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This is one of the best ways I remember Grandma Trulove: camping.
While I was in New England, my Great Aunt texted to let me know that my Grandma Trulove died at age 99 on May 16. It wasn’t entirely a shock because she had been declining, but still came with the regret at not having visited her more often, and a discussion about whether to cancel my vacation and go home for the service. I decided to stay in New England. It was a lucky choice, since I never heard any information about a burial or funeral. That wasn’t entirely a shock either.
Grandpa Trulove married Margaret Louise after divorcing my other Grandma Freda. This happened before I was born, so I grew up knowing her as Grandma Trulove, and no amount of understanding legalities made her less of a grandma to me. She was loving and welcoming and fun to visit. Grandma loved creating with her hands, and all the grandkids benefitted from her hobby of sewing stuffed animals for us. My favourite was a large purple stuffed rabbit, and my brother’s was a stuffed green dinosaur.
My earliest memories of her are from hunting camp, when I was a child. The family, and a few friends, would all camp together during deer hunting season. The kids would play in camp and most of the adults would go off in search of deer. Grandma would stay in camp to hand out Kool-aid or in case we needed a bandaid. We rarely reached out to her, busying ourselves with digging holes in the dirt, stacking rocks, hurling pinecones or playing in the creek, but it was good to know she was right there.
At home in Klamath Falls, Grandma Trulove presided over the kitchen. She would ask me to help set the large table, and then I helped carry serving dishes to cover the whole table in comfort foods. She liked to paint, and crochet, and by combining her talents and special finds while shopping, she filled the bottom drawer of a dresser in the spare room with gifts. I was allowed to peek into the drawer, where already-wrapped gifts waited for birthdays and Christmas. It seemed magical to me at the time, a reminder that holidays were coming, and that Grandma would never forget.
Grandma Trulove in a Christmas outfit. Look at those shoes!
Here she is posing with the Thunderbird. It was probably the day she and Grandpa bought it.
She also loved to write, and we exchanged hand-written letters all my life until her last few years, when shaky hands made the writing too difficult for her. Once she got older, Grandma always apologized for the shakiness of the cursive writing and the lack of more interesting things to say. Of course I was so pleased to receive one of her letters that I never noticed the things she thought were flaws.
When I was a teenager, Grandma and Grandpa begged for me to come and live with them and go to Mazama High School, only a couple blocks from the house. When I married Tara’s dad, they were proud to make the trip and attend the wedding. Their love was undeniable, and I adored them both.
The best times we shared were when she lived in Sandy, Oregon, which was only 45 minutes away from my home in Portland. I enjoyed our visits so much. In minutes she would begin telling me stories of her life. She told me about when she left home in the 1940s and went to live with her sister in Portland, and how the two of them worked hard to pay the bills and loved the handsome military men that would come into Portland. She told me about the hard times too: her difficult marriage while struggling to raise her babies before she met Grandpa. Most of all she loved to tell me about Grandpa Trulove, who had died in 2002, how he was the best friend and partner she could have wished for, how he always took care of her, and how he gave her a comfortable life with vacations and friends. She loved traveling with him, particularly to Hawaii.
“I don’t know what it is about you,” she said on more than one occasion. “As soon as you get here I just start talking and talking. I tell you things I don’t talk about with anyone.” I told her it was my superpower: people just talk to me. And I asked her to tell me more.
Grandma hated having her photo taken, but I begged for this one and she acquiesced. This is with Tara in Grandma’s place in Sandy, OR in September 2007. I gave her that clock as a Christmas gift many years ago. She gave it back to me when she had to downsize. It’s hanging in my living room right now.
She loved to tell me about her kids and her other grandkids – estranged from my family for some reason. Maybe because they were from a different marriage. She was so proud of them all and excited to show me their artwork and family photos. She told me stories about my mother and father when I was a baby.
