Everybody have plenty of food? This is going to be long, but I wanted to tell the tale once instead of over and over or trying to remember what was said to whom. I hope being candid about the grieving process will help connect to where each of you might be.
Experience
Two weeks ago at Winter solstice I was preparing for Christmas. I was shining with so much joy you almost needed sunglasses to glance my way. I’d run errands in the morning, including to the French bakery and the chocolatier. I was gaming with my friend Andy, whom I’ve known since kindergarten. Yes, we both know where all the bodies are buried. Mom called to talk about her class that day about what to expect with chemotherapy. I had it on speaker phone. Andy said, “Hi, Mrs. Elder!” Because even when you are over 50, have had both hips replaced, and have a child who can legally drink; the parents of your childhood friends are still “Mr.” or “Mrs.” I told Mom I’d call her back. And I did for the hour drive home from Andy’s.
We talked again on Friday and Saturday, about another 7 hours total. A knitting friend who had successfully completed chemotherapy five years ago told me cards and letters made a difference. It wasn’t that uncommon for Mom to be on “transmit.” She told me about the chemo. She told me about the latest book she was reading for one of her book clubs. She told me about her life. I just listened. There were few things I could do to help. Listening seemed like it helped.
On Christmas Eve, my husband, Doug, remarked how nice it was that neither of us had spent a day packing and a day driving to be together for the holiday.
On Christmas morning at 11 AM, we received a text from my mom saying, “Chemo has caught up. I’ve been very nauseated despite two doses of meds. Love you.”
At 11:28 AM I sent, “Washington Post published Dave Barry’s year in review this morning. Any of those are good for laughter.” I followed up, asking if I could call and read it aloud or if she would rather Doug gift it over in an e-mail.
The last text I received from her at 11:35 AM said, “Send it please. I want to nap now. Thanks.”
I replied, “Ok. Doug will send it. Enjoy your nap. Love you!” One of my favorite memories of my husband and mother together is sitting at her kitchen table reading Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs and laughing so hard we could barely breathe.
After dinner that night, I told Doug I was glad we’d made the right decision not to go to Pennsylvania this year. Beverly had so much going on. And we would have been in the way at Mom’s house.
When I saw it was Beverly calling on Monday, I knew immediately it was strange. She told me what had happened. Passed/past tense.
I went upstairs, wrapped myself around my husband, and sobbed, “My mommy is gone!” When you lose a parent, for a moment you revert to that vulnerable little child frighteningly alone in an enormous forbidding world.
And so I spent two days packing and two days driving to Pennsylvania.
On a long drive, I usually listen to upbeat pop music. That wasn’t really working for me this time. So I called chatty friends. I told my Mensa friend Lynne, who is Jewish, that tomorrow I’d need to go in my mother’s house. For the first time in 54 years, she wouldn’t be there. And Lynne replied, “What are you talking about? She lived there all those years? She will be all around you!” Lynne was right.
As I drove the exit ramp at Leader’s Heights, I started to sob. I cried even harder as I turned on to Pine Grove Road. I pulled into the driveway, parking next to Beverly’s blue Forester. I paused to compose myself. Then I went in. Beverly was on the phone with Deacon Joe. We hugged and cried. And then, because we are our mother’s daughters, we got to work.
Identity
My mother always said she had led an interesting life.
She was the only child in a second marriage with older parents.
She grew
up poor, with an alcoholic father.
Public education got her out of
poverty.
She had a happy marriage that ended in tragedy.
She raised
three children on her own while simultaneously finishing college and
working.
She endured the tragedy of my brother’s brain injury.
She
had a late in life romance with Jim Clarke.
She enjoyed her three
grandchildren.
She had a long, productive career at York Hospital.
She
made a difference in the world. She left it better than she found it.
How do we become who we are?
How much is in the genes?
How much is
our environment?
Our mother was her mother’s daughter.
Lydia Mae was born 1901 in Philadelphia. She cried for days when her father forbid her to go to high school. She worked in the Frankfurt Arsenal during The Great War. Then her dad married her off to a widower who already had two children. Was his first wife a victim of the 1918 pandemic? They divorced in 1938, when people did not do that.
Mae was
Smart
Compassionate
Nurturing
Honest
and
Industrious.
She had deep faith and high moral standards.
Carol learned those values.
Pick yourself up.
Make due with what you
have.
Be excellent to other people.
Know God is always with you
When Carol went out into the world, Mae bought her a subscription to Daily Word. My mother continued it all these decades. On the day of her chemo treatment, she sent out an e-mail with subject line “Off to my new adventure,” and a picture of the Daily Word reading for Wednesday the 21st. She wrote, “The winter solstice has a symbolic importance as a time to reflect, reset, and start anew.”
Mom loved puzzles. On one visit, she was excited about a new subscription to a puzzle magazine. Looking at the questions, I remarked not many people would want to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test for fun. Apparently there wasn’t a core constituency, as the magazine folded a couple months later.
Mom liked scientific puzzles, too. If you wanted to identify some weird bug nobody else in the lab knew, she was the person to task because she enjoyed the puzzle of it. If she had been born in 1982 instead of 1942, she surely would have become a gifted physician or scientist.
