The Cost of Keeping Up Appearances
As my mother’s memory fades, so does her ability to take care of herself. Two years after her diagnosis, she forgets how to shampoo her hair. My father and I have long discussions about whether she is showering anymore at all, and he soon begins helping her bathe.
She approaches me soon after this new routine begins and tries to explain that my father has been acting “weird.” At first I don’t understand, but she repeatedly points to the bathroom, and I finally ask, “Does he help you with your hair?”
“Yes!” she breathes heavily.
“Does this make you uncomfortable?” I ask, wondering how to best navigate this situation.
When she doesn’t reply, I try another tactic. “Do you want me to talk to him about it?”
“No, no,” she whispers, her breath quickening. “Don’t say anything. It’s just me.” She sighs and finds a spot on the carpet to stare at.
“Mom,” I respond firmly, trying to keep my voice from conveying cracks, “there’s nothing wrong with you. Dad’s just trying to help. Sometimes people need help with their hair, that’s all.”
I don’t think she believes me, but if I can convince her that this is not an extraordinary situation, she might go along with it. If she’s convinced, then maybe I will be, too.
***
A few weeks later, I notice a pair of yellow plastic swimming goggles hanging in the bathroom and ask my father how the showers are going.
“She doesn’t like water in her face,” he replies quietly while my mother is searching for a gallon of milk in the basement fridge. As if on cue, she appears carrying a leftover casserole. We send her back downstairs to try again.
“Are the goggles working?” I ask when she’s gone.
“They help,” he replies, “but I have a heck of a time keeping her from just walking out—”
My mother emerges from the stairwell holding a bag of russet potatoes.
“Nope, that’s not it,” I say lightly, trying not to discourage her.
“No?” she sighs. “What?”
“The milk.” I speak firmly and slowly then hold up an empty carton from the recycling pile. “Like this one.”
“Milk,” she repeats then retreats to the basement.
When I am ready to return to the conversation with my father, his mind is clearly elsewhere. He stares at the empty space occupied by my mother seconds earlier, then sighs to himself and shakes his head. He lumbers out of the room and away from the woman his wife has become. I hear the creak of his office chair just as my mother reaches the top of the stairs holding the casserole dish again.
She looks at me expectantly and holds out the leftovers.
“No, Mom,” I shake my head and her face falls. “C’mon,” I say, passing her on my way to the basement, “let’s go see what we can find.”
***
My mother’s inability to care for herself in other ways slowly manifests itself over the next few months. My father and I are glad she got through the brunt of menopause before this point—at least we think she did. We try to figure out this part of her life cycle the best we can, then decide, since we are clearly not experts, that things must be okay.
As time passes, my mother looks less and less like herself, and this is something she is keenly aware of. Gray strands streak her brown hair, and she doesn’t understand why her unwanted facial hair will not go away. Every time she sees her reflection in the mirror, she cringes and cries, “I’m so ugly.” She ignores my reassurances that she is not ugly, so the most effective way of dealing with the complaints is to push her away from the mirror.
As my parents and I visit the local drug store one Sunday afternoon, my father asks what I think about boxed hair coloring.
This question takes me off-guard, but I answer truthfully. “I guess they are okay. I know a lot of people use them. We can definitely get you one to make yours gray,” I nod at his full head of white hair. Silver by the age of thirty, his hair had slowly been turning white ever since.
“What? Not for me,” he chokes, “for your mom. She’s getting gray hairs.”
The three of us peruse the aisle of boxed coloring, and I pick out one on sale that looks like a good match.
When we return to the house, I tell my mother that she is going to have a “beauty day.”
“You’ll look good,” I assure her and she shrugs. Though I’ve never colored anyone’s hair before, I have the foresight to change my mother into some work clothes before we begin. For privacy, I set up shop in the bathroom and scoot in one of the kitchen chairs for my mother.