She was very proud of her life, and not the typical mooshy grandma stuff, but her individual adventures and accomplishments. When she was in high school, she and her best friend used to stop by the local courthouse on the way home from school, just to sit and watch the hearings. She said it was the best entertainment in town. She got jobs to support the family when she needed to, and she got good jobs, taking over secretarial and financial posts for companies and delighting in the well-earned praise that she received. One of her favourite jobs was in Shasta Lake, California and to the end of her life she marveled at her great luck in getting that job. She talked about creating a whole filing system for Crater Lake National Park in Oregon when she and Grandpa lived and worked there as full time residents. The system was effective and efficient, and she became a valuable resource for the Park offices, being called back now and then to help them on a temporary basis, even after her full-time employment had ended.
Grandma Trulove was a voracious reader, even with poor eyesight. She went through books like meals, eating them up and gaining sustenance from them. She kept bookshelves with her favourites as long as she could, and loaned me some of them: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, Gone With the Wind, and anything by Louis L’Amour.
Because of her sharp intellect and subtle wit, she was frustrated with her counterparts while living in the retirement home in Sandy, and later in Lebanon, Oregon. She was 92 when she complained to me, “Everybody here is old. All they want to talk about is babies, and their sicknesses and which medications they take. I want to talk about interesting things. There are so many more interesting things to talk about, but they don’t want to.” When she did find close friendships there, it was when she found someone who shared her fascination with the rest of the world.
Grandma’s optometrist was far away in Portland. She needed a good eye doctor because she was legally blind in one eye and partially sighted in the other. “I’ve got to take care of my good eye!” she pronounced. Once I found this out, I took advantage of my employer’s generous family leave policy that allowed me to take a paid sick day to take care of my grandmother. I looked forward to our long days together: the drive to the eye doctor, the waiting room, the visits themselves (she invited me in so I could help explain anything, if necessary), stops for prescriptions afterward, and the long drive back home. She was exhausted by the end of those days, and I was able to keep her spirits up because I was having so much fun.
Grandma and me March 2013 in the waiting room at the optometrist’s office. This is the very last photo I could get her to agree to.
I was broken-hearted when she moved to Lebanon, separating us by 3 hours instead of 45 minutes. That made it much harder for me to visit, and the frequency dropped dramatically. I am sorry about that to this day. My Great Aunt and Uncle live just a few minutes away from the assisted living home, and as a pastor and pastor’s wife, insisted to me that it is part of their church work to visit the elderly in their community. They offered to visit Grandma Trulove, and soon became an active part of her life.
On a visit not too long ago, Grandma was talking about my Great Aunt and Great Uncle, her relatives who had been to visit. I tried to correct her. Grandma was in her nineties and of course things were hard to remember. “No, Grandma, they are from my side of the family. They aren’t actually related to you, but they love you!” Oh my goodness, the look I received. Grandma was almost never angry with me, but that time she made her anger evident. It was as though I was talking trash about her beloved family. She let me know that she was my elder, and she knew more than me, and those two were her family and there would be no further discussion on it! Well, I laughed about it later. But what better compliment than for someone to love your visits so much that she decides you are related!
For at least the last decade, Grandma Trulove wanted to die. I think it was mostly because she missed Grandpa so much, and also because of all the “boring old people” she lived with. She had wretched arthritis and her crafty hands were always in pain and not flexible, so all the hobbies she most enjoyed: painting, sewing, crocheting, and crossword puzzles, were lost to her. She was not interested in computers. Television bored her, and though she always had a set, I never saw it on. She told me without hesitation that she wanted to die, every time I visited. With dry humor she would say, “Well, I was at the doctor on Tuesday. He said I’m in good health as usual.” She would sigh. “I’m ready to go any day, but my body won’t let me: I’m just too darn healthy.” She tried to take it into her own hands by not eating, but her care providers at the home were required to make sure she ate every day. That frustrated her too. She just wanted to sleep and never wake up.
Well, Grandma, finally your battle is over and you won. Thank you thank you for loving me, trusting me, and sharing so many of your stories with me.
Photo credit: The Guardian
I just heard the sound of a flame being pinched out by wet fingers.
Wuff, SSssss.
My heart is in such pain over the news of the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Young, talented, and responsible for some of my most moving moments in front of a screen. Yesterday he was capable of bringing additional decades of mind-blowing art to us. Today he is gone.
