Portraits of My Mother
(this page still in process)
 

Barbara E. Gormley Koslow Davis
 (June 24, 1925- May 23 2007)



Portrait of My Mother

 

My Mom died Weds. May 23, at 10:15. She stopped eating and drinking 5 days before she died. My wife  and I spent most of her last days with her and helped her through the difficult last hours when she was having trouble breathing and threw up blood. She was peaceful at the very end, as her breath slowed and then softly stopped and she let go. We had ‘Hospice’ help us too and they were warm and their female chaplain did not mind being kind and loving to a couple of compassionate atheists like my wife and I. She helped care for the baby as Barbara was in her last hours. That was very kind indeed. We flew back to Cleveland with her ashes and buried her next to my Dad.

I cared for her in nursing homes for the last 5 years and for some years at her house prior to that. Her suffering was deep and long and profound. I learned how horrible and exploitive the care of the elderly is in this county. We should all be ashamed of that, but few are willing to look at the truth about it. She was a good person who cared about people who do not have power, which is most of us. She was very smart and well read and loved gardens, animals, art and music. I miss her conversation. She was a joy to talk to. She graduated summa cum laude form Wellesley College, gave birth to six kids and had two husbands. She needed me and I cared for her and I will miss caring for her. I loved her deeply. Before she died I kissed her face and hands and told her how much I loved her. My wife did that too and she was surrounded with love. I don’t think Ill ever quite get over her loss.

 

Elegy for Mom

 

Part 1

(Mom speaking)

 

Goodbye air, goodbye breathing,

Goodbye mouth gasping for breath,

Goodbye blood thrown up on the sheet

Goodbye son hovering over me

Wishing I would not die.

Goodbye living, goodbye life

Goodbye to the front tooth I lost as a girl

Goodbye to my first white dress

And the low cut red dress I wore for my husband

that hung in the closet for 30 years.

Goodbye to the flowery red Moo-moo

I wore during the years I was pregnant

when I had my last baby in 1960.

Goodbye Wellesley College

and red lipstick and fingernail polish and

high heels and politics.

I loved talking about politics.

Goodbye to roses and azaleas

and all the gardens my green fingers loved.

Goodbye favorite couch

Where I tucked my legs under me

and read so many good books.

Goodbye consciousness and existence.

Goodbye to the kittens for whom I made

labyrinths out  of books when I was a kid.

Goodye Mei Lin, my favorite cat,

 who died the day of the seizure I had two weeks ago.

My brain is collapsing form within

and I”m helpless sliding into absence.

Goodbye all the men who loved me

Clay Ragsdale and Dave Davis and Chuck

Goodbye especially to Jerry,

the one I loved the most

Who I lie next to in death.

Goodbye dawn and Long Island

And memory and the day I met Jerry

at a basketball game when I was 14

and we went to Scoops soda shop

and I loved him my whole life long.

Goodbye to his blue eyes and our children

And all the days I was lonely or happy

Or lost in my mind to a disease

I never knew the name of.

 

And the oak trees I loved

and had to cut down in the front yard

and our dear white dog and

Goodbye pain and sunlight

and my hazel eyes.

Goodbye everything and everyone

and silent stars and the rarity of breathable air

this precious life breathing out

with my last breath

is all the life there is.

Goodbye earth and

Goodbye dear son who watched out for me

for so long.

 

 

Part 2 (me talking)

 

Goodbye mother, Mom,

my oldest dearest friend.

Goodbye to your cold forehead

---my warm hand looked so red

stroking your blue forhead--

as you lay under

a white blanket in the funeral home.

Goodbye to helping you walk so painfully

down those nursing home halls

---so many nursing homes---

 where I visited daily,

and all those dear drained faces

and the underpaid aides who loved you

despite your illness,

all said how special you were.

Goodbye unsanitary halls
and sagging heads in wheel chairs

and waiting for nothing and neglect.

Goodbye Alzheimer’s and accountants

who exploited your weakness.

Goodbye good and bad doctors and nurses

and health care that doesn't care

and stole your money and your carpets

and left you with nothing but a sheet

to burn you in a cardboard box in a crematorium

and never came to visit you when you needed it most.

 

Goodbye mother, 34 years since the love of your life died in 1973.

24 years since you lost your second husband

And gave up on men, fearful of another death.

“I just can’t go through it again” you said

Goodbye Mom, who wanted to die so long

she learned to love life and

held to it with so much will

who wanted us to help her walk---
just a few weeks ago---

the two of us holding her under the arms.

Goodbye to her eyes and holding her hands

And rubbing her shoulders

Wheeling her wheelchair

outside to sit with flowers
and sun on her face

And how happy she was eating a chocolate-chip cookie,
the baby laughing beside her.

