The Things She Said When She Still Said Things
Ma had no filter, no internal editor way before dementia
Please take a moment to smash the little heart and turn it red. ❤️
Seven years ago, I worried when my mother died I’d have no one to talk to. Of course there’d be people, but she’d been my primary contact, my main person.
I have a limited capacity for social interaction. If I spent a day in the office, I didn’t want to talk to anyone after work, stick a fork in me, I was done. Once we started living together, I didn’t find much need to chat on the phone with anyone.
Of course, that’s changed as she’s gotten less coherent, less present, and I need people more and more. But oh, the things she would say, when she still said things…
It was one of those days when the summer had gone on too long. It’d been oppressively hot and humid, then it rained and the temp suddenly dropped to 58 or 61 degrees and Mom was freezing. A naked sleeper for as long as I’d known her, now she lay on the bed in flannel pajamas, a long sleeved sweater and pants, huddled under a fake fur throw and was still cold.
She refused to get under the actual blankets because it’s daytime for goodness sake. But she couldn’t get warm. I made tea, pulled out the down comforter I hadn’t used since I moved into this overheated building eleven years ago, and tucked it all around her. Then, headed out to buy, at the end of the fourth hottest summer in history, a space heater. Air conditioners and fans were on sale and clearance, but we were months away from heaters being displayed.
When I got home, she was toasty warm - the comforter had done its work.
“It’s a good thing we don’t have to share a room, Ma. You’d have to wear sweaters all the time, because you can put things on, but I can’t take any more off.”
I also sleep naked, under a single sheet, windows wide open and fans on spring, fall and winter. Her windows are closed, her fans off.
“You could lose weight.”
And there it was.
Mom has always been kind of grossed out by fat people, even though her best friend was obese. At 5’9’’ and 118 pounds most of her life, her mother fed her anything and everything to put weight on. Food as love.
It didn’t work. She didn’t feel loved or gain any weight until well after menopause and even today, her top weight has been 140.
Putting on weight has never been my problem. My top weight is 219.
“Excuse me?”
She shrugs and smiles, impishly. “Well, you could.”
“And you could tell me where you’re planning on sleeping tonight. And who the fuck is make dinner for you.” I shook my head and mumbled, “I can’t believe you called me fat.”
“I never said that!”
She believed herself, at least a little bit. It became a running thing for the rest of the day. When she saw me with something in my hand—trash from cleaning off the cluttered coffee table—she bolted upright, “Are you eating, again?”
“You’re pushing your luck here, old lady. And if I was eating, it’d be my business.”
She laughed, shrugged and smiled again. “I just meant if you had something delicious why didn’t you bring some for me.”
“Bullshit. For a demented old lady, you think pretty fast. That was a save and we both know it.”
Again, she gave me the impish smile and shrug, as if to say, Who me?
I ate my feelings. I still eat my feelings.
Food is love for my mother, and she fed me the way her mother fed her.
“I eat my feelings, Ma. I’m having a lot of feelings. When you’re dead, I’ll be skinny.”
I smiled, impishly, shrugged and went towards the kitchen.
Please take a moment share this with someone you think would enjoy it, or restack and just spread the love. Thank you.
Love this. I feel like I know the person she was when she still said things because of how wonderfully you tell these stories. And I have seen a couple of videos over the years. Love everything about this, including the "Thank You" graphic at the end. It's fab (I'm assuming you designed it). xo
I wrote a lengthy comment and then restacked and my comment disappeared but the gist of it was that I also had a mother with dementia and also heard about my weight probably from the time I was born. My kids heard about theirs too. My mother missed the part about grandmothers being nice, and in terms of her own weight, like yours, she never seemed to top 140 pounds. Thank you for your sharp, incisive writing and the experiences that remind me I'm not alone in this world no matter how I may choose to be.