By Dixie 
Mothers Day Advice
I’m in a club no one wants to be in.
I used to wonder why so many women wore wedding rings on their right hand. I didn’t think about why except maybe they just liked their rings. Now I wear Mama’s wedding rings on my right hand.
When she died, the funeral director quietly slipped them into my hand at her viewing.
During the last years of Mama’s dementia, she obsessed about losing her rings. I reassured her that although they spun around because she had lost weight, her knuckles remained big enough that we couldn’t get them off easily. She still thought her diamonds would fall out so she wore a band aid over them but would panic because she couldn’t see her rings anymore. She constantly lost the bandaid because she twisted the rings over and over with her other hand.
I look at my own hand now and randomly wonder what I would do if a robber tried to take my rings. I twist the rings to make sure I can still get them off, not to give them but to hide them.
Mama looked at her hands constantly, smoothing out the veins and wrinkles and lamenting that they were ‘so ugly’. She would send me to CVS to get some “as seen on TV” miracle cure for brown spots. She obsessed about the occasional skin tears and dark red bruises on her arms and the age spots on her legs. She had me order leg makeup on Amazon that was guaranteed not to rub off onto clothing. It stained the bottom of her couch instead in long vertical stripes.
She was convinced she had some horrible skin cancer. Another obsession. I made an appointment with a dermatologist.
We got to the doctor’s office an hour before her appointment. Mama insisted we arrive early for any doctor appointment to make sure we weren’t late. We spent a lot of time in waiting rooms.
Doctor’s waiting room are always packed with two people sitting together. One is the parent in their 80’s or 90’s and the other is the daughter in her 50’s. I could tell if the younger was still working because she would be pecking frantically on her Iphone trying to keep up with office work. If she was retired she would be flipping pages in an ancient magazine. Either way, the hands were busy, busy. Every few minutes she would look from her watch to her Mother, sigh, then stare blankly at the TV bolted to the corner of the room.
The Mama sat watching TV, sometimes in a wheelchair or in a chair with a walker nearby. She held her purse and paperwork tightly in her lap and occasionally would ask (loudly) ‘Did you bring the insurance card?’, ‘Did you lock the front door?’ and ‘Did you remember to bring the bag of medicines?’
No one looked up except the daughter. She answered in an annoyed voice, ‘Yes, Mother! I got everything! You already asked me that two times!” The Mama went back to watching ‘The Price is Right’, the daughter shook her head and went back to her busy work. She seemed annoyed and embarrassed, but I knew she wasn’t. She was scared.
Finally the nurse opened the door and everyone looked up. I heard Mama’s name and immediately jumped up, grabbed the walker before Mama fell, pulled her up and positioned her hands and feet. She stumbled a little, grabbed the handles with a death grip and began moving towards the nurse holding the door open. I walked right behind her half bent over, with my arms spread out and around her back. I glared at old people who had their canes or feet too far into the aisle. I imagined her tripping and falling, which she did too often lately. I couldn’t lose another parent. Not that day.
Fifty plus years ago, Mama did the same for me. She listened to me ask the same questions over and over, got annoyed, jumped up when my name was called and walked behind me with arms outstretched so I wouldn’t fall. Mama was scared when she took me to the doctor for anything other than a routine exam.
Now it was me who was scared.
The doctor examined some small itchy spots on her legs and arms. Nothing dangerous, he said, just an allergic reaction to something. He gave us some samples of a cream to try and left.
I helped Mama get dressed and she looked up at me. “What if it gets on my face? They are so ugly.”
I told her it was OK, and the cream would help.
I was surprised she was worried about the appearance of spots, or aging hands.
When I was a teenager, she would tell me how pretty I was. I had spots too, just normal teenage acne, but I obsessed over it too. I didn’t believe her, just like she didn’t believe me.
I wished she knew how absolutely beautiful she was. She walked a little slower, heard a little less, had some spots and gray hairs but what was left was a beautiful, gracious, funny woman who was my Mother and my good, good friend. She had a deep beauty that time could only make more beautiful.
—
Mother’s Day is soon. A couple more weeks. Usually by this time, the lilies I gave Mama on Easter were starting to brown around the edges because she or I either forgot or over-loved them with water.
Mama didn’t have the greenest of thumbs and she passed that gene right along to me. But I gave her flowers on Easter, her birthday and Mother’s Day anyway. She said “Why did you do that? You know I can’t keep a flower alive.” I imagined she really did like the flowers but wouldn’t admit it which was likely not true.
The older she got, I had flowers delivered more often. I didn’t want the regret of being that person who didn’t give her Mama flowers until they put some on her grave.
I don’t have the choice anymore.
But…I know where she is now. And she is healthy, happy and with Poppy.
If you have your Mama still here, may I make a suggestion?
Give her flowers. Even if she doesn’t want them.
And tell her she is beautiful.