Last June, my mother left her independent living facility in Jupiter, Florida, Mangrove Bay, and tried to move into a two-bedroom 55+ community without the assistance and oversight she'd had before. In her mind, it was a necessary move because she was running low on money, and she wasn’t ready to move into full-on assisted living yet—she could still take care of herself and wanted to continue to live in Florida, even though she’d run the risk of being far more isolated than she’d ever been in her entire life.

Before she finished unpacking all her dozens of boxes and bins, she fell into a debilitating depression, one so jarring that her long-time caretaking aides took her to a doctor immediately. She went to her primary care doctor and was officially diagnosed with depression and put on a low dosage of an old-person’s SSRI. It would take a few weeks to enter her system, but her aides called me and told me they would no longer work with her due to liability issues, which felt cruel and confusing. Like, isn’t every person past 75 a liability issue?

My closest aunt, her youngest and most conscientious sister, decided to take her up to New Jersey for the rest of the summer as she adjusted to her new medication. 

Part of me was thrilled that my mother had finally been diagnosed with depression, something I’d long suspected she’d had, because I thought it might open a channel in her, one that would enable us to forge a close connection between us. I also knew that she was particularly closed off when a potential crisis loomed, and her health and rest-of-life care certainly qualified as one. 

After a week together, the first update I received from my aunt was pretty grim. She said it was obvious my mother was no longer able to live by herself without round-the-clock care and that she would eventually need to move out to California to live with us sooner than any of us were ready for. 

If she came out to LA—well, where would we put her, especially if she’s immobile or catatonic or whatever she is? Our downstairs at this moment is full of a busted drum kit and baseball cards and forgotten dinosaur toys—a completely unlivable space for her, hence a giant life-altering dilemma that didn’t have an easy solution. 

But many older middle-aged kids end up here and I was ready to begin the process of imagining a life of caretaking for my mother for the next few years. 

About a week into her Jersey stay, we had a Facetime call and I made the first move, asking her about her mood and her medication. 

“I feel shitty,” she said. Then she asked me, if I’d ever “had this” before.

“Depression?” I asked.

She chewed on her lips, her eyes were sort of mean-looking staring off into another room. “So you’ve felt like this before?”

I felt my face sink. It was a truly breathtaking level of ignorance on her part but sadly not very surprising. I didn’t want to make too big a deal out of it because this was what she had to offer right now. I had an Al-Anon sponsor now, after all. I didn’t need her to parent me anymore. 

For the rest of the summer, we probably spoke less than five times. I got most updates about her health from my aunts or cousins, who offered various levels of concern, worry, or assurance that things would be okay eventually, but the immediate, uncertain future would be challenging and often upsetting and unpleasant. That was fine by me. The situation would resolve itself. 

But a couple of weeks ago, my aunt said she was bringing my mother back to Florida and asked me if I had a plan for her next steps. 

“Not particularly, not a good one.” Then she asked if I could come down in early October to help get her moved back into her apartment. “Sure,” I said. “It’ll be a blast.”

I booked a one-way JetBlue flight to Fort Lauderdale, but I already knew I'd only be there for four days, tops. That was all I could give her for now.

*****

I found it odd and unsettling that I’d grown so frigid toward her—she certainly wasn’t the worst mother in the world, and when I was super young, I loved her very much. She was safe when my father was not. I would go to bed every single night afraid that she’d die and I’d be left with my father. 

But a recent breakthrough I’ve had about us is that our relationship was ruptured when I was in third grade. She was ravaged by breast cancer that year, and I have hazy memories of a heavy conversation in the family room between her and my father. He pulled me aside and took me for a car ride. I barely looked at him as he loosely explained that she was scheduled for surgery then a long recovery period. He said I probably wouldn’t see her in our house for a long time, and when she was back, I might not be able to hug her. She’d probably look different; perhaps she’d still be very sick. 

I stared out the window at the darkened telephone poles floating by, the sky graying more after each of his words. I don’t know if he ever said the word cancer, because what good would that do anybody?

When we got back home I flung myself into her and she gasped and wept. My father eventually had to separate us. That was the last time I felt close to her.

*****

In the minutes after I arrived at my aunt’s house in Palm Gardens, I sat across from my mother on a high-backed couch and thought back to that moment, trying to reach a flicker of that love, but it was gone. We were stiff and blank, and neither of us was happy to see the other, especially under these troubling circumstances. There was no more closeness, none that I could access. 

Before I landed, I promised myself I’d be patient and cheerful and would attempt to attack my mother’s depression head-on, mostly by assuring her that we now share a frequency. 

“Can you tell me why you’re sad? Afraid?” The only response she could say truthfully was that she couldn’t believe she’d let things get this far. 

“I never thought I’d get to 83. I want to be 30 again.” 

My mother was more afraid of death than anyone I’d ever met in my life. I knew at night she’d fall asleep praying to wake up in a different decade, but I’d always assumed she’d longed for 20 years ago, when she was in her early 60s, when life was still navigable, when Florida felt like a destination that she and my father had won on a game show, as opposed to now, when sometimes it feels to her like a lifetime sentence in solitary confinement. But no—30. She wanted to be 30 again.

“Why 30?” 

She answered quickly. 

“We’d just had you and bought a house and had lots of friends and lots of things to do.” It sounded like she’d been grieving since the second after she turned 31. 