We just saw him in Catching Fire. He was just on Broadway. What the hell, Mr. Hoffman? What did you do to yourself, and why, for god’s sake?
I was in my car tonight, driving to pick up my kid from a friend’s house where she had been house-sitting. The words from the radio slipped into my brain before I had the chance to defend myself. I literally gasped out loud and took my hands from the wheel to cover my mouth. I know, such a silly movie pose, but it was instinctive. I thought back through the two-sentence newscast. When I realized I had really heard it, the tears began. I looked at the people in the cars around me, desperately looking to connect, to share this shock and pain. None of them were listening to the same radio station, or were reacting.
Crazy, huh, when a total stranger means so much to you that you cry at their death. It happened to me with Princess Diana, and Kurt Cobain. It makes my response totally inappropriate because I didn’t know the person; I just knew the way they could make me feel. As a stranger, the only things that come to my mind are weak cliches like “What a loss,” or thoughts that are so obvious it’s just stupid, as in “Fucking addiction,” and “His portrayal of Truman Capote was phenomenal.”
Forgive me, Mr. Hoffman, for not having the ability to honor you well. In words, no less, which are supposed to be my medium. Thank you for the way you lived your 46 years. Thank you for choosing to put yourself out there for public consumption for over twenty years. If the point of art is to connect to people, or to make the people react, or to empathize, or feel childlike joy, or weep like a betrayed lover, or flush red hot with anger, or yell at the screen, …or any of a number of remarkable human responses to effective art…
You have done it.
Since my words aren’t working well tonight, I’m going to borrow from an old post that I wrote not so very long ago:
“Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of my favourite actors. Some actors can pull my emotion out of my gut the way Miller and Toole did with their writing. Hoffman’s characters can be wretched, pathetic, funny, fiercely strong, and always always achingly beautiful because they show us unflinching glimpses of what it’s like to be a person. Hoffman finds a core human soul in his character and translates it for us. He first got to me as Scotty in Boogie Nights. Didn’t your heart just break for Scotty? I know him, that Scotty. He’s been in my life in many scenes, and –as I felt when watching the movie- I just have no idea what to do with him.
“The two roles that friggin’ killed me were Phil in Magnolia and Rusty in Flawless, both 1999. As the empathetic hospice care provider, I was utterly convinced of him. “Oh, there’s no asshole like you,” he said. And it was not an insult, but an easy statement of fact, honesty, almost respect (but no respect really), that showed Phil had the courage and compassion to meet –at his level – the jerk who was dying.
“See, it’s not just the writing; it’s the actor who can make it come true.
“In Flawless… WHY doesn’t everyone love this movie? No one I talk to remembers it. In Flawless, Rusty was the real thing. Pain, love, anger, hunger, tenderness, bitchiness, mothering, beauty and ugliness all came together as clumsily and real as it does in life. PSH’s insecure drag queen playing off Robert De Niro as the epitome of a wounded arrogant asshole, gave me a reason to fall in love with humanity again. And since I saw parts of myself in Rusty – particularly the way a tenderhearted insecure person is willing to take abuse because of the faith that maybe the abuser can one day be reformed – I had a reason to love myself, too.
“I haven’t seen all of Hoffman’s work. But after Rusty, I have been a devoted, unconditional fan. It doesn’t matter what he shows me on the screen: I’m all in. Every time.”
It’s so stark I could be tricked into thinking this is an artist’s rendering of a farm. But no, this is simply Eastern Oregon.
Click here for Part I of the road trip.
Due to our visit the day before, we knew that Pa & Michelle would be at a doctor’s appointment, so when we came down out of the mountains we headed directly for Nampa. I had to stop by Rex’s house because he had some things that Gramilda had left for me. Gramilda went about the business aspects of her death calmly without any emotion apparent. She contacted everyone she could think of, and asked them what she could put a tag on. It appeared thoughtful and practical, and will be exactly how I do it, if I get that chance – a defense mechanism to ward off the pain and fear. She and her daughter (my mother) had obvious intent to their actions while they died, and sometimes I find myself disconnectedly thinking with fascination about how each of them left us. It’ll have to be a future blog post.