And all the days I pressed my forehead against hers

And she shook her hands with glee,

when she heard me say
 "Mom, its me Mark"

—when she was no longer able to see-----

and there was still a person in there

hardly anyone else seemed to recognize,

as she lost the ability to talk and walk

and I fought dragons for her right to be a person,

to keep her alive----

fought dragons to stop those who tried to harm her

and I who don’t believe in dragons

fought them day after day for 7 years,

without hope of thanks or treasure

but because I loved her.

 

Goodbye Mom, from your son who you breastfed

And introduced to the universe

And for whom you made sandwiches

wrapped in the the waxed paper

of the wonders of childhood

and brown paper bags carried

with a love of life you gave me.

And how many times you defended me and stood up for me

and helped me though school

and never asked me to say thank you

or asked for the same in return.

How gladly you gave and how I gave back

and how good it was to have this love

that was simple and mutual.

 

Goodbye Mom,
 who didn’t want to die as you died

and whose eyes went blind while still seeing

and whose hand reached for me out of death and

held on to mine
 and I held on as long as I could.

Goodbye Barbara

Who only days ago reached out for your

granddaughter’s cheek

and touched it with the tenderness

of the red roses petals you loved

Goodbye Mom,
whose hand reached for me out of death

and I held on and didn’t want to let go

and your breath slowed down and suddenly

your last breath,
 in and then out

and you were no more

you simply stopped

and

I kiss your face all over.

I kiss your face,

I kiss your face.

 

June 2007

 

 

Below are two poems about my mother, who I cared for on a daily basis and who had advanced Alzheimer’s disease

 The ROMANTIC

My mother loved the sea

Especially the Atlantic off the  Long Island

of her childhood

but the Pacific too, wild and rockier.

Blowing sand in the dune grass

and the cry of white gulls

across the blue horizon

her lonely heart sought a land of love

even as she longed for the sea.

When she was a child, she said,

her father hovered near her

when she waded into the waves

and her brother told her too,

"Don't go out too far"----

I stood watch over her too, in my turn

as she waded out too far

into the waters of dementia

and held her back with loving hands

giving her a few extra years of 

Freedom.

Those who should have thanked me

for the care of her

never did,

and the ocean began to close over her head,

the day her four ungrateful children

seized her from her house

and began drowning her in nursing homes

with chemical lobotomies.

I have been trying to hold the ocean back

ever since,

But the waters begin to overwhelm her 

Her eyes murky with medications

and her speech like talk underwater.

She is suffocating under their "care"

And I am trying to give her air.

They hired medieval doctors in modern white coats

full of their own 'expertise' and so 'up to date',

who apply chemical leeches to her brain

in an effort to bleed her back to health.

The nursing home 'industry' corrals her into

a pretty prison for human cattle.

They prefer their patients drugged into oblivion

easier to 'manage', they say,

and have destroyed her personality

while they take all her money

and keep her penned with other living corpses

wandering the halls aimlessly

looking for their lost homes

and homelessly stripped of their dignity.

Someday their stories will be told

in narratives like victims of the slave trade

and the abuse of the elderly for profit

will return to haunt

the houses of the greedy and ungrateful.

Imagine, what kind of people

want to drown their own mother

in a sea of drugs?

Are these the same people---

of the same mentality---

that drown the earth in chemicals?

These are the people that harm animals

these are the people that hurt the innocent.

I have no relation to them----

they are none of me.

They knocked her down

like an animal in the road

and I alone see the panic in her eyes

like a wounded deer run down

and I run my fingers through her hair

and hold her head against my heart.

I've done all I can to stop them.

Imagine stealing your own mother's heart

and leaving her alone 

to wander in her own lost mind

voiceless as a ghost with no hands.

They are already counting her money

and sift through her objects

planning for the day she dies.

A True Romantic, she lived for love,

like "Moonlight Serenade", Frank Sinatra,

The swing of Benny Goodman, and the songs 

of Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte.

If she weren’t so shy,

she might have been a singer

because she has a good voice.

She was smart too, 

smarter than her two husbands

But she suppressed it

As many women of that time did.

Her grandfather wrote a book about

important "colored" people in 1933.

"Who's Who in Colored America",

He traveled all over the south, on trains,

talking to the people, gathering information.

Far ahead of his time,

and her brother loved Jazz and philosophy

and both had a spark of their grandfathers

forward seeing humanity.

I admired her concern for social justice

education and democracy

And how she would stand firm

Against the most repressive republicans.

I loved her liberal and caring spirit

her acceptance of not always following rules,

her generosity

her feisty refusal to submit

her love of animals

and her regard for the weak.

Whatever her faults, and there were a few.

She was one of those rare things

A good hearted human being.

A large part of her died when my father died.

That was 1973

And I thought the ocean would overtake her then

But she fought her way out of it.

and I helped her.

It took her years to recover.

I was left to care for her grief 

when her second husband died too

since her other children mostly ignored

or abandoned her.

Once again she fought back the invading sea.

Some who I knew criticized me

for loving her too much

But I will never apologize

for loving her good heart,

her generous mind and

her love of love and life.