Now her life is mostly waiting around. For a sunny day. For early bedtime and dreamless sleep. For some sort of lunchmeat-filled sandwich. For a prolonged conversation. For quiet. For tomorrow, but mostly yesterday. Last year. Last lifetime. For death.

When my aunt arrived, she encouraged me to help her get situated and set up her caregiving. I also needed to buy her a walker. A four-pronged cane. Some sort of life alert system that would call the ambulance if she fell in the shower. I had to clean out the fridge. Unpack some boxes. There was more, but I’d tuned out the rest. I was waiting for my mother to ask me about what I got depressed about, what I was afraid of. 

*****

Her apartment complex was about 30 minutes east of my aunt’s, and we drove slowly, mostly in silence, but she asked about my kids, groused about the Phillies, and we got along just fine. When we arrived at her parking lot, two giant buildings stood there stupidly, and she couldn’t remember which one was hers. We sat there with the doors open as she struggled to remember which one it was, typing a frantic text message in one of the largest fonts I’d ever seen to her former aide for help locating it. 

I decided to look for it on foot, walking around with a key, searching for an alternate entrance or a superintendent who could help us. I eventually found it—it was the second building, not the one we were parked in front of. When I got back to the car, my mom still had the door open, and her foot and cane were hanging out. Dozens of giant lizards were darting out of the bushes onto the sidewalk. The sun was pink as a grapefruit and it felt like it was 1,000 degrees outside. 

“Found it,” I said. I expected her to be more relieved but she barely smiled. That’s what depression does to a person. 

I drove the car back to the other side of the building. The elevator was broken. It was only a flight of stairs up to her place, but she was unsteady. I walked behind her with my arms up, ready to catch her if she tumbled backward. When we finally got inside, we were both relieved that the air was on. I cleaned out her fridge and ordered a pizza. 

After we ate, I took a mile-long walk around the river while I called Cameron, my Al-Anon sponsor. I gave him the updates and he told me I should memorize the Set-Aside prayer and also continue to write down 10 things I love about my mother, which he had instructed me to do a week before I left, but I struggled to get through. 

“I don’t know if I can get past five, man,” I said. 

As soon as I said that, a lizard with a long black body and a tail the color of an orange pylon appeared. It watched me closely and barely moved as I walked past. A large sign also warned people to beware of snakes and alligators along the marshland. I wondered what I would do if an alligator lunged at me right then, whether I'd have the strength to fight it off or if I’d accept defeat and let it drag me into the river. 

*****

I didn’t fall asleep until around 4 a.m. that night because of jet lag, but I woke up close to 9 a.m. I went and knocked on my mother’s door to see if she wanted some coffee.

“I’m onnnn the toilet,” she sing-songed back. 

When she finally came out, she went straight to the couch and stared at a daunting pile of unopened mail and a crusty-looking pill case. She turned on the Today Show at a distracting volume as I made coffee. She stared at the TV but barely watched. I served her coffee and, by the time she finished it, she fell back asleep. 

Her mouth was wide open, her top teeth showing, and her head slumped at an odd angle. “This is what she will look like when she’s dead,” I thought. A letter she was opening still sat in her lap. 

I gently shook her and told her I was going out to the store to run errands. Her mouth made a croaking noise as she popped awake. 

“Do you need anything from the store?” She began to handwrite out a list on a small sticky note, which took about ten minutes. “You can just tell it to me, and I’ll put it in my Notes.” 

She waved me away and handed me the piece of paper. 

“How about I just take a picture of it?” I did, but she handed me the note anyway, “just in case.” 

On the way out the door, she changed the channel over to the Ion network, which I had never heard of. Chicago Fire was on.

I’d always seen ads for it. I knew it was very popular with a giant-sized TV audience of an unknown demographic. But now I knew it was a show for people who wrote their grocery lists on sticky notes. 

I tried to get her to tell me about it. 

“They have a bunch of Chicagoans-in-peril shows, right?” 

“Yes,” she said. That was it. I hurried out the door. 

When I got back an hour later and Chicago Fire was still on. I sat down and watched one episode, and as soon as the credits rolled, another began. There was a gas explosion at a woman’s shelter. One woman helped get the others to safety, but she perished due to smoke inhalation and a giant, scaly burn mark the color of that black lizard I saw the night before. Then another episode had a car accident in the snow. Two EMTs made a splint from a long tree branch and the man screamed so loudly I winced. Some budding romance between an ambulance driver and a fireman happened. Then another episode , another gas explosion, plus there was a suicide by an ex-firefighter who tore up the stationhouse. A poker game between the guys causes tension. Then another episode began, the sun was a pink grapefruit, the credits rolled again, and just like that: it was night. 

“Jesus Christ,” I said. This is where life gets swallowed up. 

*****

My aunt called and asked me how things were going. I gave her the rundown of what I’d done and my assessment. “We have to keep her off the couch in the morning, or else she gets stuck there.” 

“Yeah, she did that a lot at our house, too. She loves her Chicago Fire.” 

I shook my head. 

I told her I’d set up a new aide for her in the morning. She’d be there at 10 a.m. 

****

By the time I’d left, things were headed in the right direction. My mother was up and about, enjoying the aides. Made her own lunch and became a little more engaged and alive with me. I tried to have some tough, meaningful conversations but she batted those away. But by Wednesday morning, when I left, we’d made some progress. 

“Thank you, A.J.” she said. “You did great taking care of me.” 

Maybe next time—there would be a next time—we’d get closer. On the flight home, I added more items to my list. 

TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY MOM

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