It was after she had stopped using the bathtub to take baths. She couldn’t manage getting in and out of the tub, even with my assistance. I was not strong enough just to lift her, wet and slippery, out of the tub. She wanted to take showers with my assistance, but immediately noticed the mold on the ceiling of the shower in our bathroom. It was a walk-in shower, but she wouldn’t use it with the mold over her head. We had to go to the guest bathroom on the first floor, which had an enclosed shower in a tub. And no mold.
Laura’s reaction to and struggle with the mold in the shower expresses both a common theme in Laura’s approach to the world and a portent of her dying. Laura was always cleaning. I would tidy, make things neater, simpler. Laura liked that, but she also wanted them clean. I could tolerate dust. She couldn’t. I wouldn’t vacuum or sweep a floor until I saw dirt. Before her cancer, Laura vacuumed the house at least once a week, whether it needed it or not, in my view. She washed the kitchen floor at least once a week. Laura cleaned the toilets every week. Laura washed the sheets every weekend. Laura took a bath or shower every evening. She scrubbed down the bathtub before every bath.
Mold on the ceiling of the shower offended every one of Laura’s sensibilities. We had not been using the shower stall in our master bathroom for years. During a drought in the early 00s we started sharing bathwater. We were on a well and needed to conserve water.
The mold that had grown in the shower stall during the years of disuse not only offended her, it threatened her. Mold represents decay, things falling apart. She was working hard to hold on to her own integrity and didn’t need to shower in a stall that was breaking down.
When I said that I could scrub the mold off (which in fact I did later), she insisted that the ceiling be replaced and a vent fan installed. I had an electrician come out to look at the situation and give me an estimate of what a new ceiling with fan might cost. He said he would do the job once he finished some bigger jobs. He never got back to me and I had more pressing matters to deal with. Laura used the tub-shower in the guest bathroom until she became too weak to negotiate the step into that tub. Then I started giving her sponge baths, but I never found a way to keep her warm during the process. Finally the hospice nurse gave her real sponge baths. Laura also forgot about the mold on the shower ceiling, and I didn’t remind her.
YOU ARE READING
Not right, nor orderly.
Non-FictionThe phrase "not right, nor orderly" comes from John Donne's poem, "An Anatomie of the World," written on the first anniversary of "the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury," the 14 year old daughter of his patron, Sir Robert Drury. The poet u...
