The Bearable Lightness of Being

This morning my mother called to check on my husband who hasn't been feeling well. Recovering from a sinus infection herself, her voice was still weak and a little broken. When I mentioned it, she said "Yeah, I need to get back to my voice exercises. I'm supposed to be doing them for the rest of my life and I haven't done them in two years."

I chuckled at the irony of her remark and soon we were both laughing, a moment's reprieve from our more serious concerns. And an uplifting reminder that in spite of coping with increasing medical challenges, my mother has a way of making lemonade out of the sourest of lemons.

Last week I took her to the outpatient surgery center for a caudal epidural of steroid, the hoped for remedy to a painful spinal stenosis that undoubtedly worsened this summer after 6 weeks in a cast for a broken foot. Just prior to treatment for the stenosis, I and other family members rotated shifts to take her to a local hospital for a two week regimen of daily IV antibiotic infusions, her only treatment option for a serious infection. Before that she had a partial procedure to improve blood flow to her legs and feet and at the beginning of the year, she tripped and fell on a city sidewalk severely bruising her hand and upper lip where a feint scar remains as a reminder.

Yet, through all of these trials she has maintained her sense of humor, the most recent example evident when she completed paperwork in the over-crowded waiting room of the surgery center. She turned to me when tasked with answering the all-too familiar questions about reproductive health on the medical questionnaire and said, "Sometimes I just want to write 'are you serious?'"

Trying to lighten her mood, I egged her on with "Well, why don't you?" We exchanged a glance and with a wry smile she filled that in as her response to "When was your last menstrual cycle?" When it came to answering "Are you pregnant?" she wrote, "I sure hope not." Admittedly, I suggested that last answer.

We both had a good laugh, a release of tension at the uncertainty of things to come and at least a momentary belief that the only answer that really matters sometimes is that laughter can be the best medicine.

No Pretense, No Defense

No pretense, no defense. These words popped into my head while driving home after a morning spent with my elderly mother. I'd taken her to a doctor's appointment and to distract her from her anxiety gave her a tour of my new iPod Touch while we waited. She oohd and ahhd with delight as I demonstrated my handy gadget's many capabilities, ones that allowed me to check email and play Solitaire to Joni Mitchell's Blue album while I waited for her.

When the visit was completed, she took my hand as we made a loop around the parking lot for her required post-procedure walk. We chatted about family and friends, her companion's recent eye problem, their travel plans for this summer, the death of another friend. As one topic dovetailed into the next, I found myself in an increasingly familiar role: that of listener, encourager, and supporter.

Just the day before I had been seeking encouragement myself. I've been working with a coach as part of a career change and struggling with some of the concepts we've been discussing. Hearing my frustration, she suggested that I continue but in a different direction. I wasn't convinced a course correction was the answer but by the time I hung up the phone I was doubtful and depressed.

A few hours later, I received a phone call from someone I'd spoken to last month about a volunteer opportunity. We'd been playing phone tag and feeling ambivalent I hadn't returned her last call. Tenaciously, she called again to follow up on the original invitation and to make me a second offer: she needed a co-chair for a committee she heads and had thought of me.

I used my usual "my husband and I are both in transition with work" excuse, implying we might suddenly pack up and move tomorrow, therefore I couldn't possibly do it. However, she was undeterred, so I told her I'd pray about it. She gave me the date and location of the next committee meeting--just in case.

My conscience pricked at me. I just plain didn't want to do it and I felt guilty. I have a free hour or two a month, the meeting location is nearby and it's an opportunity to help others. Still, I was having difficulty rallying myself. Later when talking to my husband about it he asked if my reluctance had to do with commitment. Of course it did, I said. (And a bunch of other stuff, too).

Suddenly I realized that the no pretense, no defense thought was about more than noticing the decline of these traits in my mother; it was an awareness of their subtle, persistent presence in my own life and my desire to be free of them.

It was also an affirmation that a daughter's walk hand-in-hand with her mother around a parking lot could be the highlight of her day. And that pretense and defense can, and do, in some instances rest quietly at bay.