Tag: family

A Thanksgiving Story

This story is from my dear friend, Angie Klapuch. I think she wants me to share it.

*****

I was recently asked this question, “Did you ever want a sister?” My answer was that I never even thought about it. I’ve only had brothers. One older half-brother, one full brother, and one younger half-brother. I was the only girl and that was just the way it was.

For a few generations on my Dad’s side of the family, we were always told that we had a great-grandparent that was a full-blooded Cherokee. It certainly explained these high cheekbones. Also, verbal history said that the Hogue’s were of French descent.

In 2018, with curiosity high and the ballooning of DNA tests available, Dad and I decided we would do a DNA test to either confirm or dispute these oral histories that have been embedded into our family’s history.

The results came in and we are mostly Irish and Scottish.🤦🏻‍♀️🤣 No American Indian, no French. So, I don’t know where these cheekbones came from.

Since then, our DNA has just been lying out there without any other major revelations.

Fast forward to September 14, 2022. I received a message from a lady stating that she had recently received her DNA results which showed that I was her half-sister and that my dad was her father. Needless to say, I was floored.

I was then tasked with the decision to either tell my 83-year-old father or not tell him. I didn’t take the decision lightly. Could he handle it? But, he is the only one that could provide some clarity. Maybe. Ultimately, I told him. He may be 83 but he is still very competent, independent, and makes all of his own decisions.

Dad was equally floored by this new information. Dad assured me that he was never aware of this child. But, here we were wrapping our minds around me having a big sister and dad having another daughter. Strange.

Dad’s emotions were all over the place. Angry that the birth mother didn’t tell him. Guilt and sadness that he didn’t raise his own child. Embarrassment that he had to talk about this with me. I kept it positive and non-judgmental. We both agreed that whatever questions or curiosities that this person had deserved to be answered. We were about to pull up our bootstraps!

In 1959, Dad was fresh out of the military and was back in California where his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins lived. He was twenty.

He moved back to Louisiana in January 1960. This new daughter was born July 5, 1960. Dad turned 21 that same day. Yes, they share the same birthday!

She and I began exchanging pictures and histories. She was placed for adoption upon birth and was chosen by two loving parents and an older sister. Not only was I able to provide information about our family, but was also able to provide some information about her birth mother.

After a few weeks, I went out on a limb and invited her to our home for Thanksgiving. I really thought I was pressing my luck and was afraid I might have become too pushy. But, after a couple days, she responded back and accepted my invitation. She accepted an invitation to travel from Michigan to Tennessee to meet a bunch of strangers she knew very little about. All she knew was that we shared DNA and that was enough. She is brave and adventurous that is for certain. Maybe even a tad crazy…which just might be an inherited trait.😜

So now I had to tell my Dad that she was coming and ask if he wanted to be here as well. Without hesitation, he said he would be here one way or another. He had a new daughter and nothing was going to keep him from an opportunity to meet her.

We gathered awaiting her arrival. Eli was here from NY. Dad was here from Arkansas. Anxiety was high. What will she look like? Does she look like us? Will she like us? Does she want a relationship? Do we want a relationship? Heads swirling, hearts racing.

Let me just say, Thanksgiving could not have been better. This stranger, who is a stranger no more, is kind, smart, and intriguing. She is incredibly thankful for our willingness to open our hearts to her; and, vice versa.

My dad is a quiet man who internalizes pretty much everything. He has allowed himself to be vulnerable. The two of them talked non-stop for the five days she spent with us. They have talked on the phone multiple times since they’ve both been home. Dad keeps telling me that they have 62 years to catch up on. Yes, they do.

All of Dad’s anxieties have melted away and this experience has been nothing but positive for him. It’s as if a new breath of life has filled him, and I know I made the right decision telling him.

So, back to the question, “Did you ever want a sister?” The question she should have asked was, “Do you want a sister?”

Yes, Barbara Jan Rumple, I do want a sister and I am thankful it’s you.

I think Dad is happy, too! Angie on left, Barbara on right.

