I am Hoke

Taking care of Mother at the end of her life, is so strange.  Every day I watch her waste away a little more. I spend hours helping a weak, frail woman, who seems more like a stranger than the woman who raised me. She is like my toddler granddaughter with her short attention span and her need to be cleaned by others.

Like Hoke in the final scene of Driving Miss Daisy, I coax her to eat. She takes the bite I have put on her fork, barely making it go into her mouth because her hand doesn't seem to want to turn the fork to fit. Then she stares outside the window.

"Look at those birdhouses in those trees," she says. I turn and look hard. There are no birdhouses. Possibly the shadows among the leaves seem, in her mind, to be shaped like birdhouses. I turn back around and remind her of the food before her.

And so it goes. A bite. Attention gone. Gradual refocus. Another bite. Attention gone. Slowly focus again. Usually, she tries to get me to eat the food.

"Mom, I've already eaten," I reply. "You're the one who needs to get stronger, not me. The more you eat, the stronger you'll be."

I don't know if it does any good or not. I cheer her on. Yesterday, it took her two and a half hours to eat lunch. Today, she eats well. Hopefully she has more of an appetite. The increase in amount could be due to the fact that I keep reloading her fork and drawing her attention to it.

She really needs people around. She always did. Growing up, when she needed us around, I thought it was because she wanted someone to scream at. Now, I see bits and pieces of the one who constantly forced her will on us in anger. Mostly, though, I see a toothless tiger, one who is no longer so angry at the world. I know this is due, in large part, to the antidepressant they give her daily. I thank God for the man who invented the antidepressant.

Mother tries to talk constantly, as is her custom. Her words are garbled and many sound like each other. My granddaughter asks me how I can understand her. I answer that I have spent so much of my life teaching a foreign language, maybe I can put together bits and pieces and make sense of the whole. In love and respect, I nod and give verbal assent, and Mother feels better. Someone is listening.

Lord, I see again Your patience and caring for us. We are weak and helpless. You are strong. You could have easily left us there in our weakness. Instead, You reached into our world and gave us hope. You sent Your Son as a bridge between your beloved creation and yourself. Your made a way for us to ascend Jacob's ladder, so to speak. Because of His sacrifice in my place, you see me as having never done and thought the things that kept me from you.

You helped me when I was helpless. Help me to remember.