“I sure did, Mom, just to be with you.” I rest my hand on one of hers and notice how sticky and dirty it is and realize no one washed her frail clenched fists during the bath. All the times she made me wash my hands as a little girl come to mind. I fill a bowl with warm water, grab a cloth from the heap of dirty laundry, and begin cleaning my mother’s open palms.
I slowly begin to relax from the trauma of the bath, and Mom, now heavily medicated, seems to have already forgotten the agony of the experience. When I ask if I can sing to her, she nods, so I begin. On about the third song, she interrupts, mumbling, “Do you still use the word poofle-berry?” What a weird question to ask out of the blue. I chuckle. This is what Mom called farts when we were growing up, and it became a well-used word around our house.
“No, Mom, but it’s still one of my favorite words.” Without opening her eyes, she smiles. Soon she is asleep, and I tiptoe out.
On the last day of my visit, Mom stays in bed. Most of the aides avoid her now. Apparently when she slugged one of the aides during her bath yesterday, she injured the aide and word has spread. By now, I am ready to bust Mom out of this swanky $3,500 a month place that allows an old woman in pain to not be bathed for over four days, nor have her adult diaper changed regularly, slugger or not. But her quick decline indicates that it is time to call hospice, which I have been encouraged to do by the hospitalist. A hospice intake person is scheduled for that afternoon.
Mom skips lunch entirely, except, of course, for the slice of lemon cake on her bed tray. I willingly feed it to her. A nurse slips in to keep Mom’s pain meds cranked up. Mom sleeps soundly while I sit beside her bed and read, occasionally running my hand through her cottony hair. That curl she always positioned at the top of her high forehead is long gone. I cannot even guess when her hair was last washed. Of course, it doesn’t matter now, but I try to fix it a little, just to keep her from looking like such a crazy old lady.
I am in the last hour of my visit here with Mom, and it is hard to know if I will ever see her again. How much longer will she live? Is she going to die here? Will anyone be with her? I feel exhausted, confused, and helpless. I am desperate for comfort and don’t want to start crying, despite the urge. Maybe I should sing. I clear my throat, and begin:
May peace be with you.
Peace be with you now.
May peace be with you always.
Peace be with you now and always.
While singing, the hospice person knocks softly and enters the room. I turn and gesture a hello-and-wait-just-a-moment signal, so I can stay with these tender moments a while longer. The gentleman stands politely off to the side as I continue singing, starting the song’s second verse.
“May love be with you …”
Suddenly, straight out of her deep and drugged slumber, Mom opens her eyes, looks directly past me at the hospice guy, and announces in a low, snarly voice, “I told her she better sing to me when I’m dyin’!”
Then her eyes snap shut.
I blink, not sure what just happened. After a slight hesitation, I pick the song back up and try to slip back into that sweet place I was just in. I recall how not five months ago Mom commanded me to sing to her when she was dying. Looks like she meant it.
… Love be with you now.
May love be with you always.
Love be with you now and always.27
When I finish the song, Mom’s breathing sounds like she is sleeping deeply. I linger, kissing her on the forehead before quietly leaving to talk with the hospice man. In the doorway, I pause and look back, but Mom never opens her eyes.
The following morning, I reluctantly fly back to Colorado, my heart and mind tight in a tangle about love, family, and how to be a good and compassionate daughter while also being true to myself.
Mom stayed in bed all the next day, unresponsive. Early the morning after, she died. She’d had her last bath, her last dessert, the last word—and her last song.
MOM’S EULOGY
May, 2015 (age 62)—Whitesboro, Texas
It’s pouring rain with floods forecast for parts of north Texas. My sisters and I have reserved an old church converted to a venue for weddings and funerals for Mom’s memorial. The colorful stained-glass windows aren’t as brilliant during stormy weather except when a bolt of lightning flashes. Mom always told me how I entered the world by the light of a kerosene lantern during a big thunderstorm right when the hospital electricity went out. The way it’s thundering now, maybe I should have a lantern handy for her exit.