Day 2: Not as bad.

It’s not over, but it is better. The fever is gone. The body aches have subsided for the most part. The headache is much improved, although the full, foggy head is still around. I’m eating broccoli salad for breakfast. Now to get the coughing to subside.

I was already having some trouble with my asthma, warranting a visit with the pulmonologist week before last. I had a televisit with my primary care physician yesterday. We talked mainly about the anti-viral drug. It has several side effects that I don’t like. She prescribed it, and if the symptoms should suddenly worsen, I’ll take it later today. I feel like my body can deal with this mild case.

The pulmonologist had a few better ideas. Use the nebulizer. Use the rescue inhaler. Lie on my belly for 30 minutes several times during the day. Evidently, that helps the lung tissue on the back. Huh. And then she told me to take some Vitamin D, some zinc, and Vitamin C. Increase the aspirin dosage to 325.

I think about all those people who had a real case of this cruel virus, so bad that millions died. I’m in the compromised bunch, and I am so thankful that President Trump spurred a quick development of the vaccine.

I’ll do everything they tell me to do. No one told me not to work, so it’s back to packing (and unpacking) a few more things.

From the Compound On the Ravine to…

A Cottage…

On a (Smaller) Ravine.

We didn’t intend to move this soon after Mom’s passing, but then this house popped up and three other family members and our realtor saw it just about the time Dave and I saw it (they were searching) and everybody thought it was the perfect house for us!

It was quite the deal but we closed on September 19, and now we’re packing and moving. Packing and moving are now “quite the deal” since we are not taking everything and there is an estate sale in November. Staging the house for sale and preparing for an estate sale are two entirely different things that shouldn’t happen simultaneously.

But we’re known for some chaos.

We’ll tell you more later. There’s so much more to say.

Waiting for Wild Horses

I am healing in this most gracious Airbnb in Fernley, Nevada. My brother lives here, but we hadn’t seen each other in three years. I brought some of Mom’s ashes. Denny says they’ll be buried with him.

I’m not sure what kind of restoration I need, but I think I’m receiving it here. I haven’t wept yet, but I’ve wandered around in some sort of a brain fog for weeks, and sometimes I can see a black hole on the right side of my body. The hole travels with me when I’m walking.

Toni, my host, lives in this 1100-square-foot house on a tiny plot of land here in the desert, but she is a Master Gardener, so she has a front lawn and back and flowers everywhere. She offers her master bedroom as a rest for the weary, a quiet oasis where love abounds and healing is possible. She is a joyful provider of shortbread cookies, muffins, and so many goodies I can’t name them all. She runs a not-for-profit (a real one that makes no money) to feed about eighty seniors in this small town. She used to cast movies and videos with some big names, and I bet she was good at it, but she seems so happy with this life of hers that her grace is contagious.

The kitchen is a bright, cool place to be in the mornings. I open the back door for more light and (dry) air. The same little lizard suns on the privacy fence every day. There is a wide easement beyond that fence where wild horses and one donkey appear every morning. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ve been watching. One time a few years ago, I saw some wild horses on the drive from Reno to Fernley.

So many familiar reminders have appeared since I arrived. I saw a woman in the grocery store with a huge windcatcher tattoo wrapped around her arm, just like one of the seven Mom attached to her walker handles. At Toni’s house, little things keep popping up: a small, decorative screen door like one I bought (and don’t know if I even still have it), the flour sack towels, a hat that is so much like one that Dad wore in the garden (it took my breath away), a bird print outdoor pillow that is the same fabric I have folded up in a drawer, the identical taupe checked fabric of my bedroom curtains on the dining chairs. The sunflowers.

Oh, there’s more. The one that made me laugh is the bubble gum machine. Jade and John had one. It was just like Toni’s except theirs was red. The story that goes with that one has to do with a certain twelve-year-old son renting out his Dad’s Playboys and stashing the money in the bottom of the bubble gum machine. I only found out about that about thirty years later.