Mom was intellectually curious. She was always reading. More reading. Voracious reading. And she loved gadgets. The day her Kindle arrived, like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning she scurried out the door to intercept the UPS driver before he could place the parcel on the front porch. Books and a gadget? Perfect combination.
Mom loved storytelling. She remembered all the details. It was important to her to remember it all. That’s probably why she enjoyed researching genealogy. Every new picture or document needed to be uploaded and tagged to the proper person. Someday, someone would want this.
Mom loved wildlife, especially birds and flowers and gardens. She loved feeding the birds. If one she didn’t recognize arrived, she was off to her reference books to identify the species. For years she had an escalating Cold War with the squirrel mafia, who took their cut of the bird food. With her love of gadgets, she kept investing in more and more elaborate “squirrel-proof” feeders. I told her all she was doing was breeding smarter squirrels.
She was a nurturer. Years ago staff took an aptitude test at work — was it something to do with managing or team-building? — and she scored high on “nurturing.” She always had plants in her home. Many of them had been there for decades, or were descendants. Neither Beverly nor me share this skill. Mom would sometimes come home from work and find a sad-looking plant on the front porch, with a note saying, “Help me!” Mom would bring it inside and plop it in the big south-facing front window. In a few months, it would be green and thriving.
Growing up, we were the house on the corner where everyone gathered, the house in the center of the universe. One snow day, Mom had to work. We were well-trained latchkey children. Partly this was her good training of us, and partly this was with three of us, there was always one dissenter, willing to rat out the other two. Mom told us to limit the number of friends we let in the house while she was gone. When she returned from work there was a mountain of boots, gloves, coats, and assorted gear piled in the front hall. One by one, nearly every child in the neighborhood had ended up at our house. I don’t remember being punished for this transgression. She took it in stride.
Mom was a giver through and through. When the grandchildren were young, Mom babysat almost any day she didn’t work. She liked helping. She loved helping. There was always a bag of something to go over to Beverly’s. Was Beverly’s house merely a subsidiary of Mom’s House, LLC?
Mom wasn’t always great at receiving. Did you ever fight her for the lunch bill on her birthday? I said, “You wouldn’t let me pick it up if it were my birthday.” She couldn’t quite wiggle out of that logic.
A couple years ago, she bought some lottery tickets from a vending machine at the grocery store. When she picked up the stack, at the bottom was an extra ticket she hadn’t purchased. She waited in line at customer service to return it. She was that honest.
What did we get from our mother?
Intelligence. She could have been in
Mensa, she just needed to take the test.
Perseverance. You don’t get
experience points without fighting the monsters.
Contribution. Leave the
place better than you found it.
Nurture. Be a fountain, not a drain.
Honesty.
Work for it. That’s not yours. Why are you touching it?
Faith. Find the
stars in the dark night, or be one yourself.
Gratitude
I’m grateful Mom was capable and independent to the end. I never worried about her, even when I see so many in my cohort concerned daily about their aging parents. Our maternal grandmother died from Alzheimer’s disease. Such a mental decline would have been difficult for my mother to endure, as being smart was core of her identity. She told us we should do what we needed to do if her mental capacities were compromised. I was dubious she would follow our instructions.
I’m grateful she left us detailed instructions. When she turned 65, she started a notebook. She knew this day would come. Characteristically, she didn’t want to burden us unnecessarily.
I’m grateful this event happened when both Beverly and I had time to respond, rather than in the middle of a month when I would be traveling three weekends out of four and have contractural obligations. I’d joked you need to schedule funerals three to six months in advance, so I can fit them in my schedule.
I’m grateful she didn’t suffer. It happened fast. There was no blood in the living room, where she had been sleeping in her recliner. She had her cell phone. She passed out before she could press 9-1-1. I’m grateful only one of us saw her that way. I’m very sorry for Beverly.
I’m grateful Mom died in the home she loved. She’d painted the walls of the downstairs bathroom the upbeat turquoise of a sunny sea and decorated the room with shells and mementos of her trips to the beach with Doris and Henk.
I’m grateful Mom didn’t have a pet. She never got another cat after she lost her beloved Figgy, who was supposed to be Beverly’s cat. We didn’t have the burden of caring for a distraught animal this past week.
I’m grateful Carol’s grandchildren don’t have to ask, ”What was Grammy C like?” She saw all of them graduate high school. They know who she is.
I’m grateful the last text she read was, “Sweet dreams <heart emoji>.” It came at 11:31 PM from a relative in mountain time zone. Mom had gotten to know Whitney when administering cousin Carol’s estate.
I’m grateful many of you had good conversations with her in the last week or month of her life. I think she left on good terms with everyone. Little unresolved baggage.
As a Georgia resident, I’m grateful it is not snowing today and the temperature is above freezing. I’m grateful so many of you are gathered here. There is an ocean of love in this room made from a lifetime of droplets. Rather than sinking, we shall float, buoyed by our connection.
I’m grateful she was our mother!
I’m grateful Beverly is executrix. You have been incredible! You are your mother’s daughter. You do hard things. You are a diamond — a rock so hard it can’t be scratched.
