Watching Over Mom
IT WAS QUIET THAT EVENING in the hospice room. Mom had left to go home, and my brother and I were the only ones with Dad. He was dying. Filled with sadness, I tried to be reassuring and supportive of him—just as he had been to me throughout my life. As we talked, he expressed concern over leaving Mom. I stroked his hand and said quietly, “Dad, don’t you worry about Mom. We’ll watch over her.” Immediately, he perked up and said, “You’ll learn things about your mother that you never knew before.” He paused, looked at us, then continued, “Your mother has a hard time with changes. And if she can’t do something perfectly or there’s a chance she’ll make a mistake, she won’t even try. She can be stubborn, you know!”
At the time, I didn’t understand the impact of what Dad was trying to say. Evidently, he was trying to prepare us, but for what? After all, this is my mother. I thought I knew her well. I’ve lived within minutes of her my entire life. I’ve seen her ups and downs, and I know what makes her tick.
Watch over Mom? Not a problem. I was the Relief Society president in our stake and had previously served as president in my ward. After years of handling welfare issues, funerals, and service projects, after teaching and coaching sisters on the finer points of service, I just knew that looking out for Mom would be a piece of cake. I was the Queen of Service! Little did I realize that my lessons in developing charity on a personal level had yet to begin.
Immediately after Dad’s funeral, the conflicts started. Steeped in grief over the loss of her soul mate and alone for the first time in eighty-two years, Mom now turned to me for everything. I was shocked to see that she was afraid to make a decision or take steps to resolve everyday matters. Who would cut the lawn? Where to take the car for a tune-up? Frustrated by her lack of confidence, I tried patiently to guide her through this frightening new independence.
“You can do this, Mom,” I said. “Just ask your neighbors for the name of their lawn man.”
But the lawn man left grass clippings on the sidewalk, and the Toyota dealer charged too much. An unhappy pattern emerged with every issue: I suggested; she protested. To my dismay, I found that my desire to be helpful waned a bit with each negative experience. Where were my feelings of charity? Of all our relationships, family is the most important. I had always assumed that would make it the easiest to nurture. Why, then, was I suddenly finding this so hard?
“Family is all we need,” my parents had always said. Their lifestyle revolved around their immediate and extended families, and they had never found it necessary to establish connections within their church or community. But as their siblings died or left the area, their circle grew smaller and smaller, until it encompassed just my brother and me and our children. At the time of Dad’s death, Mom had no friends with whom she could share her grief. Not being LDS, there was no home or visiting teacher to console or comfort. As she had watched us raise our children and work at today’s hectic pace, Mom would say, “I don’t know how you do it. My life is quiet and I like to keep it that way.” Now those words and our diminished extended family haunted her as she struggled to adapt to life alone.
Mom had never lived alone. Ever. She glided from the security of her mother’s home to the security of her own home and marriage. Her solo days and nights could be counted on one hand. Now, the hollow rooms caused her to lament, “My house is dead.” Feeling her anguish, I cried silent tears and willed my heart not to break. Believing that healing would begin if she connected with others, I urged her to find ways to give service. I suggested that she volunteer as a receptionist, since she had been a secretary prior to marriage. But leaving her home was overwhelming, and she agonized over the possibility of making mistakes and failing. My pleadings went unheeded. The more I insisted, the harder she resisted.
“Why do you always want your mother to do things your way?” my husband asked. “Don’t you see that she’s different from you? Why can’t you just accept her the way she is?”
I looked at him blankly. “Of course she’s different,” I replied, exasperated and near tears. “But she doesn’t know what to do and she’s looking to me for answers.”
“You’re not giving her the right ones,” he said calmly. “You know she won’t go anywhere alone. Why don’t you take her to some activities?”
A simple suggestion. Go out with Mom. But what would we do? Over the years, our only time alone was during an occasional trip to the mall. Our interactions always revolved around family, but our family was now changed. Dad’s death revealed that Mom and I had not developed a personal friendship. This new reality, layered over our grief, added another dynamic to the changing nature of our relationship.
It also brought me a new responsibility. Mom’s emotional fragility had always been protected by Dad’s love and support. Over time, I had learned to shield her by playing down a difficult situation or by simply not informing her of a problem in my family. It had been a win-win for both of us—she had remained trauma-free, and I didn’t have to cope with both her distress and mine. It was different now. Dad’s death projected me into a role I had long evaded.
But years of behavioral patterns don’t easily change. I couldn’t expose the depths of my sorrow because I didn’t want to burden her with my grief. And this loss was forcing me to face a new personal reality—my own years of adulthood with their inevitable life struggles had eroded my emotional resilience. No longer could I carry a double burden of pain. Mourning the loss of my dad claimed every extra ounce of my endurance.
Grief enveloped me in ways I had never imagined—I functioned without feeling, spoke without thinking, slept without resting. I was steeped in sadness. From childhood, I adored my father and counted on his steady and gentle nature to calm me during many storms of life. I respected him as a champion for the underdog and a peacemaker during times of contention. His quiet voice and positive outlook gave me confidence and security. He was my anchor and I was his “prize package.”