My rental Nissan Rogue sports Tennessee plates. When I arrived at Toni’s house, she was watching the last Hallmark movie I watched with Mom. I didn’t notice the Tennessee license plates until Bev mentioned it. Toni later told me she thought, “Surely that woman did not drive here from Tennessee!” And in Wal-Mart in Fernley, NV, a shirt with Nashville on the front!

We’re having a family gathering tomorrow. Denny, Bev, their children Jim, Angie, Jena, and their grandchildren. I’m not sure who else might be invited, but it’s going to be a large occasion with Olive Garden food, music from the great-grands, and lots of stories! Jim’s wife and the greats will choose which pieces of Mom’s jewelry they would like from a large cache I brought with me, except for Angie–she gets Mom’s wedding rings. Bev got to choose last night.

Mom died peacefully in her sleep on June 24 after a one-month illness. Tomorrow marks one month out. It’s too soon to expect too much restoration on my part, but I feel something working.

I thought Toni said I should look for the horses between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. (Huh. Duh. Brain fog.) This morning, when I told her I was still watching for them, she said no, it’s between 4:00 and 6:00.

We don’t have wild horses in Tennessee. I’ve set an alarm for tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. It’s almost 11:00 a.m., and my little lizard is still sunning and running from one rail to the other, and I need to shower and get to my brother’s house.

But tomorrow morning, I’ll be waiting for wild horses.

No wild horses yet.

The Space Between

THE SPACE BETWEEN

sumos quo sumos

-Lake Woebegone Official Motto

LARRY RICHARDSON
They say, (the people who know), 
the universe is mostly space. 
An empty place. 
Furthermore, these people who know 
insist that the same is true 
for me and you. 

We are all, it seems, 
just lots of nothing 
between tiny bits of solid stuff, 
just barely enough 
to hold us all somewhat together and,
to the world, make it appear 
that we are here. 

But this one thing I think I know for sure: 
a person needs a God to know 
and room to grow. 
And one place where there’s God and room,  
from everything I’ve seen, 
is the space between. 

Larry Richardson

Physical Therapists came yesterday to get Mom to stand and transfer to the reclining chair. The goals for her care have been the same for several days now. They are written on the dry erase board.
  1. Keep systolic blood pressure under 180.
  2. Increase awareness.
  3. Decrease oxygen demands.
  4. Out of bed.

The two therapists aimed at Goal #4. When they asked if she wanted to get out of the bed for a while (the orders are for two hours,) Mom said “No.” When coaxed about three times, and asked if she would help them get her up, she said, “Okay.” She helped to swing her legs around off the bed, and the female therapist said, “Well, look at you! And you’ve got a pretty pedicure, too!” When each therapist linked an elbow to each of Mom’s for support, she tried to push herself up with her hands, one of which is laden with IV needles and tubes. She got up, sort of, but she had no strength to turn herself to the near right to sit on the chair.

After the third try, they put her back in bed. She bent her knees on command and helped them scoot her up in the bed. Then they adjusted this fancy bed to simulate a chair.

She fell asleep as soon as they left the room. When her head bent dramatically to her shoulder, I lifted her head and re-positioned her pillow to make a support.

I wondered, What are we doing here? And then I thought, She really needs to be at home.

This morning, two nurses used the fancy lift in the room to move her to a chair. That machine is amazing! She ate five spoonfuls of oatmeal, drank half a cup of milk, and has been sleeping ever since. The breakfast tray sent earlier was not touched. At lunch, she tried to drink V-8 juice, but it didn’t taste right to her.

Getting her to eat is not one of the goals, even though she eats very little. I’m pretty sure I can prepare food that she won’t eat as well as the hospital does. (I threw that little funny in to make sure we see a little humor.)

The plan is to move her upstairs to what I have always called a step-down unit, a section of the hospital for those moving from ICU to regular hospital rooms or skilled nursing facilities. The criteria for that move is when she is medically able. While she is there, the caseworkers might usually plan for her move to a rehabilitation center. That is not going to happen, the move to a rehabilitation center. I’ve put that out there for everyone.