The Korean box of drawers. You would have picked this too, huh?
In any case, Rex handed over a collection of letters (between who and whom I have not yet the constitution to investigate), and the thing I had asked for: a wooden box of small drawers she had brought home from Korea, and used as a jewelry box.
Rex was delighted to hear that we were heading next to the Warhawk Air Museum, of which he apparently is an active member, contributor, and participant, having been a pilot in World War II. He and Miguel realized they share an interest, and so Miguel heard about the P-47 that had just shown up for the 4th of July airshow but hadn’t left yet, and the F-104 parked out back that had to be seen.
P-47 Thunderbolt at the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho
F-104 Starfighter
Though I had suggested the museum stop as a way to placate the boys, I ended up really enjoying it, and wished there was more time to spend exploring. Tara was drawn to the women of WWII section and said she wanted to have one of the uniform jackets hanging in display. I liked the old posters. Tara bought a Rosie the Riveter T-shirt.
There were many displays like this one that tracks, through the placement of mementos, the impressive careers of an Air Force pilot and his wife.
Join the WAVES!
The kids had been begging us to return home, almost from the moment we began, so parents compromised with kids by agreeing to head back earlier than necessary if they agreed to comply with our stops along the way. We left Nampa all rather eager to get into higher elevation and out of the heat of the Treasure Valley.
Serendipitously, we parents decided that since we were heading back a full day prior to plan, then we didn’t have any reason to fly back along the Interstate. Instead, we struck out on Highway 26 through central Oregon, places that Arno and I had not been before, though his boys had been out there during previous summer camps with OMSI.
Graffiti at a rest stop in Oregon. Listen, we don’t do anything around here without activism of some sort.
On the map we spotted Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and what looked like several campgrounds right inside the boundaries. Sure enough, there were three awesome campgrounds close the the highway. You can’t beat $5 a night. We chose the one we liked best. After 7 pm, all traffic stopped out there in the wilds, so it was a peaceful, cool, and mostly bug-less night.
Mom at Christmastime in Coer d’Alene
I miss my mom.
It’s been almost a year now since she died of cancer. The nasty black insidious mold creeping through her tiny body and taking hold everywhere before anyone knew what was going on.
I still have her last text messages on my phone. I finally found the strength to read through them today. Well, almost. I read through most of it, absorbing the awful meaning of the fumbled letters from her shaky fingers. I was at work and had to stop when the tears blurred the screen. I’ll share this desperately poignant and personal lingering bit of my mother with you.
December 1, 2011
Mom: I am thrilled with the Rosewater. (I bought some of her favourite perfume for her) Also I shake so bas in the morn I can hardly txt
Me: I was wondering about that – the texts.
Mom: sorry
Me: Pa sent the kindest email about how you need to know what a Legacy you’ve created. I will send it to you.
Me: Grandma Freda’s brother Dwight is a pastor, and he has been praying for you. He’s got an inside track to God, ha ha!!
December 2, 2011
Me: I had a great talk w your brother last night. He is perfect up there right now. (Mike parked his RV at a park in Bonners Ferry.) I am so glad he’s going to stay in Bonners for awhile.
December 3, 2011
Me: Good morning, Moma. I love you. Scrambling eggs and leftover ham for T before ballet.
Me: Are you available for a phone call?
Mom: Not yet.we R just loading laundry.I’ll call
Me: ok
December 4, 2011
Me: Good morning, my Moma!!
Mom: Gettingalot sicker.I may needU sooner. I’m trying to ignore but igs getter harder.I have to tons of xmascards, I already cant evenwrite tons of mistaaks
Me: Moma!! I can write cards for you!! I am so eager to help. Thank you for letting me know, i will talk to my boss.
Mom: Bruv (She called her twin brother Mike “Bruv”) will be livin in town,bet we can work out a plan!
Me: Yes, but you have no wireless Internet, so I may disintegrate with despair! Ha ha
Me: Is life possible without Internet?
Mom: Bruv is hooked to RVERTHING at motel!
Me: Ha ha! I’m sure. I can go visit him and check my email.
