changing her name

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

8 March 2025:

Many years ago my mother wrote me a very curt letter. It was from a writing exercise which encourages you to write a vitriolic letter to someone with whom you are caught in an angry battle. Don’t hold back! Get it all out! You’ll feel better, the exercise claims.

You’re then meant to flip the page and write an imagined response from the recipient. And then, like fine wine, after a bit of barrel time, you’re meant to reread both letters and write a third, more temperate letter. If done as described it seems like a fantastic exercise—a way to grapple with emotions, to air out your brain. The thing is, you’re only meant to share the final letter with your adversary.

After a horrible visit to our home, my mother tried the exercise. I have no memory of what we butted heads over, could have been time (not enough) and demands (too many), could have been my lack of patience, the history of our life together, both of us were hurt. My mother went home, wrote the three letters and mailed all three to me. She also sent an advance email telling me to keep my eye out.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, I thought.

When I received the envelope, I put it directly in a larger envelope and included the note:

I am so glad you did this. I hope it helped you to feel better and clarify your feelings, but I will not read these letters as I fear they will only harm me.

Was it snotty or self-preservation? I guess it depends upon who you ask.

It was with trepidation that I accepted another letter from my mother at the end of our month-long visit. Today, in a world of texting, any handwritten note is an intimate gesture. Her writing, though now a bit trembly, was a huge feature of my childhood. Notes left on the kitchen table, telling me when she’d be home. Chore lists. Grocery lists. I learned to forge her writing for the fake excuse notes I took to the attendance office when I skipped class in high school.

There was no attack in this letter, just rebuttals meant to disarm my worries. She tried to address my fears.

• No, she says, she isn’t isolated. She has friends, her dog, tv shows she likes.

• What am I talking about when I say she’s fallen in the street 3 times. It’s only been once and now she is careful and turns slowly.

• She eats just fine. Fruit and coffee in the morning.

• Yes, of course she takes her meds. How did she make it this far

• She gives herself a grade of B+ for her life alone as an 85-year-old with mild cognitive decline.

I too would give her a B if only she had someone checking on her on the regular. Her life would be manageable with someone coming along behind her, filling her prescriptions, doing a bit of cleaning, offering companionship. She asks me to read the letter to her, asks me to repeat some lines, sets her jaw. We are trapped in a whirlpool of altering realities. She’s proud of her letter. I am resigned.

The next day, our last in Santa Cruz, I called my mother to say we were heading over to say goodbye.

“Don’t come,” she said. “I’m going back to sleep.”

My breath went shallow. I was again 7, calling to her from another room in our apartment, “Mommy!” For some reason that year she always responded with a joke. “Mommy who?” I’d call again, “Mommy!” and she would say, “There’s no mommy here. I changed my name.”

I took it as a rejection. I hated it. I was a sensitive kid. Then and now.

I called her again. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

“Okay. But don’t come.”

We thought we’d go anyway. We even drove toward her street but then, at a stop light, we decided against it. What good would it do to see her tousled in bed, the TV news on loud, her chubby little dog wagging her tail? It would only refresh our worry and sorrow. And so we headed north. I guess she has changed her name.