Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Mother and Daughter

Instead of going home after work, I made a pickup at a mom and pop's restaurant for two of the daily specials and then headed to my mom's house. She is recovering from rotary cuff surgery, and for the last month I have been going over to her house once a day with dinner and to help her with a bath and a few household chores.

Nubia had moved out of state with her family, and so when it came to taking care of mom, it mostly fell on my shoulders. After we ate the meatloaf, which Mom complained was too salty, I did the breakfast dishes, folded up the laundry, and then helped her with her bath.

"Mom, when are you supposed to start physical therapy?"

My mother was sitting in her bath chair scowling. A headband and a clear plastic shower cap held her long dreadlocks up and out of the way. "That doctor keeps telling me that I should be lifting my arm. He's a lie! It's too soon. My shoulder feel like glass is in there. I don't trust him!"

I soaped her back because although it was probably cleaner than any human back in the world, she liked having it rubbed by the soapy washcloth. "Mom, if you don't use that arm it's going to lock into place and you'll never get movement back."

"Girl, I am almost seventy-four years old! I'm too old for this foolishness!"

I sighed knowing just how she felt. "I know, Mom."

She looked at me, her anger fading. "How's your back, baby?"

"Better," I lied. It was getting worse. I was scared of ending up needing someone to wash my back.

"I told you about carrying those heavy book bags when you were a kid. You never listened to me!" Why did old people have to fuss with every statement they made?

"Mom, those book bag aren't the reason my back hurts. It happened when I fell on my hip." When you are over fifty pounds overweight and you trip, fall, and hit the hard cement, you don't get up unscathed.

She scowled. "I don't want you to end up like me, Kenya. You gotta take care of your body because when it goes, it goes beating you down like an abusive relationship."

"I will, Mom, but you have to make sure that you stay mobile and active. If you lose the use of your arms then you might as well move into a convalescent home."

She gave me a sharp look. "If you don't want to do this for me, I can get a home health care aide-"

"No, Mom," I said quickly. "I'm not trying to say that. I just want you to be with us for as long as possible."

"Help me out of this tub. It's getting cold."

I helped Mom rinse off and then got her dried and rubbed down with her favorite scented lotion. I rubbed cream into her feet, which were baby soft—certainly softer than my own. I even rubbed the deodorant under her arm because she couldn't—or wouldn't--lift her arm to do it herself.

I got her dressed into her underwear and nightdress. It made me sad to see my Mom's toned and graceful body swollen with added weight and stooped and twisted from age and various ailments. She still had beautiful dreadlocks, now silver, that reached her butt. And despite being in her seventies, that saying that "black don't crack" was true. Her face barely had any lines or creases.

Mom had an ebony skin tone just like my own. She found such pride in it, once proclaiming that the white slave owners hadn't polluted our bloodline. When I was a kid I hadn't always been proud of having such a dark skin tone, especially since I was the brunt of "you're so black" jokes.

My mom had been the epitome of what the Black Power movement represented with her big Afro and African print clothing. If not for the years of backbreaking work at factories and automotive plants, my mom would still be a spry person that travelled and hung out with her few remaining friends. Now she is just angry and filled with regrets.

I knew that she didn't really need me to do these things for her as much as she needed to have someone there. Her days were spent in her reclining chair, channel surfing all of her favorite sports teams. She had once told me that she loved Serena and Venus Williams as much as she loved her children. I have tried to tell her that a woman who barely left the house didn't have to have such an elaborate nighttime routine, but any suggestion that she could go a day without bathing was met with criticism about my own hygiene.

"Maybe it's okay for you to go a day without taking a bath, but I don't operate that way. Just never mind, Kenya. I will find a way to do it myself…"

And if I even suggested that I was too tired to come by every day, then I would hear about it later from my sister who would let it slip that Mom was talking about being a burden and how much she wished that she could do more…

Hopefully this would only last for a few months, but if Mom didn't take care of her arm, I could be doing this indefinitely.

I fixed her braids and remembered how cool she used to be. Growing up I had been a nerd. But my mom was cool, even hip. She dressed stylish, she joined causes, and she even took us on a boycott. She spoke constantly about black power and self-pride. When I was a kid I was ashamed of her outspoken nature. I just wanted to blend into the woodwork, but she told me that I was too black for that. I would never blend into the woodwork…but she was wrong.

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