There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (44 page)

Rowan has always been very straightforward and black-and-white. When she was two years old, she was in her car seat in the back of my SUV and I was pulling out of our driveway in LA. I had just gotten really mad at my mother for something. I can’t remember why I was crying but I was upset and quietly crying in the front seat. I was trying not to be obvious, but sure enough Rowan didn’t miss a beat. She quickly asked, “Mama crying?”

I had a decision to make. Do I lie and say no, I just had something in my eye? That would send the message that it was shameful to cry in front of others and that her instincts were not correct. I had to quickly think of what my little girl needed. She needed to hear the truth but also needed to know that her world was right and her mom was OK enough to be able to keep her safe.

“Yes, bug, Mama’s a bit sad, but I’m going to be fine and I love you.”

“Mmn, Mama’s crying.”

And with that she put her thumb in her mouth and looked out the window completely satisfied. As she stared at the passing trees I thought,
What! That’s all I get? I’m upset here! Come on! Nothing?

This thought made me chuckle. How different I was from my own mother and what a different childhood Rowan was experiencing. I
never was able to stop being concerned about my mother and her emotions. I could understand how she wanted my continual doting. I felt a bit lonely as I sat in the car but ultimately proud that I had not made my problems Rowan’s. I don’t think I ever fully believed my mom was OK or safe herself. I grew to believe it was my responsibility to keep both of us safe. Anxiety became a constant in my life beginning at a very early age, but how I handled it changed over time.

Rowan actually scared me at times growing up because she seemed so independent that I felt she didn’t need me. All my mom wanted was to be needed and wanted. As Rowan grows older, she fights me on so much that our relationship often causes me confusion, frustration, fear, and pause. But every now and then she surprises me with unsolicited affection or nuanced humor. My mother and I bonded the most through our humor. It was our go-to remedy when we were having problems. I believe that comedy is one of the only ways one can truly live in the moment. I have always used humor as my biggest defense mechanism. I believe I homed in on this part of my personality early on and used it as a way to cope with life. It helped me escape Mom’s alcohol. Mom and I shared a bond in comedy, and if we were laughing, we were temporarily OK. It became my vocation on and off camera.

Humor has become a point of connection between Rowan and me as well. Instead of its diffusing angst, it is just another way for us to be honest as well as vulnerable. I’ll never forget the first time Rowan launched into a full-on impression of an old lady from the Bronx. She was incredible at it. For a moment I saw my younger self in her and felt emotional and strangely proud. We were with my half sisters over Thanksgiving when Rowan suddenly began asking me questions as if we were two old ladies sitting and gossiping on a stoop in the “old neighborhood.” She shocked me and I jumped into the impromptu improvisation and felt so close to her. We all laughed hysterically. It
was oxygen in my veins like it had been with Mom. I flashed back to skits my mom and I used to do just for one another and was very moved by all of it.

Grier and I have a very different relationship. She rarely challenges me and is incredibly affectionate with me. She had the most fun with Toots because Mom was regressing by the time she was born and could play with blocks and toys with Grier for long stretches at a time. Grier is also a mini-hoarder in training. Like my mom, who was the queen of collecting, she loved all the little dust-collecting tchotchkes my mom would give to her. Grier loves to put a coin in her “maybe need pocket” of her jeans, and it’s the same kind of minipocket in her own jeans that Mom had pulled a nickel from when she was in the holding cell in New Orleans.

Grier is extremely emotional and once said, “You are everything that’s wrong with my life!” She was mad at me for putting her sister in a time-out and crying and hated me for it. Not long after this outburst she added, “You know, Mom, the minute I say something mean to you, I wish I did not say it, but I can’t stop it before it comes out of my lips.” I love when my girls express such raw emotions so honestly. It hurts my feelings at times but I have to admit I am relieved that they can be so honest with their emotions and possess the freedom to express everything they feel. I think I was always way too concerned with my mom’s feelings to even notice my own. The same drama that Grier embodies when she is mad is the same she shows when she is happy.

“Wow, I can’t believe you love me, Mom! I don’t know why I just said that!” she’d say. Or “I just love you so much it
horts
.” Or “Mama, you are my heaven!”

As beautifully layered as my relationship is with my daughters, I do believe it is a much healthier one than mine was with my mom. Mine was deep and wonderful at times but extreme. It was not founded
on security but on a sometimes irrational love mixed with intense codependence.

There was never any lack of love, but that’s what made it hard. There was also a good deal of fear from both sides. She always feared I would leave her. I always feared something would happen to my mother or that I was not good enough for her. I never doubted her love for me but I was perpetually worried about her well-being and self-esteem—the things mothers usually worry about for their children.

My girls don’t doubt my love for them, either, but they are also quite secure being away from me. They rarely feel they need to check on my state of mind or my whereabouts. I had to work on not being threatened by their autonomy because I grew up thinking that real love had to be based on codependence. Independence equaled abandonment.

•   •   •

In late 2011 my mother began to fade further. She was very settled into the Eightieth Street residence and I had settled into a new routine with my life and her care. I was doing
The Addams Family
on Broadway. One night after the show I was walking into one of my favorite little pubs that sold my favorite Belgian beer, Duvel. As I sat and ordered, Carmine, my bodyguard and driver on all Broadway shows, got a phone call from the facility.

Mom had complained of shortness of breath and heart palpitations. She was being taken to the emergency room. I had not yet taken off my Morticia makeup but was just going to have a quick beer before going home. I had to come straight away because she was asking for me. I chugged my beer, and Carmine and I ran out.

