An Ailing Mom Shows a Hidden Happier Side

We always thought Mom was tough. Simply put, we were scared of her and often feared what she would say next. It’s not that she did not love us. It’s just that she could be tough as nails.

She could wield guilt with the best of them and made sure — like they used to say about Mussolini — that the “trains” would always run on time. We loved her yet, we feared her. Machiavelli would have understood. Yet this perception of Mom was at odds with what we had heard growing up.

Friends of the family told my sisters and me about a fun-loving, outgoing and sweet woman who looked exactly like Judy Garland and was always laughing. She loved to play practical jokes, was passionate about the world around her and even went for “wild” weekend trips to New York City. There, the top shows, the best restaurants and the “in” nightclubs were all on her agenda. When she got married, she and my father sat in the front row, at a table, mere feet from Frank Sinatra at the Copacabana. One night, while waiting for my father, the famous composer Richard Rodgers “hit on” her.

Problem was, we never knew that version of Mom. We only knew the mother who was married with four children and she was tough. She was a serious mother who smiled, but not too often.

So it was that in 2012, we brought her home to die. Diagnosed with COPD and emphysema 10 years before, she had been through three bouts of pneumonia. Lying dazed and confused in the post-hospital rehab facility, she begged to be taken home. To look at her was to see someone dying. We brought her home and waited — with her — for her life to end.

What we thought would be weeks turned into months. She was getting better physically but getting more and more confused. Her disease had weakened her to the point where she needed 24-hour care.

We hated the idea of putting Mom in a nursing home. We feared the “warehouse” aspect of many nursing homes. We knew, no matter how caring they were, the nurses could never offer the love that kids can give their moms. But we had to bring her to a nursing home, an excruciating decision which I would never wish on anyone.

Instead of withering away like so many do, my mother began to “open up” and become, almost, a new person. She smiled, interacted with everyone, and seemed to let her old personality — the one we had never seen — come out. She started to laugh often, seemed to have shed old worries, and became someone we never knew. She was no longer tough. She was nice and sweet.

The COPD ensured she got less oxygen to her brain, and we believe this greatly minimized her lifelong anxiety and depression. Being in a structured environment, where she did not have to worry about clean clothes and warm meals, reduced her worries about making decisions. The hardness that we had known was replaced by a softness that made us cry. And maybe most amazing for us, for the first time in our lives, our mother was funny.

I teased her about the fact that I had earned a master’s degree from Harvard and tried to get her to admit her son was “brilliant.” She saw right through me and, to ensure I knew exactly where I stood, she told me what she thought. With a timing comedian Bob Newhart would have found inspired, she said “Brilliant? I don’t know about that. But you are smart.”

Channeling a younger generation, she used the phrase “freak out” to admonish a concern I had.

These were not rants of a demented, senior citizen. They were moments of my Mom being my Mom…albeit from another time. But it was happening now; and I got to meet that fun, happy, special woman I had only heard stories about. It was a gift I never imagined I would receive.

Never the family singer, my Mom shocked me one day by singing “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.” I joined in and we sang a heart rendition of that 1939 song. As we sang, I felt like we were beseeching each other: “…you make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away.” It was a moment. It was a perfect moment.

I hated that my Mom was sick and dying. But I had the amazing opportunity to get to know her in a way I had never experienced before. To me, she became a happy person, filled with all those wonderful qualities that had been locked away for so many years.

As I left the nursing home that day, I thought, even given the sadness of watching a parent’s days come to a close, there can be sunshine along the way.