by Cathy LaGrow
It wasn’t the first pair of wooden shoes she’d ever seen. Many decades before, when Jennie returned from her final visit here, she’d brought a dainty pair home for Betty Jane—a present for the granddaughter who would never wear them.
Visiting Europe was fun, and it helped Minka put together pieces of her heritage. But this wasn’t her real home. What if Bouche and Tjiske de Jong had not changed their names to Ben and Jennie, had never ventured to a new life in a faraway country? she wondered. It was impossible to imagine.
Who would Minka be without South Dakota or Roy? Without Dianna or Donnie? Without Betty Jane?
* * *
Soon after returning from that trip, Minka welcomed a new houseguest: Donnie’s oldest daughter, Dawn, who’d lived with Minka as a baby. Dawn had spent the last several calming summers at her grandmother’s apartment, leaving behind a chaotic home life in Oakland. When she turned fifteen, with Donnie’s blessing, she chose to move in with Minka permanently.
Minka loved all her grandchildren but had bonded in a special way with Dawn. Through the years they’d shared everything from midnight bottle feedings to afternoons on the beach, where Minka had watched Dawn dig in the sand or ride bodyboards in the waves. Despite the decades between them, they had many things in common—both were practical and calm, and believed in working hard.
Other than the new address, not much had changed in her grandmother’s home since Dawn had first lived with her. Minka had the same furniture and towels and dishes she’d had for ages. Whenever anyone mentioned that she should consider replacing her television—a grainy color set built into a low wooden cabinet—Minka would quip, “I’m certain it has at least a decade left in it.” There was a basic answering machine in Minka’s kitchen that did what it was supposed to do. She sewed her own plain slacks out of easy-care polyester, which she bought at the fabric store when it was on sale. She did her own repairs around the apartment.
Dawn found a job and enrolled in night classes to earn her high school diploma. Each evening, Minka drove her granddaughter to school, then waited in the parking lot until classes let out, reading devotional books until it grew too dark, then praying quietly. She taught Dawn to drive, to crochet, to bake. Together they watched and rewatched Gone with the Wind, which had first released in theaters when twenty-eight-year-old Minka was dating Roy. The movie starred Minka’s old dreamboat, Clark Gable.
On Sundays, they went to the Lutheran church Minka had chosen when she’d moved to this town. She’d wanted Jane and Chris to attend with her, and her sister felt more comfortable with the familiar traditions of their childhood.
Minka managed comfortably on her pension for six years, but since her health was sound, she couldn’t think of a single reason not to go back to work. She drove down to the local Kmart and landed a job stocking shelves. Minka enjoyed spending her paychecks on her extended family. She sent the rest of Dianna’s family on a European vacation, like the one she’d taken Gary on. She took Dawn to Hawaii for her eighteenth birthday. When she heard that Dianna’s daughter Cathy had cried over having only old and wrong-sized outfits to start the new school year, Minka bought boxes of clothing to send to her.
And she especially liked having money to put in the offering when missionaries visited her church and showed slideshows of children with less than any American child could imagine.
Minka would work at Kmart in a variety of positions for fifteen years, until the age of eighty-seven.
* * *
The world spun on. Minka had been eight years old when the Nineteenth Amendment gave American women the right to vote; in 1984, she watched a woman named Geraldine Ferraro campaign for the vice presidency. The following September, Minka read in the Orange County Register that researchers had finally found the wreck of the RMS Titanic on the ocean floor near Newfoundland. That great ship had set sail the year after Minka was born.
She’d outlasted a significant global political movement, too. In October of 1917, just before Minka celebrated her sixth birthday, a revolution in Russia brought Communism to power. Exactly seventy-two years later, crowds of East Germans with sledgehammers laid waste to the Berlin Wall.
The world was nearly unrecognizable from the one she’d been born into. Scholars had their terms for the passage of time: Industrial Age, Space Age, Information Age. Minka had her memories, in most cases as vivid as the wrinkles on her hands.
