“Not a good idea,” was the first thing she said when she saw me.
Carol and I had decided to see my mother in the convalescent center at Judson Park Retirement Community. I called the center and got directions. My mother was on the third floor by the window in a shared room.
We walked up to the room and saw the bed near the window had the curtains pulled all the way around it. Carol walked in first and I followed. My mother was lying in bed when she saw me and said, “Not a good idea.”
Startled, I said, “Oh. Okay, I’ll be going then,” and walked back around the curtain loitering.
Carol said words to her that I didn’t hear while I looked at the collected items on the shelf where I stood and tried to process what just happened. Then my mother called out, “Joceile, you don’t have to hide.”
I walked around the curtain and said, “You just told me it wasn’t a good idea.”
“It’s already done.”
Carol asked her if she went out and visited with other people in the day room.
JoAnn’s lips pinched. “I’m not that sociable.”
Carol said, “Why not?”
“Why should I? I said I’m not that sociable.”
“But you might meet people to talk to.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“It might give you some pleasure.”
“I don’t shiv a get.” JoAnn-ism for “I don’t give a shit.” Does she really think we do? Unfortunately, yes, we do. Fools that we are.
Carol, such a kind, good natured woman, insisted there was value in getting out of her bed and checking out what’s around her. My mother was having none of it. She decided long ago that people were of no value to her.
The discussion was beginning to sound like an argument. I piped up with, “We don’t need to debate it,” and changed the subject. Carol and I both knew my mother couldn’t be persuaded to change her attitude.
I did my best to find common areas of discussion like her view of the water, the moon, the sky. But with JoAnn, no effort is rewarded. She is so damaged and so mentally ill. One has to want help to receive it.
I commented on her view. She looks at the Masonic Home built for widows and orphans of Masons now slated to be torn down. Anticipating watching the building being torn down, she said, “it’s the one thing that could make me cry.”
She choked up, “That building is so infused with love. Every brick…” she said this with two people standing by her bedside. One had been in her life for 78 years and one for 67 years and all she could think of was a damn building.
I told her the soil will still hold the love. “Oh yes,” she said.
She told us about all the dead people that come to visit her. “I don’t believe we ever die. Our spirit is too strong. We change form but we’re still here. Except me. I’ve already told God I’m not coming back. I’ve been road hard and put away wet. I’m not coming back.”
She opened her laptop to show us a picture of my brother looking at the camera with her mobile home living room in the background as her screensaver. “I open this, start a fire in my stove, and talk to Zack.”
Does my brother know he’s replaced my father as the object of her worship. I hate her. Unable to have human connection except with my brother who should be hating her. Their relationship is its own closed circuit—long, complicated, and painful to watch. She just had to let me know one more time who was her favorite. Actually, that’s wrong. I don’t even rate enough to be the second favorite.
After that, she warmed up to her audience and embarked on her usual tropes: history of wrongs and conspiracy theories. Once started, she doesn’t stop. Finally, I touched Carol’s arm and said, “We should go.”
“Oh yes,” Carol agreed. “We should.”
JoAnn said, “It’s okay,” and had another picture to show me on her laptop. I leaned near her to see the picture of her prized chandelier from her mobile that my brother had sent to my daughter who had refurbished and hung it in her apartment.
“Just to be really clear,” I said, “I have a question.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to visit you again or leave you alone?” I needed to know for myself.
“I don’t care,” she sighed.
“Okay, then.”
“It’s okay.” I didn’t ask what was okay. Her first answer was enough. If she didn’t care, I didn’t know why the hell I should.
I clasped my mother’s hand to say goodbye. Spontaneously, I said, “I love you. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“You don’t need to.”
“No, I don’t,” I agreed. At the time, I thought she meant I didn’t need to know why. Now that I think about it, I’m sure she meant I don’t need to love her. Either way, my response was correct.
Carol also clasped her hand and said goodbye. On the way out, she told us her IQ was 145. We both wondered where she got that.
I never know if it’s the last time I’ll see my 90 year old mother. Carol and I had held hands on the way in. We held hands on the way out. Neither of us were going to chance seeing my mother alone. Such a sour, bitter old woman. She chooses to stay in bed. She lays there like a forever chemical—always toxic.
Carol said, “She just triggers me every time,” when I commented on their near argument. We both felt relieved as we walked back to Carol’s apartment in another building. We knew what my mother looked like in her room and had a resounding hit of why she had nothing good to offer either of us.
Carol and I resumed our play date. We watched an old comedy movie so we could laugh, went out for seafood, and sealed it with Baskin and Robbin’s ice cream. We do this regularly. I enjoy life. I like being with Carol and finding love and entertainment outside of myself. It’s not as though I haven’t had some really shitty things happen in my life. It’s because of those shitty things that I don’t take life for granted. I won’t be laying in any bed because I’ve spent a lifetime being nasty. As long as I’m breathing, I’ll be striving for a bit of joy and love that lies just around the corner.
Maybe it is the last time I’ll see JoAnn. She just doesn’t fit in that equation.
L’Chaim.
9.15.25
Photo: Zack, JoAnn, and Joceile (1960)
