Saving Harriet
My mother and I enjoying ice cream bars – photo by someone with shaky hands, yet captures the moment!
My elderly mother was on a hunger-strike and I couldn’t reach her by phone. I grabbed a last-minute flight to go see what I could do…
“She refuses to eat.”
I stare past the blueberry bushes outside my kitchen window in Vancouver, as I talk with my sister 4,000 kilometres away in Ottawa.
“What’s going on? Her phone just keeps ringing!”.
Until recently, I’ve been able to reach my Mom every week for a good chat. I’d say “hi Mom, it’s Saturday!” and hear her voice brighten. Or she’d pick up and say “oh, it’s Saturday!”.
Now, nothing. Just flakes of news via my elder siblings who live in the area. Mom lived in the same seniors’ residence for ten years, ‘graduating’ from independent to assisted living. Recently, she’d grown bored and testy and wanted to try a change. My siblings arranged for her move to this new place, which claims to specialize in dementia care.
“Sue says she’s suicidal.”
What?? Harriet, lifelong researcher, world traveler – with curiosity and a determined look in her eye. What’s happened these last few weeks?
We agreed my local siblings would be point of contact with the residence. But I feel so helpless and out of touch! Thank heavens for Sue. We hired her years ago to see Mom a couple of times per week, to ensure visits even when family members couldn’t go. She and Mom became fast friends from the start. Now Sue provides our ‘eyes on the ground’.
Since moving away, I travel there once per year in January for my mother’s birthday and to skate on the Rideau Canal. No problem booking a free flight with airline points after the Christmas break.
Not like now. In late June – with school just out for summer – there’s little chance of finding a seat. I sign onto the airline website anyway, just to do something.
‘Searching for flights’… I watch the little wheel thingy spin around. The (un)availability calendar pops up – blank white through July and August, as expected. My face is probably blank white too.
I click ‘refresh’ a few times as a reflex, not out of any particular hope.
A small patch of green appears on the calendar for July 3rd – YVR to YOW. Even on the holiday long weekend, with all the Canada Day festivities in Ottawa?! I blink as if to refresh my eyes.
No time to call my siblings to make plans. I click on ‘book flights’ to hold the seat for a few minutes while I race to get my credit card (‘free’ flights still come at a cost). ‘Proceed to checkout… reservation number…flight itinerary’. I’m in!
I tell my sister, “I’m coming next week!” We wonder aloud if our long-deceased Dad played a hand ‘from above’ in this good fortune?
I fly into action. Call Sue. Email the residence. Find a pet sitter… all the good ones are booked. I have tears of relief when a trusted friend agrees to look after my dog.
Still can’t reach my mother. Is her wheelchair two feet away and she hears the phone ring, without being able to pick up?
I can’t visualize her indoor setting. I know the building from when it was a mid-rate hotel that I’d pass on my way home, on a major thoroughfare just off a highway exit. Back when Harriet – cosmopolitan career woman of Montreal – referred to Ottawa as a backwater. She only moved to be closer to her adult children for this stage of life.
I’ve yet to hear back from the management. All I’ve seen are a few website images with happy-looking seniors and their caregivers. I’ve emailed many questions along with my dates – surely a collaborative meeting could sort things out. They must be so busy taking care of their residents?
Gates at YVR (Vancouver) airport. / Photo per Thompson River University
“Boarding flight number AC348. Passengers seated in rows 1 through 24 please proceed.”
I walk into mom’s residence. Weird foyer – brown with mirrors. Still the ‘seventies hotel’ look. Ditto for the concierge at his desk (in 2015)! One tiny elevator that takes forever. Narrow hallway with all the doors closed. Empty ‘nursing station’ is just a luggage alcove with zero evidence of nursing supplies nor even a schedule.
I knock and enter my mother’s room, taken aback at how small and dark it is. Why are the blinds drawn during the day? There she is, propped in her wheelchair under somebody else’s gawdy crocheted blanket. Harriet, a female physics student in the 1940s engaged in signifcant wartime projects. Harriet, who maintained her career while raising a family in the 1960s. A woman of great taste in clothing, whether in downtown Montreal, traveling abroad, or seated in her breakfast sunroom to read the morning newspaper. The woman my father loved and respected to his dying day.
I silently vow, “This is not how this ends”.
I wheel Mom down to lunch and we join the folks at her table. It’s freezing cold in the dining room. Over the clink of dishes, the air conditioners roar at full blast. The elderly diners wear cardigans, in July. The table settings make an attempt to look showy with their large white cloth serviettes, like a hotel restaurant in the eighties. I feel like I’m on a strange discount cruise.
I look around. A male staff member dressed in black hovers by the tables near the windows (with vertical blinds drawn closed), while another one stands beside the exit to the lobby. Their hands clasped behind their backs, they look like funeral attendants – or human vultures. I hear the Eagles song in my mind, “Hotel California, where you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”
“Stop staring at us.” One woman in a bright sweater has the gall to speak aloud.
