Susan MacLeod on What She Learned from Visiting Her Mother in a Nursing Home

This beautiful essay by Susan MacLeod about the way her visits to her mother in a nursing home transformed their relationship is illuminating and deeply moving.

Repelling what we don’t want is misguided. This is one of the first things I learned on my Buddhist path. The starting point of the path is suffering, and sickness, old age, and death require peaceful abiding, rather than hope, fear, or especially ignorance.

Unconsciously, my meditation practice began to express itself in everyday life and became present in this situation as well. Albeit reluctantly, I made my way to see Mom regularly. Like meditation, it took discipline. I was always uneasy, not knowing what to expect, how to act, what to do, what to say. I also carried an underlying anger that I was the sibling stuck doing it.

Despite all this, I knew it was important to remain open for Mom’s sake, as at some level I loved her deeply, beyond the itch of aggravation. So I began to slow down to see what was really going on....When I slowed down to be fully with Mom, I also saw more depth in the nursing home experience than I had expected. People who live in nursing homes are full of life. Beneath the restrictions of their diminishing physicality and cognition, their spirit is often strong; I know my mother’s was. And the more I visited her, the stronger and more loving she became. She would break out in a joyful grin whenever she saw me walk down the corridor, a far cry from the critical look up and down or remark about my unruly hair that I was used to from her.

Her fellow residents began to show me who they were too. Rather than rush by them, speeding to get to my mother’s room and its relative safety, I started to actually see them. I began to greet each one. I learned their names and something about them so we could converse regularly. We made jokes with each other. I would often find myself with a smile on my face looking across the dining room as I helped Mom eat, the complete opposite of the look of horror I first wore when sitting in that room....I have read this quote in my Buddhist studies: “Fear is the natural reaction to nearing the truth. It may all come down to fear of death. Or fear of tenderness. Smile at fear, make friends with it. When we look at fear with gentleness, it’s not solid.”