuse and putting the visit off.  But like a snappy retort, I didn't think of that until the next day.

Maybe that's why she slept Saturday. All day. Maybe she was sleeping off the pain of being awake and disappointed by people. Maybe I'm seeing too much into it and she was just tired because she really didn't sleep at all on Thursday night.  She slept Friday night and all day Saturday. No talking in her sleep. No crazy hand gestures or giggles, no moving. No sleepytime social life.

It's my job to take care of her. To protect her, even when I don't know how or what it is I'm protecting her from. Saturday night, while she slept, I watched Bruised, where Halle Berry's character tells her son, "I'm Big and you're Little. And Big protects Little."

Ma's my Little. She slept thirty-six hours straight through until 7:00 am today. I didn't know what might happen, but whatever it was, I wanted to be close by.

Big protects Little.