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.

It was a sunny, balmy, breezy day, just perfect for a walk with an owl. I was a volunteer for Boyd Hill Nature Preserve with the bird of prey program. I headed down to get Phantom, the barred owl I have been working with for the past 6-8 months. I was teaching her to perch on the glove so we can start using her in our educational programs. She had only been getting on the glove for about 6 weeks. This type of training takes a long time and much patience.

When I first started with her I just stood on the ladder holding the glove in front of her for several minutes each day so she could get acquainted with it and not be frightened when the time finally came for her to actually get on it. So far patience had been paying off and she was coming along very well. The first day I actually hooked up her jesses and pulled her onto the glove she was not happy and bated off the glove. Being a glove novice she did not know what to do to get herself back up onto the glove. I had to get my free hand underneath her and gently push her body back up onto the glove and hope that she would grasp it with her feet. She did not. Once again I pushed her back up to the glove telling her that it is not dignified to be hanging upside down from a long strap attached to her legs. She didn’t care about dignity. The lesson for that day was over because once the bird is stressed I could not accomplish anything by forcing her to continue.

Many sessions later perseverance finally paid off and she eventually got the idea that it was really OK to be standing on a glove. We did not go anywhere, just stood in the cage while she felt the glove, jesses and strap. I whispered to her the whole time to calm her. By this time she had also learned how to get herself back up on the glove when she bated. What a feeling of joy I had the first time I actually took her out of her aviary. We only walked down the trail for about 50 feet but it was a giant step for her to be out of her security zone. Finally, on this day we were going to take our first long walk. Things were great. She watched me as I talked to her; she looked down at my feet hearing my footsteps whishing through the grass. I would elevate her on the glove up into the air above my head so she could feel the sun on her body and have the breeze ruffle her beautiful feathers. I sang to her softly. She blinked slowly at me with her wonderful dark eyes. She was actually enjoying this walk. After about 30-45 minutes I headed back to the aviary by way of the back parking lot. As we were heading down the trail a car pulled into the lot. Phantom tensed and I tried to distract her from bating but it was too late. She just bombed off the glove and was hanging upside down and frantically flapping her wings. Because she only has one wing and the shoulder of the other wing, all this accomplished was for her to spin in circles. She was very effectively twisting the jesses and strap around her feet so when I tried to get her back on the glove it was like her feet were tied together and she could not get a grip. I was trying to untangle her but she was flapping so madly it was impossible to untangle her.

In the meantime the person driving the car came over to see if she could help. She is a new volunteer but had never handled a bird before so there was nothing she really could do at that point. After a few frantic moments I just put my arm around the owl and pulled her upright against my chest. That was when we noticed she was dripping blood. Quick inspection revealed that she had broken a blood feather on her amputated wing. If the bleeding is not stopped quickly, the bird can exsanguinate in a short period of time. The only way to accomplish this is to pull out the blood feather with needle nose pliers. This is not something I normally carry around with me and besides it is a two-person procedure, one to hold the bird still and the other to pull the feather out. All I could think of was to pinch off the feather to keep the blood from flowing so freely. This I did while I carried her back to the aviary. Now the bird is clinging to my chest with her talons, which are the most dangerous part of her body, but she never even broke the skin. She just blinked up at me as though waiting for me to make everything OK.

When I got her to the outside workbench I was able to untangle the jesses and strap. I tried to get her to sit on a perch but she instead jumped back to the glove. All the while I am pinching off that blood feather and trying to put some styptic on it as a temporary measure to stop the bleeding. The styptic did not work; the blood was just flowing out too fast. Pinching was the only thing that stopped it. By this time we both were covered with blood spatter.The novice bird volunteer tried to find the ranger in charge of the birds but she had gone home to go to her granddaughter’s graduation. The only other person who was qualified to pull the feather was our head volunteer Gabe but he was not due to come in until 5 PM. It was only 4 but Bobbie and I decided this was worth a call to him anyway. She called, I pinched.

Gabe got there in about 15 minutes. He got a towel and threw it over the bird’s head so she would not struggle when we worked on her. I held her feet just in case she decided to test out just how deep she could jab those talons into a hand while Gabe pulled out the offending blood feather. He then packed the wound with styptic after flooding it with peroxide. We watched her for about 15 minutes to make sure the styptic had done its job. Then Gabe took the bird and gently set her in the box in her aviary. We watched her for another hour and declared that the emergency was over.

The next day I went down to the park to see how she was and she was fine. She blinked, I sang “You Are My Sunshine” to her and she let me scratch her head. She got onto the glove for a short walk. What a trooper she is. I have a feeling that she will be one of those special birds like GHO (the great horned owl) who are just a dream to handle. What a blessing to be able to actually touch and love these magnificent birds.

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.

More Snippets on Life

By: Sam

In 1983, after 11 years alone with my two sons, I found my high school friend Richard, actually he found me. I had thought that love was no longer a factor in my life but we got married and after the kids left home life just seemed to be getting better as we grew older together. Regretfully he died at age 60 after a two-year battle with an inoperable brain tumor. My life as I knew it ended.

Right before Richard was diagnosed, my mother had taken her first fall off a chair while dusting the top of her refrigerator; she broke her hip. The anesthesia from her hip surgery took its toll on her memory and for three days she did not know any of us when we went to visit her. She did regain most of her cognitive powers and recovered from the hip surgery in time. She had gotten her driving privileges back and was home again and things went well until the second fall she took while walking home from my house with her beloved companion, Beauregard, her Bassett hound.