Examples:
After the emergency workers left and our mother’s body was
taken away, Beverly cleaned the downstairs bathroom. Her broken leg is
healing, but it is still in a boot, so it was hard to bend down. When her
husband, Tim, later asked why she didn’t leave it for someone else, she said,
“Because I was there and it needed to be done.”
On Friday, we went to the nursing home to tell Eric. When we walked in, he said, “You’re both here.” Even with a head injury, he knew something wasn’t right. Beverly blurted out the news. He sat, thinking hard without speaking, for several minutes.
Then he asked, “How did she die?” And he started to cry. It was hard to watch my brother cry.
Afterwards, Beverly dropped me off at Mom’s house and said, “Well, another item crossed off the list.” Then she took Bailie to an appointment. Later in the afternoon, we met at the church to discuss the service arrangements.
Keep calm. Carry on.
My loss is different from many of you. Even different from my sister’s. My
interactions were mostly a once a week phone call. Carol helped many of you
regularly. You will notice her absence more often than I do.
Hope
2023 will be a very different year from what I anticipated. It will be challenging. Good things may come from this challenge. Carol made good from bad. Losing our father was awful, but my mother became a strong, independent person because of it. There is a difference between thinking you can pass a test and actually taking and passing it. You have the data showing what you can do.
When Eric had his brain injury, Mom became active in the head injury support group. She took something tragic, and made something better out of it, helping others and developing a sisterhood with Doris
Mom was prepared. She knew life prepared you for each challenge. You learn
from previous experience. I’m prepared for this.
For nearly a decade, my
husband lived away.
I know how to travel.
I edited my home only a
year ago.
Mom’s compassion with her mother and my brother taught me what
to do.
My friend, Jenna, taught me in times of grief, lean on your
friends.
Pennsylvania has not been my home for thirty years. I’ve gone out into the world. I’ve gone where the parties are. I am deeply blessed with a powerful education, a joyful marriage, a network of wise friends in many places, a career path where I am good at what I do and I’ve contributed to my field. It is tempting to be furious. The chemotherapy was elective. Quite possibly there were no cancer cells in my mother’s body on Christmas Day. There are people who need her here. My brother needs her. My sister needs her. Her grandchildren need her. Her friends need her. And I am in her house, in the middle of the blast zone, wondering which splinter to pick up next? I was going to spend 2023 enjoying the life I’ve built 750 miles away. Now I am in Pennsylvania, trying to assemble a 1,000,000 piece puzzle. To whom much is given, much is expected. I grew up in a place that gave me a firm foundation. It is time for me to sow those blessings back into that community. I have been enthusiastically living my best life. How do I integrate this new task into that scheme? How do I integrate that scheme into this new task?
Maybe that’s the transition? When you are young, everyone you know and love in this world is still here. As you age, there are more and more on the other side of the veil. We know in our souls, if not always in our heads, that everything is okay. It is okay, because death is okay. It isn’t what it appears to be. It isn’t the end. It’s just the time for our bodies and souls to part ways.
What will come of this?
I will deepen connections with family and friends
here in Pennsylvania.
I will know my mother’s friends better.
I will
see the beautiful community she nurtured and that nurtured her in return.
I
will transform Mom’s house into a resource that makes a positive difference
for our family.
I will trust that somewhere a life will be saved or the
ill-effects of chemotherapy lessened because someone will say to a doctor,
“I’ve been taking steroids for many years. How should we tailor my treatment?”
There are never enough holidays, birthdays, parties, games of Mah Jong, lunches and dinners together. A whole lifetime is never enough. We want to go on living because we are never satiated making those connections with those we love. I know grief. But I know the love continues. Her body is done. But the love is still here. The love didn’t go away.
Although Carol wasn’t well-traveled — the only foreign country she visited was Canada — she always signed her cards to us “Worlds of love.” From our world here, to the world you’ve moved on to. Worlds of love, Mom. Worlds of love.
Practical things
I’ll open the mic now for those who want to get up and tell their stories. Our mother loved stories! Maybe Mom liked sharing stories because ultimately, things are never as bad as you imagine? Or maybe she understood the wisdom of learning from other’s experiences? Please take a piece of paper — or two, or a dozen — and write us a story about how you knew our mother. We’ve brought some of her rubber stamps and art supplies, so you can embellish if you wish. We’ve brought a book of her stories you can browse.
Many of you have asked what you can do to help. I have a list! For me, cleaning out my mother’s home is possibly the most daunting task I have faced. I expect to be flying back and forth between Georgia and Pennsylvania regularly for much of 2023. Please drop by the house. Break up my day. Tell your stories. I am an extrovert, like my mother. The talking helps.
Sit. Help me drink her tea.
If you have the skills, please give her plants a good home. Do not leave them to the incompetent black thumbs of Beverly and me.
Bring cardboard boxes. Come take something to recycling or a food bank or a women’s shelter or Goodwill. Or even better, enjoy it yourself, because it conjures a happy memory.
My mother taught and lead by example. May you all know worlds of love because you follow her example and make this world, a world of love.
Thank you
Comments