The Best Laid Plans Often Go Astray

Mom died on the Saturday before Labor Day. Kenna died on the Friday before Memorial Day. I don't know what it is with my family members and holiday weekends, but sadness now hovers over all of my summer holidays.

It had been nearly two months since I'd last seen Mom. I took an extra day after the July 4th holiday so I could have a long weekend with my family. Independence Day had always been a favorite holiday for Kenna and me, and I found myself rather depressed this year. I stayed at Mom's a little longer than I had intended and I was late getting to the park to watch fireworks. I don't know what kept me at Mom's, but I didn't want to leave, and I cried on my way out. Maybe I knew our time together was almost gone. I can't remember a single thing we talked about that night, but I remember turning off her lamp, kissing and hugging her, and telling her I'd see her again the following day. I did, but she was so exhausted that she could barely stay awake long enough to visit. That was the last time I saw her before her heart attack.

The last time I talked to her on the phone, she was in the skilled nursing unit. It was late in the afternoon, a time when her mind seemed to fog over somewhat, probably due to exhaustion from all the activities of the day. Her room didn't have a phone, so I talked to her on Cheryl's cell phone. That was always frustrating for both of us because she could barely hear me and I could barely understand her. We tried, but there were a lot of "What"s and "I can't hear you"s. I told her I would come visit soon, and she said, "I love you very much. Please don't forget me."

That's it. The last thing my mother said to me in a coherent state of mind was, "Please don't forget me." It will haunt me forever to think that she even considered that a possibility.

I had plans that Labor Day weekend. Cheryl had been telling me how she would go see Mom at the skilled nursing unit during lunch time. She would walk in the door and see Mom in the dining hall with her friends. When Mom would see Cheryl, her face would just light up with happiness and she would smile. My plan for that weekend was to spend as much time as I could Friday evening and Saturday doing homework so I would have plenty of free time for the rest of the weekend. I was going to drive in late Saturday or early Sunday so I could walk in with Cheryl during Mom's lunch. I was so excited. It had been a long time since I'd seen Mom anywhere besides her bed and I couldn't wait to see her face light up.

Instead, I watched her die.

The Truth About Death

I came home yesterday, one week after my mother died, three days after her funeral, and what seemed like a lifetime to my cats. I say home, but it really isn't. This is the house where I have lived for nine years, in the city where I've resided for thirteen years, but home will always be Mom's house. Not the house on Dewey Street, but the house we moved into when I was ten years old. The house on 8th Street. The house my grandpa built. The house where my mom spent the later years of her childhood, in the room that decades later would become my own. The house where my grandma died as my mother held her hand. The house where we spent Thanksgivings and Christmases and birthdays and holidays and just plain, ordinary days. The house on 8th Street is where the real stuff happened. The house on Dewey Street is where my mind travels when I need to escape to somewhere safe. It's where my life was secure, unchanging, and normal.

But what is normal, really? Death is normal. Everyone dies. Everyone who lives long enough has to cope with losing a loved one to death. Death is a welcome escape from suffering into whatever comes next, and an unwanted, life-altering event for those left behind in the world. Before Kenna died, I imagined myself at her bedside, holding her hand and having an emotionally moving, deep conversation before she peacefully slipped away. In reality I got something painful and ugly that I can't even bear to recount here, and I wasn't present when she died. I didn't get my Hollywood ending. I don't think anyone does.

Someone Important

Today was the day we laid my mother to rest and said goodbye to her for the final time. I have a plethora of emotions that I cannot possibly articulate right this minute, but I wanted to share something with you. I wrote this and read it at her funeral this morning.

There's someone important I want you to meet...
This is my best friend, we like to play
I want to be with her every day
We play with dolls and pretend to be grown
With her as my friend I'm never alone
Friend, this is my Mommy.

There's someone important I want you to meet...
This is a guy I know from school
Don't say too much to him, that wouldn't be cool
When I talk to him my legs feel like butter
And inside my chest my heart starts to flutter
We're going out now on our very first date
Goodbye Mom, I won't be too late
Sweetie, this is my Mom.

