Checking out.

“Your mom is ready to check out.”

The nurse’s voice was somber. My mom had been near death for a week and, just yesterday, had finally been moved out of the ICU and into the main hospital. 

“How much time does she have?” I asked. 

“She can go any time.”

“Wow.” I tried to process the million feelings that suddenly surfaced. “Please put her on the phone.”

“Hi mom. I hear that you are ready to check out.”

“Well, actually Lynn, I’ve already checked out.”

“What?”

” My things are packed. They’ve lost my favorite sweatshirt. I just don’t like this hotel at all and I am checking out.”

“You’re not in a hotel, mom. You’re in the hospital.”

“Same difference. Let’s call it this apartment, then. Do you know that they expect me to eat my meals and sleep in same room? Get real. I don’t like this apartment at all and I’m checking out.”

I picture all of the tubes and monitors that are hooked up to her various body parts. She’s not strong enough to walk. Or speak more than a few sentences. How will she manage at home alone?

I ask to speak with the nurse. I remind the nurse that, just yesterday, my mom thought it was 1975. That she is not able to walk more than a step or two without assistance. I ask how they could possibly think of sending her home.

“She’s insistent,” the nurse offers. “We’ve all spoken with her. The doctors feel that she’s alert and understanding. So we have no choice but to honor her demand.”

“Alert and understanding? She thinks it is 1975. She thinks she’s in a hotel. Clearly, you can’t release her.”

“We have no choice. She wants to talk to you.” The nurse hands my mom the phone.

I hear my mom’s voice. It is unlike any tone that I’ve ever heard her use in my life as she hammers out the words, “Lynn. Stop. Fucking. With. Me.”

“Say whaaat?” I’ve never heard my mom use profanity. “I’m not effing with you, mom,” I defer in my stupor and confusion.

“Yes, you are. I’m practically out of here and you are throwing a wrench into my plans.”

An hour later my daughter and I head to the hospital. My mom is packed and seated on the edge of her bed talking to the “concierge.” The case worker and nurses take me aside and individually tell me how sorry they are and how they know this is a mistake but there’s nothing that they can do.

We arrive at her senior facility. I bring the walker to the car door so that she can get to her apartment. She sits down on it and insists that it is a wheelchair. Somehow, we get her into her apartment, into her recliner, hire as much help as possible, and head home exhausted.

I look at my daughter, who is thirteen years old, and seems numbed by the entire event that she has just witnessed. I try to be comforting. “Well, that was a whole lot to take in.”

“Yes, it was.”

“What did you take away, sweetheart?”

“Don’t fuck with grandma.”