Jeremy Hargrave

My grandparents took us in after the divorce. For 20 years they took care of us. They fed us, bathed us, and sheltered us. They gave us warmth and love and asked for nothing in return. We were now their responsibility and we owed them a debt we could not repay. But all debts must be paid; it is only a matter of when. We lived in comfort for many years under their hospitality. My mother was only 38 when we moved in. Plenty of time left to get a job, to build a career, to give herself a future free from living with her parents. But she did not. My mother has nothing, and when the time comes, she will be me and my brother’s burden to bear. But I love my mother, and love makes even the most difficult weights bearable. I will not look down on her or admonish her. I owe everything I am and everything I have to many people, especially her. She will find only kindness from me, if only from me.

My mother-in-law sits alone in her room with the TV on and her phone in hand. It is how she spends most of her days. She too did not prepare herself to be independent, to be successful and have a future not dictated by others. She did not have the same luxury of having a stable place to call her home for the past 20 years. She bounced around many places but did nothing to land on her feet. She is now me and my fiancée’s burden to bear. Her phone stops working but she says she is fine and needs a break from people anyway. She says this to spare us the weight of her being there, of needing something from us. But it is a lie. She has nothing. She is not fine and I know this. I get her a new phone and she is immediately talking to others throughout the day again. I will not look down on her or yell at her about it. I see my mother in her. I see a woman subject to the pull of others because she did not have the strength to create her own gravity, to create her own direction in life. But I will lend her mine, just as I will lend it to my own mother.

It is Christmas and my grandmother lies in her bed. She calls out for help, unable to sit up or move. The ambulance comes to take her to the hospital. There is nothing they can do for her besides adjust her medication. They discharge her and I travel to assist with bringing her home. She cries when she sees me, as she does most times she sees family. I do not recognize her the way I used to. I remember seeing a woman spatting with my grandfather while they played cards in the kitchen. I remember seeing a woman laughing and talking with her children and grandchildren at holiday gatherings. I remember seeing a swirling black hole of enormous vigor and energy. But like all black holes, she begins to shrink, crushed by the weight of her long life, more and more until there is only a sliver of light left. Her life, a flash of brilliance on the cosmic scale, coalesces into what it is now. “I want to be with Pop-Pop” she says over and over again.  She is over 90 years old and no longer wants to be alive, but neither nature nor science can give her what she wants. Life will not release its grip to send her out in a big bang. Instead, she continues to grow heavier, continues to collapse and pull in the light around her. It can no longer escape. It does not shine like it did those summer nights on the boardwalk. It does not shine like it did those weekends in the pool. The weight grows.  An amazing person who lived an amazing life, reduced to the size of an atom but with the mass of a star, sitting on our shoulders. She is now our burden to bear. But she is our mother, our grandmother, our great-grandmother, and we bear it with open hearts. No one person, however, can bear it alone.

My mother sits in the living room at night, trying to stir up an appetite while listening out for my grandmother in case she needs something. My grandmother is asleep but can wake up delirious. She is able to feed herself but can leave the gas on. She is capable of navigating her house but is blind in one eye. My mother provides supervision. She cares for her to the best of her ability, like a parent caring for their adult child after a divorce, or an adult child caring for their parent after a life of bad decisions. The cycle of burden is complete. The debt begins to collect. My mother bears the weight of 20 years gone by, the weight of caring for an elderly woman who wants to be reunited with her husband of 60 years, the weight of an uncertain future where she will once again have to turn to others for help.

There is a breaking point in each of our lives. I have felt the balance tip, like so many of us have, but have not yet fallen over. My mother has reached it more than most, and I fear she approaches the edge once more. She will face it like she has so many times before, and I will do my best to help her find the way back.

I love you Mom.