M. Pickerel

Six years ago, a senior artist friend moved to a public nursing home. Her health required more supervision than family, friends or neighbours could provide. Three years ago, an exhibition of her art was organized at the facility, complete with invitations, a reception and guest speakers. Bronze figurines, wooden busts and works on paper were placed all over the main reception lobby and common areas. Speeches addressed her creative process and its influence. People shared stories about their friendship. The finger food was great; it felt like a celebration. In this mix of artists, residents and health care staff, Martha sat in her wheelchair, wearing a white sweater and yellow print skirt. Feted by all this attention, she seemed bright, happy and enjoying herself. At the end of the talks, a queue formed to congratulate, hug her. I knew she no longer recognized me. Still, it is an adjustment. When my turn in line came, all I said was: “Hello, I own a piece of your work.” She smiled and replied: “Oh good, I’m glad somebody has one.” Then I just left for the next person to approach. At the time, she was already, shifting in and out of memory loss. Interested and coherent one moment– afterwards, when she was taken back to her room, the entire evening had been forgotten.

Recently our mutual friend Fiona told me that Martha is now in palliative care. Bedridden most of the time, there is little response towards anyone except for the repetition of sounds. Fiona thinks Martha’s decline is a result of few visitors. Since the joyful occasion in honor of her work, there have only been sporadic visits throughout the year from a handful of guests. This recalled memories of my own grandmother who died last June. A week prior to her death, seven family members came on a Sunday visit. We grouped around her wheelchair and played a game of “name that person.” My aunt Linda pointed at me and cheerfully asked her, “Who’s that? Do you know who she is?” My grandmother paused. Then in dawning triumph, declared: “Jean, right? That’s Jean isn’t it?” Sounds of approbation mingled with our applause, Grandma beaming with pleasure because she got it right. My aunt then pointed at another person, and so on around the room. During intervals, Grandma reviewed her identifications on her own. She had visitors every week. She was articulate and present at 97 years old, right up to the end. I thought about this in contrast to Martha, who is now 80 years old. Her family is mysteriously absent for whatever reason. I’ve neglected to see her for a while. I’m not going to lie; my absence is avoidance. Martha shares too many similarities with me that are hard to ignore. In her, I fear my own potential future– what could eventually happen to another single, childless, low-income woman artist.

Fiona plans on her next visit, to arrive during a meal time because Martha needs help to be fed. I think that’s when I broke. When Martha stopped recognizing people– to me, she had already gone. The fact that Fiona, was still willing to attend, to care for and about her in whatever capacity without reciprocation, interrupted my dominant regard for Martha as a feared example. I began to actually remember our friendship, astonished that the recollections had been so dormant. The spicy chili suppers she cooked for me. The glorious Constable sky and countryside we enjoyed when she drove another friend and I out of town to see a play. The way she sighed: “Aren’t they marvelous?” when I admired the fragrant lilacs blooming over her patio. The time she told me that the translation of her Jewish last name was “pickerel.” How she chuckled whenever I phoned and asked to speak to “Martha Pickerel.” The three of us– Fiona, Martha and I– all working in our own studios at the same warehouse.

After I spoke to Fiona, I visited Martha the next day. She was in her room, dozing in a wheelchair with a rather loud television on. The nurse woke her, turned the chair around to face me and asked if she recognized “this nice lady.” When Martha saw me, she gave a bright “Ho ” and then lapsed immediately back into herself. All her life, Martha owned cats. She once had two remarkable ones, whose girth I could never stop staring at whenever she invited me over for dinner. For this visit to the nursing home, I brought my sketchbook. I opened it towards her and quietly flipped through ten pages filled with drawings I’d done of my own, gently corpulent cat Amelia. Art was the only solace I could think of to give her. I also thought it might provide the presence of an animal, in the remote chance that, if not the contact of one in the flesh, then at least a token representative. During a symposium on Creativity and Memory, a professor once remarked that art precedes language; creativity endures despite neurological damage or the impact of illness and disease, especially on those parts of the brain associated with ordinary or commonplace functions. I don’t know if this helps or does anything for Martha now. She stared at the drawings without any expression. But at one point, she raised her right hand and moved the index finger up and down. It could have been an involuntary gesture. Perhaps she was just shooing the book, or me, away. The visit lasted 10 minutes before the nurse wheeled her off to the dining room. A part of me wants to believe that when her finger moved up and down, she was scratching the head of an imaginary cat. More visits will determine whether or not that’s true.