“This will be good,” I say again as I usher her to the chair and wrap her shoulders in an old towel. The directions are easy to follow, and the first five minutes go smoothly. After everything is applied, I set a timer for the required twenty-five-minute wait for the solution to set. Though my mother complains that the coloring is cold, she seems to be in a pretty good mood, especially since I reassure her often that this will turn out well. While we wait, I also apply face cream, trim her fingernails, and give her eyebrows some shape.
“This will be good, Mom,” I say, wiping off her face. “Just pretend like you’re at a spa or something.” Every time I say this, she smiles.
When the timer dings, I realize that removing the dye might be more of a challenge than I’d expected. In fact, my foresight was limited, and I really hadn’t thought far enough ahead to plan how the tonic should be washed out.
As my mother watches me expectantly, I decide that the kitchen sink would be the easiest for her head to fit under. I usher her to the kitchen and run warm water through the faucet.
“Ok,” I direct her toward the basin, “lean into the sink.”
She stares at the water but does not move. I repeat the directions, but she wrinkles her forehead and frowns.
“Let’s go,” I say more forcefully. I try to gently guide her shoulders to the sink, but she remains solid in her resistance. “Mom, we have to wash out your hair.”
She points to the sink. “There?” she asks, frowning again.
“Yes!” My voice raises a few pitches as my patience shortens. I glance at the clock and notice that five minutes have passed, and the box said not to exceed thirty. I begin to worry what will happen if the coloring stays in her hair too long. Will it burn her scalp? Will her hair fall out? Her nervous system is already showing signs of the disease—a few months previous, she cut her hand so badly she needed stitches. She didn’t react to the pain, and, besides the presence blood, didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong.
How will I know what she is feeling?
The kitchen sink seems to be a lost cause, so I change tactics.
“Let’s try the bathroom again,” I say, grabbing a large plastic cup from the cupboard before retreating. Once we are there, I point to the ledge of the bathtub and tell my mother to lean over the side. Her eyes move from me, to the tub, then to me again, but she does not budge. I tell her again, then show her, but still, she does not move.
“Please, Mom,” I beg as more minutes pass by.
Still, she does not understand what I want, and I cannot position her. Frustrated, I try again. “Sit here,” I pat the ledge. She reluctantly does this and I take a deep breath.
“Ok, now, lean back a little.”
This, she does not do. Instead, she continues to stare at me. Her knitted eyebrows show that she is confused, but she doesn’t know why. At least I hope that it is confusion over the situation and not something more serious.
“Just like this,” I nudge her shoulders backward. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you, you won’t fall.”
She grabs my arm, and I turn on the water with my free hand. When the water is warm, I fill the plastic cup and slowly pour it over the back of my mother’s head. Though I tell her that things are okay, and insist that she tilts her head back, she leans forward and tries to stand. Water runs down the back of her head and soaks the towel and her shirt.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she cries as her clothing sticks to her skin. “No, no.”
I try to get her to lean over the tub and stay calm, but another attempt with the plastic cup results in more water on her clothing than down the drain.
My mother shakes her head and repeats, “Oh, oh, oh,” as if this will somehow make this problem go away. I, too, want this project to be over, but I also know that my mother cannot spend the day covered in hair-dye.
Out of options, time, and patience, my next move is an act of desperation. I remove the towel from my mother’s shoulders and help out of her clothes. She looks more confused than ever as I shut the shower curtain and reach around to turn on the spigot. She stands just outside the stream of water, watching as if the shower was spouting fire.
“Mom, it’s okay,” I say again, reaching in and guiding her closer to the water. “Now, turn around and tilt your head back so we can get that stuff out of your hair.” By now, I imagine her hair must be ready to come out in clumps. “Please, Mom, turn around so we can do this quickly.”
She does and lets me back her into the water, but my attempts to lean her head back are met with staunch resistance. No matter how hard I push her forehead, she will not tilt back. Instead, she leans forward, and as she does so, water, mixed with hair solution, floods across her face and into her eyes.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she sobs, rubbing her eyes as more dye flows across her face. My mother stands with her face buried in her hands as water relentlessly pelts her naked and shriveling body.
