For my mom, as she is now, as she used to be
My mother is about a decade into Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s heartbreaking to watch the fear and confusion move across her face when the world doesn’t align with her understanding of it. But my mom is a natural fountain of joy with a great sense of humor. She doesn’t allow the disorientation to ruin her possibility for delight and wonder in any given moment.
Last January, my sister, Karen, and I planned a cruise with her. When it came time to choose shore excursions, we knew which one she would love best.
“We can pet dolphins, Mom,” Karen said.
“Oh my God, oh my God. Are you serious?” Her elation was palpable. My mother has always loved nature and animals. Karen and I looked forward to experiencing the dolphin encounter with her. One of the terrible aspects of dementia is the sense that you’ve lost the person that you knew and loved. It felt as though we might get her back for an afternoon somehow.
One of the upsides of dementia is that we felt like heroes every week when we reminded her about the encounter. To her, it was brand new information. She was just as excited the thirtieth time we told her as she was the first time. It was like giving her a gift every time we spoke.
The cruise departed in mid November from New York City and docked in Bermuda two days later. The morning of our second day in Bermuda, we disembarked the ship and were happy to see that the previous day’s rain clouds had dispersed. The wind still blustered, but the sun was shining and the temperature had risen ten degrees to a comfortable sixty-eight.
“It’s forty below zero out here,” Mom said. For those unfamiliar with Donna-speak that means any temperature less than seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. She gripped her wool coat closed as though we were trekking through the Arctic in a blizzard. She gazed out at the choppy turquoise sea. “Can you imagine having to go in that water right now?”
I could. We were moments away from our long-anticipated dolphin excursion. “Mom, it’ll all be worth it. I promise,” I said for the fifth time that morning. Karen and I had struggled for thirty minutes after breakfast to convince her to put her bathing suit on beneath her clothes.
“Why do I need to wear these?” she had said of the shorts and spandex top I handed her.
“We’re going in the water to pet the dolphins,” Karen said with no touch of the growing irritation that I felt at repeating myself.
“I’m not sure I want to get in the water. Maybe I’ll just watch you girls.”
“Well, the dolphins are in the water,” I said. “This is your one chance. It’ll all be worth it.” Her mouth flatlined in irritation. In truth, I wasn’t looking forward to getting in the water either. I hated being cold and wet almost as much as my mother did.
Dolphin Quest is located at the port on the grounds of the Museum of Bermuda, a converted nineteenth century Colonial fort. The dolphins’ pool is connected to the ocean through an iron grate in the fort’s stone wall. Trainers open the gate and allow the dolphins to swim in the ocean if they wish, which assuaged my animal-encounter guilt a little.
The staff instructed us to change into our bathing suits, and to don a wet suit if we wished. I requested two, to make mom and me both warmer and more buoyant. A young woman returned with two limp and dripping wetsuits. I felt a certain dread as I struggled into the cold, rubbery noodle. There was no way my mother was going to put it on.
“Do you happen to have one that’s dry?” I asked.
The young woman glanced at my mom. “How about I run it under the hot water,” she suggested. God bless her. She soaked the suit beneath the outdoor shower, brought it back steaming, and held it open like a coat. My mom stepped one foot in and sucked in a venomous hiss of air. The trainer forced the sleeves up her arms, pulling and stretching them into place. Mom’s face grew darker and more annoyed with each tug.
The trainer knelt down to zip the suit up the front. It got stuck open around Mom’s hips where her shorts had bunched up. A second trainer came over to assist. Mom’s body bumped up and down, jerked left and right as they worked to bring the two sides of the wetsuit together.
My mother’s eyes rolled skyward in full-fledged annoyance, and then back down at me. She pinned me with the look. You know the one. The withering glare that only a mom can deliver. It doesn’t matter how old you are. My mom’s face said, It is only by the grace of God and the presence of all these witnesses that you are still alive. Just.wait.til.later.
“Mom, I promise it’ll all be worth it,” I said.
“You’ve said that twenty times already!” she retorted. Karen and I locked eyes, noting the irony of being reprimanded for repeating myself by a woman with dementia.
We took a seat on the benches beside the pool for our pre-encounter briefing. About thirty feet away, the dolphins swam around in singles and pairs. While one of the trainers spoke to us about how to interact with them, Mom leaned over and whispered to me. “There’s critters in the water down there.”
“That’s the dolphins. We’re going to pet them in a minute.”
“We are?” she said with none of her familiar enthusiasm. “I’m not getting in the water with those things.”
At each corner of the pool, there was a small platform submerged about one foot below the surface. “How about you sit on that step then?” I said. She’d still be close enough to touch a dolphin without actually swimming. When a minute passed without further resistance, I thought we must have reached a compromise.
