Mom Vulnerable

I live far away from my biological family, not a mindful decision but just following the flow of life after college.  I ignored Mom's aging until more recently, when one incident after another has drawn me to the reality that Mom may not be there for me whenever I like.  My romantic insistence of my at-will dependence on her inevitably eroded to a cold realization of her growing need of my strength, physically, financially and psychologically.  Like me, she has a finality in this life, and chances are she'll leave me long before I reach my endpoint.

As I began to spend more time staying with Mom over the past decade, I have also learned how difficult it can be to cross the generation gap.  Mom holds the position that she has authority over me when we're under the same room; I have strongly felt that I know better about things because I have studied more about things.  My attempts to get her to listen to me have overall been futile.  Funny thing is, Mom tells her other children that my know-it-all (I prefer "scientific") approach is ludicrous but she would tolerate me when I'm around.  Our time together is usually fraught with making sure our mutual allies pointing fingers at the other person.

All these emotions suddenly dissipated on May 31, 2016.  That night my sister Sue came to stay with us.  I love any time I can have with my siblings.  No matter what goes on when we're together, there is this intimate, tacit understanding and acceptance of each other that calms my soul.  They help me locate my place in life.  At close to midnight, Sue and I were talking about our recent ups and downs, when a big thump followed by a cry burst through the bathroom door.  We knew what it was, but in that split second while I was experiencing extreme shock, Sue gave out this cry that one usually exhibits at the worst news about a loved one.  

Sue is ready.  She can cry out if Mom goes now.  I still need to process my feelings.  Or, are my feelings what needs to be processed?  

We rushed to the bathroom.  There was our mother, lying on the floor, unable to move.  She wasn't even ready to moan from the head hitting the wall and the fall of her heavy body.   Sue and I went to her sides to try to get her to sit up on the floor.  Mom said she needed a chair to sit on instead.  After I got the chair in, we realized that we were just not strong enough to hoist her to it.  We needed Mom to use her legs for resistance to the floor so we could collectively make this work.  After a few tries, Mom was finally on the chair.  As soon as she could move her arms sitting down, she asked us to leave her to clean herself up.

I was brought up learning and believing that civility or "禮" (pronounced "li") for high courtesy should be the supreme rule over society and our action.  Therefore, when I first pondered on the apparent anger that Noah held against his one of his sons in the Old Testament, I had no problem concluding that it was because the middle child Ham had seen him naked.  As I grew older and adopted the concept of proportional punishment, I wondered occasionally why Noah, being the patriarch after the Big Flood and the rebeginning of the humankind, would curse his posterity so. 

The story goes that Noah had now become a farmer and owned a vineyard:  

 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces werebackward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Genesis 9: 21-25

While the issue of Noah cursing his grandson for his displeasure with his son is topic for another day, it is safe to say that the neglect of one's parent's dignity is at a minimum uncivil and cuts into the integrity of the imaginary li.  The hallmark "and they saw not their father’s nakedness" points to the need for sensitivity and for acknowledging hierarchical order when it comes to our parents' frailty of sorts.  

One of the most painful things to go through in life is probably having to watch our loved ones slowly falling apart.  We are often powerless as they change, and old memories of their more vibrant selves would interfere with our accepting their new changes.  My mom is slowly losing her battle to physical and mental decline, but it's me that benefits from standing by. 

Fallen on My Lap

7/25/16

When we moved into our house five years ago, we had the flue of the chimney closed because heat by natural gas worked well for the house.  Before this month we had had a woodpecker and a blue jay that appeared out of nowhere in the house.  As much as we were baffled by where they had come from, we had been too busy to try to find their entrance and guessed it must have been a door left ajar--until about four days ago.

Mike and I had gone away for the day last Saturday.   When we returned home, I found bird droppings on our glass door to the deck.  I instinctively walked around the main floor looking for and wiping clean any other signs of the bird's presence.  Mike then walked through the entire upper level but came back empty-handed.  Granted I usually don’t trust his keenness in finding things around the house, I was considering whether to send him downstairs in search of spots or signs of the bird when a black showy bird appeared near the glass door.  This was the best location for us.  We cornered it while opening the door wide.  In no time we got the bird out the door and I was left with a petty annoyance of having to clean up afterwards.