“I’m not staring”, says undertaker-guy.
“Yes, you’re always rushing us”.
My attention returns to our table, where a female server in a powder-blue uniform tries to shove a spoon full of pills past my mother’s clenched teeth, a glass of ice water at the ready.
I see that Mom is trying to be in control, in the only way she has left. She doesn’t complain directly, just refuses ‘anything by mouth’. When the server gives up and leaves, I suggest to Mom she could ask for “no ice”, but she levels a look at me as if to say “don’t you think I’ve tried that?”. We speak in hushed tones. I act as go-between to convey her lunch preferences – hoping to get her something she’ll like – but she whispers insistently that I not ask for too much, and get her in trouble. That sounds odd, for a strong woman who always insisted on what she wanted, albeit in a polite way.
As we leave the dining room, undertaker-guy says in a sing-song voice “see you later, Harriet”.
“Oh, you know my mother…”, I offer by way of introduction.
Gazing at Mom in her wheelchair, he replies “oh, I know Harriet”.
He says it in a creepy way that makes my skin crawl. Mom, stone-faced, looks straight ahead toward the elevator.
What is with this place? Mom’s paying top-dollar to be among the clientele – it should be like a five-star hotel with extra amenities and superlative care!
I only have a week here to try to turn this around. Mom’s eating again, more each time. Just having someone that respects her wishes and chats with her makes all the difference. The server warms up to us and brings a glass of water with no ice.
My meeting with the so-called care-team leaves me worried and dissatisfied. The marketing guy is in charge, while the activities director and head nurse are absent. Many platitudes, a gaping lack of info, and lots of attitude.
I commute for an hour each morning and evening, to stay with my sister and her family. It’s easy to drive the divided highway that leads south to their small town on the St. Lawrence River. I pass by marshlands with standing-dead trees, the occasional hawk perched on high. It’s good to decompress, then arrive at their place for a home-cooked meal. Debrief. Fall into bed. Get up and go. It’s sure nice to have family there, and their family dog.
Day Three. Mom doesn’t want me to leave, so I stay for dinner and wait for someone to help her to bed. I’ve made clear her request for female-only attendants. Again, a male arrives. I send him away. We wait. When a female PSW (Personal Support Worker) arrives, she handles Mom so roughly that I realize I could do much better myself. Wide-eyed, Mom pleads “don’t leave me”. My heart breaks to tell her I can’t stay overnight. I stroke her hair.
The next night, I easily help her into her pyjamas. When I assist her into bed, I’m shocked to see a welt across her shin, not healing well and no bandage. It looks to be from being rammed with force into the bedrails, in her wheelchair.
That’s it. It’s mid-week and I go into overdrive. I have the energy of a mother lifting a vehicle off a trapped infant. Childless myself, this seems the closest feeling as my Mama Bear instincts kick in.
The next morning, I face Mom in her wheelchair and state “I’m going to get you out of here”.
“How?”
I glance aside, as if for an answer. I see on her shelf, a book about one of the people she most admired – our former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. I hold the book up for her to see. The title, in large bold letters is “JUST WATCH ME” (his reply as to how he’d handle the FLQ crisis in Montreal in the seventies).
Lips pursed, Mom gives a nod.
Cover of the book I held up for my mother to see. (Note: Trudeau, born in 1919, became Prime Minister in 1968.)
My sister researches other options online. She happens upon one not noticed before. I leave Mom after lunch, and drive out to see.
It’s a beautiful building beside a parkland, next to a well-known hospital. The woman at the front desk is expecting me. While I wait for a guide, I notice residents who enjoy the spacious main-floor lounge: one reads the newspaper beside a window nook, two play a game of cribbage, a few chat on couches. A staff member walks around to offer them tea and cookies.
An assistant guides me on a brief tour of the memory-care floor. Bright wide hallways. Staff who smile as they pass by. People laughing in the activity room. At least two nurses at each fully-equipped station.
My guide introduces me to the Chief of Care, who pauses to tell a family member they can sleep on a cot in their parent’s room, given the circumstances. She apologizes to me for the interruption, but I don’t mind seeing such compassion in action.
A middle-aged man and I enter the large elevator on our way down. I ask how he finds the place. His mother’s been happy and well tended there for four years.
A sales representative answers my many questions, asks if I have more. A gentle breeze rustles the trees in the sun outside the window behind her. Turns out two rooms have come open, but one – the larger – has been spoken for and only awaits financial confirmation. The other one can be ours if I make a deposit by 5 p.m. No time to consult family – I’ll carry that expense myself if need be!
I hasten back to town - I told Mom I’d play bingo with her at 3 p.m. She’s always been a stickler for punctuality, and is already at the table when I arrive.
“Where have you been?” she snaps, under her breath.
“Working tirelessly on your behalf”.
Again, a nod.