This morning, watching Mom sound asleep, crumpled in the bed, vulnerable to whatever treatment she receives and whatever is going on around her, I know she needs to be at home, in her own familiar bedroom, with Dixie, Dave, and Neil, and normal routines. (Well, “normal” for the Compound residents might not look normal, but it’s our normal.) We can plan for Home Healthcare, and we will provide true care at home.

She is more lucid than she has been, and she understands a lot of what I tell her, but she is still not completely in the real world. Or maybe it’s that she is in her world, and who’s to say that’s not the real world.

Now I wonder if she will ever be medically able to leave the ICU and at what point the doctor says, “Okay, I give up.” A nurse told me, “They don’t do that. They just keep trying different things.” Her awareness has increased. Her oxygen demands have been met and could continue at home. She’s helped out of bed each day. But there’s that first goal: If she did not have the high-powered drugs delivered by the needle in her arm, she would stroke within hours.

Today, three nurses tried twice each to start a new IV. Mom’s veins are fragile. I asked, “Okay, what’s the next step?”

A pretty blonde nurse answered, “We call in the professionals, the IV therapists.”

About thirty minutes later, a tiny woman appeared with gear in hand. She looked experienced. I asked if I could watch. On the first try, she couldn’t get the IV in, but on the second try (in the other arm), she made a perfect deep stick and entry. I learned a bit and was glad she let me watch, but that’s not really what I want to look at. I hope I never see another needle in Mom’s arm.

I like to picture Mama sleeping in a gauzy forest bed of flowers between two white veils. Through one of the semi-sheer curtains, she sees and feels the comfortable life in her apartment in the Compound and the beauty of all the blooms and foliage right now outside her kitchen window. Dixie runs over to lie in her lap every morning. Dave cares for her as he would his own mom. Neil fixes things and makes her laugh. I’m always there for her. She drinks orange Gatorade every morning followed by her favorite homemade mocha, enjoys her lunch from a tray on her lap, and eats sliced strawberries soaked in sweetened milk. Her nightgown is laid out on the bed each evening, along with night underwear and hospital socks.

Behind the other veil, there is a beckoning Bright Light, so bright that the semi-transparent drape almost disappears. At some point, the Love in that Light will become irresistible. The soul will make her choice.

At the end of this day, I watch her sleep soundly in her ICU bed. Today, she has fulfilled the requirement of getting out of bed and proven her awareness has increased by remembering her full name and the month she was born every time someone asks. (1931? She doesn’t come up with that.) She receives the oxygen well and is not struggling to breathe.

Her blood pressure spikes again and a nurse starts the IV drip.

I think, for this moment, Mama is warm and happy in the space between.

-0-

Woman of the Years

Just a few short months ago, Mama was truly declining. And then, a couple weeks ago, not long after I wrote the last blog piece, Mama got up from her chair!

Mama didn’t like that motorized wheelchair. Her physical therapist told her if she didn’t want to use that, she better get in gear and exercise those legs! I heard her when she made her first trip to the kitchen sink and did kicks and stretches for fifteen minutes. Then I heard her again the same day. She started walking laps around the apartment with her walker.

She didn’t say it to me, but I heard her. “You just wait and see what I can do.”

After about three days, she started dressing herself in the mornings, cleaning if there happened to be an accident in the night. She layered on the Thrive Causemetics eyeshadow stick to match her shirt, penciled in her eyebrows, and fluffed up her hair. About two days after that, she went to the kitchen and poured her own Gatorade (her way to start the day) and got her pills from the daily box, put her eye drops in, and ate her probiotic gummies.

Then, and only then, did she call me to come up from my downstairs office. (I call it The Study. Dave calls it Your Cave. I try to make it down there by 6:30.) It was close to eight o’clock, which means I have almost an hour and a half to take care of some kind of business before caretaking duties begin.

