Spring Training by Deborah Heimann

You sit in the living room of your mother’s small apartment, a mug of ginger tea growing cold in your hands. Last night’s snowstorm made the roads slippery, so you walked over for your Saturday visit instead of driving.

“What are you doing this afternoon?” your mother asks for the fifth time.

“Not much.” You can’t muster the energy to share the details again.

“My memory isn’t so good anymore.”

“I know, Mom. It must be frustrating.”

She has two master’s, one in education and one in divinity, and a PhD in ethics. Despite the photos and memorabilia surrounding her, she no longer remembers traveling in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, meeting President Jimmy Carter, starting a nonprofit teaching former convicts how to sew, leading a domestic violence organization.

You pay her bills, bring her to appointments, check on her daily.

“Most of the time I don’t remember that I don’t remember.” She laughs, then grimaces. “But other times my mind just feels blank. There’s nothing but fog. It makes me sad.”

You nod, try to smile.

You can’t think of anything to say.

You swallow your helplessness with the last sip of tea.

In the kitchen, you open the fridge. You brought containers of cold suppers you make for her every week. Her failing memory means the stove is risky, a microwave dangerous. Lunches are delivered daily, but she loves cereal—a box lasts two days at most. There’s no telling how old the stacked lunches are. Mold on the salad. Trash. Is the chicken supposed to smell like that? Trash.

You wonder if this week’s upset stomach was due to an old lunch.

When you return to the living room, she says, “You know, my memory isn’t so good anymore.”

“Yes. It must be frustrating.”

She looks away.

You put your snow clothes back on and sling your empty pack on your back.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Home. You are going to Marie’s, remember?” You know she doesn’t. “It’s on your calendar.”

She is going to watch a spring-training baseball game with someone in the next building. They both love the Yankees. You wait while she puts on her shoes and coat, mashes her blue hat over her ears, finds her cane. She checks her pocket several times to make sure she has her keys, turns the lock, and follows you down the stairs.

At the bottom she asks, “Where are we going?”

Hooking your arm in hers, you whisper, “You are going to Marie’s to watch baseball.”

She grins.

Shutting Marie’s door, you listen for a moment to the muffled sounds of the game on the other side. Then you find the path and begin the trek back home. For several blocks you stare at the sidewalk.

You picture your mother when her brain was fully functional. She sat across from you in a café describing a class she was teaching on race and society, sparks flying from her eyes. Never motherly, she was always sharp, fierce. Questions were persistent; critical thinking was imperative. She no longer asks questions, has nothing to share. To connect, she shrugs and grins at you. You thought you would welcome a softening. You never thought you’d yearn for toughness, intensity, expectations.

When you look up, someone is just ahead of you. Wiping away tears you see a frail woman shoveling the snow off her front steps.

“Can I do that for you?” You speak before the thought arrives.

“No, no, I couldn’t ask you to!”

“I would love to. Please. Let me.”

She protests a few times, then hands you the shovel, fetching another.

Your new friend thanks you as you hoist the heavy, wet snow onto the growing snowbanks beside the steps. She tries to stop you with “that’s enough, that’s more than enough.” You learn that she’s eighty-two. The guy who usually shovels is on vacation for the week in Florida. “What timing!” she says, laughing.

The sidewalk in front of her house must be cleared, too.

You swing the snow between the parking meters, your pack, empty of food, pitching around behind you, reminding you with each shovel of where you just were. There is a layer of ice over the sidewalk. You whack at it from the side with the edge of the shovel. It feels good to whack. It feels good to sweat.

There is no way to bring your mother back.

But this, you can do.

Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Trenten Kelley