My mom, the caretaker

“Maybe nursing homes are not so bad,” my mom suddenly blurts.

I almost drop my fork on the dinner plate.

“What was that?”

“Your dad’s aunt is in a nursing home now. They just put her there. Maybe it’s a good idea. Being at home is very quiet.”

I almost drop my fork again.

My mom has voluntarily, with zero prodding from me, brought up the idea of some form of assisted care. This world truly is unpredictable.

I understand why my mom is so stubborn about not moving out of their house into any sort of assisted living center. Adults, particularly of my mom’s generation, value the kind of independence owning your own home brings. I’m sure there’s an element of pride to it too, where she doesn’t want to admit she might possibly need help with day-to-day tasks. I’ve also been reading up other theories, such as folks not wanting to move because there’s an unsaid admission that if they do move, it will likely be for the last time.

I know there’s at one more reason my mom doesn’t want help though: she says she can take care of my dad.

“She knows that Dad would probably, actually prefer to live in a senior center, right?” my brother tells me after I relay the earlier conversation with my mom.

I shrug. “Maybe she wants to take care of him. Fulfills some need of hers or something.”

The two of us have tried being sly about suggesting that they do move.

“In, uh, many years from now…” one of us lies, extending the timeline instead of talking about moving as if it were imminent, “where would you like to live? A retirement community? Nursing home? Here?”

“Here,” my mom replies instantly, referring to the house we’re all in right now.

“So, maybe we can ask people to come clean the house, maybe drive you places, make you food?” my brother asks.

“Yes,” she says, and then adds on, “I can still cook though.”

My brother and I exchange glances and temporarily resign to that being the end of the conversation.

Our mom is probably the most stubborn person we know. If she has an opinion, there’s almost no chance of changing her mind. If she wants to help, and she always wants to help, she’s going to no matter what you say. She’s a servant, to the point where you wonder if she’s doing it because she has to or because she wants to genuinely be helpful.

This becomes the debate of the century when we go out to eat with anybody else and she demands to be able to pay. Like the Chinese dinner game of old, she wants to be the one who paid for the meal. It actually gives her anxiety and stress—emotions she really doesn’t need right now—to have to fight over the check, and she gets an extra two doses of both feelings if she loses.

And so I ask whoever I’m with for a favour: You can pay, but make it look like I’m paying. Whether we have our backs turned towards my mom, or me putting my credit card down only to pick it back up under the table, or outright just hoping my mom isn’t paying attention, we have to make it look like I’m paying the bill.

Yes, I’m asking people to lie with me.

“Did you pay?” she'll ask me after each and every encounter.

"Yes.” I’ll say as firmly as possible without thinking. I have to, or else I’ll question myself. And I don’t think God needs my help in passing judgement on myself.

So it surprises me that my mom would bring up nursing homes on her own.

“When, do you think you would want to go to one?” I ask her.

“Maybe when your dad is not here anymore,” she says, just above a whisper.

This puts me in a momentary state of shock. The only time my parents ever talk about either of them passing away, is when they’re joking about it. Who knows if I’ll be here in a year. Please throw a party when I’m gone. Those kinds of comments. I’m not used to anything remotely serious.

“Do you think—in many years from now,” I’m quick to add, “dad will go first?”

“Yes. He is much older, that’s usually how it works. It will be very quiet here with one person here. Maybe it is a good idea to live around other people.”

“Do you want me to do research? We can go visit some places and maybe take a tour?”

I’m expecting her to suddenly revert back to stubbornness. She doesn’t. “That sounds like a good idea.”

I’m blown away.

Things start to piece themselves together one Monday, when my mom asks me if we can go to Costco. She knows now, that Mondays are the days we go to Costco.

“Of course. What do you need?”

“Broccoli, eggs, blueberries are on sale too…” her voice trails off and she names a dozen or so other things.

I’m surprised she can remember that much, and then I notice she’s reading the list off a post-it note. I’ve never seen her do this. Unlike my dad, my mom actually acknowledges that her physical and mental capabilities are fading, and this is just one example of her adapting.

“Do you want to go now?”

“Yes.”

I head to the garage, and notice my dad sitting on the couch.

“John,” my mom calls to him. He glances up at her. “We’re going to go to Costco now.”

I’m hoping she means to add we’ll see you later, but I know she means so put on your clothes because you’re coming with us.

“Do we have to bring dad?” I practically pout. Yes, I mean to say that.

“Of course we do,” as if to stop short of saying don’t be silly.

I sigh. If she wants to be so stubborn and in control all the time, I don’t understand why she wants my dad to come along with his shopping cart escapades, where he’ll probably ram into people or make a fuss.