Now, when I greet Mom, it’s only to finish up daily cleaning tasks in her bedroom and make us both a cup of coffee. Well, she drinks a homemade instant mocha mix that we strive to keep enough of in her canister. We visit about this and that, mostly her reporting what she has learned on the phone with friends and family or the TV. I do housework and laundry in between tales.

On shower day, she helps as much as she can. I wash her back and make sure her hair is rinsed well. We both dry her off and get her ready for the day.

I go back to give her some lunch, or some days, she reheats leftovers from the day before, and I sit down to eat lunch with her about three days a week. About five, I return to make a light supper and do her “turn-down service.” I lay out her gown and night socks and a couple pairs of underwear on her bed, check her c-pap to make sure it has enough water, and place her evening pills in a shot glass on the kitchen counter.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. My mother has been bouncing back her whole life.

March, it turns out, is Women’s History Month and one of March’s days, the 8th, is International Women’s Day. I thought I’d tell you a little story about when Mama made her stand for her rights and equal pay with her male colleagues at Texas Boot Company.

When a new Department Head came in a few years after Mom began her stint as a Regional Credit Manager, he interviewed all the managers, sort of a getting-to-know-you outreach. His name was Jim, and the departing Head, Bill. At the end of their talk, he said, “And I’m going to continue Bill’s work on trying to get your pay up to the men’s.”

I can just see Mom’s eyebrows. “Oh?” she said. “Just how much do ‘the men’ make?”

He said, “I’m not sure of each one, but I can find out.” He reached behind his desk to the credenza, pulled out a black notebook, and thumbed through until he landed on the right page and put it on the desk in front of Mom, upside down, and left the room.

Mom could always read fast, especially if she was looking at numbers, and she got what she needed to know in the few seconds the book lay open.

***

She called me the next day and described what she saw.

“Do you know a lawyer who would take my case?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “but you really need to file a complaint with the EEOC.”

“Alright. How do I get started?”

“I think I’d just call their office downtown and ask what you need to do.”

She did. It didn’t take long for her to get an appointment. She called and asked if I could drive her to downtown Nashville. Always ready for a fun fight and rarely finding one, I was happy to take the day off and oblige.

I’m surprised they let me go into the meeting with her but there I was, listening to Mom give voice to a wrong, headed toward the right.

When she was finished, she crossed her hands in her lap and let out a long sigh. “Do I need to find an attorney?”

“You have an attorney. He’s coming through the door.”

Both of us sized up a very tall, muscled black man standing in the doorway. He introduced himself.

Mom said, “Nice to meet you,” and I said, “Likewise,” and we shook his hand in turn. Mom said later that she was thinking, “Well, if they don’t give him what he says, he could just beat it out of them.” It made me laugh.

Texas Boot was owned by General Shoe Company. Both the EEOC attorney and the General Shoe attorney, a woman, arrived the next day. The EEOC man came first and called General Shoe. The company’s attorney was in New York but arrived just after lunch.

The General Shoe attorney’s assistants started pulling personnel files, Mom said, to try to find something against her that they could use for leverage. There wasn’t anything there.

In less than three weeks, Mom received a check for several thousand dollars from the company’s treasurer, accumulated underpayment for years of service as Regional Credit Manager for the West Coast. Harry Vise, the former owner of Texas Boot, and now GSI’s head of the Lebanon plant, called Mom to his office. He said he wanted her to know there were no hard feelings on his part.

Then they talked about old times. Mom and Dad went way back with Mr. Vise. Both had worked in the factory many years before when he owned the company. Dad had been a Cumberland University married student with a wife and two children and needed part-time work to help support the family. Mom’s income as a fancy stitcher on Western boots was their main income. Mr. Vise, who was Jewish, knew Dad as a minister and called on him often when someone in the factory needed guidance or spiritual help. There was always room in some department when Dad had hours he could work.

At Christmastime, Mr. Vise insisted on a company party, where there was a small show and the singing of carols. He always requested Joy to the World. (We never understood that.) I remember singing for that party when I was about eight years old. I think I performed my rendition of I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas. At the end of every party, every employee received a gift basket from Mr. Vise. There was always a turkey in the basket—and a ham.

