Maiming Jean, Memory & Forgiveness

This afternoon, I pulled out nail trimming & grooming supplies & perched on a stool next to the bed to take care of my mother Jean’s nails. 

Sitting on the stool, I went after her left hand first.  It is the hand most affected by her Parkinson’s, several fingers are extremely uncooperative, but slowly, I trimmed her nails & cleaned the remains underneath & tried in my inept way (there is a reason I used to be a regular at a nail salon) to shape them with an Emory board.

The doorbell rang & our manicure session was interrupted by the home health care nurse, the effervescent & charming Sheila. 

As Sheila interacted with Jean, I sat nearby & started to re-read The Velveteen Rabbit because of a post by my friend Jo-Ann McCoy.

Before Sheila left, she was laughing at something Jean said & I was adamant about what bandage I wanted her to use (I had the bandage, but I have learned over the years that it is best not to confess to home health care that my sister keeps me the best equipped home health care giver in history). 

Besides, it is the bandage Jean’s wound care doctor & nurse wrote in their orders.

After Sheila left, I moved the stool to Jean’s right side & began to trim the nails on her right hand.  All went well until I reached her pinky.

And I cut her finger with the clippers. 

Suddenly I was thirty or thirty six & cutting a baby’s nails & nipped a piece of flesh & it seemed to bleed forever.  I cleaned it – I bandaged it,  I cried & apologized & it still kept bleeding.

It seemed to me that the nick was bleeding forever.

I went extreme & called Sheila of our Home Health Care Service & she calmed me down, gave me instructions.  Instructions I already knew & was following.  I wanted someone to tell me that I had not maimed my mother, that Jean was not going to bleed to death.

Of course, the bleeding stopped & I put on a bandage & gave Jean a choice of leftovers from lunch or yogurt & fruit.  She chose yogurt & fruit (raspberries) & after I tossed it with honey, I grated dark Ghirardelli chocolate into the mix.

Still feeling guilty.

As Jean ate, I finished reading The Velveteen Rabbit.  Pondering about the nicks & wounds we inflict on those we love, on those we encounter, on those with whom we share time & space & memories.

I did not remember buying The Velveteen Rabbit for either of my sons.  So I went back to the pages where people (like me) write an inscription.

The inscription reads simply:  87  Merry Christmas Nick.

No signature.  At first I was at a loss who gave this book to my son Nicholas in 1987. 

I spent a ridiculous amount of time & energy trying to remember, trying to determine who gave my son such a lovely book without leaving a signature.  I have my suspicions, based on the handwriting & timeline & the 87, written with a line across the middle of the seven, in European fashion.

Of course, in the end, I realize that it does not matter who gifted the book back in 1987 without a signature.  The gift, the book, is still lovely.

But there is a part of me, not a nick on a pinky, but something deeper, a bit buried, that longs to remember & grieves for not knowing.  

Jean forgave the pinky nick I inflicted this evening.  I am sure she has forgiven much deeper, longer lasting wounds I have inflicted on her in the last six decades.   But Jean is a much finer person than I.

Because I cannot seem to find it in me to forgive the person who gave my son a book & wrote a date but did not offer a signature.   Anymore than I can forgive myself for not remembering.