Looking out my Backdoor: Dear most precious son and daughter

Dear Most Wonderful, Most Precious, Beautiful and Intelligent Beyond Compare, My Loving Son and Daughter,

I am writing to let you know that it is time for you to put your heads together and figure out a plan for elder care. With great sadness I report, it is the beginning of the end. I left a burner on beneath the egg pan this morning. Ate breakfast. Went outside and puttered in the garden. Came back inside to the odor of hot metal and burned butter.

Fortunately, the pan did not melt onto the burner. The house is still intact. I did not go up in flames nor die of smoke inhalation.

However, that is small consolation. My fear is that my memory is losing.

Oh, if only it were one thing. Twice this week I found myself standing in front of my dishes cupboard wondering why I was there. Oh, well, as long as I’m here, I’ll make a cup of tea. In the three steps back to the kitchen counter, cup and tea in hand, I remembered, I wanted a clean dish cloth and dish towel. Back to the cupboard before I forgot again. Oh, poor mis-remembering brain.

Oh, the emails without the intended attachments. Oh, the misplaced words. Oh, the names dropped from the tip of my tongue.

Dearest Sweetest Son and Daughter, remember the times I joked that you could just set me on an ice floe in the Arctic and let me float out to sea? Please, may we make a new plan? While it is true that when the time comes, I possibly will not know where I am nor care, please don’t let me go frozen. I do dread the cold that makes my joints ache.

Today, I sat on my concrete slab beneath the jacaranda tree in the back yard for an entire hour, in the full sun, basking like a lizard, figuring how to divide my time between Washington with you, Ben, and Montana, with you, Dee Dee.

You did say you would take me in, yes, you did. Don’t panic. I’m not ready for that yet. Just thinking ahead, envisioning carving out (or adding on) a private area in your respective homes, my most loving and wonderful children.

I think a shower room set up like a carwash would be a treat. Just hook my wheelchair to a pulley and pull me through the hot-water wash cycle with colored bubbles, pink, blue and yellow. Lavender-scented water would be nice. At the end of the wash, you could push a button on the handy-dandy swivel, turn me around and run me through a hot-water rinse cycle. Easy-peasy.

After my wash, a few minutes in the steamy sauna and I’ll be ready for bed, to sleep away the night beneath my cozy down comforter. What do you think? Brilliant idea, right? You got that, the sauna, right?

Let’s see. We’ve now handled shelter and hygiene. What’s next? Yes, thank you. Nutrition, sustenance. I figure the first liberty you will take away from me will be cooking, given my proclivity for using the kitchen like a science lab and leaving the Bunsen burner on beneath the empty beaker.

Fortunately, both of you are wonderful creative cooks so I know I will be well fed. It won’t matter what you feed me because I will not remember what it is anyway. Plus, I’ve never met a food I didn’t like.

From friends’ stories, I’ve heard that I might get clever and cantankerous and demand ice-cream and chocolate. The way I figure, what will that matter? Feed me. I won’t live forever.

Well, my Darlings, I think that about covers the basics. Please do remember, no ice floe. Please.

Your Mother who loves you beyond compare.

Sondra Ashton

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email sondrajean.ashton@yahoo.com.