different future, because, as her doctor said without exactly saying, it will only get worse.
I have always been the sort of person who is easily panicked about how quickly time passes, but in the past this was mostly related to Ada. I would remind myself not to get too distracted, because four would soon be five would soon be ten and then her childhood would be gone forever. I remember frantically looking for the dimples on the backs of her chubby hands, convinced I would be so sad the moment I noted their certain replacement by knuckles. I would kiss those dimples—and as much as I missed them, I loved the beautiful hands that emerged. But this current accounting with my mother was somuch darker: she would be less and less and then she would be gone. A memory. Ada became an adult with all of her baby brightness intact, fully realized and elaborated. And I wouldn’t have to witness her unwinding and diminishing. That would be her daughter’s burden.
But I knew this was not even true. I knew other horrors awaited. I knew that just as I was starting to fall apart right in front of my mother, just as I knew my mother must note my sad middle-aged visage, I knew I would live long enough to see Ada start to grow old. Already when I see her I notice how she looks more tired in tiny ways. I would live to see her get crow’s-feet and gray hair and hands that showed veins. I would see her feet and her neck change. I would see the perfection of her body be undone by time. I might live to see her lonely, divorced, unhappy, and a hundred other disappointments. What you don’t think about or plan for (as if that helps) is watching your children get old. The privilege of a long life is you live long enough to see your perfect child also submit to time and aging.
So, on my forty-seventh birthday—if that was truly my middle age—what did the second half of my life hold for me? I would watch my mother and her friends and siblings die, one by one, but also all at once, a flurry of funerals, then watch my brother and my friends as they speedily replaced them as failing beings on the way out. Everyone knows that is just how it goes. I’m not the only one, right? And let’s not forget I get to experience my own dwindling vitality, which will surely accelerate and reach critical mass in the next fifteen years.
I stood in my mother’s doorway and scanned the room. Soon she would have to move from this apartment—it went in-homeaide to assisted living to a full-care facility to a hospice. I was just waiting for the thing to reach the next level. Whenever I visited, I was vigilant in looking for signs of new deterioration. Was she wearing pajamas in the afternoon? Did she smell clean? I expected to find rotten food in the refrigerator, a carton of old milk congealing in the cupboard. But her routine—and I made sure it was always the same for her—could stay intact for the moment. I checked in with her most mornings, and her home health aide came in the afternoon to help her with dinner. Once a week we went shopping and had lunch together. She appeared to hold at this point, but I couldn’t stay where she was—I waited and watched for what came next.
I think on some level I always imagined Nik would never make it into old age, how could he? He didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. I knew he would die of cigarettes and drinking long before I would finally die. I just got to witness and witness and stupidly survive. The second half of my life was just the bill due for the pleasures of the first half. And Nik would get to escape payment.
I left her apartment, sniffling and congested with my little birthday pirouettes around mortality. A fitting birthday disposition, but then I began to fixate on how I had managed to forget that birthday cake. I realized I couldn’t actually locate it in my memory. I could remember only the photograph we took of the cake. Not the feel of the pink-and-white frosting in my mouth, not the gulp of cold
I have always been the sort of person who is easily panicked about how quickly time passes, but in the past this was mostly related to Ada. I would remind myself not to get too distracted, because four would soon be five would soon be ten and then her childhood would be gone forever. I remember frantically looking for the dimples on the backs of her chubby hands, convinced I would be so sad the moment I noted their certain replacement by knuckles. I would kiss those dimples—and as much as I missed them, I loved the beautiful hands that emerged. But this current accounting with my mother was somuch darker: she would be less and less and then she would be gone. A memory. Ada became an adult with all of her baby brightness intact, fully realized and elaborated. And I wouldn’t have to witness her unwinding and diminishing. That would be her daughter’s burden.
But I knew this was not even true. I knew other horrors awaited. I knew that just as I was starting to fall apart right in front of my mother, just as I knew my mother must note my sad middle-aged visage, I knew I would live long enough to see Ada start to grow old. Already when I see her I notice how she looks more tired in tiny ways. I would live to see her get crow’s-feet and gray hair and hands that showed veins. I would see her feet and her neck change. I would see the perfection of her body be undone by time. I might live to see her lonely, divorced, unhappy, and a hundred other disappointments. What you don’t think about or plan for (as if that helps) is watching your children get old. The privilege of a long life is you live long enough to see your perfect child also submit to time and aging.
So, on my forty-seventh birthday—if that was truly my middle age—what did the second half of my life hold for me? I would watch my mother and her friends and siblings die, one by one, but also all at once, a flurry of funerals, then watch my brother and my friends as they speedily replaced them as failing beings on the way out. Everyone knows that is just how it goes. I’m not the only one, right? And let’s not forget I get to experience my own dwindling vitality, which will surely accelerate and reach critical mass in the next fifteen years.
I stood in my mother’s doorway and scanned the room. Soon she would have to move from this apartment—it went in-homeaide to assisted living to a full-care facility to a hospice. I was just waiting for the thing to reach the next level. Whenever I visited, I was vigilant in looking for signs of new deterioration. Was she wearing pajamas in the afternoon? Did she smell clean? I expected to find rotten food in the refrigerator, a carton of old milk congealing in the cupboard. But her routine—and I made sure it was always the same for her—could stay intact for the moment. I checked in with her most mornings, and her home health aide came in the afternoon to help her with dinner. Once a week we went shopping and had lunch together. She appeared to hold at this point, but I couldn’t stay where she was—I waited and watched for what came next.
I think on some level I always imagined Nik would never make it into old age, how could he? He didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. I knew he would die of cigarettes and drinking long before I would finally die. I just got to witness and witness and stupidly survive. The second half of my life was just the bill due for the pleasures of the first half. And Nik would get to escape payment.
I left her apartment, sniffling and congested with my little birthday pirouettes around mortality. A fitting birthday disposition, but then I began to fixate on how I had managed to forget that birthday cake. I realized I couldn’t actually locate it in my memory. I could remember only the photograph we took of the cake. Not the feel of the pink-and-white frosting in my mouth, not the gulp of cold
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