At around the same time, we had begun to hear chittering from our fireplace and suspected that some birds had unintelligently built a nest inside the chimney and now the chicks were demanding for food.  On Sunday, the chittering suddenly became overwhelmingly loud, so loud that we felt compelled to tap on our wall to warn them to tone down.  After all, this is our house, so be nice and don't overextend your welcome, we chided.  We agreed we would put a tightest cap on the chimney after the chicks were grown and flown away.  Give them two weeks.  We could tolerate two weeks.

That night the birds became even louder despite the fact that the chimney is quite far away from our bedroom.

Came Monday the 25th. I woke Mike up at 5 a.m. because of the non-stop increasing chittering.  He walked over to the fireplace and came back wearing a panicked look.  "The babies have fallen into our fireplace," he exclaimed.  We quickly found a planter, lined it with paper towels and twigs from our yard, and put the four little ones on them.  What happened next only goes to show how unprepared we had been as bird parents.  Mike gave them water, which soaked through the paper.  In my dismay, I brought out a plastic container, put twigs in it, and moved the chicks there.  We took them outside, and strategically placed the container in one of the bushes, hoping their parents would quickly fetch them to a new bird home.

(birds in plastic container)

After Mike left for work, I hid myself behind a window close to the bush, hoping the mama bird would at least bring them food.  Two hours went by and nothing happened.  I decided it was up to me now to make sure they got fed.  Naturally I looked up articles and videos on what and how to feed young birds. I also wanted to know what they and how to care for them.  A call to a nearby animal hospital led me to Fairfax County's animal control services, which led me to Wildlife Rescue League.  I left them a message and moved on to give the babies the little TLC I had barely learned online.

(babies in bush)

(the runt)

Since the temperature was reaching 100 degrees outside, two more hours later I brought the babies in and began to give them a thick mixture of cooked egg yolk, bread crumbs and water.  Unlike the chicks I saw on YouTube, these little ones would no open their mouths, except for what appeared to be the runt .  It was obviously too hungry to follow its species' nature shown by its siblings.  Recalling that I had kept a small syringe in the house for calligraphy ink refill use, I took it out and made a new batch of runnier mixture of cooked egg yolk, cookie crumbs and water.  Mike rushed home at 4 p.m. after I told him that I needed his help to forcefeed the babies.  The following seven hours were filled with pure parental fun: we fed the them every 30 minutes, cleaned their beds, and debated which of them to be named after which of our four children.  I felt a strange kind of happiness that these babies had fallen into our empty nest.

We woke up early next morning.  The babies had slept pretty much through the night and we didn't want to waste time to plump them up.  There was much joy when we noticed a growth of feathers on the biggest one.  Mike said he was happiest seeing that each of them had had a bowel movement.  The more we fed them, the more they'd poo, and the healthier they'd be, we assured each other.  I made Mike stay until 9 a.m. so we could do enough feedings together--Mike was in charge of holding the bird's head steady while I pried open its beak and insert the syringe down its mouth.  Easier said than down, because the bigger two fought hard to have their mouths open or any food put in them.  I had also solicited our daughter Dara to help me feed after Mike left for work. She gladly agreed.

(Babies)

Just as I was savoring being a mother again, Wildlife Rescue returned my call from the previous day and referred me to Nora, a rehabilitator.  Nora heard my story and immediately announced that my babies were chimney swifts, a highly protected species.  She told me that they had to be taken to a specialized rescue center.  While we were debating whether I should keep the babies until Saturday, when Mike would have time to travel with me to near West Virginia, another call came in.  It was Felicia from Wildlife Rescue who wanted to transport them to Blue Ridge Wildlife Center immediately.  Felicia could come in 30 minutes because we should not wait to better prepare them to return to nature.  After I hung up the phone I suddenly realized that I had only 30 minutes to prepare an mini home tailored for chimney swifts (they rest clinging to walls, so the sides and ceiling should be lined with cloth).  Only 30 minutes to say good-bye to my kids!  

The thought that they might starve on the way to Blue Ridge was unbearable.  After putting together their temporary home, I spent the remainder of the 30 minutes trying to given them each enough food.  "Take it for the road," I pleaded gently.   Their last meal with me came too soon.  

Felicia came on time.  She was also transporting another litter of chimney swifts to Blue Ridge.  I hugged Felicia, the second best to kissing my babies good-bye.

(one last feed)

(off to new home)