Snippets From Sam

I am overwhelmed today by a deep sorrow that I have been in denial of for several months now. My mother’s life is coming to an end. I have such mixed emotions I don’t know what to do with them. I have been crying all day.

I tried to talk to Mom this morning. The past three weeks she has been unresponsive to my questions and conversation. When I ask her a question I hear Missy in the background saying, “You have to say the word Granny. Aunt Sandra can’t see you nod.” Mom will whisper, “Yes.”

Yesterday I talked to Missy and she told me that Mom has to have mittens put on her hands now because she is gouging her thighs until they bleed. She is forming the contractures consistent with end stage Alzheimer’s and Missy is doing some physical therapy exercises on her.

When I remember the vital, independent woman my mother was, it breaks my heart to think of her like this. It hurts so much sometimes I just can’t breathe. Do I want her to continue to just exist? Or would I rather see her go home to her God and be well and whole again? The answer is not simple. I do not want her to suffer any longer and if she could have her say, she would tell us she would rather die.

On the other hand, when she dies I will have lost the only person on this earth who has loved me unconditionally all my life. No matter what, my mother has always been there for me. She has been my rock and I could turn to her at any time for anything. But this is just me feeling sorry for myself for my loss rather than thinking of her gain.

When I pray for her I just ask God to surround her with peace because I know in her jumbled mind she is not at peace. Missy says Mom cries all the time she is awake, and she was crying when I talked to her this morning. I read her two stories and that seemed to calm her but what, I wonder, happens after I hang up? Does anyone up there ever read her stories? Do they tell her that they love her?

What will I do without my mother in my world?

As I become older and more reflective I also become more melancholy. Don’t get me wrong, I am not unhappy or depressed. Maybe wistful is a better word. Time has flown by so quickly. It seems like only yesterday I was the young mother of two small boys. What wonderful times we had growing up together. All my life I had wanted boys and God blessed me with two of the best.

I can’t say their childhood was great but I can say that they were the light of my life. After their father left when they were ages 6 and 8 it was just the three of us. I wanted to make their childhood memories happy ones so I got them involved in sports, music and camping. Robin was the sports guy and Tim the music man. I went to every sporting event and music concert they were involved in.

When Robin was 10 his Uncle Dick, who had become his mentor when his dad left, died of cancer at age 33. Robin was devastated and missed his uncle terribly. To this day he will tell you that Uncle Dick’s death affected him more than did his father leaving home.

After Dick’s death my sister, Linda and I started a family tradition of weekend camping. Our favorite place was the Peace River KOA. They had tubing, horse back riding, hay rides, Saturday night movies for the kids. There were several hundred acres of woodlands for hiking. It was also the historic site of the Chautauqua amphitheater ruins that had been quite the thing back in the 1920’s. There are some great pictures in the recreation hall of the theater when it was still operating. The old cars, the flapper style dresses, lanterns lighting the way to the theater. What a neat history.

We always had a great time; looking for shark’s teeth in the river, tubing, horseback riding, the Saturday evening hay ride, hiking, cooking over the camp fire. The kids were never bored and sometimes Linda and I actually got time to ourselves to sit back and read. We didn’t have much money but at the time a weekend camping cost us about $25 each including food. The kids still remember those camping weekends and when we are together we have the “remember this or that” discussions.

When I wished for boys as a young mother I never realized that usually when boys leave home you don’t hear much from them. Daughters are much better at remembering Mom. Thank goodness I have a daughter in law that calls me on a regular basis.

My sons will never know how my heart soars when the phone rings, I pick it up and hear their voice. Either one, it doesn’t matter. I love talking to them and just being around them, especially when they are together. I feel like I never want to leave because I don’t know when the next gathering might be.

When one or the other of them comes over to my house it seems like the house is alive again and when they leave they take the sunshine with them. The house becomes so quiet that I wonder if they had really been here or if I had just dreamed it.

The house is warm and comfy. The living room has a fire in the fireplace. I can hear it crackle. Grandma Mom is in the kitchen baking something that smells wonderful. I smell cinnamon so it is probably apple pie or cobbler. She loves to bake and there are several fruit trees in the yard including apple, cherry and pear along with current and raspberry bushes. Grandpa Pop is in the kitchen with her, sitting at the small table and they softly talk to each other. If it wasn’t for the refuge I find being in this house I know my childhood would pass with little joy.

The house is a two story Dutch colonial that was built by Uncle Art. I didn’t know him but Mommy and Mom say a lot of good things about him. I love this big old house. It has three bedrooms and a sewing room on the second floor. There is also a large bathroom. A door in the sewing room goes out onto a small balcony. The stairs to the attic go up from Pop’s bedroom. The attic holds all kinds of treasure that I love to go through.