Two feet away, I am helpless. What have I done? Is any outcome worth this? I want to run to another room and bury my head under a pillow until I wake up from this nightmare.
As she continues to emotionally collapse, I understand that I don’t have that luxury. No matter how much I want her to look as she once did, it is a façade. She is still my mother, but we have very different responsibilities to each other than we did even three years ago. Unable to stop the flow of my own tears, I know that I will have to lead my mother through the situation the best that I can.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the yellow goggles hanging on the towel rack.
“Here Mom,” I say, adjusting the strap around the back of her head, “these will make things better.”
She continues to stare at the tub floor as I squeeze her hair to see how much dye will come out. My hand fills with so much coloring I wonder if any had been rinsed out yet at all.
My mother finally lifts her head, and when I notice her face, my heart sinks. Her eyes, bloodshot and swollen, stare at me through eyewear that is half-filled with tinted water.
I rip off the goggles and swear at myself for making things worse. Meanwhile, my mother cries into her hands.
From some recess of my mind, a memory surfaces of my sister and I in the bathtub as kids and the importance of washcloths. I grab one from the rack and place it over my mother’s eyes.
“Hold this right here,” I coax, adjusting her fingers to hold the cloth. I have to remind her periodically to keep the washcloth in place, but I eventually rinse and condition her hair.
I wrap her in a towel, then leave her dripping in the tub while I get some clean clothes. I pick out her favorite striped cotton shirt and a pair of comfortable jeans as an attempt to make her feel better. As I help her get dressed, she shivers, almost uncontrollably, not from the cold, but from the awkwardness of what happened. I apologize to her the whole time and assure her that this will not happen again. I know it won’t.
As the redness fades from her eyes, I apply some eye shadow and blush, then try to finesse the curls in her permed (and newly colored) hair. By the time we step out of the bathroom, she is in much better spirits, and when we find my father in the basement a few minutes later, she seems to have forgotten all about the trauma of the shower. She laughs and smiles at my father and admires the stripes on her shirt.
She approaches me soon after this new routine begins and tries to explain that my father has been acting “weird.” At first I don’t understand, but she repeatedly points to the bathroom, and I finally ask, “Does he help you with your hair?”
“Yes!” she breathes heavily.
“Does this make you uncomfortable?” I ask, wondering how to best navigate this situation.
When she doesn’t reply, I try another tactic. “Do you want me to talk to him about it?”
“No, no,” she whispers, her breath quickening. “Don’t say anything. It’s just me.” She sighs and finds a spot on the carpet to stare at.
“Mom,” I respond firmly, trying to keep my voice from conveying cracks, “there’s nothing wrong with you. Dad’s just trying to help. Sometimes people need help with their hair, that’s all.”
I don’t think she believes me, but if I can convince her that this is not an extraordinary situation, she might go along with it. If she’s convinced, then maybe I will be, too.
***
A few weeks later, I notice a pair of yellow plastic swimming goggles hanging in the bathroom and ask my father how the showers are going.
“She doesn’t like water in her face,” he replies quietly while my mother is searching for a gallon of milk in the basement fridge. As if on cue, she appears carrying a leftover casserole. We send her back downstairs to try again.
“Are the goggles working?” I ask when she’s gone.
“They help,” he replies, “but I have a heck of a time keeping her from just walking out—”
My mother emerges from the stairwell holding a bag of russet potatoes.
“Nope, that’s not it,” I say lightly, trying not to discourage her.
“No?” she sighs. “What?”
“The milk.” I speak firmly and slowly then hold up an empty carton from the recycling pile. “Like this one.”
“Milk,” she repeats then retreats to the basement.
When I am ready to return to the conversation with my father, his mind is clearly elsewhere. He stares at the empty space occupied by my mother seconds earlier, then sighs to himself and shakes his head. He lumbers out of the room and away from the woman his wife has become. I hear the creak of his office chair just as my mother reaches the top of the stairs holding the casserole dish again.