This happened a month after Richard died. She fractured her pelvis. During this hospitalization she developed a condition called “sundowner syndrome”. She remembered us but after the sun went down she became totally disoriented and would call my sister and me in the wee hours of the morning. She would be crying and begged us to come get her. They were holding her prisoner and she just had to escape. She sounded so desperate and pitiful. It actually caused me physical pain to hear her pleading with me to come get her.  I would hang up and cry myself back to sleep.

My son Robin was a paramedic with the Pinellas Park FD at that time and she started calling 911 and asking them to send Robin to come take her home. Of course the 911 operators had caller ID and would check with the hospital to see what was going on. These calls were so disturbing to everyone; the hospital personnel put her in restraints at night, sedated her and moved the phone out of her reach. That really pissed her off. She would desperately try to crawl over the guardrails with the restraints on her arms and darn near killed herself trying to “escape”.

I stopped by after work every day to visit her and she would be sitting sullenly in the hall and refused to go back to her room. The nurses would wait until she fell asleep in the chair and carry her to bed for the night. During that time it seemed like I could not stop crying, for her, for Richard and for myself. 

Finally she got through her hospital rehab and she was released to my sister’s care. Mom was unable to go home since no one was there to take care of her. My sister’s husband, who refused to hold down a real job, supposedly would be home to watch her, feed her and help her with her walker, that is if she could wake him up. That’s another story.

 Mom was very unhappy at Linda’s and wanted to go home. Mark slept all the time and she had to do things for herself. She was also homesick for her own bed; her own things and she wanted to drive her car. Finally one day, while Mark was sleeping, she went outside and fell down while feeding the birds. She really jarred her spine as she sat down hard and the pain scared her. She called for Mark but he never heard her so she crawled back into the house and dialed 911. When the paramedics came she told them she wanted to go home. That was not an option but she finally allowed them to take her back to the hospital. She had displaced her pelvic fracture but it was decided that because of her age they would not operate. She was to rest and use the walker all the time.

Linda was really angry at Mom for calling 911. I think it embarrassed her that everyone found out how useless Mark was. She was also miffed at me because I told Mark in a very ugly way just exactly what I thought of him and how he allowed my mother to fend for herself when he was supposed to be taking care of her. Times were tense for quite a while.

Linda refused to visit Mom in the hospital. Fortunately they kept Mom hospitalized for only the weekend and then she was ready to be released to a rehab center. I had made arrangements for my mother to go to Westminster Shores, a graduating retirement community. She would be in their rehab section for 18 days, the allowed time of Medicare, to have some additional physical therapy and then go into an assisted living villa.

One Saturday, my sons, Linda and I moved as much of her stuff as would fit into this small room, along with her dog. I got custody of her very elderly incontinent cat and Linda took Clucky, Mom’s chicken. Now, here she was in this one room assisted living villa having given up all her lifelong possessions, her independence and what she misses to this day, her car. Her house was put on the market. She grieved.

As I walked away that first day of her new life I will never forget the desolate look on her face. I know she felt we had betrayed her. We had dumped her into this controlled living situation and she hated it. Once again I went home and cried.

When we left her there Linda promised that nothing would change. She would still come over and take Mom out to dinner every Wednesday night. We would all go shopping together on Saturdays just like before.

Regrettably, five weeks after Mom went into assisted living, my sister and her family moved to north Georgia with no notice. Mom was again heart broken. Linda had always been the daughter that was most compatible and agreeable with her. I, on the other hand, had always been the daughter who was the rebel, argumentative and always questioned establishment. I was stubborn and independent. Actually, I was just like my mother.

Now I was the sole responsible person for Mom’s care. I was scared at first but I took the job with a sense of privilege. I loved my mother and she had always been there for me through the black holes in my life. She was my rock. How could I do any less for her? While it was a taxing and sometimes frustrating responsibility I never even gave a thought of getting someone else to do this job. 

However, life has a way of changing and there will be more to come on my wonderful mother and what life had dealt her.

Jackie and I were having our monthly girls night out. We had to decide where we wanted to eat. I had not had a really good meal for quite some time and was tired of fast food or frozen stuff. I wanted real FOOD. There was a Boston Market right around the corner from her condo and off we went to the market.

We stood in line waiting our turn and looking at the menu. I had decided on the ¼ chicken with two side veggies. Jackie couldn’t make up her mind whether to try one of the new combos or to stick with her comfort food, ¼ chicken, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach.

 A little old man had come in and was standing behind us. Jackie asked him if he had ever tried the mango chicken. He answered that he had tried everything on the menu because he ate here quite often. I was in front of Jackie and thus at that time most of the conversation was between the man and her.

I was called next and gave my order. They rang me up immediately and I waited for Jackie who had settled for  comfort food. The little old man had ordered the meat loaf. As I passed by him, I touched him on the shoulder and told him to enjoy his meal. Now I don’t ordinarily touch strangers but something inside told me to touch him.

He smiled a thank you and asked me if I would give him a hug. I didn’t hesitate, I gave him a warm hug. He thanked me again and said, “I just left my wife at the nursing home. Every night I feed her supper and  then I come here for my supper”.

“61 years” he said sadly, “we have been married 61 years and this is how it is going to end”. As I fought back tears I told him I understood how it was because I had done the same thing with my husband for the 7 months before he died at the Woodside Hospice Home. He looked at me and said, “I am so sorry”.

 “I also am sorry”, I responded and touched him again. We both had tears welled up in our eyes.

 “God bless you”, he said.

 “He already has”. I responded.

I felt that  something special had happened to both this man and me tonight. I felt good. God had inspired me to reach out to a total stranger who really had needed a hug and then I realized that I had needed that hug as well.