Cruise Control

I pull out onto 127 and set the cruise for 65. If I pull my leg up off the accelerator, the back pain will ease up some. Curse of the squished disk. Twenty minutes later I loop onto 69 and hit resume on the cruise. Ten minutes gets me to town, another five to the rehab. I fight the nausea as I approach the door. I don’t know why I feel queasy. There were no calls from the nurse this morning. No falls reported. No ambulance called. No decisions to be made. We’re past that. We’re on cruise control.

I walk slowly through the parking lot, taking the long way through the building to loosen up the back. Mom is waiting. I get the aide to load her into the wheelchair and we head to the atrium. We check on the baby finches, greet the cockatiel with the usual “pretty bird,” and set up at our little table in the corner. I pull the wheelchair legs to the side, push the chair up to the table and lock the wheels. I’m getting pretty good at it. We play cards until dinnertime, and then cruise back to the room. An aide will guide Mom to the dining room. She rolls her walker down the hall at a snail’s pace, the aide loosely holding a strap around her to catch her if she stumbles or falls. It’s a torturously slow process, but valuable movement to a recovering elderly patient. I head to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Then I lay across the back seat of my car to read, giving my spine time to decompress and stop pinching the nerve in my leg.

I pull into the parking lot of the rehab and repeat my long walk to my mother’s room. We cruise once again to the atrium for cards. I greet patients I have begun to know. My mother doesn’t hear us chatting – she resists using her hearing aids – but they ask me how she is doing, and I tell them she is doing better. Even when I’m not sure she is. She often beats me at cards, so some part of her is still working. We say goodnight to the finch babies and the “pretty bird” and cruise back to the room. I press the call button to summon the aide for Mom’s bedtime rituals. I tell her goodnight, I love you, I’ll see you tomorrow. Back in the car, I head for the highway and put the car on cruise control, taking 69 to 127. As I turn onto the long farm road that takes me to the house, I recall part of the conversation I had with my mother at the end of our evening together.

Are you tired, Mom? I asked her. Not so much tired as weary, she replied. You know?

I know, Mom, I know.