Sweeter Than Tea by Deborah Grace Staley

Author:Deborah Grace Staley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BelleBooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

The Circle of Life

Clara Wimberly

When I walked into Mom’s room, my sister Janice was sitting on the other side of the bed. She had a notebook and a pencil and was gazing down at it intently. She looked up as I came in. “Oh, you’re here. Where was Mama born?”

“Sherwood,” I said.

I went to Mom’s bed.

“Happy Birthday,” I whispered. She was 94 years old today, and I had no doubt that if she hadn’t developed Alzheimer’s, she’d still be working in her flower garden, raking pine needles and picking stray limbs out of her yard. She was a hard worker and a meticulous gardener.

She rarely opened her eyes any more, rarely spoke, and if she did it was just ramblings that couldn’t be understood. She was a mere shadow of the active woman she used to be. Having Alzheimer’s was bad enough; being in a nursing home for seven years was horrible. But I think what I hated most was that the vital, interesting, proud, well-kept woman who was our mother disappeared years ago and was never coming back.

I don’t know when I began thinking of the woman in this bed as someone else entirely. But I had long ago separated her from the woman I knew as my mother.

“Sherwood, Tennessee?” Janice asked.

“Yep,” I said, sighing heavily. I turned away from the bed and sat in a chair across from Janice.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just never get used to seeing her this way. I’ll never understand why this happened to her or why she’s had to endure it so long. It makes me sad.”

“You can’t let yourself be sad. You have to think positive,” Janice said, forcing a cheerfulness I sometimes wondered if she really felt. “You can’t think bad things and be sad when you come in here. It’s not good for either of you.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing better than to argue with her. We had long ago passed the point where I was the big sister or she was the baby sister. We became equals many years ago and now we were both growing older with grown children and grandchildren.

“Can you believe she’s ninety-four? A few months ago no one thought she’d make it to this one.”

“I know,” Janice said. “She’s amazing.”

“What are they saying about her this morning?”

“She’s having problems swallowing.” Janice put her notebook aside and moved closer to the bed, brushing Mom’s hair away from her face. “And she’s very congested.”

“Her skin is so soft,” Janice said. “She has hardly any wrinkles. The nurses are amazed. I have more wrinkles than she does.”

“She always had nice skin,” I said, smiling. “It’s her Dutch ancestry, I guess.”

A vision popped into my head of one of our many trips. Mom always bought refrigerator magnets as a memento of where we’d been. I could see the one in my mind’s eye now—it was a Delft blue tulip with the words “I’ve Dutch Roots.” Mom loved it.

“I didn’t get any of that fair, flawless skin,” Janice said.

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