It’s like she wants to be stubborn about controlling everything, but also stubborn about when she doesn’t want to be. And all of her adaptations—post-it notes, writing things down on a calendar, they all have some kind of ulterior motive. More than anything else, she is the most stubborn about my dad, and she is his staunchest defender, definitely to a fault.

My parents have never agreed about anything. My mom opens a window, my dad closes it. My mom turns on a light, my dad turns it off. My mom agrees with most of the world and says showers are good for you. My dad probably can conjure up a speech about how our ancestors never showered, so why should we.

I don’t know if it’s my mom’s sheer willpower, but whatever they argue about, well I don’t know if she ever truly wins, per se. But on some level, she always gets what she wants.

Like one morning, when my dad pours himself a glass of water, but somehow knocks it over, spilling water all over the floor.

“Hey-unh!” he yells, his expected Chinese/cowboy growl. He’s frustrated at, I’m not sure. Physics? Himself? Somebody else, thinking they knocked over the water?

And then he walks away. Just like that. He doesn’t bother to clean the water, or pick up the glass, or even acknowledge what just happened. It’s like he’s already forgotten that it happened. Given his brain, that’s, actually probable.

My mom is there, right next to him through the whole thing. She gently grabs the nearest towel and kneels down, slowly bending each knee so she doesn’t fall. And then she starts wiping up the mess. Except for some mumbling, which I’m pretty sure is involuntary since it’s unrecognizable sounds, she’s silent. She doesn’t say a single word about the whole thing.

My impulses are all over the place. I’m upset that my dad accidentally knocked over the water. I’m mad that he just walked off without saying a single word. I’m angry that my mom is cleaning up after him.

I want to go confront him. Fine, you knocked the water off, but you clean it up. Don’t just walk away. And goddamn, don’t make mom clean up for you.

But even if he could understand all of that, he’d probably say “I am sorry” but with no conviction. I have so rarely ever heard my dad say “I'm sorry” with any genuine sincerity.

Instead, I move to my next impulse, and am about to walk towards my mom and help her mop up the water.

But, for once, a third impulse arrives. I really want to help my mom. But something stops me in my steps. Somehow, I’m starting to feel like I need to let my mom do this on her own. I fight myself on this impulse, because it’s hard for her to bend down. This would be so much easier for me to do. And yet, it’s like, she needs to be able to do this.

I hate asking and debating myself, debating every decision at every corner, and so I just make a choice and promise to evaluate after, instead of before.

So I let her, and I sit back and just watch. I watch her wipe down the floor, rinse the towel in the sink, and wring the water out with as much force as her now feeble, trembling arms will let her.

It’s in this moment that I finally realize something: She wants to be in this house because she wants to take care of my dad. Maybe ‘want’ isn’t the right word, and neither is ‘obligated’ or any synonym of ‘duty.’ Maybe after fifty years of marriage all those motivations are blurred and are one and the same. I guess that's why she views herself as my dad’s caretaker. She needs to, for her own sake. That’s why she’ll never let go of the chance to be that for him. And that only when he’s gone, will she actually consider doing something else on her own.

There are stories that, I think even for me right now, are too personal to tell. But they line up with who I know my mom to be. She chooses to be here, to always be a servant, to a fault, to the point where self-sacrifice and self-inflicted pain are also, one and the same. In some ways, I don’t agree with her choice. Actually, I really don’t agree with it.

My life would’ve been very different if she chose differently.

But she didn’t. It’s her choice. I choose to respect it, because through watching my mom, tending to her after my dad yells at her, and making sure she’s always okay, I’m learning to love her for the very first time, and I think I accept her not despite of her choice, but because of it.

There’s one night where I stay out too late, reveling a little too much in the short-lived freedom I have away from the trouble and responsibility of my parents.

My phone buzzes as I chat with a friend past midnight. It’s my mom calling me.

“I should take this,” I say, putting a ‘sorry’ look on my face. “Hello?”

“Where are you, are you okay?” her voice blares out through my phone.

I flinch a little from the sound. “Yeah. I missed the BART train so I'm staying at a friends place. I’ll be home tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, okay. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. See you tomorrow.”

My friend awww’s as I slip my phone back into my pocket. “Was that your mom? That's so adorable…” his voice trails off.

I feel embarrassed. I hate being a thirty-something and still feeling like I’m a little kid with his parents calling him. I guess it’s the classic “kid doesn’t want to hold his parents’ hand when walking into school, which disappoints the parents and makes them feel sad.”

My friend silences my train of thought. "I wish I had that…” he sighs, looking up at the ceiling.

Suddenly my embarrassment snaps in a figurative plume of smoke. I realize, this is my mom still showing that she cares about me. Maybe, I should treasure that.