How does it happen our lives can be reduced to a single bed, the television, and a few keepsakes? I couldn’t even tell where my mother kept her clothes; the space she was sharing was so small. I was glad to see the familiar collection of owls, the photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt, and a few plants on the windowsill. And I was glad to see her. It had been six months. “What are you looking at?” she snapped at me when I first went into her room.
I had prepared myself for her having a very short memory. I had prepared myself for her being in a wheelchair and watching television all day. But I hadn’t prepared myself to deal with a mother who had become a mean person.