There are fewer people than we expected, probably because of the heavy rain. My heart swells seeing the sweet faces of my two grandsons with Shawn and his wife. As I stand to talk about my mom, I notice the faces of nieces and nephews and some of their children lit up by the screens of their cell phones. I remember one Thanksgiving when they admitted to texting one another while we were all in the same room together. “Ah, get on with my story,” I can hear my mom prodding. I turn to that page of the memorial service and begin.
“Rosalie was one of the most important women in my life. Did she always make choices and do things the way I would have liked her to? Nope. Did I make all the choices she would have wanted or do things her way? Absolutely not. But I love my life, and my mom and my dad both influenced many of my life choices. Writing my mom’s story and telling it today feels really important to me.
“Have no doubt about it, our mom, Rosalie, was a toothpick wielding, cantankerous kind of gal. Never mind that she raised three young daughters in frilly, starched, crisply ironed dresses to be near picture-perfect, later seeing us each through a pageant of some sort. Living with Mom in her late eighties, she could barely stand that I didn’t iron my clothes, or worse, Bill’s, or for that matter, our bed sheets. And she could go on and on about this while sitting at the kitchen table with Bill and me, a toothpick skillfully hanging in the corner of her mouth, punctuating her scolding with a healthy belch and a sassy smile.
“Cleanliness was next to godliness per Rosalie. When Mom announced it was Clorox Day, Bill and I skedaddled to open windows and close doors between our living space and hers. The fumes still seeped through, making our eyes water. As Mom soaked, rinsed, and squeezed her whites, it was as though she felt herself inching closer to heaven, where, she surely believed, even God wore pure white.
“To know Rosalie is to know her strong country roots. She adored her parents, Chester and Clare, who grew up, met, and married in nearby Marysville, Texas, a tiny town that boasted a church, a one-room schoolhouse, and a dry goods store. Her grandparents migrated to this area in the early to mid-1800s and lived and died in, or close to, Marysville, buried in the cemetery still there, one of their homes now on a historic register. These grandparents tended crops and raised and sold farm animals. Rosalie’s daddy, Chester, picked cotton. Her mother, Clare, with a respectful eighth grade education, became the teacher in Marysville.
“Chester and Clare first homesteaded in Marysville and had two children in this north Texas territory, not an hour south of the Red River and Oklahoma. More work possibilities took them to Vernon, Texas, where they had two more children, one being Rosa Lee, named after Aunts Rose and Hattie Lee. Mom says her teachers often wrote her name as “Rosalie,” so as she grew older she began to use that spelling. Later, Mom’s younger sister was born.
“Two of the five children died, one from spinal meningitis and the other from diphtheria, and shortly after Rosalie’s daddy almost died of typhoid fever. Family, friends, and total strangers assisted the young, grieving family and helped their daddy to survive. Mom says her parents never forgot this, and she often described how they might have become well off later in their lives had her parents not given away so much and helped others in need of any kind, just like people had helped them.
“While Rosalie’s daddy was ill and unable to walk due to nerve damage, her mom became a cleaning lady. Once Chester could manage with crutches, he got a job washing dishes, and then became the café’s cook.
Several years later, they moved to Borger, Texas, where he worked in a Carbon plant, and found the family a home with their first indoor bathroom. Marysville was the go-to place for any trips: over the hills and through the woods to grandmothers’ houses they did go. Mom loved these visits to Marysville, and she wrote about them in cheerful detail in her journal.
“A few years and another move later, Rosalie’s parents decided to buy a home in the then bustling town of Gainesville, Texas. There, in the ninth grade, Rosie met Billy Joe, the new boy in school. She was fifteen, he seventeen. Though she flirted plenty, he was shy and didn’t talk much. But he sure was handsome, so pretty Rosie didn’t let up. Less than a year later, Joe moved again, another family following work in the oil fields. He and Rosie corresponded, and she soon learned Joe had lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy to “see the world.” This was 1940. He was not even eighteen.