Mom: Boys here next week end,so mayby anyday after that
December 5, 2011
Me: Good morning, Moma. Miss T (my daughter) slept with me last night. She is the sweetest girl. We are so lucky to have her.
Mom: She is something that gets richer every year
Me: Yes, that’s true
Me: We dropped to 28 last night. 30 deg now
Mom: We R15. Di d U loose a maroony jacket?I found it in my closet
Me: I can’t think of any jacket I’m missing.
Mom: ok
Me: I have been thinking about how awesome your visit in June was. The food carts, naked bikers, clothes shopping, graduation dress.
Me: It was probably one of our best visits ever. How lucky we are.
Mom: Wow. That was such a suupper great time we had. amazng gift
December 6, 2011
Me: Just talked with my supervisor’s boss about leaving. I will come up there Saturday. I have enough vacation time to go through Jan 20.
Mom: I was qoin t o
December 7, 2011
Me: I put up the website today, and people have already donated $265 toward your medical bills! People are wonderful. 🙂
December 9, 2011
Me: I get to see you tomorrow, Moma! And you get to see your boys tonight.
…
And that’s it. As you can see, she lost the ability to text, and so I stopped trying. I sent two more messages in case she could look at her phone and read it.
I arrived December 10th and she was gone December 15th. She couldn’t really talk, but for a couple of days, she could tell what was going on, and I was able to make her smile once or twice.
Still can’t bring myself to clear my text messages. In fact, I still pull my phone out to send her texts. She’s that much a part of my life still. There are some moments when I can’t believe she’s gone. I know it’s a cliche. But this woman was so full of LIFE! How can she not be alive? And she was intermingled in my life in every way. I get angry sometimes that I don’t get any more of her. But mostly, I’m sad.
Gramilda, Pulek, and me, at her home in Nampa
I told Arno not too long ago that I believe I live in such a way that I invite drama into my life. Not drama in a negative sense, but more along the lines of Big Happenings. I live with my mind open and my eyes open, and while all the normal crazy things in life happen to me (as they do with everyone else), a whole bunch of other things happen too. I create this sort of “happening” energy around me, where pistons are firing on all cylinders all the time.
To make it more chaotic, I choose to engage with everything that comes along. I feel all the requisite emotions (and then some), I participate whenever possible, and you guessed it: I am often exhausted.
Recently I have had to endure the stresses associated with loss of loved ones (something I can’t control) as well as the stress of getting ready to live in another country (something I can control), and all the little adventures in between!
As I have recently talked about here, my mother died in December, very unexpectedly. Her mother, whom I call Gramilda (Grandma + her name, Armilda), took the blow severely. Gramilda has been suffering from poor health for several years. Now she had the death of her firstborn child to grieve, and it was too much for her to overcome.
Gramilda died Thursday night.
I talked to her a week ago Sunday. At the time, she knew she was going to die, and she sounded at peace with it. She said we were not allowed to be sorry or feel bad about it. That she is happy she doesn’t have to be old anymore, because she was sick of it. Gramilda said she refused to let another one of her children go before her, and thus was willing her own passing. Achingly poignant.
I can’t exactly grieve for her, because my heart is still all walled off from trying to avoid grieving for my mother. (She says, tongue-in-cheek) But seriously, I am not emotionally prepared to process another loss. Especially during a time when I have have had limited communications with the outside world.
HP guts (and my green toenail polish!)
My computer quit on me almost two weeks ago. Everything fine, then… blip! Nothing. I went 5 days with nothing at all except work computers, and about went mad. I had spent all my savings on Tara’s plane ticket to Japan (more on that later), and a new computer for Tara, whose own laptop had finally kicked the bucket just last month. Totally broke, my knight, Arno, saved me and bought me a new laptop.
The great thing is that only the hardware gave it up. All my saved files and documents and photos and spreadsheets are just fine. I got all the old stuff transferred from the old hard drive onto the new computer, and I’m back in business finally.
