North End, Boston - Circa 1960

Mom was in the North End of Boston circa 1960 yesterday. I got a call from the rest home at 3:30p, my blood flowing faster when I saw the number come up on caller-ID. The Director of Nurses, we’ll call her Karen, asked if I had a minute to speak with my mother.

“Lisa, who’s picking Jimmy up from school?” Ma asked anxiously. My brother, Jim, is fifty-two now, but in her mind, he was eight years old.

I thought fast. “Josie is picking him up.”

“Josie? Are you SURE?”

Josie was like a grandmother to us growing up and at our house everyday. But Mom didn’t sound convinced. I asked Karen if I should visit right away but she said later was fine, Ma just needed redirecting.

When I got to the rest home two hours later, Ma was still in a state. The staff was completely focused on her. At least six people, all concerned but calm, followed me into the den where Ma was.

“Lisa! There you are!” Ma exclaimed. "Who’s picking Jimmy up from school?”

“Josie has him, Mummy. He’s ok.”

“But does Josie have a key to the house?”

“Jim is gonna stay with her at her house. He is sleeping over there.” (There I went, getting too complicated).

“Oh,” a thoughtful pause. “Will she let him watch TV?”

I continued to assure her her son was fine and once she became semi-convinced, I tried to distract her with an outing...supper and a visit to a pet-sitting client. She had her favorite hamburger and fries and then we called my brother.

“Hi Jim!” I said to him, sunshine in my voice. “Ma wants to be sure you got picked up from school and I told her you were safe with Josie and sleeping over there.” He caught on immediately.

I could hear him telling our mother that Josie had cooked macaroni and meatballs for him and that she was in fact allowing him to watch TV. My mother had a contented smile on her face when the conversation ended and my stomach flew to my throat. I wanted to vomit on the spot from heartbreak.

“See Ma? He is fine.”

“So that phone has the 2378 number on it?” North End, Boston - my childhood home on Jackson Avenue.

“Yup. And we can talk to Jim anytime right from it.”

Ma was finally completely relaxed by the time we returned to the rest home a couple of hours later. She got her meds, we picked out a nightgown, and I tucked her in with a kiss to her fuzzy head.

“Night Ma. I love you.”

“Alright, Lisa. Go slow. I love you too.”

I Just Don't Know What to Do

Sadness and confusion. Constant feelings I carry with me like an oppressive sack that hangs around everywhere, getting fat like Santa’s bag of presents. I can’t read a book or watch a movie. I struggle to make plans with friends. There is no space in my head for the frivolous and the enjoyable. When my mother does poorly, I do poorly, and this week was a beggar man’s one.

Mom was here on Tuesday and Wednesday. I visited her on Thursday and I took her to a social daycare program yesterday, one she attended for six months prior to moving into the rest home. She made lots of friends there and everyone was happy to see her. She remembered almost no one.

Mom has been happy on the days she is with Dan and me, but extremely confused when it is time to leave. She thinks she is going home and I still can’t figure out where that place is in her mind. Could it be the North End where she lived most of her life? Or in Saugus where she lived for the past twelve years? She can’t verbalize it. I don’t think she can even see it clearly. In any case, her idea of where she is going is separate from the reality.

On Tuesday when Dan pulled up to the rest home he had the worst “drop off” yet.

“Why are you taking me here? I have to go home! I have laundry to do and I have to feed the cat…she’s been alone all day.”

“Jill, it’s alright, this is where you live.”

“Stop saying that! It’s not. Take me home!”

A solid fifteen minutes of this ensued. Then Dan was rescued by a brilliant thought. He told my mother that if she was going to stay overnight at her “house,” she needed her pills and would have to go inside and approve him signing them out. My mother looked at him with twisted eyes.

Dan continued. “You know how we sign out your pills everyday, Jill, when you visit? You are at the front desk when we do that. I need you there or else they won’t give them to me.”

Into the rest home she went, and back out she did not come. Trapped. How unbelievably heartbreaking.

We’ve had three drop-offs like this in a row and I am starting to wonder if it is beneficial to take her out so much. She is with me outside of the rest home 4 to 5 times a week. Lately, it just seems to bring her more confusion and irritation.

Yet, when she is not here my stomach goes on roller coaster rides, and after I work I either sleep (3 hours today and yesterday) and then clean my already clean house like a housekeeper on speed. It’s crazy. And I don’t know what to do to stop it. It’s tearing me into tiny pieces and I just don’t know what to do.

A Plan Hatched by Deidre

When Mom moved to the rest home, she had what appeared to be a very nice and companionable roommate. We’ll call her Deidre.

Deidre is ninety-one years old and one of the more astute residents at the home. She dresses in colorful and patterned skirts with matching blouses, a brooch attached close to the hollow of her throat, neat as a military sergeant and independent in ways my mother isn’t. For instance, she needs no assistance showering and she is still ‘toilet trained.’

As I look back on it, I believe these differences, along with a host of others, set Deidre to plan a permanent removal of my mother from the room. I should have known something was up when she took over one of my mother’s bureau drawers, then another, and inched my mother’s closet space down to nothing.

I heard about ‘the incident’ a day after it happened. Apparently Deidre, when she finally headed to bed around midnight, turned on all the bedroom lights, startled my mother awake and accused her of ‘moving her things.’ When my mother insisted she did not, Deidre called her a liar.

And hence, my mother was set off like a kite in a windstorm.

The nurse on duty that night heard the elevator bell ring, the doors squeak open, and out came my mother and Deidre, side by side. Mom was wigless and in her nightgown, Deidre as crisp and clean as she was that morning. When Deidre went into her diatribe of my mother’s sticky fingers, Mom had had enough. She wielded her fist in front of Deidre’s face, her eyes turned to paper-thin slits and she growled, “If you call me a liar one more time I will punch you right in the face.”