“There’s creatures in the water. We’re not going down there are we?”
“Yes, Mom. That’s where the dolphins are. We’re going to go pet them.”
“We’re getting in the water?” Her voice took on a tone that implied I must be insane.
“Yesss.” I couldn’t hide my growing irritation. “Just sit on the step. Only your feet will be in the water.”
The trainer came to the end of his speech and asked if there were any questions.
Mom leaned into me, “I’m going to raise my hand and tell him that I want to go over there.” She pointed back toward the lockers where we had changed.
I blew out a stream of hot air. “Mom. You don’t have to get in the water. Sit on the step and watch Karen and me.” That wasn’t what I wanted and I knew it wasn’t really what she wanted either.
“I am NOT putting anything into the water with those animals,” Mom said.
All of the excitement Mom had expressed over the months about meeting a dolphin flashed through my mind, followed by all of the hassle it had taken to bring her to this moment—thousands of miles traveled and the same conversations hundreds of times. If she were in her right mind, I knew she’d regret giving up the opportunity when she was on the brink of it. “You’re getting in that water and you’ll fucking enjoy it,” I said.
Our trio hobbled down the ramp to the pool. One by one, we stepped onto the submerged platform. The water came to just under our knees. My mother gasped and yowled like a wounded animal. “Oh God! It’s cold. It’s cooooold.” I felt twin pangs of anger and doubt. Was her immediate discomfort really worth the satisfaction she would feel?
The trainer beckoned all of us to sit in the water along the edge of the platform and let our legs dangle in the pool. I decided to plow ahead. “Over here, Mom. Last step,” I said, pulling her toward me.
“Nope. I’m not doing that.” She glanced back like she would step out. I sat on my haunches and gently tugged her down. She knelt, spluttering, and settled on her behind. I set her between Karen and me. Her wetsuit didn’t appear to make her feel any warmer, but as her bottom lifted off the platform and she began to float into the pool, it’s buoyancy definitely worked.
“Eileen. I’m…Stop!” she yelled. I grabbed my mother by the elbow and towed her to a metal guardrail. She wrapped both arms around it like it was the mast of a sinking ship.
A moment later, a gleaming blue-gray form glided through the water toward us. A square nose broke the surface a few feet away, followed by a long, toothy smile. “Oh!” Mom said with soft delight.
All of us but my mother hopped in the water. The trainer taught us various hand signals to tell the dolphin to spin, to swim by us with her pink belly up for a pet, and to place her head in our open palms. The trainer directed the dolphin toward the platform where Mom was sitting. To my surprise, she let go of the handrail. The dolphin popped up in front of her, and Mom placed her hands beneath the animal’s head. On the walkway, a young woman took photographs.
When the program concluded, we walked back to the lockers to change into our street clothes. It took about thirty minutes to get Mom out of the wetsuit and dressed again. Long after everyone else had left, we made our way back to the cruise ship.
“This has been one of the highlights of my life,” Mom gushed. “I’ll remember this forever. Thank you, thank you girls.” She extended an arm around each of us and squeezed.
When we got back to our cabin, we took turns showering. An hour later, we sat on our respective beds. Mom was gazing out the glass doors of the balcony. “Would you look at that water,” she said. “I’m glad we don’t have to go in it.”
“We just came back from being in it, Mom,” Karen said.
“We did?”
“Yeah, we went swimming with the dolphins.”
Mom let out an incredulous chuff as she often did when we told her something that was, to her mind, completely made up. “Were they alive?”
Karen chuckled. “We didn’t pay to pet dead dolphins, Ma.”
“We might have gotten a discount,” I said. I pulled our souvenir photographs from their paper sleeve to show my mother the proof of our encounter.
“Oh my God, I look older than Methusaleh,” she said. “I have got to dye my hair.”
The hair wasn’t what I noticed when I looked at the picture. It was her expression, the same expression of pure joy that she’s made since I was a child. When I brought her an opened Robin’s egg, or an owl pellet, a fallen leaf suffused with ochre and vermillion, or one that had transformed to delicate lace.
Her essential self was still underneath the muddled, shuffled slides of memory that misfired in her mind. It didn’t matter that she didn’t remember our day with the dolphins. For that moment, it was worth it for her. And Karen and I would remember.
If there’s a caregiver in your life, the best present you can give them is your time.
Free Reading
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This is very much my life right now, minus the dolphins. But my mom loves my dog, so when I bring her to the nursing home every evening,she’s an honorary dolphin.
It's friggin hard isn't it?! Trying to transition mom to memory care soon. I'm still thinking about a statement you made a while back about "life lifing you hard." No truer words...