She looks at me expectantly and holds out the leftovers.
“No, Mom,” I shake my head and her face falls. “C’mon,” I say, passing her on my way to the basement, “let’s go see what we can find.”
***
My mother’s inability to care for herself in other ways slowly manifests itself over the next few months. My father and I are glad she got through the brunt of menopause before this point—at least we think she did. We try to figure out this part of her life cycle the best we can, then decide, since we are clearly not experts, that things must be okay.
As time passes, my mother looks less and less like herself, and this is something she is keenly aware of. Gray strands streak her brown hair, and she doesn’t understand why her unwanted facial hair will not go away. Every time she sees her reflection in the mirror, she cringes and cries, “I’m so ugly.” She ignores my reassurances that she is not ugly, so the most effective way of dealing with the complaints is to push her away from the mirror.
As my parents and I visit the local drug store one Sunday afternoon, my father asks what I think about boxed hair coloring.
This question takes me off-guard, but I answer truthfully. “I guess they are okay. I know a lot of people use them. We can definitely get you one to make yours gray,” I nod at his full head of white hair. Silver by the age of thirty, his hair had slowly been turning white ever since.
“What? Not for me,” he chokes, “for your mom. She’s getting gray hairs.”
The three of us peruse the aisle of boxed coloring, and I pick out one on sale that looks like a good match.
When we return to the house, I tell my mother that she is going to have a “beauty day.”
“You’ll look good,” I assure her and she shrugs. Though I’ve never colored anyone’s hair before, I have the foresight to change my mother into some work clothes before we begin. For privacy, I set up shop in the bathroom and scoot in one of the kitchen chairs for my mother.
“This will be good,” I say again as I usher her to the chair and wrap her shoulders in an old towel. The directions are easy to follow, and the first five minutes go smoothly. After everything is applied, I set a timer for the required twenty-five-minute wait for the solution to set. Though my mother complains that the coloring is cold, she seems to be in a pretty good mood, especially since I reassure her often that this will turn out well. While we wait, I also apply face cream, trim her fingernails, and give her eyebrows some shape.
“This will be good, Mom,” I say, wiping off her face. “Just pretend like you’re at a spa or something.” Every time I say this, she smiles.
When the timer dings, I realize that removing the dye might be more of a challenge than I’d expected. In fact, my foresight was limited, and I really hadn’t thought far enough ahead to plan how the tonic should be washed out.
As my mother watches me expectantly, I decide that the kitchen sink would be the easiest for her head to fit under. I usher her to the kitchen and run warm water through the faucet.
“Ok,” I direct her toward the basin, “lean into the sink.”
She stares at the water but does not move. I repeat the directions, but she wrinkles her forehead and frowns.
“Let’s go,” I say more forcefully. I try to gently guide her shoulders to the sink, but she remains solid in her resistance. “Mom, we have to wash out your hair.”
She points to the sink. “There?” she asks, frowning again.
“Yes!” My voice raises a few pitches as my patience shortens. I glance at the clock and notice that five minutes have passed, and the box said not to exceed thirty. I begin to worry what will happen if the coloring stays in her hair too long. Will it burn her scalp? Will her hair fall out? Her nervous system is already showing signs of the disease—a few months previous, she cut her hand so badly she needed stitches. She didn’t react to the pain, and, besides the presence blood, didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong.
How will I know what she is feeling?
The kitchen sink seems to be a lost cause, so I change tactics.
“Let’s try the bathroom again,” I say, grabbing a large plastic cup from the cupboard before retreating. Once we are there, I point to the ledge of the bathtub and tell my mother to lean over the side. Her eyes move from me, to the tub, then to me again, but she does not budge. I tell her again, then show her, but still, she does not move.
“Please, Mom,” I beg as more minutes pass by.