I missed him terribly. And I missed Mom as she used to be. I never imagined that one death could bring two losses.
Mom had lost her husband, and I had lost my bearings. Who was I now? The child who received guidance or the caregiver who gave it? My role continuously changed, sometimes within the same conversation: “Mom, please consider moving. I’m worried about you living alone in the house,” I would plead.
“I’m perfectly fine, and I’m not moving,” she’d reply. “But who will dig out my car when it snows? You have to come help me.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to get out of my driveway,” I’d respond.
“Then what am I going to do?” she would sigh.
Discussions like this left me confused and exhausted. Unlike the experiences of others, my caregiver/child roles were not reversed; rather, they flip-flopped. Not knowing which role I would play from minute to minute kept me constantly off guard and emotionally drained. What happened to my feelings of charity and my commitment to lift and serve?
“And charity suffereth long, and is kind” (Moroni 7:45). I knew this scripture well. It was the cornerstone of my Relief Society presidency. I had preached it for years. Now I was struggling to live and understand it. Is charity in the doing, the feeling, or both? If I perform an act of charity without feeling charitable, does that count? If I feel charitable but do not follow through with an act of charity, does that count?
Trusting that answers would come, I struggled to reframe my life.
But what about Mom? This was her time of greatest need; the strain on her was enormous. She had to cope not only with Dad’s death, but also with my way of facing life. “You’re just like my mother,” Mom always told me with a mixture of admiration and hesitation. A Greek immigrant who didn’t speak English, my “yiayia” had defied her patriarchal culture with her strong will and independent spirit. Sixty years ago, she had taken Mom on the ferry from their home in New Jersey to a job interview in New York City because Mom was afraid to go alone. That story had always amused me; now it became a window into Mom’s psyche. After all these years, she was still scared to leave the house.
I wondered how Mom coped with Yiayia and me, the dominant bookends of her life. At beginning and end, Mom has had to glean emotional support from two women whose modus operandi was admittedly bewildering to her. Yiayia and I were so alike, and Mom was so different! As I tugged Mom into areas she was hesitant to enter, I wondered if she had ever felt pressure from her mother to be more assertive and independent.
This powerful realization was a turning point. My viewpoint shifted, and I looked at Mom with renewed respect and compassion. Dad was right; she is stubborn! But she had to be, to maintain her own personality and identity.
So I gave up trying to change Mom. And when I did, something interesting happened. Mom started to change, all by herself! During a Sunday visit several months after Dad’s funeral, she casually mentioned that she had volunteered to work at the reception desk of her local senior center. As I jumped off the sofa in delight, she looked at me quizzically and said, “Why are you so surprised? Your father and I would go to the senior center now and then. It’s a nice place to be.”
A year later, my office phone rang late in the afternoon. I was surprised to hear Mom’s voice (she never called me at work), but was even more surprised by our conversation: “What are you doing after work?” she casually asked.
“Going home,” I responded questioningly. “Why?”
“Well, I’ve been visiting Ceil (my sister-in-law’s mother) in Leisure World, and we went out with a realtor to look at apartments,” Mom said. “There’s one that I like and want to buy, but I want you to look at it first.”
Stunned, I called my sister-in-law and headed out immediately. Mom bought the apartment the next day.
Seven years have passed since Dad died. Mom is eighty-nine now. Over time, the dynamics of our relationship changed as I backed off and she took charge. Mom is more confident in making decisions and takes pride in her independence. She has grown in ways that continue to amaze me. She is actively involved in her local senior center, lives in her own apartment, and runs her own errands. Best of all, she is delighted to spend time with me. We have strolled under the blossoming cherry trees at the Jefferson Memorial, visited her ailing sister, viewed displays in museums, gone to shows, and enjoyed many lunches and dinners.
But it won’t take much for this to change. I was abruptly reminded of Mom’s fragility when she fought hard to overcome a recent viral infection. How quickly her independence turned to dependence! I worried as she struggled to regain her health and was distraught to think she might not improve. The depth of my love for Mom washed over me, and I was enveloped in a sadness that did not leave until she began to recover.
This bout of illness has left Mom more frail, more tired. Often, tears fall as I watch the steady march of the aging process and witness her moments of sorrow and loneliness. “Why does it have to be so hard?” she asks. I know that question well. Watching over Mom is like holding up a mirror that reflects my deepest character flaws. But I am learning to temper my impatience and minimize my instinct to control. When conflicts do arise, I work through them with a different perspective: Mom needs me to support her, not control her. My role is to assist, not fix.
For me, charity has become accepting and loving Mom just the way she is. It’s more in the doing than in the feeling. Charity stirs deep within me when I replace frustration with faith, and doubt with hope. And it fills me with joy.
Carol is the mother of four and grandmother of thirteen, a temple worker, and member of the Washington D.C. Temple Visitors' Center Cultural Arts Committee. She resides with her husband, Gary, in Silver Spring, Maryland.
