Mercy

When I was 16 years old, my mother came into my room, berating me for being "dirty" because I hadn't cleaned up, my aunt close behind as an audience to my embarrassment. I told her to leave me alone, and she got offended, saying I disrespected her and told me to leave my computer with her as punishment. I said no. She tried to grab it by force and I resisted which resulted in me pushing her. Later that night my father came home and asked what had happened, but was not interested in my explanation. He told me to give up my computer, and I said no. He subsequently whooped me so bad that he split his knuckles open, smashed my computer, and I couldn't go to school for a week and a half. A month or so later he bought me a new laptop and we never spoke about it again.

When I was 17 years old, my mother lost her job. For 25 years she had worked as a nurse for Newark Beth Israel, sometimes alongside my father who is a practicing MD to date. When she was a young girl in Nigeria, her father gave her two options: become a teacher, or become a nurse. The path she chose led her to my father, who plucked her from Owerri, married her, and brought her with him to America to start a successful life together. I remember growing up how romantic it felt to say "My dad's a doctor and my mom's a nurse, they've been together for such and such years..." The hospital painted her removal as necessary, citing that her inability to learn and implement new computer systems was a hindrance to her job, and made all her practical knowledge and experience obsolete. Since the year before, my mother had been struggling because her mother passed. I still remember how she crumpled in a ball like a baby when she heard the news; I had always thought of my mother as a baby, but that day she was my baby, and it was a wretched feeling to be unable to soothe her. This news was an added blow, and thus began her descent into madness.

She had never been too adept at using a computer. My mom grew up in the 60s in Nigeria, a place famous for it's consistent electrical outages. She used her hands to cook, and heal, and make jewelry, as well as to brandish the occasional threatening wooden spoon! My siblings and I had tried over the years to teach her, but it never took, and we didn't think much of it since she saw fit to have us "help her with the computer" any day. Back then it was such a chore, but now it's a tender memory for me; that act of service made her feel connected to us, and I wish I had done more when I could.

After her discharge from work my mother began to develop "emotional problems". She was crushed from losing her job, but got back outside and on the saddle with new work; however she began having intense panic attacks in relation to work, to going to work, to being there. Her panic attacks spread behind the wheel- it got so bad at one point that she got stuck on the highway and had to wait for my dad to come help her home. Over time, my mother became more and more afraid, and more and more depressed. My grandmother was paralyzed from arthritis before she passed, and my mother seemed to be developing similar problems in her hands and feet. Her panic attacks became more frequent, so my father started seeing doctors.

For a long time we couldn't figure out what was wrong. We started with a therapist, but my mother was reluctant to open up to the process and didn't take to it well. After awhile, we introduced neurologists, and the horror began. In her 30s, my mother underwent a botched wisdom tooth removal that left her with severe nerve pain. For over 20 years, to curb the pain, as prescribed by her doctors, she was given an anti-seizure medication called Trileptal. I still remember how she would say her teeth hurt when she wanted to leave a heated discussion or stop a conversation, how she knocked her head back twice a day with a bottle of water and two Trileptal tablets. Neurologists found that 20 years of it's use had an unprecedented side effect, where the part of her brain that rules cognitive function began to shut down in response to the medication. It was horrifying to learn; after all these years of trusting a science my parents dedicated their lives to, it had betrayed them several times. The neurologist assured my mother he could help. She underwent a surgery to mitigate the nerve pain at the root so she could stop taking Trileptal and maybe see a reverse in side effects, but the damage had been done.

By the time I left for college my mother was no longer expected to work. By the time I came home that winter, she was eligible for disability. It was subtle and gradual, the change in her. She became increasingly more afraid to go outside, to see friends, to see family. My parents were deeply involved in our local Igbo church, and my father had a newfound inspiration to be attentive to the social and emotional needs of his wife that he'd been rather neglectful of years prior. But old dogs struggle to learn new tricks. My father loves a grand gesture; an expensive bag or coat, a luxurious trip, a shiny new gadget- my mother however felt appreciated by the simple things; knowing her bra size, spending time with her while she cooked or shopped, sharing your burdens with her and valuing her support. For some reason my parents could never fully get on the same page about love language. The devotion is there, the loyalty is there, the respect is there, the love is there. But in action their love was a sterile as my childhood home, where each one of my siblings stayed in our rooms unless begrudgingly called out, including me.

By the time I dropped out of college, I could tell my mother was very sick. Her joints were becoming stiffer. Since her surgery, she began experiencing short term memory loss, and was slower to speak. It was a struggle to get up and down the stairs. Slowly but surely, I could see my mother letting go, pieces of her stepping toward the other side. My father couldn't understand why she wasn't getting better, but he is a doctor and has faith in medicine, and believed if we stick it out and support her through this, she would get better. I stayed home for the majority of that year, spending time with my mother. I would give her facials and paint her toes and face. I would try to encourage her to make jewelry, to sit in the sun with me, or to watch a show. But my mother was increasingly more depressed. Everyday I saw her lose a little bit of herself; her psychiatrist prescribed medications to help with her depression and anxiety that made her unlike herself, and very numb, yet when she wasn't on them she would cry and worry uncontrollably. One time she wandered out into the street in the middle of the night. It was around this time my mother began to express to me feelings of wanting to "go" or to "leave". For things "to end".

