Essays

The Trouble With Bodies

By Donna Hemans

The first time I bathe my mother, she pushes away my hand with the warm soapy rag, and then tries to take the rag and clean herself. But she has forgotten how to move the cloth against her skin and instead she waves it aimlessly, trying to wipe the handles of the walker but touching nothing but air. Water drips to the floor.

She’s just come home from another stint in the hospital—four days this time—and it isn’t clear whether she is resisting me, or the nurse she imagines me to be. She’s thinner now, frail too, her body ravaged by illness and her legs too weak to hold herself up for long. Sometimes she needs help moving. But what she hasn’t lost is the fight for control over her body. She’s fighting both me and her body’s betrayal.