Lice

Mom had been on the streets by now for about 5 years. I had learned to let her be. I had learned how to go on with my life. She had made a number of choices that I had tried and failed to stand up against over and over again. I had a young son, no husband, and a demanding teaching job with at-risk youth. To keep food on the table for him, I had to keep all these things juggled and could not support my mother financially or emotionally. I could not have her blacking out and becoming violent and trying to have bedtime at 8 for my son and me.

I don’t even remember which hospitalization this particular occurrence belonged to.

I just remember that she was there, in that bed, with the sun shining on her face and hair, and the lice were crawling. They were so large and so numerous that I could see them. I could see them past her scalp line in hoards. One crawled across her forehead, then another.

I said, “Mom, I think you have lice.” Her expression was startled and disbelieving. “No!” she half asked, half declared.

It was terrifying to know that she was so completely out of touch with reality, with her own state, with her own skin and hair. This is my mother who used to tediously comb my hair when wet, use a certain brush when blow –drying it, be upset that my bangs wouldn’t “lay right” due to the wave in them, give strict limits to the sitter not to put my hair in “wings.” I never once had lice growing up. Her own hair was always gorgeous.

What I feel guilty about is what I did next. I told the nurse about her lice. Mom felt beyond awful. She could barely get to the restroom, even with help. She should have died. And yet I was concerned about the lice. I pretended to myself that it was for her – and there is some slight merit to that. But there is a great amount of truth to the fact that I couldn’t stand for my mother to have lice in her hair.

And so, in her pained state, and as she complained about later, the nurse washed her hair not once but two times. And the lice were gone.

At least in reality, they are gone. I now have an obsession. I think I see them in my hair from time to time. I live in fear that I will be unaware and out of touch. So, I am hyper vigilant.