By David Summerfield
My mother died with nothing, and I wondered whose fault it was mine or hers, not that she had died–I had no control over that but that she had died with nothing, in a Medicaid bed. Before she died, she’d suffered from dementia. The last time I saw her I didn’t know if she could see me or even wanted to see me and as I looked at her, even in her cognitive decline I didn’t know if she silently blamed me for her predicament, or if I was projecting my own guilt for it, not for her dementia–I had no control over it, but for her being poor, waiting to die as if she were not already dead, as if I were not already dead inside her, lying that way in a Medicaid bed.
I had educated myself, tried to help her and my stepfather become better off, but they were perpetually in debt, and I didn’t know if it was a willful blindness or my having given up trying to penetrate their stubborn ignorance that was at fault. The sum of my inheritance had been a shoebox full of old receipts, a penknife, and a broken watch, the only tangible objects that documented their existence, that proved they’d ever been here. They had nothing else to give.
I thought she died knowing little of this, or that maybe she died because of it, the constant struggle to survive, but my biggest fear was I would die, too, not struggling to survive, but from the same crippling dementia not knowing I had lived. Even so, I could rest easy knowing I would leave more substantial evidence of my having existed than a shoebox full of ancient receipts, a penknife, and an old broken watch.
I had come to separate myself from them knowing there was no way I would ever be able to help lift them from their willful ignorance because parents don’t listen to or take advice from their children. Any time I had tried to offer advice they would scoff at, admonish, or simply ignore me–who was I to tell them what to do I was still only a child, and children do not give advice to their parents. Yes, they were my parents and I could have taken them in but even as they were family, the peculiarities of my own introverted personality prevented it, I could have given them more, but I resented throwing my resources into that black hole of their undisciplined spending, as they hoped to get rich quick, their unrestrained gambling.
My mother had always thought that I would amount to something and one day be able to take care of them, but I’d not amounted to much of anything, lived a spartan life and could only take care of myself, and I thought how this must have disappointed her. What lives inside me now is a personal pride at how I was able to move away from their constant struggles, tortured haste, their lies, and deceit, but as long as I live or until my brain fails shame will reside there, too, along with it that raw, nagging sense of guilt that won’t go away at what I might have prevented, when they both are still looking at me and silently asking why I’d allowed it, allowed them to die, penniless and pitiful in a Medicaid bed.
About the Author:
David Summerfield’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photo art has appeared in numerous literary magazines/journals/and reviews. He’s been co-editor, columnist, and contributor to various publications within his home state of West Virginia. He is a graduate of Frostburg State University, Maryland, and a veteran of the Iraq war. View his work at davidsummerfieldcreates.com