Chula found her forever home!

a diary of my mother's stubborn resistance to accept help

25 March 2025:

Of the many urgent tasks and decisions facing me in the chaos and crisis of this moment, I had to find a place for my mother’s sweet and fat chihuahua. Chula likes having the bridge of her nose scratched, she likes many meals a day, which Ellen accommodated because she often forgot Chula had already been fed. When I mentioned she was overfeeding her dog, Ellen took great umbrage. “What, now I can’t take care of my dog?” Well, yes.

We found temporary respite for Chula and also engaged a terrific organization, PEACE OF MIND DOG RESCUE, whose sole mission is to re-home dogs which seniors can no longer care for. While all this was happening, Chula was living her best life! Playing with other dogs, going to the beach, lounging on the couch.

…

3 years ago:

As soon as I entered Ellen’s backyard her ancient chihuahua took up her job. Barking like Bea Arthur, deep, gravely and slow. RRRRRuuuff…………..RRRRuuuff. Ellen’s room was hot, cluttered, beyond dusty, it was grimy. I have never felt comfortable in her house, smelling as it does of dog kibble, dirty scalp, reheated soup, and some vague rotting thing in her trash can. I avoid opening the fridge because I don’t want to be confronted by uncovered leftovers, mold, something sticky that fell over months ago but has simply been left in an amorphous puddle. I avoid it because she yells at me to stay out and because I feel guilty when I see how she is living. I keep reminding myself, this is her choice, you cannot strongarm your way into her life. She is living how she always lived, this untidiness was always pushing at her door, it is just that now, at 82, she doesn’t have the energy to keep it at bay, and she is too proud to accept help.

She lay in her bed, a small lump beneath the heavy blanket in the hot room. The dog’s bed beside her. An unraveling blanket, varying shades of rose, covered her feet. I made it for her in 7^th grade when I was big into crocheting, when dusty rose was my favorite color. I had also had a baby picture of me matted and framed, which hung over her bed. I was doing mom things for my mom, my entire life, beginning with her suicide threats when I was five and continuing straight to this moment. The blanket and the picture were tangible evidence of me creating the artifacts of a ‘normal’ family that I’d always yearned for.

She sat up. Her hair was oily and crushed flat on one side like a dropped wrist corsage. Her abandoned dental bridge, on the tray beside her bed, left a dark hole in her mouth. Her limp t-shirt had lost all memory of its previous life.

There used to be a commercial for Woolite handwashing soap that had sweaters walking around in the world with no women inside of them. They were busty with nipped-in waists. The sweaters pushed grocery carts, vaccums, and baby carriages with invisible hands, because let’s be real, that’s what women did in the world in the late 60s. The tagline was, “Woolite makes your sweaters look alive!” As a kid, I would stuff my mom’s sweaters with balloons and toss them around our living room singing the jingle. In the bathtub I sang the Clairol shampoo jingle, “The closer he gets, the better you look.” I’d parade through her bedroom singing the perfume jingle, “They call her, Charlie!” I was always trying to entertain, and we watched a lot of tv.

My mother’s t-shirt did not look alive. Nor did her face. Pasty and heavy—after three facelifts—she has not beaten back her jowls. She looks perpetually unhappy, which she is… no commercial jingle will unburden her. She is put upon by her life, all the things she should do but hasn’t the energy for. Things I could hire someone to do for her, things that technology could do, ways in which I could help, but she refuses. Bill paying. Laundry. Her nightmarish refrigerator. Housekeeping. The same things the empty-yet-shapely sweaters were doing.

Ellen blinked at the light spilling behind me through the door. Chula wagged and wagged her tail. Ellen must not have been able to see the expression on my face. Exhaustion, sorrow, frustration, tamped down rage because she said, “I knew you’d come. You’re an angel.”

And this landed funny. I rushed to hug this old woman, so lonely, so alone, so slight and ill cared for. My mother still, no matter how much damage I have received from her. But, I am not an angel.

…

And then, the best thing happened! Chula’s respite care person, Amanda, fell in love! Her own small dog died a few years ago and left a Chula sized hole. “I guess Chula and I are meant to be.”

You know who’s an angel? Amanda.