Author Archives: deirdremendoza

After the fall and the surgery and the two-week stay at a rehab in Glendale that had a dastardly circus atmosphere, after the subsequent falls and contusions, and after the guilt about making bad decisions on her behalf and trusting the wrong people, and after the pain and suffering and anguish of not being ableContinue reading “Hieroglyphs”

We meet, Emily and I, and my Chihuahua mix Pippa, in front of Trails, in the park. We hug tightly because it’s a chilly morning and we have missed each other, even though it’s only been two weeks. I look her over, and she looks me over, and I always decide she’s beautiful and muchContinue reading “Women Walking and Talking”

Thursday nights, when my dad met his boys for tennis at the 59th Street courts, followed by burgers and drinks at PJ Clark’s, the ladies gathered in the living room to talk about the breakdown of communication in their marriages, the insidious and daily oppression they felt, the depression and malaise in the absence ofContinue reading “My Mother Was a Feminist”

In 2013, I come undone.  Medias res. I escape to the farthest reach of North America. I fly through Ontario to St. John’s, and then I’m picked up at the airport and driven to Grates Cove, a silent, bite-sized hamlet, known for being the most northerly community on Canada’s Avalon Peninsula. I am here forContinue reading “Medias Res”

Following protocol, the nurses in the post-op rehabilitation center in Beverly Hills had tied my mother to the wheelchair with a bedsheet that circled her waist and crossed her chest like a makeshift toga. The restraint was knotted in the back of the chair, leaving her arms free, though her pale veiny arms had noContinue reading “After the Fall II: The Dancer Could Not Dance”

An 80-year-old woman, a former dancer and actress, a runway, catalog, and designer’s fit model, a tennis player, swimmer, and walker in fashionable heels, a gardener who preferred to dig with her hands and kneel at the foot of azalea beds, fell from her narrow twin bed at 6 AM on a Friday in 2016,Continue reading “Free Falling (Part I)”

I often found my mother seated with Roger in the lounge, chatting as if it didn’t matter than she was 15 years older than he and subsumed by a later stage of the disease. Or as if talking about anything at all was a primal ask for connection that all creatures would instinctively manage when placed in close proximity. They could have been dolphins, turtles, or tigers. Creatures who somehow recognized in each other that which had now been buried.

Many nights, while other fourth and fifth graders were sneaking flashlights into bed or fighting with their siblings, I was up ‘til 11 or so – I remember hearing the heavy male voices reading headlines from the 11 o’clock News.  I was up reading lines from Neil Simon or Pericles, (which Pat would later performContinue reading “2. My Mother Was an Actress”

Nine-to-five moms, moms who wore tailored office outfits, moms who looked at their newfangled digital watches, or sent nannies to pick up the kids, were still unusual in New York City of the early 1970s.  (Ms. magazine wasn’t launched until the end of ‘71). Emily’s mom raised a family of four and made marble sculptures. Continue reading “1. My Mother Was an Actress”

  According to an article in the Journal of New England Medicine, there is general agreement that Alzheimer’s disease will become a crisis by the middle of the century. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 5 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s disease and that their loved ones devote nearly 18 billion hours annually toward their care.Continue reading “now is all there is”