Of May and Mothers

"Just stop the car for a minute so I can get a picture of the virgin," I begged my husband as our rented Mini Cooper hurtled down what was surely the wrong road away from Montcuq, southwest of Cahors.

There was road work everywhere - not unlike Wisconsin - and we had gotten lost. The tight little voice inside the Garmin (I swear it's Joan Holloway from Mad Men) was nearly shouting "Recalculating! Recalculating!" but I wanted to photograph this charming little village and the pristine statue of the Virgin Mary.

Like every little Catholic girl of my era, I was taught to revere her. Because my name is Mary Virginia, I truly believed for a time that we had a special bond. Perhaps for a time we did.

May when I was a child meant great ceremony at church, much singing, and dozens of little girls in white dresses - all to honor the memory of Mary.

It was, of course, my mother who took the care to make sure my dainty little white dresses were ironed and crisp, who plaited my hair and made sure the blue bows were fresh and perky. And then after raising two sons, she did the same things for my sister.

This week, my sister and I had the sad and bittersweet experience of placing our mother in assisted living. We looked at the best facilities in town, and finally settled on one near the hospital, in our own doctor's park neighborhood.

My mother has Alzheimers Disease, which I have learned in the past 18 months, is so commonplace that you can be in a business meeting of 10 people, each of whom have parents or grandparents with this slow, killing disease.

It has broken our hearts, even though we know this is best for her: That she is around people, has on-site care, healthy meals, gets her medication on time and has few opportunities for catastrophes, like falls, now that she is no longer so steady on her feet.

The confusion in her eyes grabs at our hearts. We want to hug her and hold her and we do. She is now so tiny and vulnerable, this woman who once strode down luncheon catwalks, modeling dresses and hats for women's clubs and Rotary wives; who gamely played in the backyard wading pool with the neighborhood kids, and who served potato chips and beer to their mothers at late-night gab fests in 1960.

She is safe now, if not from the ravages of age and disease, at least from some of the frightening possibilities that have kept P and I from sleeping nights this last year.

It is finally spring. Winter here in northern Wisconsin extended into April, and was followed by rain, rain and more rain.

The air is sweet. The forsythia blooms outside my dining room window and the flowering crab may well bloom by May 24, as it always does.

Life goes on.