I began to get angry. For the majority of my life, my parents fought their arguments through me. My mother would complain about my father to me, my father wouldn't say anything at all; he would cast off "women things" that he couldn't deal with as my or my sister's responsibility, but at this point my sister had moved out of the country and was barely ever home. Since I was in her womb, I have always been my mother's closest confidant, even though she could not reciprocate the same emotional space for me growing up. Before she got sick, I hadn't been getting along with my mother. She was my first bully, always finding something to pick at but never accepting any criticisms from me. It was a disrespect for me to say anything back to my mother, even as she called me hurtful things I still internalize and remember. As her fourth child, it wasn't lost on me that for years my mother sacrificed autonomy and choice in favor of culture, only to have a family and kids that she didn't feel appreciated by, and a career that didn't fulfill her or appreciate her either. It hurt to have her express to me suicidal feelings, but I listened, as I've always listened. That year we talked a lot. I told her how I had been hurt before, by our family, and by people outside our family. I told her of this boy I had fallen for, who I cared for a lot, but he wasn't who I thought he was. She told me stories of being a girl, of her guardian that she loved, of her father she never forgave, and we apologized to each other. It is my greatest gift that I had that time. It taught me true compassion and forgiveness can be found through love and honesty, no matter how deep the wound. It is my greatest gift we forgave each other. Yet still I was angry, and I directed that anger at my father, at this system, at everyone in my life who I felt wronged by at the time. I lost a lover and a friend under the emotional pressure, my relationship with my father and brothers became strained, I swallowed resentment at my sister not being home, I felt myself burn up inside with rage. Why didn't we take better care of her? Why didn't she take better care of herself? What would her life have looked like if she actualized herself for herself and herself only, without considering a socially acceptable life of a husband, kids, and "female" career?

With my relationship with my father souring as I grew into adulthood and we became polarized in our views, I left home and in turn saw my mother much less. Each time I visit home, it is a shotgun to my chest. Her sobbing became more frequent, her joints ever more stiff, she began incessantly picking holes in her face and on her chest, she was losing her ability to speak English and could mostly communicate in Igbo, if she could find the words to communicate at all. We all knew what it was, but my father wouldn't hear it. He became desperate. He brought the women from the church to bless my mom, by this point she wasn't well enough to go anywhere anymore. He would play the mega-church priests on his flat screen all day, only interrupting it for the news or a Nollywood film. He even went so far as to take my mother back home to Nigeria, to be blessed by the church for a miracle, as long as he paid a hefty tithe.

Nothing worked.

In April 2022, she was officially diagnosed with acute early-onset frontal temporal dementia. She was 59 years old. At first, my father did not let us even say the word. For all the years they had dedicated to medicine, was this their reward? My father always spoke of how it was his dream to retire and travel the world with my mom, but that dream seemed far off. With my mother's medical bills as well as his private practice and our family home to maintain, along with my costly recklessness, and our economy's failing health my father did not see retirement in his near future. Our relationship with each other became strained as his relationship with money became strained. He's become increasingly more quiet and isolated, I haven't spoken to him in a year or two. My second eldest brother stayed the longest. Caring for her day by day as I had years before. She can no longer eat on her own. She can no longer walk up and down the stairs on her own. She can no longer stand up straight. She wanders around, and mumbles to herself, and gets very depressed at times, crying uncontrollably, asking when she is going to die.

She turns 61 years old this September. She is also set to return to Nigeria for good this September. Her twin brother and my dad have found a nurse and apartment for her to stay in, and we are fashioning our future endeavors on being able to spend more time with her in her home country as she enters the later stages of dementia. She is currently 120 lbs, rapidly losing weight as this disease eats at her mind.

There is nothing in this world that prepares you for the end of life of a loved one. I have been grieving my mother, slowly, surely, and consistently, for 7 years. When people call me crazy, or delusional, they know not how deeply those words burn. They don't understand what those words mean to me. Everyday there is a knot in my chest as I hold my breath for that phone call, that dreaded phone call that my mother has finished her fight, that she is ready to "go". She is not crazy, and her delusions are not her fault, they cause very real fear and heartache. She is sick. She is sick in a way where she can't get better, because it is her mind that is leaving. Yet every time I see her, I can still see the light in her eyes. She is still very funny and loves a good joke, and can carry the most beautiful tune humming along to any song. It is from my mother that I inherited my voice. My love of fashion and of makeup comes from her as well. As I get older, I feel I look like her more and more, which may explain the strain my father feels when he sees my face. It is uncanny, this feeling. For so long, I just wanted my mother to leave me alone. Now that she has to, I am consumed by unconscionable grief.

What will I do when my mother passes? There are times when this question beckons me to agony. Will I do what my mother did when her mother passed? Will I crumble and let my soul go until we are reunited? How much longer will she survive this? Will she ever see me marry? Will she ever see grandchildren? She doesn't always remember my name anymore, how long until she forgets me?

I don't have any answers. My mother's name is Agnus-Mercy Chinyere Akuchie Emelle. She was born September 24, 1963 in Owerri, Nigeria. She is a Libra sun, Sagittarius moon. She worked as a nurse for 25 years, and is the mother of 4, with me as the youngest. I spent a lot of my grief in anger, because it is unfair. What else defines her? Why was she not given the opportunity to do what she wanted, to define herself? Maybe that's why she bullied me growing up, and I used to be angry about that too, but now I only feel compassion laced amongst my grief. My childhood was not easy. It was hard to forgive her, even as she got sick. But forgiveness is a gift for the both of us, and I would only give her gifts as she transitions from this life to the next. I still do not know when she will go, she is resilient and holds onto life; even as her ability to communicate weakens, I can still see that glimmer of life in her eye every time she hears a funny joke. She is mother, my one and only, and my greatest lesson in mercy.