“I can’t breathe,” said my mother in a panicked tone as she floated in the pool. “I need to get out.” Moments ago she had been splashing around, content. She now was breathing with shallow puffs. I cradled her in my arms and turned her body toward the windows on the side of the pool.
“Which flowers of the Rose-of-Sharon do you like the best? Pink or white?,” I asked.
She calmed down replying, “I like them both.”
One of my mother’s favorite activities is to swim in the pool at Meadow Ridge, the seniors’ facility she has resided in for the last 9 years. Floating in the pool liberates her from her wheelchair as she converses with her friends who swim with her three times a week. But over the last few months she has lost faith in her ability to maneuver and sometimes she feels unsure. What I have increasingly done when I swim with her is to talk about flowers and her mother’s garden.
“Your mother had roses, didn’t she, and lilacs,” I asked. “What other plants did she have?”
My mother’s discomfort in the water ended and a thoughtful look on her face emerged. “I don’t really remember but I like the way lilacs smell.”
Lilacs are my mother’s favorite flower. Each Spring I cut flowers for her from our shrubs in the front yard. She would bury her nose in them taking in the fragrant scent. “That is wonderful,” she would say.
“Are those flowers new?” she asked of the Rose-of-Sharon. “No, mom they have been here all month. The blackberries have been coming in and Juana and I have been harvesting between a pint and quart every day. “Did your mother put up blackberries?”
“No, but I did it at the farm with my uncle Bill [Johnston.] It was a lot of work but me and Nancy didn’t have any choices.”
As we talked, my mother moved her legs back and forth slowly as her arms kept her body centered in the water. She spoke freely about working on a farm during the Summer with my Aunt Nancy. The worry on her face was replaced with conversation and a slight smile.
A small yellow warbler landed on the Rose-of Sharon. My mother saw the bird and smiled.
“Do you want to stay in the pool mom?” I asked.
“Oh yes. This is wonderful.”
