Superhero

Caretaking, side B

Before my mother died I was drinking a lot and picking fights. I felt like no one ever saw me. Or, everyone wanted to teach me something and I didn’t want to listen to one more module, methodology, or spiritual practice. At a good friend’s birthday party, I got into a fight about superheroes. One of the Marvel movies had just come out and everyone loved it. I said I hadn’t seen it because I was sick of the idea that one person can save everyone. It’s an American obsession, I said. It’s tied to exceptionalism and it’s not a true story and I don’t care if Wonder Woman is cool now and not as skinny, if it’s still one woman having to save the whole world I’m not watching it.

I wouldn’t let anyone else talk. One woman left. My husband was embarrassed. I came home and sat in the car for a long time and cried.

(My teenage son thought this was hilarious. “Mom! You got drunk at a party, got into a fight about superheroes and came home and cried?” He could not stop laughing.)

I was sick of people telling me to like movies or read books. At another party, when I said my mother and I often talked about death on the way to dialysis each week the person I was talking to made a sad face and said they were sorry. “No!” I said. “It’s wonderful!! I love talking to my mother about death! It makes us happy!”

I loved talking to my mother about everything—death, family, other people’s psychological problems, marriage, the world. I did not like talking about her housekeeper, who I was jealous of because Mom kept calling her her angel. I was driving my mom to dialysis every week, bringing dinner, helping Dad, who was in the belligerent phase of Alzheimer's, do things like find the car in the parking lot, or Mom in the grocery store. I was the one who got her to the emergency room on the day she felt bad and just wanted to go back to bed and it turned out she had sepsis and if we hadn’t acted when we did she would have died. Mom did say thank you—many times. But whenever she mentioned her housekeeper she’d get this dreamy look and say, “She’s my ANGEL. She takes such good care of me.”

I’m your damn angel! I’d think, which I’m pretty sure is not how angels speak.

I was pale and tired, with circles under my eyes. I was thin-skinned. I felt like no one understood me, and if people tried, I’d tell them they were wrong.

I felt sorry for myself, which I decided I liked. Who else was going to feel sorry for me? Sometimes, you’re the only one who will do it, and I did a very good job.

One day, on the way to dialysis, I mentioned something my husband said and Mom said, “I love Tommy. He’s so easy.” My heart sank to the center of the earth. I wanted to be easy. I wanted to be lighthearted and funny again. I wanted to stop yelling at people. I wanted people to love me and enjoy my company. But I didn’t know how to find my way back. Although now I think, back to what? I wasn't lost. I was expressing some sides of myself more loudly than usual, maybe. Maybe I didn’t need to do it at parties. But joy holds everything—the rage and the sorrow, the heartache and the delight. And is there a correct way to be upset? If you say yes, I won’t believe you.

Here is what I also want to tell you because it is miraculously true. Somewhere in all of this, I was deeply happy. I really was. I knew, on a soul level, that I was doing exactly what I was wanted to be doing. I was spending time with the people I wanted to be with, writing what I wanted, drawing and watercoloring cats while I sat with Mom in dialysis. I knew I would not regret taking care of my parents, I loved them so much, even when I was mad. I knew there was love all around me, even when I felt alone. I knew I admired my mother’s housekeeper, and that when I told her I was jealous of her, which I did, she would laugh and say, “I get it. I’ve been there. Of course it’s easier for me—I’m not her daughter.” (Which she did.) I knew I was frustrated because Mom was leaving, and parts of Dad were too, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep this from happening. I knew no one was doing anything wrong—we were just all alive and being in the world together.

Mostly I was tired of being a superhero.

It was exhausting.