Motherland

I got a card yesterday from my mother's cousin. She'd had a phone call from Mom and it had upset her, this cousin, so she'd written to me, looking for explanations. She said in the card that she was worried that my Mom was thinking about ending her life. She was looking for reassurances.

I don't really know what to tell her. Mom seems okay on the phone sometimes. Other times she calls to tell me she never loved me and not to phone her anymore. "You kids were all conceived in lust, not love," she says. She tells me that she talks to Onofrio, my father's father, and that he's the devil and he tells her to do things, awful things, and sometimes she does them.

She used to live with me, right up until the day she took an overdose of her blood pressure medications. And then she was admitted to the psyche unit at the hospital and from there she went to a nursing home close to where she used to live. And now, she's still there, making phone calls to everyone on her Rolodex, telling them not to call her.

When I think about her, which is a lot less frequently than I did when she lived with me, I try to remind myself that she's among people who know her and that she's being cared for, fed and housed, at least, if not medicated. She won't take her pills anymore. Even though they might keep the voices away, keep Onofrio from tormenting her. She thinks they make her worse. How much worse can she get?

Guilt is pointless unless it moves you to do something. I keep feeling that I should do something for her, something more than calling her, sending her flowers, pictures, letters.

Sometimes I think that she would be better if she lived with me again. But I remember how it was and how I couldn't believe that she was seriously off her rocker until she took the overdose. And then I felt so much relief when the doctors recommended a nursing home. I felt like someone else was taking responsibility for her, finally. It was as though an elephant had been lifted off my back. And I didn't much care where the elephant ended up, just so it was somewhere else.

I'm a thousand miles away from her now. My brothers are in charge of her care. I keep hoping that she would be normal again. Sometimes she sounds that way on the phone. But if I keep her talking long enough she'll slip in something about her father-in-law or about her allergy to water or about how she can't eat anything.

Yesterday she called and left a message describing the last bunch of flowers that was delivered to her room. She sounded so happy, telling me the colors and what kinds there were. She called again later. "Don't send any more," she said. There were too many and there weren't enough vases. She still had some left over from the week before. I'll check again on Friday and see if she still means it.