A Fool’s Lesson
Leaving Las Vegas 2022
During the summer to fall transition of 2022, I found myself holed up in the room designated for me at my mother’s Las Vegas house, much the same way I did as a teenager. This wasn’t my home, it was hers and every single day I was reminded of it by her. She had asked me to come and stay with her to iron out her end-of-life affairs and fine-tune her hospice situation before she died. So I dutifully came, only to be confronted with the same situation I experienced as an adolescent: trapped in a house, playing servant to mom, and being constantly chastised that I wasn’t enough.
Except at that point, I was forty-three years old and had been through many life-experiences along the way. Some people had told me I lived several lives. I was just wondering what the hell happened to me. My entire life I had worked so hard to conform to societal expectations and always falling short. I put myself through college, earned several degrees, clawed my way to a mediocre position in healthcare leadership, and survived two abusive marriages, only to be rendered childless due to trauma and abuse. I was broken in every way and trying to salvage any kind of relationship with my narcissistic mother as she fully embraced the attention of her hospice team. She knew how to put on quite the show.
While I sat on the murphy bed and staring at the deck of tarot cards in front me, I pondered how someone who studied sciences most of their life could even fathom diving into the occult. It was just a bunch of bullshit, right? Cold-reading, scamming, whatever negative concepts I’d gathered about the subject of tarot came to mind. But something deep inside persisted, a curiosity.
My tarot class was about to begin. I’d been a fan of Atlas Obscura for a few years, perusing its online content for brain candy and fantasizing about travelling to the strange and unusual places on the website’s pages. Until that point, I never had the extra money or time to splurge on one of its online classes. But with mom’s “impending” demise (more on this later), she had given me access to money as a way to lure me to stay with her in her “final” days.
For the month of October, I went to live with mom and attempted to determine if she and I could ever have a mother/daughter relationship that did not involve her abusing me. Less than a week into my stay, she had already resumed her abusive habits and leveraged her terminal diagnosis as emotional blackmail. Nearly every single time I resisted a negative or abusive comment, she would dismissively retort with, “I’m dying, it doesn’t matter anyway.” My feelings never mattered to her and she could continue to hurl passive-aggressive insults at me with abandon.
In an effort to escape mom’s constant criticisms and vitriol while I was staying with her, I signed up for a tarot reading class with Atlas Obscura and would be online for a couple hours every Tuesday for at least three weeks. The class began with the usual preview of things to come, activities to facilitate learning, and a general feel for the course. We were encouraged to spend time absorbing the concepts and history of tarot. Towards the end of class, an exercise was offered as a way to start our tarot journeys. “Card Of The Day”, or COTD as it was acronymed, would prove to be an auspicious practice.
The only solace I ever found in her house was behind the closed door of my bedroom. I would always immerse myself in educational endeavors to escape the hell that awaited me outside the bedroom door. If she thought I was studying, then she would not force her way in to force her will on me. Education was considered a sacred event, at least. Except now, I was pursuing an alternative education that would serve me well in the coming months. Drawing my first tarot card foretold of the education that was to come.
There it was staring back at me: the Fool. The jaunty, patterned frock of its character looked like a badly tattered carpet that was repurposed as clothing. The figure hoisted a hobo’s stick across one shoulder while a single flower sprouted from the opposite hand, alluding to growth and hope. Dangerously close to a cliff, the Fool looked up to the sky, as if daydreaming of new possibilities.
Ridiculous, I thought. But something deep inside me captured my focus on the figure. Could this mean something? My life had taken an all-too-familiar downturn since starting over in the northeast: I worked a thankless job I hated, the person I was “dating” treated me like an option, and my relationship with my mom was the same as it had always been. I was not living the life I truly wanted, that of a traveller and a writer. My secret dreams of being a digital nomad were buried deep and I had told no one.
But there it was, a sign of freedom. A sign of starting a new life, the way I really desired. Could I really do this? What did I have to lose? I had already lost everything in the second divorce, including my ability to have children and most of my possessions. I was nearing bankruptcy again, for the upteenth time in my life. My only blood relative was dying and I would be left with a decent inheritance to save me from financial ruin. And it could buy me time to figure out my situation, should I choose to embark on this new path.
I pushed down hope. Right now, I have a job that pays well and I don’t know what is next, I thought to myself. Still, I made an entry in my journal about the COTD. I recorded that event so I could remember later.
