I Won’t Back Down

I wrote this a few months ago, when Delta was raging. It contains descriptions of medical procedures, wrestling with faith (but clinging to Jesus), and Frank Political Opinions.

As I clean off Mama’s bedside tray, I wonder if things will ever get better.

She’s in a nursing home.  Vascular dementia.  It’s been approximately 617 days since she’s been anywhere because of the pandemic.  But who’s counting?  At least I’m able to visit inside her room now.  I couldn’t even do that for 467 days. 

I’m wearing a high-quality surgical mask, a face shield, and a gown that covers my clothes.  It is hot and uncomfortable but bearable.  Mama and I are both vaccinated, but we live in counties that have high rates of transmission.  COVID has burned through Tennessee in an epic and horrifying fashion.  At least the nursing home staff insists on proper PPE for any visitors.  Mandatory vaccination for employees was announced several weeks ago.  By my count, they lost a few workers, but I’m glad they’re gone. 

Mama’s nursing home isn’t bad – I’m not worried about her being neglected or abused – but it’s far from perfect.  I’ve never seen a perfect nursing home, especially one that takes Medicaid, like Mom has.  When I visit, I try to fill in the gaps.  I spend most of my time doing Mama’s bidding, moving a box of tissues closer, fetching a Coke, rearranging the knickknacks on the windowsill to her liking. 

Although her windowsill is full of thoughtful gifts, like homemade cross-stitches and Dollywood souvenirs, her favorite items are the rocks she has plucked from the patio garden this summer.  Technically, these rocks are only borrowed, as they belong to the nursing home landscape.  If you knew my mom even a little, that fact would not surprise you.  She’s always had an anti-authoritarian streak.  That streak prevented her from climbing the rungs of the lucrative and powerful Lunch Lady Career Ladder (/s), but it also empowered her to sneak extra food to the kids who went through her line and couldn’t afford to buy full lunches.

Even though I am the type who drives under the speed limit and always uses the crosswalk, I try to bring her a rock every now and then, since it’s gotten too cold to take her outside. 

I arrived this morning right after Mom’s shower.  She wants me to finish drying her hair, so I do.  The warmth of the hairdryer puts her right back to sleep.  Her hair is still mostly auburn, even though she is in her 70s.  I smooth the side of her hairdo and feel the weight of her head fall into my hand, softly, like she is resting on a cloud.

While she dozes, I do a dozen little chores, and I think.  As I often do, I lament that this room – or a hospital room – is likely the last place my mama will see this side of heaven.  I grieve over the fact that my mama, who sang hymns off-key but ebullient with joy, who always championed the underdog, who made my friends laugh and who walked me down the aisle at my wedding, must be sheltered and protected from so many of the people who live in the state she calls home. 

I wonder if any of the lawmakers who have politicized this pandemic ever cleaned food out from underneath their mother’s fingernails, like I have, because the nurses are too busy, too tired, too underpaid, too morally injured from the last 18 months to address the finer points of care.

I wonder if they ever lay awake at night, like I have, imagining what their mothers’ chests would look like rising and falling from mechanical ventilation, terrified that the women who nurtured them would die fast from COVID, but not fast enough to escape fear and suffering, comforted only by strangers who weep in their cars at the end of each shift because they could not save these mothers.  They tried, but they could not.

I wonder if they would wear thin t-shirts and cheap leggings if they visited, like I do, because the plastic gown feels warmer than a coat, and it is foolish to plan an outfit here around anything except stamina. Would they make sure their thick gold cross necklaces (or pins that more tastefully announce their beliefs) were still visible beneath the elastic neckbands?

After all, how else would we know how good they are?

My own Christian faith has been battered over the last 18 months.  It stuns me to hear some fellow Christians proclaim that we are still the arbiters of the moral high ground in this country.  It’s arguable that we ever were.  Parasitic politicians have sold them an illusion of this country’s past that is as fine and genteel as a Southern swimming hole.  The rest of us see it as a creek that has been dammed by racism and greed, filthy and stagnant. 

I don’t understand the war they’ve started.  In any event, people like my mama are among their casualties.

I briefly wake up Mom as I hug her goodbye.  “Love you so much, Pooh,” she whispers.  As usual, I am vibrating with anger and sadness.  How much longer is this pandemic going to rage when it could have already ended?  How can I make things better?  How can I keep going?

Back in my car, I turn up the radio as loud as I can handle it.  Tom Petty tells me that they could stand him up at the gates of hell, but he won’t back down.  Is this a reminder? 

I think it must be.  I close my eyes and envision a forest full of fireflies.  Each one glows and darkens at its own pace, in its own way.  Engage and rest, engage and rest.  I know some fireflies.  Some of them are teachers.  Some volunteer their time.  Some take care of animals.  Some are activists.  Some visit prisoners.  None of them are always engaging, none of them are always resting, yet their collective glow is breathtaking. Maybe it’s even bright enough to see that dam in the dark, so it can be busted up.  Light is the best disinfectant. 

I open my eyes, put the car in drive, and get going.  It’s time to rest, so I can engage again later.  But I will be back.  And I will keep trying to help.

Hey, baby – there ain’t no easy way out.

But you know the rest.