Still, she does not understand what I want, and I cannot position her. Frustrated, I try again. “Sit here,” I pat the ledge. She reluctantly does this and I take a deep breath.
“Ok, now, lean back a little.”
This, she does not do. Instead, she continues to stare at me. Her knitted eyebrows show that she is confused, but she doesn’t know why. At least I hope that it is confusion over the situation and not something more serious.
“Just like this,” I nudge her shoulders backward. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you, you won’t fall.”
She grabs my arm, and I turn on the water with my free hand. When the water is warm, I fill the plastic cup and slowly pour it over the back of my mother’s head. Though I tell her that things are okay, and insist that she tilts her head back, she leans forward and tries to stand. Water runs down the back of her head and soaks the towel and her shirt.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she cries as her clothing sticks to her skin. “No, no.”
I try to get her to lean over the tub and stay calm, but another attempt with the plastic cup results in more water on her clothing than down the drain.
My mother shakes her head and repeats, “Oh, oh, oh,” as if this will somehow make this problem go away. I, too, want this project to be over, but I also know that my mother cannot spend the day covered in hair-dye.
Out of options, time, and patience, my next move is an act of desperation. I remove the towel from my mother’s shoulders and help out of her clothes. She looks more confused than ever as I shut the shower curtain and reach around to turn on the spigot. She stands just outside the stream of water, watching as if the shower was spouting fire.
“Mom, it’s okay,” I say again, reaching in and guiding her closer to the water. “Now, turn around and tilt your head back so we can get that stuff out of your hair.” By now, I imagine her hair must be ready to come out in clumps. “Please, Mom, turn around so we can do this quickly.”
She does and lets me back her into the water, but my attempts to lean her head back are met with staunch resistance. No matter how hard I push her forehead, she will not tilt back. Instead, she leans forward, and as she does so, water, mixed with hair solution, floods across her face and into her eyes.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she sobs, rubbing her eyes as more dye flows across her face. My mother stands with her face buried in her hands as water relentlessly pelts her naked and shriveling body.
Two feet away, I am helpless. What have I done? Is any outcome worth this? I want to run to another room and bury my head under a pillow until I wake up from this nightmare.
As she continues to emotionally collapse, I understand that I don’t have that luxury. No matter how much I want her to look as she once did, it is a façade. She is still my mother, but we have very different responsibilities to each other than we did even three years ago. Unable to stop the flow of my own tears, I know that I will have to lead my mother through the situation the best that I can.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the yellow goggles hanging on the towel rack.
“Here Mom,” I say, adjusting the strap around the back of her head, “these will make things better.”
She continues to stare at the tub floor as I squeeze her hair to see how much dye will come out. My hand fills with so much coloring I wonder if any had been rinsed out yet at all.
My mother finally lifts her head, and when I notice her face, my heart sinks. Her eyes, bloodshot and swollen, stare at me through eyewear that is half-filled with tinted water.
I rip off the goggles and swear at myself for making things worse. Meanwhile, my mother cries into her hands.
From some recess of my mind, a memory surfaces of my sister and I in the bathtub as kids and the importance of washcloths. I grab one from the rack and place it over my mother’s eyes.
“Hold this right here,” I coax, adjusting her fingers to hold the cloth. I have to remind her periodically to keep the washcloth in place, but I eventually rinse and condition her hair.
I wrap her in a towel, then leave her dripping in the tub while I get some clean clothes. I pick out her favorite striped cotton shirt and a pair of comfortable jeans as an attempt to make her feel better. As I help her get dressed, she shivers, almost uncontrollably, not from the cold, but from the awkwardness of what happened. I apologize to her the whole time and assure her that this will not happen again. I know it won’t.
As the redness fades from her eyes, I apply some eye shadow and blush, then try to finesse the curls in her permed (and newly colored) hair. By the time we step out of the bathroom, she is in much better spirits, and when we find my father in the basement a few minutes later, she seems to have forgotten all about the trauma of the shower. She laughs and smiles at my father and admires the stripes on her shirt.
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