"When I called my mother one afternoon from Sing Sing, she told me that her aide, a woman I'll call Rosa, had pulled a mortgage scam and put her name on the deed to Mom's Fort Lauderdale condo. Mom also claimed that Rosa was poisoning her. If she died, Mom made me promise, I must demand an autopsy."
"I've been locked up in New York prisons for almost twenty-five years, and for the same amount of time, Mom's been in her own prison, suffering from Parkinson's, a degenerative brain disease that affects the central nervous system. Different versions of the above scene-me calling Mom from a phone on the cellblock tier, the din of PA announcements and asylum-like yelling in the background; Mom telling me about her nightmares as her shaky thumb bounces off the receiver, tap, tap, tap -have played on a loop for years."
"Rosa was my mother's newest aide. When I spoke to Rosa, she sounded nice enough. Still, Mom's claims about the mortgage scam got me paranoid. I'd seen commercials warning about them on TV, even talked to fraudsters in here who told me Mom was the perfect mark. So I called my older brother, J., and told him my concerns. He typed Mom's condo address into the Broward County lookup to see whose name was currently on the deed. Any changes? No, J. said, Mom's name was still there."
"Mom's delusions have worsened over the years. To relieve the tremors and the rigidity that freezes their mouths and curls their hands into claws, Parkinson's patients take L-dopa, a medication that increases dopamine. As her disease has progressed, Mom's had to up the dose to kee"
A man calls his mother from prison and hears escalating accusations that her aide, Rosa, committed a mortgage scam by placing her name on the deed to her Fort Lauderdale condo. The mother also claims Rosa is poisoning her and insists that if she dies, her son must demand an autopsy. The son feels distressed and helpless, having spent nearly twenty-five years incarcerated while his mother suffers Parkinson’s, a degenerative brain disease affecting the central nervous system. The son becomes paranoid after hearing about mortgage scams and consults his brother, who checks county records and finds the mother’s name still on the deed. The mother’s delusions worsen as her Parkinson’s progresses and her medication dose increases.
Read at Esquire
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