I stayed three more weeks with mom before taking my leave. We kept up our happy mother/daughter appearance to the world, as usual, during my stay. I lined up her healthcare directives and assumed full medical POA. Mom said I “had access” to all her financial accounts and could use any money I wished, as she was “dying”. However, she refused to address the topic of making me her financial POA as well. She wanted to keep her control.
Mom encouraged me to take my time driving back from Las Vegas to New Hampshire, telling me that money was not a problem for me to spend. I intended on holding her to that and using it to the fullest. I needed time to process my life and how I would move forward without her in it.
Leaving Las Vegas
The morning I took my leave of mom, I attempted one more time to have a meaningful exchange that was free of negativity and toxicity. But she was determined to not face the reality of me leaving. She put on her best nice act that quickly turned passive aggressive when I declined her offer to stay longer and be her live-in nurse. Allowing the space to absorb her palatable anger, rather than me, at not being able to sway my decision, I asked her if there was any final wisdom she would like to impart to me before I left for the last time.
“Don’t take no wampum from white men,” were her parting words. Thanks, mom. My educated, retired attorney mother was still spouting racist bullshit in an effort to be pithy and clever. It landed like a turd in a swimming pool. I stared at her, marinating in the awkward silence, waiting for her next pearl of wisdom to spout forth. She stared blankly back and waited for my reaction. I gave none. She nervously started fidgeting with her cigarette and lighter. I could tell she was searching for something to complain about to fill the quiet space that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with each moment. She flicked her Bic and deeply inhaled the first drag.
After a few minutes, I felt it was time. I took one last look at mom on her backyard throne, smoking the never-ending supply of Virginia Slims, presiding over her kingdom of filthy ashtrays and disheveled patio furniture. As I stood up to leave, I told her I loved her and it was time to go. Leaning over her age-shrinked frame, I hugged her goodbye. She tried one last time to convince me to stay. I told her I loved her, but I needed to leave and get back to my life. She meekly fired back her usual immediate retort to anything said to her, “I know.”
As I walked away from her, I felt a tightness well up in my throat and the beginning of tears well in my eyes, but continued forward. Shutting the door to the backyard as I entered the house gave me a tiny sense of separation from her. Walking through the kitchen, it occurred to me to take one last look through the house to remember the place I had designated hell on earth for the past decade. I was viewing the house for the final time, a sort of wake.
The tile of the single floor house had no area rugs to trip over, something I had cautioned against when mom first moved in years ago. The maroon modern decor chairs were definitely not safe for an elderly person with severe mobility limitations, as they relied on the occupier to have a sense of balance when initially sitting in them. But she insisted on keeping them, as she would say, “I’m dying, who cares.”
I went to her bedroom to take one last look at the sleek, modern white furniture she was so fond of. The smooth white MDF dresser and its chrome accents gave a sense of sterility. Except there was a faint lingering scent of carpet cleaner from a couple weeks before. I had her bedroom carpet shampooed to rid it of the overwhelming stench of urine I found when I first arrived. Mom insisted she hadn’t soiled herself on any of the falls from her bed. At least, not the ones she told me about. The medical alarm box sat on her nightstand, like a sentinel patiently waiting for the next 911 call. I fluffed her pillows and made her bed ready for her to slip into it, like a good little nurse.
Turning to leave her bedroom, I glanced inside her bathroom. The renovation she had done to it several years prior was standing the test of time. It still looked very good, despite the clutter. Smooth, grey marble tile lined the walk-in shower where her teak shower chair was stationed, waiting for her to sit on it during the next bathing. The potty seat that framed her toilet gave a friendly, helpful vibe that seemed to welcome a relaxing experience for its user. Various toiletries litter the countertop: lotions, wipes, adult diapers, toothbrush, etc.
I peeked inside one of the vanity drawers. Yep, they’re still there. The pack of limited-edition Camel filter cigarettes, still in their commemorative metal case within the protective Ziploc bag, lay in the drawer. For some reason, mom kept these. Ever since she bought the house in 2014, they occupied a place in her bathroom. They were an old pack of cigarettes she bought for me in 2000, long after I had quit smoking. At the time, she told me they were for “just in case”, as if she hoped I would return to the habit so she didn’t have to smoke alone. In her later years, I asked again why she still had them. She said it was in case she was stuck in the bathroom after a fall.
“But won’t you need a lighter?”, I asked.
“I always have one in my pocket.”, she would reply. Of course you do.
