My Mom likes elephants. She always has, so, over the years, we kids have all given her elephants to add to her collection. Every Christmas, and each of her birthdays, one of us kids would manage to slip in an elephant of some kind. She displayed them all, the hand made elephant coffee mug, the row of tiny green ones trailing each other across a bookshelf, a big one carved from exotic wood on the floor, a three dimensional tin one hanging on the wall and a small ceramic one with a big smile who sat happily on a little swing just above the sink.
Now Mom, being the woman that she was, would never had let on that perhaps, her love of elephants didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to be given an elephant at every gift giving opportunity, nor did that love of pachyderms mean that she wanted her house to be turned into a shrine for the things…no, Mom, being the woman she was, loved the gifts and proudly displayed them all, and we were never told whether, in fact, she really loved them THAT much.
It was more important to her to show off the gifts that her children were thoughtful (or unimaginative) enough to continually give her. That was Mom. She was always the one thinking about what would make all of us happy and feel special, even at her own expense.
It wasn’t just elephants though. She had inherited a commemorative spoon collection from her mother-in-law, and over the years each of us would dutifully buy a spoon wherever we travelled. My brother, while he was in the Navy, definitely won the prize for bring back spoons from the most exotic places, but my sister and I did our share to add to the collection. I even found one in Florida that had elephants on it…what a score! These too, my Mom carefully displayed in wall racks.
I found out though, that perhaps she didn’t quite have the love for spoons that she had for elephants when, after I returned from a trip to Chicago, with new spoon in hand my Mom said, gently, ‘Thank you, but I’m not sure that I have space for any more spoons.” I may be limited as far as my gift-giving prowess, but I can recognize a hint.
No more spoons.
That was also about the time that we all started noticing that Mom was no longer quite as interested in a lot of things that she used to love. It was subtle at first, little things like the types of books she was reading, shifting from dense English History tomes to lighter mysteries, albeit the Brother Cadfel mysteries were set in middle ages Britain…but the change was there.
Other things changed as well. She stopped doing needlepoint, and her quilting passion diminished from sewing beautiful, intricately patterned bed-sized quilts to sewing together the occasional small decorative wall hanging to display as part of her themed bathroom. She stopped watching movies or staying up late to watch Letterman. Crosssticks puzzles were left half finished…things were changing.
These changes continued until they demonstrated an undeniable pattern that lead to a series of difficult and sad transitions…and painful choices for my sister and I. Mom could no longer drive. Mom could no longer live alone. Mom needed care givers. Mom needed to move into assisted living.
The other weekend, we moved Mom to a more dedicated care facility and had to once more pack her things away as the new facility had far less space. There was precious little space for more than a bed, a side table and a TV cabinet that now was heavily laden with family photos in a vain hope that they would somehow seem ‘homey’ and familiar.
But no more room for elephants.
So, in the process of packing her remaining possessions, I filled a box with a collection of carefully wrapped elephants…including a set of tiny green ones trailing each other, a 3-D tin one that hung on the wall and a smiling one who happily sat on a swing. The box went into the garage and will eventually go into storage where someday, some future relative, possibly who will never have met my Mom, will open the box marked “Mom’s Elephants” and will unwrap each of the carefully wrapped elephants and wonder why such care was taken for a collection of such worthless little things.
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