One year.
One year ago
My mother died.
Online, I was silent.
Lynne posted the news on Facebook,
in my absence.
Absence of public spirit, of
articulated voice, of defining words. I
did write. Mostly poetry. I cried, still cry, complicated tears. Of missing a presence, her presence, of loss
of her place in my life.
I also cried the
tears of one whose trial is over. I
cried the tears that I couldn’t let myself cry when I had no choice but to keep
going. I cried the private tears that
aren’t explained, don’t have to be explained, to anyone. I didn’t articulate the reasons. The grief
that I felt was from a universal well.
That her life ended, that her difficult life ended, that I called her
life difficult but she did not. I didn’t
want debate, or defense. But I still
envy those whose grief is pure, who wish their mother (father, sister, partner,
lover) were still here. I don’t wish
that. For her or for me.
For her, I wish
total fulfillment of love, the one thing that meant the most to her, as to any
of us. Love is the one thing I tried to
give her, to interweave with the harsher realities of her final years. She was confused, disabled, dependent. She was
dependent on care doled out in a for-profit institution, by strangers who are
assigned to care for her. Some did, some
did come to care for her. You live
through this process. The days when
caring wasn’t there, or when care givers reached the limit of caring, don’t
have enough time to care for themselves, lose steam and yet can’t stop.
I witnessed that
the life of a care giver is a life of erosion, of wearing down your resources,
your best intentions and your open heart.
I saw this in them, the aides who earn their living giving care under
difficult circumstances. I witnessed
this in me.
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| Sara (my mother's care giver), Cooie Hedman, and Sky |
My mother smiled
at me when I arrived, usually, and that would be the best gift. There were times when she did not, and I
would try to root out the cause. It
could be simple—the wrong skirt on, or a wrinkle in her socks, or being left
too long in one position. It could be
that the bird feeder was empty, or that she was confused about the day. Sometimes she said it hurt, but I didn’t know
what hurt. I tried all the remedies that
I could think of. I asked the nurses to give her more Tylenol. The aides promised to get her into bed
early. We tried shifting her in her
chair. I ordered her some ice
cream. I played with her animals, making
them all sing. Later, I realized that
none of these remedies addressed the pain that she was experiencing. She said, at the end of her life, “It really
hurts.” I couldn’t help her except to
call in the nurse, and eventually, to sign up with Hospice. I encouraged her and told her how proud I was
of her, because I was. She did not
complain much. When we finally realized
that she was eaten up with cancer, I was humbled by how brave she had been.
Who she was to me… Someone I cared for, loved, but whose needs I
juggled with my own, until the end. Then
it was too late. There wasn’t enough
time left. I was there with her, Mari
and Kit were there, Lynne was there. The
ones who wanted to be there, were there.
She was someone different to each of us.
I admire the women
who say of their mothers, “I wish she was still here,” and “I keep her always
in my heart.” I do keep her in my heart,
partly because her story is my story.
Her path was as uneven as mine. I
see myself in her. I yearn for love the
way she did. I was not granted physical
beauty anymore than she was. I struggle
to find my place in the world as she did.
She counted the badges she earned, she kept her awards and her
certificates of thanks. She took her
volunteer jobs seriously, just like I do.
I define myself by my work, and without it I am lost.
On the Friday before
she died, she was alone in her room when Sara came. Sara let the silence remain as they sat
looking out the window. My mother said,
“I hate not having anything to do.” So
they colored, until it was time to eat.
At her burial, my
brother Thom brought a piece of embroidery that my mother had started, but
never finished. It was a Girl Scout
insignia on white cloth. The length of green
thread that she had started to sew with was still there. “This gives her something to work on,” he
said, as he placed the embroidery hoop in the hole in the ground.
The unfinished
embroidery is in the ground with her ashes.
The need to define your self with work lives on in me.
I have her ceramic
Christmas tree on a table in our living room.
It is lit by fiber optics delivering colors from the color wheel out to
the tip of each branch. It fades from
the glow of green to the glow of red to the glow of blue, then yellow,
noiselessly. I gave her that decoration
when she moved to her first “independent living” apartment in Florida .
She put it on the pass-through between her kitchen and her living
room. In time, she moved it to her
assisted living studio, and then to her second assisted living apartment. I went to that apartment when she was in the
rehab unit. There was the ceramic
Christmas tree, alone is her empty apartment.
I mentioned it to my sister who helped pack up her belongings to send to
Bellingham . It made the trip, and displayed its rainbow
of colors each of the three years that she was here. She loved the tree. The last year, in her room at the end of the
hall in the long term care facility, it stayed on 24 hours a day. She was past
the point of noticing it. As Christmas
approached, I think it was on more for my spirit than for hers. I had bought a Christmas outfit for her baby
doll, but by the time I brought the gift to her room, she was fading away,
hardly able to acknowledge the doll which had been her darling since we gave it
to her for her 98th birthday in July. We propped the festively dressed doll up in
bed next to her head, but she was already drifting into her final sleep. I had hoped for one more expression of
delight for her, but I was too late for that.
In early December,
I had decorated her door in hopes that she would like it, covering the door
with red Christmas wrap and hanging up a red wreath and some gold ribbon. I had
asked my friends to come to her room to sing Christmas carols on Christmas Eve,
and they had kindly agreed. The day
before, I sent a short email of cancellation.
The moment was passed. She had
died on December 23rd, 2014. We
spent Christmas Eve dismantling her room, taking down her decorations for the
last time, and dispersing her belongings.
She didn’t need them anymore.
We are decorating
this year. My youngest sister Mari sent
me three electric deer which I have planted on the front lawn. I hung the white
icicle lights on the front of the house and the colored string of lights across
the front fence. I hung up the crystal
reindeer that Viv, Lynne’s sister-in-law, had given us many years ago, when
Lynne’s mother was alive and we celebrated with Lynne’s brother and
sister-in-law visiting from Canada .
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| Totsie Pharis, Lynne's mother, Christmas 2003 |
We lived in a big
stone house in Kentucky ,
put up a tall Fraser fir tree in the living room, and had so many presents that
they couldn’t all fit under the tree. We
spend Christmas morning playing Santa.
Viv had a particular knack for giving creative and thoughtful gifts,
including to the dogs of both households.
Lynne’s mother would enjoy spending the entire day with us, keeping up a
stream of conversation from her mid-morning arrival until after Christmas
dinner in the evening. The first few
years, Richard brought venison, deer steaks and duck that they had hunted in Canada , and the
house would fill with the smells of game for Christmas dinner. Lynne misses those years. Her mother is gone, Richard and Viv leave for
New Zealand
before Christmas. We have a new
tradition of celebrating with newer friends here, but we have wistful memories
of those traditional celebrations.
Lynne misses her
mother, in the classic way. She wishes
she were still here.
I am painting a
portrait of our experience of this Christmas.
It is a mixture of memories of earlier Christmases, some treasured and
some hard. I am eager for this holiday
because I notice in particular the messages of love and peace, of good cheer
and delight. I hear more music, and I
sing along. I delight at the Christmas
lights, especially in contrast to the long hours of darkness that wrap around
our short days here in the Northwest.
Today was the first day of sun for a week. Mt.
Baker