Her expectations drove so many of her behaviors. The cigarette stash was just one example of a life lived in fear. She expected to be stuck in the bathroom at some point, away from her precious Virginia Slims, after a fall. These substitute nicotine-delivery sticks would suffice until help arrived to rescue her from the inevitable future bathroom tumble. She wouldn’t replace the fall-risk living room chairs, but she could plan for a cigarette contingency in the bathroom. I shook my head as I exited her bathroom.
Walking less than ten feet led me to my (guest) bathroom. It had been renovated at the same time mom’s was done. Same decor: light grey marble tile, white melamine counter vanity, soft-close drawers. Except these drawers were almost bare. I had culled the contents during my stay, making the inevitable future clear out easier. What was left were some cotton pads and hair ties. The secret medicine cabinet (hidden behind a hung picture opposite the vanity) still housed all of mom’s old meds: compazine, ondansetron, OTC meds, ativan…valium from the 70’s. I didn’t have the patience to clear it all out and dispose of it. I just wanted out of that house.
A quick last glance into her office revealed the bare sewing table and closet left after the cleanout I had done the week before. Mom insisted I get rid of all her sewing things to make cleaning out easier once she died. Well, she took that view after I was firm about not taking any of it with me.
“But why?!? This is very expensive, high-quality sewing stuff!”
“Mom, I stuffed myself in a five-hundred square foot apartment that I pay thirteen hundred dollars a month for and can barely afford. I have zero time to learn to sew. Besides, when I get back to New Hampshire I have no idea what I am going to do. I may just end up rage-quitting my job, selling all my shit, and leaving the US for good. I hate my life and have nothing here or there to live for. Once you die, I have zero obligations to any living person. I want to travel for a while and see where I end up.” I was losing my filter. The truth was coming out.
“So you’re not going to take any of the things I’ve saved for you? Not even the pictures?!?”
“No. Not a goddamned thing.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“You never listened to me that I didn’t want any of this. This was everything YOU wanted. Not me. I don’t want your shit.”
This conversation replayed in my head as I looked at her computer station. Her laptop’s keyboard was crusted with…something, most likely food from her constant snacking at her computer (and licking her fingers) while she perused the Drudge Report and Fox news websites. The papers scattered around her desk were in disarray, completely the opposite of her carefully crafted sewing supply cabinet I had cleared out.
The final stop on the counter-clockwise tour of mom’s house was my room. The Murphy bed had been stowed, all the linens washed, and everything had been tidied up. The old, tiny TV from 1999 rested on the tall, slender chest of drawers that contained pictures of people I never knew but mom did, family members long gone. Everything was in its place and the room was ready to be laid to rest.
I never have to sleep here again, I thought to myself as I crossed the threshold back into the living room for the last time. Relief swept over me with each step I took away from the door.
I walked to the door leading to the garage and by now the emotion was welling in my throat. I took one last look towards the back porch and saw mom sitting on her throne, puffing away at another cigarette. The conflicting feelings were off the chart. Should I stay and care for her in her final days? Why was I leaving?? She needed me!
Wait, you have seen her for how she really is. You have had four weeks to fully immerse yourself in one last mom experience. She abuses you and treats you like shit. That is why you are leaving. The previous several years of therapy were speaking up in protest.
My intuition also spoke up. You know this won’t be the last time. She isn’t telling you everything. Think of all the clues. She isn’t acting like a hospice patient. She is manipulating everyone and using her terminal diagnosis to do so. Listen to yourself! You don’t owe her anything more. She chose to do this to herself. Save yourself!!
Swallowing my tears, I stepped through the garage threshold and walked into mom’s winter smoking refuge. In the middle of the space that used to house her Grand Marquis and my grandmother’s Lincoln mom inherited after grandma passed, I took in the atmosphere one more time. The half-filled ashtray, the scooter mom got in protest after I insisted she stopped driving and get rid of her cars, the long-expired food stored on wire shelving, the top-loading washer and dryer ...everything in there reeked of cigarette smoke. I never have to smell like her ashtray again, I thought to myself.
I walked out of the garage and left mom’s house for what I tried to convince myself was the last time. I punched the keypad on the side of the garage and listened to the door close as I walked to my car and climbed in. Feeling the old familiarity of my trusty CX-5, I settled into Bessie’s driver’s seat and took a moment to watch the garage door fully close on a chapter of my life.
Driving away from moms’s house, Bessie’s ancient bluetooth connection argued with my new iPhone. Eventually, they came to an agreement that allowed me to listen to the playlist I had curated for the occasion. As Sheryl Crow belted out “Leaving Las Vegas”, I hoped this was my final visit to hell.
