Nancy Makin - 703: How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life

Table of Contents

I enter the first set of doors at the building and give a courtesy buzz to the person I am visiting, then scan in with the lone key card issued to residents. The occupant I am coming to see doesnt need hers; she hasnt as long as shes lived here. I stand in the lobby waiting for the elevator, fielding various questions from the elderly residents congregated nearby. I enter the elevator and on my way to the seventh floor read the notices regarding the upcoming potluck dinner, the next feature film to be shown on movie night and the obituary notices of those tenants whove died this week.

The elevator door opens; I exit to my right and begin the long walk down the hall. Immediately, my dread starts to build. The corridor has a floor-to-ceiling window at its end, and I walk along, focusing solely on the windowpane as it comes closer, consuming more and more of my field of vision. The tops of the trees are now visible along with the clouds above them. I imagine that Im a bird and can fly away from this place and the helplessness and pain I feel, intermingled with the bitter joy of seeing her again. I am visiting my mothers tomb the way so many others visit a dead relative in a graveyards mausoleum, only my dearly departed answers. Will she answer me this time?

Or will I this time be left alone to tidy up one last situation, rearranging her clothing, smoothing her hair and positioning my mother in the most flattering position possible? In this way, when the firemen arrive, my mother can maintain that false sense of dignity we both worked so hard to uphold over the years. I say false dignity, only because, with her weight at 703 pounds, such a select few allowed her any at all. The protocol described may seem a macabre or insensitive way for someone to view the death of a parent, but I had been in training for this moment for so many years, it was just part of the drill. Id had to be ever vigilant for years now; attempting to help my mother make the most inconspicuous entrance and exit possible on the rare occasions she left the building, thinking about where I should stand to block the view of the majority of prying, inquisitive eyes and, most important, trying to accomplish the task as quickly as possible. You have to understand: Her death wasnt a matter of if, but of when. So many times the two of us sat together, laughing and enjoying each others company; every time I stood to say good-bye, it was with the silent understanding that this farewell could be our last. Only when this sons final duty was done, when Id given my best effort as a layman mortician for my dear mothers exhausted corpse, when shed finally drawn her last lonely breath, would I have time to cry; cry for a life so promising, yet unfulfilled.

The question I get asked most often is Did you shop for her groceries? Its more of an accusation than a question; the meaning behind it is so condescending. Yes, I did go to the store for her often, although cookies and chips had vanished from her grocery lists long before, back when the pain in my eyes had apparently caused her to stop requesting them. I guess if you put enough mayonnaise on a ham-and-cheese sandwich, or if your metabolism shuts down, or if youve become virtually stationary, as my mother had, there isnt much left to be done; youre going to die sooner rather than later.

In my mind I was a son, granting my mother the only bit of autonomy and control left to her; she still had the right to make the decisions she could. I was not her jailer; it was not my place to dictate to her, or anyone elses province for that matter. Maybe we should put pizza delivery workers on trial, or slap fines on those who work at drive-thru windows if they fill the orders of people weighing over a societally prescribed amount? These hard memories and agonizing frustrations filtered through my mind as I neared the end of my long walk down the hall. So with my mind doing its best not to think of any of it and realizing that I hadnt sprouted wings to take flight, I stopped at the last door on the right and turned the knob.

Chris Makin
October 22, 2008

PREFACE

A View from the Crows Nest/My Turn

No one could be more surprised than I to find myself here tapping on this keyboard, pounding out these characters, building words, telling a tale that could never be; it is too fantastic. But I am tapping, and it did happen. I am alive, and that revelation still stuns me. This was not the plan, the blueprint that I saw lying there before me. Life is for the living; I was not alive, only went through the motions, and even those were streamlined to the very barest function necessary to keep my heart pumping and lungs filling in a heavily encumbered chest. My vacant eyes were still activated, watching all that bustled about me, all I had no part in. I marked time, waiting for the end.

My death would come; either slowly, incrementally, a wasting sort of degeneration, or in a swift manner, suddenly, taking me away in one fell swoop and releasing my misused body, my brains unspent currency and saddened spirit.

My incarceration crept up on me over years, built not in a day, but in millions of moments, one upon the next, as if each were a single brick in some ominous structure of my own design. In every moment, I pressed firmly down each sturdy rectangle, applying a liberal layer of the mortar of worthlessness, then another and another heaped upon the last, till the walls of my prison were erected solidly around me.

I was a fine mason. There were no gaps between bricks, no air pockets in which to find a fissure, some defect that could later be exploited, tearing down my encasement and letting daylight shine upon my prisoners face. There would be no escaping this mind-numbing cell. Yet this is the story of one womans unlikely prison break. There alone in my confinement, I felt helpless to find a way outside. My liberation would come from the most unexpected source, and in my wildest imaginings, I never contemplated its arrival. I had resigned myself to this life sentence, although that was surely a misnomer. For truly, it was a death sentence I faced. And I ought to know, it was I who was prosecutor, judge and jury. I had imposed a sentence, the harshest possible. And those outside the dank walls would be my improbable liberators. I did not even know them, nor were they aware of me, not yet. Let me take you back to when it all began.