Vanity

 

Vanity.  We all have it to one degree or another.  I was chatting with Dad the other day about a wedding I helped with.  Both the bride and groom were older (he was nearly 90 and she was north of 70).  He looked his age, and she… seemed ageless.  Definitely an older woman, but so well put together that it was hard to nail down how old she might actually be.  Her hair was perfect, she was dressed impeccably and her skin was just the right kind of softness – not too tight, not too loose.  I remember thinking that this was the kind of woman I wanted to be when I got to that age.

I’m not that old yet, but I’m getting there.  Over 60, under 70, and about to gain another year under my belt.  And I realized that I do not have what it takes to do that kind of maintenance.  For one thing, my hair is definitely not cooperating.  It’s so thin on top than you can see my skull through it, scalp shining away.  I don’t wash my face every night or ever use moisturizer.  I have great intentions, but I just don’t.  The bad hair drove me crazy, so I got Matt to buzz-cut it for me.  I figure I have hair in a box should I ever actually need hair.  After two weeks, very little hair feels natural and good.  And I don’t really care how it looks.

But vanity is everywhere.  An article where AI removes plastic surgery of the stars so you can see how they look had they aged naturally.  Interestingly, most of these people look better with a couple of wrinkles, but they keep doing the surgeries. 

Then I saw a video on Facebook, where Snow White asks the Maleficient what her real problem was – and it turned out to be valuing herself for what she looks like and not who she is.  Together, Snow White and Maleficent talked through her issues and they smashed that mirror!  My heart cheered!

Hollywood insists on presenting us with unrealistic versions of aging and this morning, I saw one that hit home.  I just recently signed up for Netflix, and one of the draws was Grey’s Anatomy.  I started with the first episode, where Meredith is narrating her first shift as an intern and that narration turns out to be her telling her mother about it.  Ellis Grey has Alzheimer’s.  She’s far enough gone that she’s in a nursing home and Meredith is her healthcare advocate as well as her daughter (sound familiar?).  Ellis’ hair is perfect.  She’s wearing make up and her clothes are all clean and pressed.  She looks like she’s about to have a very important job interview.  Her biggest issued seemed to be that she couldn’t remember Meredith’s name and who she was herself, though it came to her in a flash and they had a conversation.

I’ve never sat through a TV show and had this reaction.   I got angry.  Why are they portraying Ellis this way?  Every person in that nursing home was the same way.  Clean and crisp in appearance with only the vaguest of looks about them.

Reality isn’t that kind.  Ellis looks like a retired model.  My mom looks like she just came off the hobo train – despite everyone’s best efforts.  She insists on the same pants every day.  She’s bundled up like she’s camping in Alaska when it’s 80 degrees.  She wears a knit cap all the time.  I cut her hair really short for practicality, but in reality, no one ever sees her hair because of the hat.

She was sick for about a week.  Lived in the bathroom.  Ate very little.  I had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for her because I felt like she needed a good looking over, so I took her last Wednesday.  She was seemingly over her illness, but was pretty weak and when I went to pick her up, she seemed to have sundowned at 8 in the morning.  It was a pretty radical change, so when we got to the doctor’s office, I asked that they check for a UTI, since that’s usually the culprit.  It took a long time to get a sample, and when we did, there wasn’t much of it.  Tests were run – no UTI, but she was severely dehydrated.  I was told to take her to the emergency room right away.

So I did.  They took her in immediately and we were given a room where she was undressed and then covered in warm blankets.  An EMT came in to draw blood for further testing and after finally getting a vein to give up blood, it took a half hour to fill up three tubes.  She said it was like trying to pull sludge out of her veins.  Absolute agreement that she was very dehydrated, and the nurse finally brought in a giant IV of saline water and began the drip. 

We’d arrived at the ER around 10am and finally got to leave around 5.  She slept most of the time.  Our conversations were a bit non-sensical.  But as the hours wore on, she came back.  Conversation made a bit more sense now.  She asked questions and was good with the answers (rather than arguing about them).  The took her for a CT and we waited some more.  Mom slept.

There were a couple of times when she seemed to stop breathing.  Her mouth was open and faintly blue around the edges (though her blood oxygen never dropped below 90).  Looking at her and holding her hand, I thought “It would be good if she went right now.  She’s sleeping.  I’m holding her hand.  In spite of the circumstances, it has been a good day for her.”  Then she’d start breathing again.  

I have such mixed feelings about her impending death.  I mean, she’s my mom – and I love her and I will miss her.  But on the other hand, I’ve been missing her for quite a while now.  She’s still in there, but there are only short periods of time when she comes out.  Most of the time, she is unhappy and uncomfortable.  Everything hurts.  Nothing tastes good.  She is always tired.  She is not enjoying life, except when people come to visit – and that only lasts a half hour or so before she gets tired or querulous.  She needs help dealing with the most basic bodily functions.  She doesn’t read anymore and forgot how to work the TV (she wants it gone now).  And honestly, I want her to go before she forgets who we are, that there are people who love her.  That would be the loneliest feeling and I don’t want her to feel like she doesn’t’ have anyone who loves her before she goes.  I watched my mother-in-law go through that.  Even when she had her sons and grandchildren visiting, she didn’t know who they were and felt abandoned.  I don’t wish that for Mom.

She always worried that her hands looked like Grandma’s.  They don’t.  Grandma's hands were thin, but had large, ropey veins.  Mom's don't.  They’re skin and bones and tendons.  And I’ll hold them as long as I can.