Hummingbird

     Holding Mom’s frigid, clenched hand, I sang the lyrics of “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera as she sat hunched over in her wheelchair. Dried up drool and bits of food formed a smattering mosaic on her chin, continuing down to her pink turtleneck.  “Passing bells and sculpted angels, cold and monumental…” I sang softly to her under the din of the monotone narrator of the hummingbird documentary playing on the large TV in the living room area of the memory care floor of Mom’s senior living facility.  The nurses’ aides had positioned her wheelchair so that she was facing the window, not the TV.  As I was seated facing both her and the TV, I was able to see the close-up shot of a hummingbird suspended in midair, its beating wings fluttering so fast they appeared to be blurred. “A hummingbird’s heart beats more than 1200 beats per minute,” the narrator stated matter-of-factly. Not one of the residents perked up in response to this fact. Their heads drooped and nodded in various stages of sleep. Other than the narrator’s baritone voice, the only other sounds in the room were the squeaks of the sneakers worn by the med techs and aides as they hustled between patients, ensuring that their charges were drinking Ensure and given their prescribed medication.  

     It had been a few days since Mom had been able to keep down any pureed food, and feeding her Ensure through a straw was futile.  She took a few sips, then bit down on the straw. She turned her head away and hunched down further to her side in her wheelchair. She then spit out the Ensure a few seconds or minutes later, as her dying body rejected anything life- sustaining.  During the week prior to this visit, Mom had lost the ability to swallow. As I sat holding her hand and looking at her, hoping for a sign of life or glimmer of recognition, the brown liquid slipped from her lips, snaked down her chin and dripped onto her pink turtleneck, creating a painter’s smock design.  Her eyes were half open and half closed. It occurred to me that Mom herself was half open, half closed: half in, half out.  I stopped singing.  I reached into my purse and dug out my small pack of tissues, and tried, but failed, to wipe the brown stains away.  I didn’t bother to wipe away the tears staining my cheeks.

     Flashes of memories of the way Mom used to be streaked across my mind as I stood up to leave.  “I have to go now and pick up your grandsons, but I’ll be back this afternoon.  OK, Mom? I love you.” I held her fisted hand in mine one more time, noticing that it was suddenly simmering hot.  I thought I had noticed a slight upward movement of her eyebrows and an almost imperceptible motion of her lips.  I wondered, was she attempting to mouth the words, “I love you too?” Her breathing was labored as her eyes closed completely. Her bony, angular shoulders began moving rhythmically up and down. She had passed out.  As I punched the key code to enter the elevator room and exit the floor, I caught the eye of the floor nurse who headed toward my mother with wipes.  She nodded goodbye to me, her eyes watery, her lips pursed. She began wiping Mom’s chin.  I looked back for a second at Mom. I could see the back of her head dangling downward.  From behind, Mom resembled a rag doll that had been thrown onto a chair. I noticed the passing glances of the aides and med techs as I turned toward the elevator.  They looked down or away as soon as my glance met theirs.  As the elevator slowly made its descent, I squeezed my eyes shut, allowing the tears to spurt out.

     Passing thoughts of the way Mom used to present herself crossed my mind.  I had an image of her greeting us at the door of her patio home, her eyes wide open and sparkling with glee as her grandsons ran up to her to give her hugs.  She would smile and laugh as she kissed the tops of their heads, remarking about how much they had grown since the last time she’d seen them, even if it had only been two weeks earlier. Then Mom would turn to give my husband a hug. I was next, the smell of her perfume embracing me first.  Her hair was always perfectly coiffed and her makeup was flawless. Her clothes were ironed and stain-free, and her jewelry matched her outfit.  Her home was warm, spotless, and smelled like freshly picked flowers from her side garden.  She kept a CD player stereo system in the foyer area, and an Andrew Lloyd Webber song usually greeted us when we entered. It saddened me to know that the bubbly, spirited, effervescent Mom of my sons’ early childhood would have never wanted to morph into the quiet, disheveled, wraith-like being she had become. Now she was fluttering in and out of this world.  Her wings were beating at a slower rate by the minute, and would soon fan out into silence.