She always struck me as a Maggie Thatcher or Queen Elizabeth type, who expects attention and demands results. This time I sure hope to succeed.
“B3, G5”. The leader lets other participants have two cards. Harriet is not amused. She has a strong sense of fair play and just treatment. This place doesn’t play by the rules.
Bingo! The game’s done, and I must go.
I zip over to a nearby bank branch. Park in a spot that is not allowed until after 5 p.m. A few people are in line for the teller, so I opt for the ATM. In goes the card. Nothing. It swallowed my card!! Once again, I blanche.
I hover behind the lineup, hoping to get a teller’s attention. I glance through the open door of an office, but the banker is with a client.
Someone tells me the parking police will be onto me in that spot.
“Will they tow?”
“No, but it’s a hefty fine”. I’ll risk that, given the situation.
The amount of funds was over my daily limit. The teller retrieves my card and draws up a certified cheque. The manager finishes and asks if she can help. I turn to her and blab out my story.
With my cheque, card, and car keys in hand, the manager gives me a hug and exclaims “Go! Save your mother!”.
Traffic. It’s 4:30 p.m. on the largest artery in Ottawa. Everybody takes the Queensway to get home to the suburbs. Even so, I just make it!
Wheel into one of the diagonal spots. The sales manager accepts my deposit. She says it will take a couple of days to paint the room. It’ll certainly take me that long to get ready. My siblings have mostly run out of steam from moving our mother a month ago.
When I leave the office, someone plays piano in the atrium, while a server wheels around a cart for Happy Hour. I can’t wait to get back here!
I share the good news with Mom. We find some mini-Mars bars that Sue brought, in her drawer. We tap one-each together in “cheers”. She wants to move now.
Meanwhile, the management of the current place remain evasive. I leave more messages insisting I want to see our contract.
In the elevator as I exit that evening, another visitor tells a staff member that her mother will be moving. Finally after a year, they found another place. Oh boy are we lucky.
As I pack up Mom’s things, I’ve still not heard from management! I feel like the Von Trapp family, secreting my mother away – which is almost the case. The movers make several trips to the van outside, but the concierge asks no questions. When I do a final check of the room, while my brother wheels Mom downstairs, I decide best to leave a note to the staff that we have our mother! Zero people follow up on that.
Her new room is bright, with a big window deep-set into the stone exterior. It’’s close to the dining room and activity room. No more elevator rides required.
Fresh flowers, fresh view, fresh outlook. Sometimes in life, you get a chance to change course.
After some settling-in, I meet with the head PSW, able to choose some little things that will go a long way. Not to man-handle Mom onto a scale for intake on her first afternoon, and yes, she would prefer “Mrs.” over her first name.
I join Mom for her first lunch at the new place. We enjoy a good meal, and converse with the married couple who are Mom’s table mates. Actually, the woman chats, but her husband no longer speaks. A staff member offers two choices for dessert. The couple receive ‘Revelo bars’ instead, Mom’s favourite. When she inquires how one gets one of those, the woman replies “all you do is ask”. The woman explains that her hands are shaky when I ask her to take our photo, but I say “that’s okay”!
The nursing station has a pill-crushing machine, with a choice of pudding or applesauce as the ‘medium’. When Mom’s tucked into bed (which is much lower and easier), a nurse arrives and introduces herself to “Mrs. Campbell”. She gives her a tiny spoonful of pudding, which Mom accepts like a girl at camp. After the nurse leaves, Mom asks sharply “what was that?”.
“That” I reply, “is the new face of medicine”.
Another nod, as I kiss Mom good night.
Too bad I have to fly home the next day. But I feel so much better leaving her in this place. They have a whole care-plan worked out, to discuss and review periodically with the family. Mom’s room is large enough to have a sitting area. Sue comes over to play Trivial Pursuit. Guests can help themselves to lemonade and cookies in the lobby, and bring Harriet the ones she likes when they come to visit.
My sister and I with our mother upon 'landing' at her new place (family dog too, as part of welcoming committee).
We have pressed “reset”. Mission accomplished!
Once home, I’m able to call Mom every day for a good chat during the ‘cocktail hour’. I’m making a booklet about my father’s life, to give her at Christmas. She agrees to have me interview her for a book about her, so we have fun with questions. Seeing her lunch-mate made me realize I’d better ask sooner than later.
Word is, she likes singing with the group down the hall! Sue reports that all is well, and Harriet has gained her weight back. Oh, she has her criticisms and demands, but that’s Mom! She even gets to vote for Trudeau’s son Justin, who is elected Prime Minister.
I plan to give her the booklet about her for her 90th birthday, and I book my flight for January.
Cover of the book about my mother's life – including world travels she loved! / Photo from one of her trips to Greece and Turkey.
But after a winning streak at trivia games, and telling the activities director one afternoon that she looks forward to Christmas, Harriet dies peacefully in her sleep – a month before the holidays.
And that is how this ends.
written by Barbara L Campbell, 2024