There's someone important I want you to meet...
This is my newborn, your new grandchild
Look! Did you see that? I think he just smiled!
Never in my life have I been filled with such joy
As I am when I look at this precious little boy
Being a mother takes so much hard work
There are times when I feel I'm going berserk
But if there's one thing I know to be true
I'll go a long way with what I've learned from you
Son, this is your Grandma.

There's someone important I want you to meet...
This woman is one of the world's greatest treasures
My love for her could never be measured
She taught me so much about life and love
And her inspiration always came from above
So as she leaves me now to walk with You
There's just one thing I'll ask You to do
Put her in the most special place
Reward her daily with Your love and grace
And although You care for so many others
There's no one as special to me as my Mother.

I'm Going Back to the Start

Sometimes our senses have a better memory than our brains do. My maternal grandmother passed away when I was just five years old, but I can still remember what her face powder smelled like. Spearmint gum smells like my paternal grandmother, who has been gone since 1991, and coffee smells like home. Not my house, because I rarely drink coffee, but home, where I grew up; where my parents were, where my friends were, where my bike and my toys and my pets were. Where my security is. A place where my family was young. Healthy. Alive.

I remember so many things about The House on Dewey Street...

Sisters – From Scourge to Sentinel

If my story can save just one life...

My previous entries have already established that my older sisters were two of the biggest tormentors of my childhood years and often the bane of my existence. Had you told me when I was seven (and Mom quite likely did) that my sisters would become two of my best friends, I would have scoffed for days. How could these two people, who then caused me so much sibling suffering, ever be my willing confidantes? But of course that’s exactly what happened. 

Oh, I saw signs of it even back then. When an older boy pushed me into a busy street (busy by small town standards, which means not really that busy at all) I cried to Cheryl, who then traveled to his house, knocked on his door and promptly punched him in the nose. When she followed up with “That’s for my baby sister!” he protested, “But I don’t even know your sister!” It turned out the pushing perpetrator was actually his brother, who still lived at home with their parents. 

Oops!

On another occasion that I sometimes think of as Slapocalypse ‘79 (although I’m kind of muddy on the dates now) I was involved in a verbal altercation with a neighborhood friend who was about two years older than I. Her closing argument came in the form of a slap to my face, and Kenna immediately and instinctively returned the infraction. This earned Kenna a slap in the face from the girl’s older sister (who was Kenna’s age and one of her closest friends.) It was a retaliatory wallop-fest of epic proportion.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Me!

The stuff of my childhood nightmares!

I’ve already touched upon how Cheryl used to scare Kenna and me with music. But that was far from the only thing that frightened me as a child. I daresay was the biggest scaredy-cat the world has ever known, and it wasn’t just normal kid stuff that scared me. Oh I was afraid of those things, don’t get me wrong. Spiders, bugs, snakes, the dark, the boogeyman, monsters under the bed or in the closet – they were all horrifying. But my childhood list of “Things That Make Me Jump, Scream, Cry, or Give Me Nightmares” included some not-so-common fears as well.

For instance, I was afraid of railroad tracks. It wasn’t just trains, although if a train was passing by I could be found cowering in the back seat with my hands clamped over my ears and my eyes squeezed shut. If that sucker was going to jump the track and land on our car, I didn’t want to see it happen. But even if there was no train in sight, the tracks themselves sent me into a tizzy. If I was crossing them in a car I was fine, and most of the time I could even ride my bicycle over them if I was going fast enough. But walking across railroad tracks was a different story. I would stand at the side of the tracks, look both ways, take a deep breath, chicken out, and start all over. I couldn’t explain why the trainless tracks scared me so much. Mom had a theory that I watched too many cartoons but I didn’t buy that.

The Music of a Year

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?

Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three hundred sixty-five days. That’s how long it’s been since my sister took her last breath. When I placed my cell phone next to me that night, I knew it was going to ring before my alarm sounded the following morning.

Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere.

It was 3:34 AM. I knew without looking who was calling and the tears started to fall before I said hello. I fervently wished I had changed my ring tone to something other than “Don’t Stop Believing” because I knew in that moment I had to stop believing that somehow a miracle would come through and my sister would live.