Hauling bucket after bucket of water from the well to the kitchen, as the heavy wood and unyielding metal slowly pulled her soft finger bones apart.
Sitting in Uncle’s outhouse with her teeth chattering, watching her foggy breath drift in the lantern light as snow piled up outside.
Bathing once a week in a metal tub in the kitchen, with five people using the same batch of well water, heated on the stove.
Lying in bed for days on end when measles coated her body or mumps puffed up her face, as Jennie came and went with spoonfuls of molasses and damp cloths.
And then, in her memories, the world sped up, spinning like a carved horse on a carousel.
Her first peculiar glimpse of a lady’s ankle peeping below a skirt, while sitting in the buggy waiting for her mother to sell jars of butter in town.
Seeing a machine called an airplane rise through the Aberdeen sky for the first time, as though pulled by a sorcerer’s string.
And wars—so many wars! The first Great one, made real only afterward by the sight of limbless veterans in town; and the second one, the one that took her sweetheart away; and all those since, the ones that existed to her mainly as pages of newspaper print or television reports.
She’d watched the stock market crash in 1929 and a space shuttle explode in 1986. During her lifetime, penicillin was discovered and genocide was inflicted. Babe Ruth set records and Bonnie and Clyde committed crimes and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. She’d been around for the inventions of parachutes and particle accelerators, crossword puzzles and computers.
Life had carried her from one end of the century to the other. Now, with a new millennium drawing near, she kept as busy as ever. There was her full-time job at Kmart, where she’d been promoted to cashier. In the evenings she crocheted afghans, sewed frilly outfits for granddaughters, stayed up late doing word puzzles. She made crafts: table runners dotted with sequins, fabric clowns wearing pointed hats and ruffled costumes, and tabletop Christmas trees, fully decorated with lights and miniature baubles.
Minka had fashioned a life that suited her perfectly. She had a trim and tidy home, projects to nourish her creative mind, work and ministries that filled her need to be useful. She had a faithful God to serve, people to love, family to cherish.
And always, there was Jane.
* * *
For nearly nine decades, the one constant in Minka’s life was the vivacious little sister who ran ahead of her in so many ways but who also depended greatly on her older, steadier sister. They’d lived apart for just a handful of years, during the war and then after Minka fled with her children to Oakland. For the final twenty-three years of Jane’s life, she lived just one-and-a-half blocks from Minka, and the two of them walked back and forth between each other’s apartments several times a day.
Minka’s grandchildren referred to them as one unit, “Gramma-and-Janie.” The two women dressed alike, took vacations together, attended the same church, the same parties. Their immaculate apartments were decorated in the same bright colors—yellow and orange and white. When Minka had church committee meetings or parties to attend, Jane lent her clothes. When Jane was ill, Minka took her to the doctor.
In her eighties, Jane’s health began to diminish. There was heart trouble, and then something else. The signs were subtle at first but soon became more obvious. Minka would come home after a long day at Kmart and find Jane sitting on Minka’s front patio, dressed prettily, her bright lipstick slightly feathered.
“I wanna go out, Minka,” she’d say.
Minka, who’d been looking forward to a quiet dinne
r, would tamp down a flash of impatience. “Where do you want to go, honey?”
Jane would name a restaurant or store, and Minka would drive her there. But after a few minutes, Jane would protest.
“I’m tired, Minka. Take me home.”
Jane had always expected things to go her way, but this was different. Now she’d knock on Minka’s door at six o’clock in the morning, complaining.
“You took my clothes, Minka.”
“I didn’t, Jane.”
“Yes, you did. You took them.”
“Jane, come in. Look and see if I’ve got your clothes. I don’t have your clothes.”
The changes escalated. Jane could no longer clean to the standards they’d both embraced since childhood, so Minka cleaned both their apartments. She took Jane to see doctors, again and again. They put her on medication, told Minka to keep an eye on her. Eventually Minka retired a final time, freeing her schedule for more diligent caretaking.