My favorite is an old chest full of movie stars pictures that my Aunt Joyce and Aunt Shirley have collected over many years. There are dozens of them. Shirley is married now but Joyce still lives here. She is only six years older than me. I am ten. Sometimes Joyce lets me try on her formals. She has such pretty ones with lace and taffeta, satin and light netting. The skirts flared out and I twirl around and Joyce laughs at my antics.

On the first floor is the kitchen, a large formal dining room, the living room with a fireplace and my favorite, the sunroom. The sunroom is small but it has windows all around the outside walls. There is a piano, a rocking chair and all of Mom’s plants on plant stands around the windows. Most of them are succulents.

The house also has a basement with laundry area, a commode stall, home canned vegetable room that we call the root cellar and a huge furnace. There is a ping-pong table in the front part of the basement. There is also a storm door leading outside. The main stairs go up into the kitchen. My cousin David likes the basement but I prefer the attic. Did I mention that I love this house?

 My favorite thing in the world is to sit in the rocking chair in the sunroom during winter and watch the snowfall under the streetlight at night. There are no words to describe the peace and beauty I feel at these moments. It is like being transported to a different time and place. I just sit there alone in the dark; rocking and watching the flakes drift slowly down. Every once in a while a small gust of wind goes through and the snowflakes will swirl before kissing the ground.

Photo Credit: Flickr “G” Jewels g is for Grandma

There are times when the snow comes down so thick I can’t see the street light, only its glow through the heavy curtain of snow. At times a car or the city bus goes by and the snow eddies wildly from the disruption of its descent and then once again floats peacefully to the ground. I love this house and all the joy that fills it. This is where my most precious childhood memories lay.

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Part Two My Mother

By: Sam

This a continuation of the post I made about my mother on May 11, 2008

Mom was at Westminster for 5 ½ years. At first she hated it but then she adapted. She had a bare place where the workers had taken out a dead tree right outside her window. I took her to Willow Tree nursery and she bought a truck full of annuals and perennials and turned that bare spot into a lovely garden. Residents and caregivers walked past her villa just to admire the flowers. It was such a pretty garden and how she loved that bright colorful spot she created. Every season Mom and I would go to the nursery for the periennials of the season. Pansies were her all time favorite and she loved Christmas because that is when the pansies started showing up in the nurseries.

 Then, in 2005, Mom lost her beloved companion Beau and she gave up on life. She never stopped grieving for this dog that gave her so much joy for 16 years. I watched her slowly fade away and my heart breaks for all the losses she has had and borne so valiantly, until now.

 I feel that my mother is the last of the generations where families stayed together, celebrated holidays together, Sunday dinners together, family cook outs, we all went to church together. While Richard was alive he continued the family get togethers but after he was gone so went family tradition.

 In 2006, due to financial situations, my mother had to be relocated to Georgia to stay with my sister so I don’t get to see her every couple days as I did when she was at Westminster. I miss her so much. We talked by phone almost every day but Mom got so hard of hearing I have to shout so she can hear me. I even got her a phone for the hearing impaired but she still cannot hear everything I say. 

 At first Mom was left alone all week because right after my sister offered her a home Linda got a job so she was gone from 630 AM until 6 PM. Mom told me that sometimes she doesn’t even see Linda for 2-3 days because Linda doesn’t even come in to check on Mom when she gets home from work.

 Several months after the move Mom had a heart attack. If I had not listened to my inner voice and called when I did Mom would have died and who knows when she would have been found dead in bed. I feel so helpless down here while she is up there and not properly cared for. I don’t understand how Linda can be my sister and care so little about our mother.

 I just have to put Mom in God’s hands and I pray constantly for her safety. I don’t know what else to do. I know she is unhappy there but she has determined to make the best of it. At 94 she does not want to make any more moves. I know she is lonely. If it wasn’t for Melissa and Lindsay, my sister’s daughter and granddaughter, looking out for Mom, there would be no one to help her if she needs it. 

 I know how she feels and sometimes I have a real pity party. But there is some good stuff going on as well. Melissa and Lindsay treasure my mother and Missy is home every day except Thursdays. She is about 1000 yards down the drive and only a phone call away. 

In 2007 Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She has good days and bad days. Melissa takes wonderful care of her grandmother for which I will be grateful until the day I die. I get to talk to Mom every Thursday. Melissa calls on her cell phone after she has gotten Mom up, showered and given her breakfast. The phone is put on speaker so that Mom does not have to touch anything, just talk. I have been buying children’s books, mostly by Stephen Cosgrove, because she loves the stories. The stories always have a moral and the drawings of the animals are darling. After I have read the book I mail them up to her so she can see the pictures. Melissa tells me that Mom sits in her wheelchair and reads these books over and over.

We don’t know what the future holds for my mother. She just turned 94, her short term memory is gone but she can remember things that happened when I was a child and so we reminisce about times past and for a while I can hear a smile in her voice. Yes, there are also tears but most of them are for happy memories. This story cannot end as long as my Mom is alive but when it does end I know without a doubt that she will finally be at peace and whole again.

I love you Mom.