I lean over the tub and turn on the faucets.  Hot then cold then hot again, negotiating a pool of warm.  Not too much bubble bath -she might slip.  Her body is taut and inflexible, muscles atrophied following a massive stroke.  She is 52 years old.  I am 12.  She is my mother.  Now, along with my father, I am her caretaker.  Bathing her is my job.   

Her one good arm hooks around my neck, our hands interlock.  Her other arm is stuck in a perpetual arc.  I brace her back and help her sit on the side of the tub.  Hugging her cheek to cheek, I lift her right leg, the paralyzed one, into the tub.  She places her left leg in the water and slowly we descend.  We do this without talking; her brain has been sucked dry of oxygen and language.  She can say only one word, "me."

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appeared in Northern Ohio Live, March 2003