The local head of human resources asked Mom if she was really staying with her job. She said yes, and he asked if she would like to be Jim’s Assistant department head.

She wondered aloud what kind of increase in pay might be at hand. He said none, but the duties would change some.

She declined on the spot and said if the company ever intended to pay for a real Assistant Head, she’d like a shot at it.

The General Shoe attorney called every morning for several weeks to ask Mom if she was being treated well. Mom said she hadn’t noticed any difference, that she’d always got along well with all the men.

She kept her position, receiving regular raises until she retired at age 67. She kept in touch with several of the men she worked with and talks to her old department head every couple of months just as she did with Mr. Vise until he died in 2015.

I’ve loved Women’s History Month so far, learning about, or remembering, women who have made rich contributions to life in these United States. This morning, on The Kelly Clarkson Show, a guest said he would like to go back in time — I can’t remember how far — to experience life before technology and such.

“Wouldn’t you?” he asked.

“Well, no, I wouldn’t,” Kelly answered quickly, “because I’m a woman!”

Mom and I both laughed and cheered. Mom said she didn’t want to go back to any place in time because she loves right now and is excited about what changes come in the next few years.

No wonder she’s my International Woman of the Year. Forever.

-0-

How’s your mama’n’em?

Friends frequently ask me, “How’s your mother?”

What I answer depends on who asks.

For relatives and friends with whom I don’t communicate regularly, it’s tempting to say, “Fine.” I can’t see that more explanation would be helpful, certainly not to me. When close friends ask, I try to gauge the amount of time I have to answer. Sometimes I say, “She’s requiring more help now, but her mind is still sharp.” If they have time to listen, and I have a few free minutes, they might click that button that says “Learn more.” Then we engage each other briefly.

I am completely honest with my writing group, The Five Ladies-in-Writing. I know they genuinely require some details. If I haven’t asked myself the question, I sometimes have trouble formulating an answer. That’s how I learned to talk to myself about Mom; I try to speak to her condition, her care, and even my worries about the future near and far.

So, self and caregiver, how’s she doing?

Things are definitely different than a year ago.

Last year, the first time I saw Mom each morning, she was sitting in her recliner in the den. She’d made her bed and emptied her bedside commode. She’d washed herself (showered on Thursday and Sunday), put on clothes and makeup, and coordinated her jewelry to complement her outfit. She’d taken her morning meds and checked her blood pressure and weight. More often than not, she’d be drinking her morning cup of mocha. I’d found an old recipe for Instant Mocha; non-fat dry milk, powdered creamer, Nestle’s Quik or a store brand of chocolate drink mix, instant decaf, and Truvia. The TV would be on Channel 5 so she could watch Gayle King and the boys.

She’d ask what I was cooking that day, and tell me whether she’d like to have some of it. If not, she would cook for herself. She’d remind me of appointments, mine and hers, for the week, and ask me what I was going to get into that day. She’d tell me what she’d put on the grocery list, so far. Dixie would come flying into the room and demand that Mom give her an animal cracker kept on a shelf in a table by Mom’s chair.

After her treats, Dixie would settle into Mom’s lap to get morning loving.

Nowadays our morning usually goes like this. Mom calls me when she wakes. I give her a few minutes, maybe five, to sit on the side of the bed to get herself acclimated to being up. When I get there, she has part of her clothes on, or none. If she hasn’t been in the bathroom to wash, I bring her hot washcloths and towels. Somedays, we clean more than others. Maybe the bed is wet, maybe the rug beside the bed, maybe just her gown. We finish dressing. Sometimes she wears an outfit that is clean that she wore the day before. Sometimes I choose more clothes–and shoes to match. Sufficiently clothed, Mom begins the twenty steps to her dressing room with her walker.

(On shower days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, our routine varies a little. But this story is about all the other days.)