Things began disappearing from Jane’s home. A large picture Minka had painted for her. Fancy silverware. Her husband’s ashes. Jane couldn’t remember where these things had gone, but Minka once caught her throwing good china plates into the garbage after lunch.
One day Minka watched while Jane worked in her kitchen. Jane leaned too close to the gas flame on her stove, nearly catching her sleeve on fire. There was another visit to the doctor. When he pressed Jane to tell him what her name was, she told him, “I oughta slap your face.”
Before they left, the doctor took Minka aside. “Jane is succumbing to dementia. She can’t live alone anymore. It isn’t safe, and she needs more care than you can provide. I suggest you begin preparations to move her into a facility.”
Minka went home and cried all night.
Not long after, Jane had a stroke, fell, and broke her hip. She was able to reach the phone, but she didn’t call 911. She dialed the number she knew best: her big sister’s.
Minka answered and heard incoherent sounds on the line. She didn’t have a fancy phone that displayed which number had called, but she didn’t need one. Minka knew Jane like she knew her own soul. She ran to her car and made the one-minute drive to her sister’s apartment, where she found Jane on the floor, her mouth pulled to one side. Minka called the paramedics.
Jane never returned home. She went into one assisted care facility, then another newer one near Dawn’s house. Jane was now an hour away, over the San Clemente foothills, but Minka drove back and forth as often as she could.
“Where’s Mom?” Jane would ask, her eyes drifting over Minka’s shoulder to the doorway.
Minka couldn’t tell her sister that their mother was dead. Instead she smiled, picked up her little sister’s hand, now bony thin and covered in age spots. She remembered Jane’s small, delicate fingers; how she had felt envious that her own fingers weren’t as lovely.
“Honey, Mom didn’t come this time.”
Jane closed her eyes and sighed. “Next time you come, bring Mom.”
“I will try,” Minka said, not wishing to lie. Then she told Jane about the weather that day, the sermon she’d heard preached on television, stories about people they knew from church. She urged her sister to eat, taking up the spoon herself to hand-feed Jane when her sister crossed her arms and stared at the window.
Minka maintained Jane’s apartment back home, keeping it scrubbed clean and ready just in case, the curtains always open to let in the light and frame the beautiful view of the ocean. One day Minka offered to take Jane back to her apartment for a few hours, but her sister became alarmed. “Oh no, no, no!” Jane cried, shrinking against her pillows. She couldn’t bear to see proof of what was happening, of what was disappearing.
On Jane’s eighty-seventh birthday she fell again, broke her hip a second time. She was listless and sad.
In July of 2000, Minka received a call from the doctor. Jane was in hospice; the end was near. Minka packed her suitcase and drove to Dawn’s to stay for however long was needed.
Jane wasn’t speaking now, at least not words that anyone could understand. But on this last day, Jane reached out as if the weight of her hand was almost too much. Minka leaned closer, wondering if her sister wanted to touch her face. Instead Jane touched the shiny gold locket that hung at Minka’s neck.
“Remember, you gave this to me,” Minka said. Jane surely knew that; or was she only attracted to the gleam of gold? Jane held the locket between her fingers, let go, and reached again and again.
Before Minka left that night, she spoke to a nurse.
“Someone will call me right away if anything changes, right? Anything at all?”
“Yes, certainly,” the nurse said.
But Minka was not called, and by the time she hurried to Jane’s room the next morning, her sister’s body was already cold. She reached for Jane’s hand, then sank into a chair, weeping.
“I’m so sorry, Jane. I was supposed to be here.”
Minka’s companion of eighty-seven years was gone, taking a large piece of Minka’s heart with her.
In the days to come, Minka would give away most of Jane’s furniture to relatives, her nice clothes to missionaries. But she kept all of Jane’s pretty jewelry in a huge cardboard box. When the loneliness made her especially sad, she’d pull the heavy box out and, with some effort, lift it onto her bed. She’d sit beside this treasure chest, taking out a few pieces. As her fingers ran over the beads, her mind ran through the memories. Minka couldn’t bear to part with this last, intimate link to the baby sister who’d once called her “Gypsy” for her love of jewels.
