PERSONAL ESSAY | AGING
When It Comes to Guilt Trips I’m a Frequent Flier
Grappling with negative thought patterns at sixty-five is worse than flying on a budget airline
Sitting in the car with my mother outside of her private care home, we were deep in conversation about her declining health. Seven months prior, she suffered a stroke that left her unable to live on her own as she’d been doing for eighty-nine years.
Every time I visited my mother, she begged me to take her home. The jailbreak requests weren’t reserved for me alone. It didn’t matter who visited her; she’d ask anyone and everyone. And when she did, she whispered as though she knew it would be a clandestine adventure.
My mother was fiercely independent, and staying in a care home was no doubt excruciating for her. Because her brain had been significantly damaged by the stroke, she didn’t understand why she could no longer live alone in the home she loved.
My answer was always the same. As we sat in the car that day, I told her once again that the doctor said it would be dangerous for her to live independently. On this day, though, she responded differently than she normally did.
