NORMAL (Nursing Home Life, part 11)

Feeding a pureed supper to David in bed is one of the jobs I’ve taken on here at Laurier House. Given the choice, he would prefer to be chewing his food, feeding himself with a fork and sitting anywhere other than in bed. Butt here he is. I am feeding him because he chose me for the job. Being chosen for this task is one of many surprises in my current life. My previous puree experiences occurred nearly four decades ago when our children were babies. In preparation for parenthood I had read a book that suggested the need for a blind feeder to locate the mouth of the fed-one with one hand and hold the spoon with the other. I tried it on Baby Mark. Mark, at a tender age, had yet to achieve a command of language. Despite this barrier, he was clearly able to communicate. He responded to my first attempt by making a rule for living: Never allow yourself to be spoon fed by a blind person! Here was his reasoning, so far as I could understand it at the time. “A blind person wielding a feeding instrument is a dangerous character. Trapped in your high chair at the mercy of such a person, you could lose an eye, snort peas into your nose, or later find yourself fishing chicken out of an ear. At the very least you might get a sloppy chin. Fortunately for Mark and the siblings who followed him, mothers are known for their ability to understand the wishes of their babies. The situation might have posed a problem were it not for the fact that David was quite willing to feed the children whenever feeding was required. I responded with benign acceptance. Apparently it never occurred to me to assert my competence, or my right to be treated equally as a mother. I did not feel slighted or rejected, and if I felt any regret I have forgotten it. The question of my using cutlery to feed anybody was laid to rest. It rested in peace for nearly four decades. We moved to Laurier House in preparation for the time when I would require significant help in order to meet David’s needs. That said, it would have been difficult to predict in advance which needs would be met by the staff and which would be met by me. Choices have been made at various points along the way. David is a fully-informed adult, definitely not a baby. So when I give him a choice about something, I try to ensure that it is a real choice. I recall the way we used to present choices to our two-year-olds when we were trying to rush out of the door in the mornings, already at risk of being late for work. : “Shall I put your shoes on now, or in fifteen seconds? Shall I start with this shoe or the other shoe?” So perhaps I ought to confess that it was a little disingenuous for me to ask a question when I never doubted what the answer would be. In my mind, there was only one choice. Nonetheless, I asked the question. “Would you rather be fed in bed by me or by the staff?” “You,: he said. “Me?” I said. I thought I must have misunderstood. “You,” he said. I didn’t ask for an explanation. It seemed wise to assume his choice was motivated by love. “Shall I use a spoon or a fork?” I queried, blundering uncertainly through this uncharted territory. “Spoon,’ he said. No doubt about that answer. The man still values his eyes and recognizes that his nose is more vulnerable to a misdirected fork. I see now that there was wisdom in the book I consulted so long ago. If you are a blind person who has been chosen to feed another person you can use one hand to find a mouth and the other to guide a spoon. A bib and a cloth will help you compensate for any errors you might make. This is our latest version of having dinner together at home in this unlikely place. I feed David while we watch the 5:00 news. And where are the children whose mother never fed them from a fork or a spoon? Well, just the other night Mark brought two of our grandchildren to stay with us while he tooke their mother to dinner. He brought food for them. The youngest of Mark’s children is Baby Lewis. Baby Lewis doesn’t talk yet, but his mouth is sporting two beautifully sharp teeth. I positioned his little chair near David’s bed. There he sat, scooping fries into his fists, using his built-in blades to saw them off. While he ate, he watched me use two hands to feed Granddad with a spoon. His sister Carys sat nearby, two-and-a-half years older and a thousand times wiser. The nurse who brought David’s puffer seemed a bit surprised to find us there, but to the four of us, everything seemed quite normal.