While Mom is making her way to the dressing room, I go the opposite direction through the house, turn on lights and lamps, check the pad I keep on her lift chair (she doesn’t use the lift!), unplug the new motorized wheelchair that she’s yet to master, and retrace my path to her dressing table. Sometimes she is on the vanity stool, more often just beginning to sit.

We begin her beauty routine. She applies cream to her face. I arrange her hair with a plastic pick, making curls around her face and smoothing the back. She loves hairspray and the curling iron when she’s the stylist, but I find that both make her hair brittle so I spray it with some texturizer and tweak it a little. I’ve found the softest eyeshadow pencil that both holds its color and goes on smoothly. She has blue and hazy purple. She chooses the color for the day. She wants eyebrows. I pencil them in with a charcoal pencil. She would like mascara, but the woman has double fur framing her eyes akin to Liz Taylor’s so I’ve convinced her to skip that step. (Actually, she tells me every once in a while that she wants mascara, but I tell her “Oh no, you’re not going to cover up those furry eyelashes! I’ve seen what happens when she applies mascara and I don’t even want to try it.) Lipstick: She needs dark, bright colors. She chooses from several Maybelline New York 24-hour colors. If she is feeling well, she puts it on. If not, I do it. Either way, we are as likely to miss as hit her still perfect natural lipline. I clean the oops with micellar water. She usually applies the gloss.

“Do I have earrings?” she asks. I turn to her bedroom to find a pair to match her outfit. She clips them on. If one is loose, I re-clip it.

“Okay, am I ready to go?”

I answer, “Looks like it to me. You look beautiful.”

While she walks through her dressing room, Dad’s bedroom, and down a short hall to the den, I place her morning pills into a shot glass and pour a glass of Gatorade. I take both to the den and set them on the table beside her chair. I grab her water bottle from her walker seat to exchange it for a clean one full of ice and water.

In her chair, she finds her bottle of probiotic gummies and eats them with her Gatorade, applying eye drops for her glaucoma. I return to her bedroom, empty and sanitize her bedside potty, turn the lights off, and wash my hands in her bathroom.

I ask if she’s ready for her coffee. She still drinks the mocha mix, just wants to call it coffee.

Sometimes I drink my second cup of coffee for the morning. I ask her what she wants for breakfast. She usually wants a shake, but this morning she ate sausage, half a serving of rice pudding, and toast. She drank a glass of milk.

Dave calls to ask if she wants to see Dixie. She always says she does. After Dixie eats a plate of scrambled eggs, two animal crackers, and a small handful of cashews, the two of them begin their daily love-in.

That never changes.

The things that come to mind

Dad’s birthday was September 25. He would have been ninety-two this year had he not died at eighty-nine.

I don’t really believe in heavenly birthdays. I mean, if you’ve arrived at that perfect resting place to walk streets of gold and sing in that angel choir, I can imagine a more logical celebration might be of the day you got there. That would be that day you made the transition from earth, flying to the skies. For Dad, that would be November 19.

Still, I think of Dad every September 25, and small and large events always pop up to remind me of him.

This year, a Saturday, I was in my study editing a book for a friend when Neil (our semi-permanent houseguest) knocked on the door. He held out an old pocket knife with a faded tiger-painted pearl handle and said, “I just found this. I bet it was your dad’s.”

I took it from him and answered, “Looks like his. Now if one blade is broken…” It was. I didn’t know Dad still had the knife, but I remember asking him, “Why don’t you get a new one?” He told me, “Because I like this one so much. I’m used to that broken blade. In fact, it’s come in handy in some situations.”

I laid the knife on the base of my computer monitor and stared at it for a while. The last time I saw Dad use it, he was cutting bright red string to secure tomatoes to their cages. I tried to get him to use something less showy, maybe green, but he got a big roll of crimson twine, free, from a packing company and was proud to use it.