Our tent on the sand of the Sandy River, near Mt. Hood
This is Mother’s Day weekend, the one I had planned as my Tara Weekend prior to departure. Next weekend is Arno’s Weekend prior to departure. The weekend after that, I fly to Hiroshima, Japan, and then take the shuttle to Iwakuni. My choice for how to spend the weekend with my daughter was to go camping. So we set up a tent and a campfire on the beach on Friday night.
She looks great in a tuxedo!
It’s important to spend this time together, but not even Mother’s Day and Mom-Daughter time overrides the constant flow of activities in our lives. We had to break right in the middle for Prom.
Tara is only a Freshman, but was invited by her Senior friend to go to the big Junior-Senior event of the year. She is just daring enough to decide to wear a tux instead of a dress. She called me at work Wednesday, “Hey! Prom is this weekend! I need a tux!” Which is, if you are a parent, often the way things get brought to your attention. I had the luxury of three whole days to prepare. We picked up the tux without any trouble aside from the bill: $190! Luckily they gave us a $50 off coupon for first-time customers.
And so now, thoughts turn more and more toward Japan. I was selected for a temporary position with my employer, the Department of Veterans Affairs, to work for 4 1/2 months in Japan to explain VA benefits to soldiers separating from military service. I’ll be responsible for three bases on the mainland. A Marine base in Iwakuni, Air Force base in Misawa, and a Navy base in Sasebo.
Many things have been happening during April and May, but as you can see…very little evidence of it has appeared on my blog. Well, the most telling sign of all that I am extremely occupied (and have a dead computer): no posts! Rest assured, I will blog again.
Very soon, you will be hearing what it’s like for me to live in Japan. Sadly, my home will be on a U.S. base and not in the community, which would be my preference. But I am learning the language with Pimsleur audio lessons, and I plan to leave the military base as often as I can fit it into my schedule!
tracks in the snow
Arno and I are getting to know each other still. And we will continue to, of course, for years to come. He has seen that deeply personal messages sent originally to him will sometimes end up in a public forum. He said he’s realizing that <in his words> I am a writer, and a writer is going to write.</in his words> And the fact that it ends up posted on the Internet for all the world to see does not cheapen the intimate moments we have shared.
So yesterday at lunch when he told me my last email to him about my mother’s death was so passionate that it made him cry, I told him “Well, I just typed and then clicked Send. But if it’s that good, honey, it will probably end up on my blog.” Well, here is a part of my email to Arno. Only slightly edited.
***
snow rabbit
I stopped for the night at a hotel in Ritzville. I need to write Mom’s obituary. I was going to do that today, but got interrupted by packing up her things. It was hard, and upset me. Jim feels bad now, and I know he didn’t realize what a difficult thing he was asking of me. I don’t want him to feel bad about it. There is enough pain without adding more.
This morning when I woke up, I heard Mom’s ragged breathing. I had to look over to reassure myself that the hospital bed was gone, and Mom was not there, suffering. I knew I couldn’t bear another night there. I guess we probably all have a limited amount of tolerance for trauma. People who suffer with trauma for extended periods of time must go half crazy and get sick too. In the moments of her death, I thanked Mom for making it so easy on us. The quick journey through her dying was a gift for us and for her. Gramilda (Mom’s mom) said she thinks Mom did that on purpose, to make it easier on us. Ha, I can’t help but think she’s probably right. If Mom could find a way to take care of us while she was dying, I’m sure that’s what she did.
whose little feet made these?
So anyway, I may linger here alongside the freeway and take care of my last critical task. I can send the obit to the paper via email. My car is packed full of her stuff, and I may or may not get to it in a timely manner. Being away from the cabin makes it easier for me to fall into my old pattern of avoidance. I wish that trauma didn’t make me want to run. I went for a walk in the snow today (when I saw all those great tracks and sent you pictures from my phone), and I thought “I just can’t walk far enough.” No amount of running fixes anything. Today the walk didn’t even make me feel better. But being away from the cabin helps. I was still trying to take care of everybody. Maybe they didn’t need it. Maybe they didn’t even want it. But I can’t help but try to shoulder responsibility and boost everyone else’s feelings. It just sucks my energy out. I am not good at moderation. I seem to want to do things fully or not at all.