She was not only capable of exalted ecstasy

but of the deepest grief

and in a culture that cultivates

drugging the range of human feeling

I loved her wide scope and ability to ride

the troughs and crests.

Besides, she lost her husbands,

she was alone, and I felt compassion for her.

Even when I moved away for a few years

I did not leave her

and missing her conversation

called her often.

She was not just my mother

but a friend of my heart

A lifetime companion.

We loved and cared for the same white dog

And she stood by me

When I was attacked

And faced my sufferings with me.

I faced her sufferings too

and learned how to soften her grief

making some peace with her sorrows.

She never quite got over the loss

of the man she loved

and the ungrateful neglect

of some of her other children,

especially the cruel malice

of her oldest and youngest sons

and the happy-face hypocrisy

of her daughters

who smiled sweetly as they betrayed her.

She loved gardens

And gave me a love of plants

And put a little green in my fingers

Teaching my hands the feel of soil.

When my father died

She condemned roses

And I doubted she would ever regain

The gardeners joy in life.

But it returned.

I stayed with Mom and Mother earth

And my siblings resented it.

She gave me the gift or understanding

and they hated what I came to know.

She gave me gifts and I gave her time

Lots of time and attention

running my fingers through her hair

caring for her as she lost her mind.

I became virtual  father to the earth that bore me

caretaker of the ground from which I came.

They were jealous of the garden we made.

They were lost in 

a landscape they did not understand.

They were lost to me, and to her

and they put her in a chemical straitjacket

so she couldn’t feel flower petals anymore

or even recognize my face.

I now clutch flowers alone and

hold bird feathers to my eyelids for comfort.

I dream I see her flying

and I see her good heart

still glittering behind

her vacant and wounded eyes.

Imagine stealing your own mother's heart

and leaving her alone 

to wander lost from her mind

voiceless as a ghost with no hands.

I have become the memory of her broken heart

I am the hope of all that she loved.

Blowing sand in the dune grass

and the cry of white gulls

across the blue horizon

her lonely heart sought a land of love

even as she longed for the sea.

My mother helped me to weave

a coat of Many Colors,

not like the one Joseph wore,

in the Bible,

not ponderous with Patriarchy,

and religious delusions,

but a simple garment I wear my heart in,

made of the light of soft sunrises

and evening primrose.

It is a coat of earthy rainbows

the color of hummingbirds,

green transparencies,

an abalone shell,

and a white dog turned pale blue

by twilight.

My siblings hated the coat

and wanted to destroy it---

jealous as Joseph's brothers.

If I can help it

I will not let them bloody it,

or throw me in a well.

And if I can

I will drag her from the waters

they are trying to drown her in

and let her stand on the shore

holding an abalone shell

if only for a little while longer

so she can see the sea

from a clear distance, 

once again.

2002-2003

 

 WHISPERING TEAR

She is locked inside this mirthless house
her life is loss, lost mind and home
lost her two spouses.
I alone am witness to the gruesome ways

her dignity is abused, day after day.
All  her life savings gained fair and square
did not go for her bodily care
with all her money gone and nothing to show
but an empty mind

she is exploited by nursing home CEO’s
who commit the legalized crime

of stealing from the innocently sick--

stealing wax form the candle’s wick--

and suck from these elders unjust wealth
and leave them bloodless and steal their health

and ride the freeway in a velvet Mercedes

while in her wheelchair she sits in feces.
The Nursing Home smells like shit

but everyone pretends not to notice it.
Cared for by Mexican aides who are afraid to say
what really goes on, put upon,
overworked, given little pay
exploited by a system
that profits from bedsores
and cares little if they fall
on the shinny floored halls
and break their hips or crack their heads.
If patients are dead
the CEO’s can’t collect Medicare
so they keep them barely alive
deny that scabies are everywhere.
And so long as no courts are notified

or they are sued because the patient died
they cover up, neglect, ignore the gloom,
pretend life is a suburban family room.
Happy Acres, Sunset Home,
palsied hands, skin and bone
Peonies, Roses and Begonias
all is a pose

to hide the preventable pneumonia,
dripping from my mother’s nose.

My mother’s head sinks in her hands like an old shoe
Her lost thoughts do not know what to do

the idea of going from her mind is gone
She sits without knowing why she longs
for what she cannot begin to say.
Her hands are not sure where they should move
Her face seems inside a plastic glove
they use to clean up her smelly mess.
Its such a shame they cannot guess

what a wonderful person once there was
her mind wrapped in layers of gauze
who now in a wheelchair sits
prone to panic and speechless fits
drugged for the convenience of the nursing staff
she has forgotten how to laugh,
how to cry,
how to know
what is high, what is low
her mind is a silence filled with racket
and kept in a  chemical straitjacket
restrained even from expressing her pain
she does not remember how to speak my name.
She knows my hands by how they touch her face

and her hand in my hand I let her place

a hint of the person who once was free

but now is a whispering tear of memory.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

Copyright © 2006 Mark Koslow. All Rights Reserved.