May 2, 2020

10:45 p.m.: I heard her panting for a little bit, but I waited. Thought maybe she would self-soothe. But then she called my name, so I quickly, and routinely, uncrossed my legs from how they were tangled on the bed, set down my laptop, slid on my slippers, and went out the door. Five steps to her room.

“What’s going on?” I say without thinking.

She’s laying down, meek and defeated and small-looking, with one hand pushed against the bed and the other hand raised up. Her blue nightlight helps to see the shapes, but I flick on the lamp on her bedside table anyway. I step carefully around the portable commode that sits approximately 6 inches from her bed. If I move it away any more than that, she’ll huff and sometimes whine and grab it, pulling it back even closer.

I grab her hand – it’s warm and soft and weak – and I help her to sit up. She has her head down, as always during this, crying quietly. It’s not a morbid, painful sob or a teeth-grinding swallow of a scream, it’s more of a defeated, dread-filled, pissed off that you’re living and that life isn’t easier, type of cry. It’s the cries we usually do only when we’re alone. I’ve heard it so much though, I’ve been around her so much, she no longer has the privilidge of intimacy with herself like that.

She stands up first, holding on to the rails on either side of the toilet. She pulls down her diaper to about her knees, then begins the process of turning around 180 degrees to sit. I’ve offered to set up the toilet perpendicular to the bed, so that way she could just take a step or two forward, then turn a little bit more before sitting on the bed. She initially said yes to that idea, but after four hours of laying in bed – four hours when i thought she had been sleeping – she called me into her room, frantic, saying I have to turn the toilet back how it was. It’s mismatched placement was all she could think about since she laid down.

So she turns herself around, her butt hovering over the small, plastic gray toilet seat, placed delicately over a detachable bucket — the bucket I empty every morning and at least once during the day. I’ve seen everything there is to see in there.

She seats herself down, I step away a bit. I can still see her, but I know it’s going to take a few minutes. Always does. I use the time to stretch, listen to practically every bones and joint in my lower body pop or creak or hurt.

She begins to hoist herself up and I step over to wrap my right hand on her back. I always feel her spine during this part. She takes a baby step forward, pushes her knees up against the bed, and attempts to use that to help herself stay steady as she pulls up her panties. I hold up her shirt on her back so it doesn’t get tucked into the underwear, and in the golden light illuminating this small triangle of her room, I notice she has two dimples on her back, just above her butt, just like me. Her sweet brown skin accentuates the dimples beautifully, especially in this light and even despite her age.

Women at 72 aren’t supposed to be this weak. They’re not supposed to not be able to stand, sit up, shit, eat, live without someone else’s help.

11:00 – I tried to get out of there without giving her another pill, but she won’t be able to sleep unless she takes something. I look through the notes section on my phone, I double check there’s been enough time and that I grab the right drug. I might be high but I can’t be stupid.

She’s already dozing, but she told me to go look. I stalled as long as I could, so I tip-toe back in.

“Grand? Are you awake?” I whisper-speak.

She’s bouncing one of her legs in the bed. She’s awake. She moans, she squints, I shine the flashlight from my phone away from her face. She moans and holds out her hand, I place the circular white chalky thing in the middle of it, she puts it to her mouth, motions for her water, brings it to her lips, and then tilts her head back in a dramatic fashion as though gravity truly does need to do all the work. I fix her blankets, make sure the heated blanket is on the right number. Make sure the heating pad, also on the right number, is laying on her legs, covering both feet, just right. I tell her I love her and I kiss her buzzed head.

“Okay honey, I love you.” she says with a voice I wouldn’t have understood four months ago, but I’ve learned to speak the language of now. My heart surges when she says “honey,” that’s what she used to call my grandfather, that’s what she still calls him in her cries in the middle of the night every night since he died.

1:30 a.m. “Kaley” she says it quietly, probably only to herself, but my eyes are open immediately. I hear the entire word. I lay there for a second, waiting – is it bad that I don’t rush to get up anymore? – she’s reaching for the bell. That damned bell, I really should never have brought it. But maybe it’s better sometimes, I don’t know.

I go in, groggy but aware, and I see her hand outstretched in the dark. I don’t turn on the lamp this time. I help her up, she’s moaning, crying.

“You need to go to the restroom?”

The answer is obvious, but if I ask her a question unrelated to her crying, she’ll usually stop crying. The energy transforms itself to grunts instead as she pulls herself up, her feet awkward and pushing apart, and then carefully pulls down the underwear. She makes sure to fix the blankets so they come up to just about the middle of the bed, folded over. That’ll be what she holds to pull herself up afterward. I help her make the turn, grab for the other handle and ease herself down.

I step away to give her a moment to pee. I stand near the doorway, near the blue nightlight plugged in toward the ground. I roll my neck and feel it pop more than once. I stretch my arms up, stand on my tip-toes, roll my ankles, bend my knees – pop! pop! pop! pop! It feels like every bone is so weary. If I am this weak, how could she be feeling?

I help her back into bed. I pull her feet over, away from the bed, situate all three covers on top of her, tucking gently on the sides. I situate the heating pad on top. I hold her up to help her take a sip of water.

I step away, I never say much in the middle of the night. And especially not during this round – I want her to stay as sleepy as possible. She can’t take another hydrocodone until 3-3:30 a.m., depending on the time. I check my phone. Yup, 3:30 a.m. Six hours after she took the first one. I hope she’ll sleep until then.

3:15 a.m. Like clockwork. Sometimes I wonder if she sets alarms. She groans loudly this time, maybe she said my name, maybe not. I just knew it was time to go in there. And lo and behold she’s trying to hoist herself up from the bed, this time much further along than she was the previous times.

We go through the routine and I tell her I need to go get the medicine. Sometimes I try to grab it before I go in there, but sometimes I don’t.

She reaches over to her nightstand and grabs the still over halfway full glass of water to give to me. The water has “gone bad” as she said one time before, and I laughed. She prefers there to be practically more ice than liquid.

I enjoy my pitch-black walk from one side of the dark house to the other. I know the lay of the furniture, of the shoes in the corner, the purse on the floor, and I don’t miss a step. I dump out the bad water, refill the glass with ice, grab the medicine bottle and use the light of the refrigerator ice-maker to study the label. I pop one hydrocodone into my hand and make the trek back to her.

She sits on the edge of the bed while she takes the pill, throwing her head back as usual. She grunts as she throws her legs into the bed, I scooch them over, readjust the blankets and the heating pad, and then off to sleep we go again, at least for a while.