The nurse told me he had never seen Deidre so frightened, nor had he ever seen my mother so angry and so violent.

“It was scary, Lisa. Your mom is gentle and easygoing but she actually scared me too! It was completely out of character.” Hmmm, not so much.

Now, I am not one for conspiracy theories, but I do believe this was a plan hatched by Deidre. Why? Because my mother was bringing Deidre’s spirits down, dimming her mojo, filling up the room with pernicious odors.

In the end, it worked out just fine. Mom is bunking with a kinder and gentler roommate who watches over her with genuine concern and tenderness. We’ll call her Bea. She is an angel and I love her.

As for Deidre, she has a new roommate, for now.

Josie of My Heart

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Jo Jo. She and my mother had a complex, semi-dysfunctional relationship. I still don’t quite understand it, how they both wound up being such a huge part of each other’s lives. As for me, I am grateful. Jo was my constant, my steady stream of love. And she has been in my mind lately, planting happy thoughts and memories.

I’d like to post an essay I wrote about her, one that was published by Yankee Magazine online. This is one of many tributes I hope to have published about her.

A Cornmeal Heirloom

What I always noticed first when Josie cooked were her hands. Her fingers were slender but gnarled, like a sweet witch’s, and from the base of her knuckles to her wrists they were swollen with arthritis. I often wondered how she could create such amazing dishes with these two distorted tools.

Josie was my surrogate grandmother. Related to my family through marriage, she had been in my life since birth. We lived in Boston’s Italian neighborhood and food was as big a part of our lives as loving and breathing. She taught me everything she knew about cooking and wanted me to develop a fine repertoire of dishes as much as she hoped I’d grow into a good and decent woman.

I had just turned twenty when she announced it was time for me to learn how to make cornmeal pizza. I didn’t know how to react. I had been asking her to teach me for years and she always refused, claiming I wasn’t ready. And now the moment had come. Why? I wondered. What changed? I didn’t ask her though, afraid to jeopardize the moment. Instead, I jumped up to get the cornmeal.

“Heat some water up in a small pan please,” she said, ambling to her plastic-covered kitchen table. While we waited for that to boil, Josie shook a generous amount of cornmeal into a bowl, added a fistful of grated Romano cheese, and a few shakes of black pepper. “How much of each are you using, Jo?” I asked. “You don’t make this with exact measurements, Mumma. Just watch,” she said as she mixed the dry ingredients with her hands. She always called me ‘Mumma’ when speaking with me directly, and ‘the baby’ when speaking about me to others. I would remain the baby well into my thirties when she passed away.

Next, Josie uncorked a glass bottle filled with green-gold olive oil and drizzled it over the dry ingredients. The pungent scent of oil blending with cheese made my mouth water. She scooped up a portion of the semi-wet mixture and pressed it into my palm, our hands joining in a mushy prayer. “Can you feel how this is starting to stick together but it’s crumbly too?” I nodded. She smiled and moved to retrieve the hot water.

Adding the water was tricky. I knew this because I had heard her curse once after using too much. She poured it into the middle of the mixture, forming a gritty well, then handed me a spoon. “You mix first with a spoon because the water will burn your hands,” she instructed. When the water was absorbed into the cornmeal she said “Now, start mixing and pressing with your fingers.”

She watched intently as I rolled the wet cornmeal around, pinching here and there. “This is the most important part…the consistency,” she said. “It’s where everyone I’ve tried to teach has gone wrong. It has to be wet enough to hold together, but it can’t be too watery or it will fall apart when you fry it.”

My throat dried. I furrowed my brow and bit the inside of my cheek. The mixture was warm and heavy when I closed my hand around it. When I released my grip, it seemed to settle and relax at the bottom of the bowl, but not fall apart. “It feels good to me Jo. Moist but…strong.” I struggled for an accurate description as her hazel eyes bore into me. “It feels wet enough to hold together, but pasty and firm too.” She lowered her own frail fingers into the bowl. I waited, holding my breath. “Brava, Mumma,” she said with a solemn nod of her head. I exhaled. The hard part was done.

We fried the cornmeal in olive oil, bringing it to a golden tan on either side, and then cooled it on a glass plate lined with paper towels. In Italy, the pizza would be served under greens; spinach or Savoy cabbage sautéed in garlic and oil. But I always loved to eat it plain, and still do, so the subtle cornmeal flavor amid the sharpness of the cheese is not lost.

Less than a week later, I made the pizza without telling Josie. I wanted to surprise her, and if I failed, she never had to know. I agonized over each part of it; was there enough cheese? What will happen when it comes time for the hot water? Finally, becoming exasperated, I just relaxed and let touch guide me. When the pizza was done, I wrapped it carefully in plastic wrap and then in tin foil like Josie did. I gently placed it in a brown paper bag.

I tried to calm the rush of my heart as I walked the three blocks to her house. When she answered my knock, I had to hold back from shouting. Instead, I said softly, “Jo, I made cornmeal pizza.” Her eyes glimmered with surprise. “You did? Let me taste!” She broke off a piece and bit into it. I couldn’t hear a sound as she chewed; the world seemed to stand still. “Mumma, this is delicious…buonissima!” My heart leaps whenever I remember the look of pleasure and admiration she measured my way.

Josie’s picture is pasted to the side of my refrigerator where I see it every time I cook. Whenever I make cornmeal pizza, I reach over to kiss her and thank her. I can’t say my pizza always comes out perfectly, but when it does, I billow with pride, and I know she is somewhere watching, proud of me too.