“As Rosie played and partied through her senior year of high school, Joe became an aircraft mechanic on Navy aircraft carriers, not one year later landing in Pearl Harbor the very day after it had been bombed, Joe now eighteen years old. He was assigned to the USS Enterprise, the ship that became the most sought by the Japanese, and also the most decorated during this devastating war.
“Rosalie, like other Americans, kept up with the news from papers and radio, and distracted herself with friends, high school activities, and the latest styles. She was a happy young girl, beloved by her parents and her younger sister, who became her best friend for life. At the close of the school year, she was elected Most Popular Girl at Gainesville High School.
“She and Joe continued their correspondence during her senior year, and from his battleship, Joe sent an engagement ring. Rosalie declined, not willing to miss the parties and dating her last year of high school. But soon after graduation, she said all the boys disappeared—off to war. Rosalie started working, first at a five and dime store, and next a bank. Then, without warning, sailor Joe showed up and proposed in person—handsome in his crisp, all white Navy uniform. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ Rosalie journaled, ‘and seeing each other again rekindled the spark of love … We became officially engaged.’ The two had several weeks together before Joe departed yet again.
“These were war times, and life could change quickly. In remote Marysville, both sets of Rosalie’s grandparents, after being in the area for almost a century, were forced to sell their homestead farms to the government for an army base that would soon cover hundreds of acres around Marysville. Heartbroken, they and many others had to move into towns and adapt to an unfamiliar way of life. After the war, if people were able, they could buy back their land, now littered with army barracks, but few were able to do so by then—to suddenly pick up where they had left off. Everything changed with the war.
“Rosalie’s life changed hugely as well at this time. She abruptly quit writing her life story in her journal soon after she boarded a train for a two-day trip to Seattle to meet and marry Joe, who was there on temporary leave from war. The train was packed with soldiers, and eighteen-year-old Rosie, wearing spike heels that tied at the ankles and a stunning, stylish red coat, barely questioned where her life was heading. When her husband headed back to his ship, she returned to Gainesville and had a beautiful baby girl, who was eighteen months old when Joe finally returned home from war.
“Joe remained in the military for twenty-one years. They had two more girls, and together Rosalie and Joe lived in six different geographical locations, including Japan, during their first fifteen years of marriage. Imagine a thirty-year-old young woman, in 1956, driving alone from Wichita Falls to Seattle, Washington, then flying on to Japan, with three young girls, ages three, seven, and eleven.
“Isolated from her birth family she so loved, and the many friends she once enjoyed, the once bubbly, popular Rosie became familiar with loneliness and depression. But, she says, she always strived to be a good mother and also a supportive and attractive wife, concerned about extra pounds until her very last year of life. In her fifties, with a tremendous amount of grief, she buried her parents and best-friend-sister, then later her brother, and two years ago, her husband Joe.
“I guess Rosalie earned the right to be sassy, dangle that toothpick, and belch as loudly as she wanted. She loved to flirt, be playful, have a lot of friends, and eat whatever she wanted. She skipped decades of being comfortable or being able to do these things. Her eyes still brightened in this last year on seeing a grandchild or great-grandchild, having a daughter come for a visit, playing coy with a son-in-law and, most of all, eyeing whatever was for dessert.
“Along the way, Rosalie tenaciously figured out ways to slip ‘happy’ into her life—from loving her cats and dogs, to watching birds at her birdfeeder, to telling stories, to sewing something absolutely perfectly, to working at a university health center, to making crafts, to finding people who loved her, to poetry, to salt, to candy, to raw onions, to weight-watching clubs, to her faith in God.
“I have no doubt that she is happy right now, with her beloved parents and sister, with all the friends she wants, with Joe as well, and absolutely beside her loving God, who, undoubtedly, is dressed in pure white.”
JUST LIKE THAT
2012-2017 (ages 60-65)—Houston, Texas
Talli and I are driving back to Alamosa after camping out for three days in northern New Mexico. Once in cell phone range, I notice several calls from Gene.