Man, I’m so glad I went to north Idaho when I did. The whole thing was so much quicker than I ever expected, or was mentally prepared for. But I’m tremendously glad I was there. When she died, it was such a relief to hear her quiet and at rest. Finally. I just wrapped my arms around her and held on to her and cried and cried. I felt greedy for the last bit of her life. Her body was warm, and I remember thinking I wanted to have her warmth, because that was all that was left. I held her until I realized it was my own body still keeping her warm in the cold room.
When I was finally able to leave the room, it was my biggest step toward letting her go. I did not look at her again. I did not watch when they took her away.
Driving away from the mountain, everything I saw was her. It was like the essence of my mother was in the air. Those mountains, the valleys, the river, the town of Bonners Ferry – they are all my mother. All I ever knew of those places is because of her. I was always with her there. I would never have gone there but for her. I know it all so well, and it’s always been flavoured with her perspective, her stories, her spirit and influence, her friends, her dreams, her thoughts.
I think the next time I go back will be another step of letting her go, if I can learn what life is like without her, then go back. If I can look at that part of Idaho in a world without my mother, I can re-frame what I see with new definitions. What will the snowy peaks look like without Mom? The yellow fields of cut hay and wooden fences and horses? They will still have her face and her voice when I stand there. The birds will sing in the trees the way that they do because of her. The squirrels will scold with all their boldness in the world she polished up for them. But how will that world change when she’s not here anymore?
And when I get home, what will my world look like without her? Her artistry is behind my world too. What is the next chapter of my life, where I am the mother now, and I look behind me at Tara instead of in front of me at my Mother? I don’t even want to know. But I guess I will find out.
Mom and I at a favourite Bonners Ferry, Idaho cafe two years ago.
My mother is dying of cancer. From the looks of things, combined with my extreme lack of experience with cancer, or of death, I think she has anywhere from a few days to a few weeks left. Or maybe a month, but I hope not, because this is no life.
I wish I had written sooner. I wanted to record my feelings as I went through this, so it might be of some help for me when I grieve in the future. But it is very hard for me to write about my denial, and then shock, and then determination, and then despair.
She’s my mom! My pretty Momma. The woman who was always there is now mostly gone, though some of her is still here, like when she was fighting me just now. I’m trying to get her into the bathtub, because it’s the first time I’ve seen her stand in 24 hours. But she won’t go. And what power she yet yields! It makes me smile.
And so yes, the despair is gone and now I have an immense sadness, and an awed sense of beauty and love.
I am so very lucky and grateful to have spent Veteran’s day weekend with her, and then Thanksgiving. It was shocking to see the vast changes from the middle of November to the end of November. During Thanksgiving she asked me to help her write her living will. She has a terrible fear that she will be taken to the hospital, because she does not want to die in a hospital. So, I was sitting beside her on the couch, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and she was asking me to read and explain things to her. She made a few notes to herself, so she could go ask her doctor about them. Her pen hovered above the paper for a moment, and she made a curve in the air with her finger, then turned to me, “Sis, how do I make a question mark?”
Mom's question mark on the living will
It’s the loss of her clear thinking that I did not expect, and that I have the hardest time dealing with. My mother, who has written long, detailed letters her entire life, couldn’t remember how to make a question mark. During that late November week, she had frequent periods where she would fade out, and fade back in with conversation from a different topic. But I could talk myself into believing it was because of her fatigue, or the pain meds. I talked with her on the phone December 3rd. She drifted and stopped talking a couple times, but it was still very easy to communicate with her.
But now, she speaks only a few words a day. Maybe she’ll say “no” or “water,” but that’s about it. And as vastly helpful as those few words are, I sense they will not be around much longer. I remind myself to transition to non-verbal communication.
She hears just fine, though sentences are often too confusing for her to understand. But simple ideas get through. “My beautiful Momma,” I said to her, as I stroked her hair, and though her eyes had been closed, she smiled. It was so wonderful to connect.
P.S. My mother and her husband Jim do not have health insurance, and she’s too young for Medicare. I made a website to solicit donations. There is also a prize for one person, whose name I will draw from the donators. So, even if you don’t know us, maybe you’d like to have a little holiday fun for a good cause. Please see the website.