When I arrived at the hospital I went in to visit Mom, and an aide from the residence was feeding her bits of a ham sandwich like you would to a baby. She seemed very content being hand-fed. But Mom took one look at me, bolted up, and started to move to get dressed.

“I’m ready to go home now. I am ready to go.”

She thought I had come to take her away, like Calgon, and I am sure some place deep in her consciousness, she knew if she had any emergency I would show up. I settled her a bit and told her I needed to talk to the doctor to get some information.

I stepped outside to speak to the doctor on rounds. He explained that she was checking out fine but that he was a bit concerned about her blood pressure and how disoriented and scared she seemed. He said he could not say she
had
to stay overnight, but he did suggest that it wouldn’t hurt. It was late and maybe she should sleep.

That was music to my ears. I wanted her watched and accounted for through the night. And I needed to sleep. At one point in this discussion, I glanced through the small window into Mom’s room and she saw me and started to sit up again, except this time she began ripping the IV and tubes out of her veins. I burst into the room and there was blood spurting around like spin art. Here I was, with my white Morticia face and bloodstained red lips and dark kohl-lined eyes, trying to control Mom and the whipping-around tubes. It looked like a scene from
Tales from the Crypt
.

“Mom, Mom, Mom, please calm down and relax. You need those IVs to stay in for a bit.”

“But I want to go home. With you.”

She had not yet ripped her heart-rate monitor off and I could clearly hear the beeps of the machine. It became like a cartoon, because every time she heard something she wanted to hear, the beeps slowed and became steady, but every time I told her something she did not like or want to hear, it sped up.

“Mom, calm down, I am here.” . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep.

“You can’t come home with me right now.” . . . Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.

“I will come back in the morning, which is only in a few hours, to get you.” . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep.

“But, Mom, you have to stay here tonight to rest and have the doctors make sure you are OK.” . . . Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.

“But I’ll be back.” . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep.

I finally settled her and they gave her something to help her relax. Carmine and I belly-laughed hysterically about the heart-monitor symphony the whole ride home. You could not make this stuff up.

Chapter Eighteen

They Die Feetfirst

T
he building that housed the facility we’d moved Mom into stood alone and was dedicated solely to those various forms and stages of dementia. It would prove a great fit for Mom. The staff was attentive and loving and there were many activities. There was a salon and outings and crafts and musical events. A rabbi came to offer services and a priest came every Sunday.

Each floor had only eight residents and was well staffed. The higher floors were designated for those patients further along in their decline. Mom began on a lower floor and could often be found sitting at the small reception area fully dressed and perpetually ready to leave, lipstick and all. As the first year progressed she stayed on a lower floor, but as she entered her second year the director suggested that Mom be moved to a higher floor. She was beginning to show signs of incontinence and was taking her Depends off and hiding them behind her armoire in her room. She then would have accidents and . . . evidently it was not pretty. I did not want to hear the details, but to them it was just another day at the office. The first time the situation was described to me, I got instantly sick. I had just gotten
past the diaper stage with my daughters a few years prior. This was an utterly different thing. My God. I was not prepared to deal with adult diapers.

In the summer of 2012, Mom was moved to a higher floor and I visited as often as I could. I remember a woman I had seen often at the facility around that time, whose husband had also been suffering from dementia, asking to come in to say a word. I always thought this lady was incredibly put together. She was beautiful and effortlessly chic. I would be in my sweatpants and sweater, feeling like I was somehow being disrespectful by not dressing up more. I would see her thin frame in a woolen herringbone suit with an A-line skirt, telling her husband she loved him over and over in a cheery tone or feeding him pastina. It made me well up with tears. She came in and said she wanted to thank my mom. She wanted me to know that my mom had made the place “real” for her.

She explained that in her early months at the residence she would see my mom dressed up and with her lipstick on downstairs sitting with the receptionist for hours at a time. Mom wanted the company and to be the welcoming committee. This woman said that Mom had always been so nice and thoughtful to her, complimenting her on her outfit or jewelry whenever she’d arrive to visit her husband.

The truth was I’d been watching the woman for months. I’d see her dancing with him during holiday get-togethers when there was live music. I’d think about them dancing at their wedding, and then consider how tragic it must be to have your husband not recognize you. I guess I was projecting to avoid the sadness that engulfed me the day my mom could not recall my name. In the summer of 2012, I asked her what my name was and she just stared and appeared to be searching for some clue. She lit up every time she saw me and could point to my pictures in magazines but could not access my name. I was familiar to her but she could never retrieve my name again. I even joked
to her once that I was an “icon,” and surely she was able to recall the eighties? Nothing.

Even though I retained my humor, it all kept chipping away at my soul.

•   •   •

I began spending even more time with Mom and would sometimes just go sit with her and read a book. But one night, when I was away, I got an alarming call. She must have fallen in the bathroom, and was complaining about pain and acting agitated. The facility decided to send her to the ER. I was called and went to go see what was happening. There were so many doctors coming and going and asking me questions that I couldn’t answer. I was supposed to be the closest person in her life, but I could hardly answer one question regarding her wishes or her medical history. In the end, they discovered that she’d broken her arm, but things quickly got worse.

I called Lila in Arizona and told her Mom was in the hospital and also hadn’t been eating. She had gotten a feeding tube and evidently had gotten pneumonia because she was not swallowing and her lungs had had some fluid in them. The main doctor handed me a form and asked what my mother’s wishes were regarding DNR. I had actually never heard of a DNR (which means a “do not resuscitate” order, but to me at that moment I could only think “do not run”).