“Wonder what that’s about,” I say. “He knew I was going camping with you and would be out of contact.”
I pull over and listen to the messages, urging me to call back as soon as possible. Professional as always, my beloved friend and former therapist, whom I’ve known and cherished for fifteen years, sounds distressed. I call but end up having to leave a message. Gene calls back promptly the next morning.
He has received a mandate from the Licensing Board in Austin to terminate his forty-five years of practice as a professional counselor. This also means he has to cease and desist contact immediately with everyone with whom he has ever had a professional relationship.
I knew Gene had gone through an array of tests for Alzheimer’s, the same disease his mother died from. Last year he told me the tests showed he was doing well and it appeared things were going okay with him, though he recently announced his impending retirement. I didn’t press for details. I had noticed a few things, however, in the last few years—like when he kept not remembering I had moved from Colorado to Texas then back to Colorado again, then forgetting one of our scheduled phone calls. But his exquisite sense of humor has remained intact, and his mix of philosophical and spiritual perspectives consistently apt.
I am stunned, bewildered, and absolutely dismayed.
“I don’t understand. You mean we can’t even talk anymore? Write letters? Gene, if you have Alzheimer’s and it is progressing, I want to be able to visit you!”
“In no way am I being demeaning or dismissive of you, or the excellent professional relationship we have maintained in the past,” Gene assures me, I notice, with a hitch in his voice. This is hard for him as well.
He then explains that he, too, was stunned by the severity of the mandate, until the director outlined a dozen different lawsuits being processed against other therapists.
“Please do not take this as constituting a personal fault on either of our parts, but honor it as the right thing to do,” he asks softly.
Right thing to do! My heart screams. Later I realized how selfish my concerns were. I couldn’t know how difficult being forced to retire early was for Gene, and I added to his pain. Instead of asking for more details about his health, I immediately sank into fears of what my life would be like without him. I always anticipated our monthly calls, which consistently resulted in a lift and more clarity. Plus, I often shared my writings with him, and his feedback was a guiding light. Even my thesis would not have been as inspiring an experience without Gene’s devoted and constant help.
Just like that
, Gene slips out of my life. One of the most important teachers, guides, and mentors I have ever had. One of the most important men in my life.
I grieve deeply. I had Gene’s address from sending holiday cards, and occasionally exchanging letters, so I send more cards. I know he won’t be back in touch, but I want to remind him, over and over, of what a gift he has been in my life, and that I am thinking of him.
I contact Gene’s wife and learn that Gene’s Alzheimer’s advances steadily. He receives care at home until that no longer works, then in 2014 goes regularly first to one day facility then another. In 2016, he settles into a memory care community where they individualize care for four levels of memory loss.
Four years after his abrupt announcement, I pay a visit to Gene at his memory community in Houston. Perhaps he recognizes me, I can’t tell. He does lift his head and smile when I tell him who I am but, truthfully, he smiles at everyone. We walk, arm in arm, and sometimes he speaks comprehensibly for a few lines, and other times not. Devoted gardener that he was, he loves being outside, pulling weeds, picking up leaves, and touching flowers. Later, sitting inside with Gene and his caring wife, we are engaged in a discussion about a memorial for him that would truly reflect this amazing man. Gene lifts his head from its now perpetual downward tilt, looks right at me, and states clearly, “What you do really helps others.”
Just like that, in a mere six words, he once again gifts and lifts me.
I return to Houston to visit a year later. Gene is in the Level 3 neighborhood now, one level away from the end stage and hospice. He still smiles, but his speech is ninety-five percent nonsensical, though it actually sounds like the Greek or Latin that this brilliant man knew from the years he spent in seminary and studying philosophy. He’s hard to keep up with as we walk around the facility, and he constantly scratches at the ground outside, or the floor inside. I follow him as he wanders in and out of people’s rooms. Occasionally, he starts humming and then sings a line or two of a song, a big grin spreading across his face at the sound of his own music.
Being Mean Page 28