Less than three weeks later, while Minka was still in deep mourning, she received a call from a relative who lived in the Bay Area. It was more bad news. The son she still called Donnie-boy was in the hospital. Minka’s first instinct was to call Jane. As she reached for the phone, she remembered. Jane was gone.
* * *
Donnie, like his sister, Dianna, had been a sensitive, obedient child when he was younger. All Roy had to do was snap his fingers and say, “Straighten up and fly right,” and both children would hop to. Roy had spanked Donnie only once, when his son and a neighbor boy set fire to some papers in the garage.
When they’d first moved to Oakland and Minka was working two jobs to make ends meet, six-year-old Donnie had walked to a nearby gas station. Although shy, he’d worked up the courage to ask an attendant if they had any jobs he could do, so he could take some money home to Mama. “Maybe I can pump gas?” The attendant took a long look at the skinny boy with the earnest, freckled face, then offered him a job cleaning the water fountain that customers used, in exchange for a few pennies a day.
Donnie had never left the Bay area. He’d fathered two more pretty daughters, Alexandria and Anastasia. In adulthood, he’d struggled to find his path in the world. There had been failed marriages, stops and starts in finding a career, but he’d been generally healthy. Minka had never stopped praying for and fussing over the sweet boy who still called her every week.
“Whatcha doing, Mom?” he’d ask in his soft voice when she answered the phone.
“Talking to you!” she’d say happily.
The news that Donnie was in the hospital came out of the blue. Minka called him, and as always he tried to downplay the trouble. “It’s nothing to worry about, Mom. I’ll be all right.” But when Minka got Donnie’s doctor on the phone, she was advised to come as soon as she could. Dawn made the long drive north with Minka, as her three small children slept in the backseat. By the time they reached the hospital, Donnie was unconscious. He’d had a brain aneurysm and had refused complicated treatments, which could have kept him alive but in a wheelchair.
As she looked at her son, the advice of the traveling evangelist from years ago replayed in her mind: “Get off his neck, but don’t get off your knees.” Minka sat at Donnie’s bedside and began praying—fervently. She held his hand, her heart filled with both fear and boldness. Though he didn’t open his eyes, Minka spoke to her son.
&nbs
p; “Donnie-boy, remember what you always used to say when I told you that Jesus was the way? You said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Mom. I’ll always find a way.’ This time, you haven’t got a choice. You come to the Lord. Remember? The Lord is the only way.”
Minka felt Donnie’s fingers squeeze around her own. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He’d heard her, she had no doubt.
“This isn’t about what you can get yourself out of, Donnie-boy. Now you’re wholly dependent upon Him. Your only hope is in Him.” She knew how real, how alive her own faith was. God’s ways transcended human understanding, human consciousness. She believed that Donnie would find comfort and connection with God, even if he could no longer speak to his mother.
On the evening of August 8, twenty-four days after losing her only sister, Minka said good-bye to her only son.
* * *
Three weeks later, Minka and Dawn stood on a hilltop in the Santa Ana Mountains. It was a perfect day, the temperature in the seventies with a clear sky. A light breeze ruffled their hair. Below them spread acres of sage scrub, wildflowers, and feathery bunchgrass. They each carefully held a box in their hands. Jane and Donnie had both chosen to be cremated.
Minka had picked this spot because Jane and Donnie had loved the mountains. Jane had been fond of all her nephews and nieces, and their children too. Now, in death, she would be together with her beloved Donnie.
Minka stood tall, the wind drying the tears on her cheeks and plastering her pants to her legs, and reflected. She was grateful for her long life, the many blessings she’d had. The Lord had helped her rise, time and again, no matter how heavy the burdens, no matter how great the losses. She’d now outlived her mother, her husband, her brother and sister, friends, nieces and nephews, even her baby boy. Minka knew that the Lord gave, and the Lord took.
On the cusp of her tenth decade of life, she reckoned she had reached the point where the taking far exceeded the giving.
Chapter Fifteen
MAY 22, 2006