Pete
Bwaaaahhhhh!!!
Sorry. I had to. I feel better now.
april
Oh my gosh, you got me laughing out loud with this. Akacia finds it depressing though. : )
david
Funny. Cute. I loved it. 🙂
katje
Loved it. 🙂
But I have a gallows sense of humor, or so they tell me.
crystal
April, David, J,
Thanks for the returned laughs! I have a twisted sense of humour myself. I needed to lighten things up a bit. Still feeling morose about the loss of my friend Kevin, then I get this image emailed to me at work with the subject line: Loss of a Friend. I’m thinking “Oh, geez, who found out and why are they bringing it up? I don’t want to talk about it.” I saw the picture and, like you April, laughed out loud. It was good medicine. So I put it on Gaia to let any readers know that I am healing. hugs to you guys.
Kevin making me laugh during Portland Pride
Back atcha’, Kevin, I’m really glad to have met you.
Goodbye, Kevin.
I didn’t know you that well. Only spent one day with you, to be honest. You were my boyfriend’s friend – he met you at a meeting – and since that’s his private battle that I can’t begin to understand, I try to let him have a place that is his own, which includes his own friends, those friends who can understand the SHIT of the battle that you were facing, friends who don’t need him to spell out all the details like he has to do with me because I just don’t get it.
expressing a lack of inhibition
Friends like you, Kevin. Who got it.
You got that the disease is hell. You got the twisted humor of genetics that came together to both create us and destroy us. You got the insanity of screaming “no, no, no” and MEANING it, while reaching for more.
You were young, handsome, intelligent, and beautiful like so many of your peers. Yet, all the good in your life was not enough to stop the path of destruction carved by your sickness.
Sometimes there is no wall high enough, or thick enough, or tough enough, with enough endurance, with enough of an army standing by – to fight this ugly, ugly, deathly disease.
And I am really sorry we can’t hang out ever again.
Kevin and me with dykes on bikes
Because I liked you. And you were a big doofus who made me laugh. And that is a good thing.
I send my love to your fiance, who found you. I send my love to your parents, who just lost a 30 year old son to an invisible demon foe. I send my love to my boyfriend who got your text that night, “Hey, when you get a chance, call me tomorrow.” I send my love to your other brother-in-arms, who called to let us know what happened and who is still reeling.
I send my love to ALL of you with this stupid Effing disease!!! This frustrating, maddening, pull my hair out, effed up journey through hell with a promise of – not even bliss – just a promise of “less hell” if you can manage to stay clean. It sucks. It makes me pissed off to even try to put it into words because there aren’t words to paint an accurate picture.
So hey, Kevin. I hope you are feeling no more pain. While you were here, you reached out and placed a little more beauty and laughter in the world. There was a time when you were the only friend my boyfriend had, and he needed you like you had no idea. Thanks for laughing at his f’d up stories of his own freakish journey, and for helping him find calm on some days when nothing, and no one, not even me, could do it. I owe you. I am grateful to you. I am glad there was you.
Comments from the old blog:
katje
There’s not much I can say, so here are some e-hugs.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Crystal))))))))))))))))))))))))))
And I think this was a very well-written, evocative tribute to a lost friend. 🙂
crystal
Hey J,
THanks for the hugs. Need them today. It’s good to have a friend “nearby” so that I feel more surrounded by love.
My daughter burst out this morning: “Hey! It’s Saturday! That means cartoons. I haven’t watched cartoons on TV since… since…. LAST Saturday!”
We clung to each other and cried all day long yesterday at funeral service for her Great Grandmother. She told me she hoped that people wouldn’t talk about only sad things at the funeral. I assured her there would be funny stuff, because I know my family… but I underestimated the grief.
In the afternoon we gathered with my Pa, his wife, his daughter-in-law, and my partner. This small intimate lunch was where the pent-up tension released a little for my daughter and me. We joked and laughed over our food.
Well, the final result is that despite the dull ache of losing my Gramma, with my family around me and some laughs, I feel much better today.
