It’s been a hard few weeks, a few months actually. Eva, my father’s first wife, has been suffering with sharp pains that run through her buttocks and down the side of her legs, “oh, my bening!” she calls it, “my bening!” She wails in german. The doctors have been slow to respond, the Covid crisis keeping everyone overwhelmed with death emergencies that supersede sciatica pain. But knowing about those emergencies doesn’t make the pain go away or be less and doesn’t stifle the suffering that is happening in this house. We are using Tramadol, the max dose, Tylenol, the max dose, and every kind of analgesic but the pain is intense, sharp and sleep robbing. Eva, already bent over and crooked, walks even slower, drags her left foot and cries out as she sits.
The morning is the hardest, her dementia and lack of sleep intersect with her fierce commitment to routine and she arrives, hunched over her walker and ever so slowly to the table. If it is a bad day she will be silent, a grimace and clenched teeth marking her grim determination to step into the day. Some bad days she will be angry, loud, critical and royally pissed to be alive, “Why am i still here, I want to be dead!” and she bangs her fist on the table. On these bad days, her anger or her stoicism end in soft tears absorbed in the sleeve of her robe as she buries her head into the crook of her arm resting on the table.
Eva, now 92 years old, always makes the trek to breakfast at 8am, checking the clock on the oven to see that it is the same as her wristwatch. It almost never is, as her wristwatch is ancient, “the first ever semi-automatic wrist watch ever sold’” says the also ancient repair guy when I bring it in once again. “I can’t really fix it” he tells me, “but this might help for a little bit” – hmm, sounds like the doctors, I think to myself. The doctors recommended some pain medicine, they suggested that I bring her in for a steroid epidural, “maybe a lidocaine patch” they said and yes, all of it helps a little bit. But a little bit is like being burned by hot oil “just a little bit less” – less or a little bit less pain is still everyday living torture.
Today, Eva came from her room to have breakfast. She was hunched, her forearms on the walker, her eyes cast downward as she came to the table. She sat without saying anything and I wondered what would come. I brought her English muffin to the table, she has had the exact same breakfast for the last 40 years. I set her hard boiled egg down next to it, careful to be sure that I provided the right spoon, “the egg spoon” alongside. She still said nothing but the butter was cold and it didn’t spread well, she grunted and huffed at the bother. I explained that I had gotten up later than normal (it was saturday) and it hadn’t set out to soften as long as usual. She looked disappointed. Then she went for the egg, the infamous egg that she only allows herself to eat on the weekends, “its egg day!” is a happy declaration that she will make on the easier days. But today, the egg was too hot and it burned her fingers. She recoiled and then went after it again using her napkin to protect her. Two bites in, she turns towards me abruptly “how long did you boil it?” clearly not impressed. “5 minutes,” I say. “Maybe less next time,” she says. I feel myself beginning to get irritated and I want to remind her that last week she told me to cook it a little bit longer, but I don’t because she doesn’t remember last week. I remind myself that this isn’t about me, it’s not even about the egg. This is about just feeling like crap and the oozing way it seeps through everything. But, I am bothered, I can’t help it. It’s hard to spend everyday doing everything I can think of to take care of someone and then feel like nothing is ever good enough. In my annoyance, I take a deep mask covered breath and in that space of breathing and rebreathing my own air, I acknowledge my frustration and I feed myself compassion. I feel beat up, I feel like I’m doing my best and nothing improves. It’s okay, it will be okay, I tell myself, this seems to be my everyday mantra, my search for grace.
I look over at Eva, bent over her toast, trying valiantly to spread the butter, frustrated, exasperated and exhausted. My annoyance dissolves. I stand up and quietly begin to rub her shoulders and her back. She melts into me. She puts aside the butter knife and cries silently. I hum a little song and wrap myself around her. “Thank you,” we both thought but didn’t say.