ON AGING

My 85 year-old mother [AMD] is shrinking. She's the height of an ewok. She suffers from mania, a form of depression she developed to cope with my dad's death one year ago.  I visited her last week and witnessed her episodic sixteen hour days. As the most spirited member of the Council on Aging in her hometown, she engages in espionage, intrigue, and clandestine operations to achieve her daily goals, especially for her favorite activity, dancing.

For example, the weekly early morning  dance held each week at the senior center is suffering from low attendance and poor financing. I suspect the lack of attendance may be attributed to the demise of aged participants. All attendees must fork over $5.00 to pay for the band. Low attendance equals no music. To increase attendance, AMD telephones reminders to elderly friends, kidnaps somewhat mobile victims from the assisted living home, and chases down forlorn widowers who roam the streets. To those who do not wish to attend, she says, "I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes." Satisfied with her group of deathbed renegades, she dons festive clothing and elegantly bodacious jewelry and even creates costumes for weekly contests. Thus far, she has won "Most Original," "Most Creative," "Best Dressed," and "Most Spirited."

But during my visit, she was named Queen! What I thought was a cute title blossomed into events tantamount to the Emmys. While I attended to other family activities, AMD conned my sister into helping her dress in a white beaded gown so she could participate, uninvited, in the formal evening Sugar Queen Festival presentation of Queens [18-22 years old] representing parishes of Louisiana, and the selection and coronation of Queen Sugar. She manuevered her way backstage and sweet-talked the director of the event. Following the presentation of junior queens, AMD, twirling her jeweled cane, sashayed up to the microphone and said, "I, AMD, from Loreauville, am proud to represent the Council on Aging, in the 2009 LA Sugar Cane Festival." My sister said that the audience went crazy, clapping and cheering, and professional photographers' flashbulbs sounded like the paparazzi.

And there's more. I planned to accompany AMD to mass in our town, but she requested that we attend the Queen's mass in New Iberia. I escorted her to a pew in church; [she insisted on sitting in the row behind all of the 30 parish queens], then I waited in front of church to witness the arrival of the royal entourage. Suddenly, I witnessed twenty policemen on motorcycles, speeding down the street in two flanks, sirens screaming. Frozen with fear, I swallowed a valium and tried to think how quickly I could evacuate AMD from the impending disaster. Then, the queen's entourage arrived behind their police escort. Thirty young women, greeted by Festival dignitaries, filed into the church. Joining AMD in the pew, I was aghast at the size and ingenuity of those crowns!  Each massive crown boasted the insignia of the parish festival: Catfish, Strawberry, Frog, Crawfish, Yam, Duck, etc. I decided this was a fitting end to a grand weekend.

Not so . . . . AMD informed me that at 2:00 she would ride in a convertible in the Queen's Parade. I was mortified! Eighty degrees, muggy weather, a two hour ride, thousands of spectators. That would defy reason. I stood my ground. I said, "In the interest of your health, you cannot particpate." I may as well have tried to stop an incoming trident missle with my bare hands. Before I could scream,
"Vous etes fou!" I was helping her into a turquoise beaded gown, a foot high crown, and a good set of Depends. I drove her to Torrido Village, greeted the driver, gave him my cell number, taped a turquoise boa to the convertible, set two cups of crushed ice, her sceptre, and an umbrella on the seat next to her, and prayed for divine intervention. AMD returned two hours later, weary, but held up, as she said, "by the accolades of the masses." What a woman.

[Picture of AMD, at 20, wearing hula skirt, posing on the banks of the Bayou Teche c. 1944.] Her words during my adolescence still ring in my ear, "Remember to dress as a model of the Blessed Virgin Mary," which possibly explains my eccentric, Bohemian wardrobe.