Mountain

The day I drove my mother to the geriatric-psychiatry unit in Tukwila......

Dad and I help Mom nestle into the sheepskin seatcover on the passenger seat of my car, and I notice later, with her sitting right next to me, how small she's gotten. In fact, there were many moments during that drive over, when I glanced over and thought about how my mom has changed--her withered body, contorted by the rigors of age, her thinning white hair barely covering her scalp, her mouth hanging open as she napped.

The day seemed ripped from a "Wish you were here" postcard--the sun blazing across the blue sky, the snow-capped mountains looming in the distance, Mom's scrunched up body sitting so low in the seat that the sun shone right onto her face as she slept. Even with the visor down, her face was still covered in sunlight, so I spent much of the drive with my right arm stretched out in mid-air, in front of her face, shielding it from the brightness. I had a full-circle moment remembering her doing the same for me when I was little.

One hour into the drive, Mount Rainier suddenly appears in front of us in the distance. It's like a huge, snow-covered rocky beacon, guiding us along as we drive east through Silverdale toward Tacoma. Mt. Rainier looks bigger on a clear day like today, and that seems apt.

At the Tacoma Bridge Mom wakes up for a moment, confused, and asks why it's taking so long. I tell her we're almost there, about a half hour to go. She goes back to sleep. I've told her we're going to see a specialist about her "medication issues." She doesn't know she's staying for two weeks. Because of her history with anxiety/panic attacks, the consensus was not to disclose the extended stay portion of her visit.

We arrive. It takes almost two hours to get Mom admitted. I'm at the end of the last form when I can hear my mother starting to wail from her wheelchair in the hallway. I think, "Uh oh, the lorazepam is wearing off." I hear one of the nurses talking to Mom, consoling her, and suggesting they take a ride back to her room. I hand in the completed forms to the charge nurse who seems to instantly sense my thoughts.

"She'll be okay. You've done the right thing."

I want to jump over the counter and hug the charge nurse. I want to collapse on the floor and cry myself into the linoleum because I've been holding all of my emotions in check for so long that I'm not sure what I'm feeling anymore and it would just feel so good, I think, to let everything out. But I don't.

"Really?" I ask instead.

"She'll be fine" she says again.

Then I sort of lean in, though I'm not sure why, to ask quietly, "You know....Mom gets a little wild when she has an anxiety attack.....Do you.....I mean, is that.....?"

And the nurse sends me a smile that wraps itself around every stressed-out, exhausted nerve in my entire body and says, "That's what we do. She'll be fine."

I didn't know what else to say except, "Thank you."

And then I leave. Back into the elevator, down to the first floor, back into my car. Back toward home. I pull out of the hospital parking lot. I glance in the rearview mirror--Mt. Rainier is behind me.