Since Dad died, I moved my office from The Cellar to The Study. The Study was Dad’s place on the ground level of their apartment. He had it framed and made into a room when they first moved in. It was where he hid from Mom and the TV. His old wooden desk, a sofa, and all his books (about 600) and sixty years of sermons lived there, too. I sold most of his books and moved his desk out, and brought over all my furnishings and books from The Cellar, the efficiency apartment in the basement of the main house and now Neil’s place. This year, I got artwork on the walls and started using this room every day.

I come down to The Study about 6:00 am every morning. Saturday, September 25, 2021, was the same. I don’t see anyone until Mom wakes up, and I go upstairs to help her get her day started. After Neil presented himself and the pocketknife, I thanked him and, since I’d been whisked away from my editing tasks so suddenly, took a few minutes to get back into a work mood.

I hadn’t slept well the night before, so an afternoon nap was in perfect order. When I woke after an hour-and-a-half, I grabbed my phone to see if I’d missed any messages. Somehow I wound up on Gmail instead of Messages, and a New York Times headline caught my eye. “Breaking News: An Amtrak train derailed in Montana, At Least 3 Dead.”

When it was time to give Mom supper (about 4:30), I sat down for a few minutes in her living room. “Mom,” I said, “Did you see that a train derailed in Montana?”

“Oh, no. You know, that’s what your dad was afraid of when we were on that train trip to California.” My brother Denny and his wife, Bev, had given Mom and Dad tickets on the train from Nashville to California. Mom loved every minute; Dad hated it. He swore everyone that was on that train (the one to California) would be killed. He told Mom that when he got to California, he was going to get back the money paid for the return home from Amtrak and find an airplane with a flight to Nashville.

“No, you are not,” she told him, probably a bit firmly. “The kids gave us this trip because they thought we’d enjoy it, and you’re going to behave yourself.”

He did, but he didn’t like it.

We picked Mom and Dad up in Kentucky, and Dad swore he’d never get on a train again. He didn’t.

Now, sitting with Mom, I pondered what this coincidence meant, if anything.

“And on his birthday,” she said. “Amtrak. We were on an Amtrak train.”

It was time to get home and start dinner for the rest of the family. I took some compost to the porch and happened to look to the lower garden. The red dahlias had burst into bloom. They were always in bloom for Dad’s birthday. He loved red, especially red roses. “Hey, Sis,” he would ask me every September, “Are those red roses blooming in your lower garden?”

“No,” I’d answer. “They’re not roses; they’re dahlias.”

“Well, they sure are pretty. You’re certain they’re not roses…”

“I’m certain.”

This past weekend was the date for the Southern Festival of Books. Dad loved any event featuring the written word. He preferred non-fiction: politics, theology, biography. I’ve been a volunteer host for sessions for years, and Dad always wanted to know about my authors.

Like last year, the event this year was staged virtually, for the most part. I received notice of the authors who would be in conversation for my session. I got three favorites: Bobbie Ann Mason (she wrote In Country), Wiley Cash (A Land More Kind than Home), and Ron Rash (my favorite book from him is Saints At the River.)

Volunteers receive the author’s current work in the mail to use for preparation. We usually make a short introduction for each author, and we prepare questions to stimulate discussion between the authors. Serenity, the woman in charge of the sessions told me, “You don’t have to do much for these three. They know each other, and I expect them to just take off between themselves without much help from you.”

I didn’t get to read all three books before the session. I received Wiley’s novel, When Ghosts Come Home, and Ron’s collection of short stories and a novella, In the Valley, about a week before the event. I finished Wiley’s and read three selections from Ron’s. I received Bobbie Ann’s Dear Ann this week, several days after the SFB. The day before the session, I was still preparing, and the day of the session, I was trying to wrap up bios for each author. I found good information on the publishing house’s author website for Bobbie Ann’s and Wiley’s. I had to go to Wikipedia for more information on Ron Rash.

While I’d talked to each of these authors at book events, I’d never really engaged them. I hoped they played off each other as I’d heard suggested by Serenity.

They didn’t. I had to lead a bit during the session. It felt somewhat awkward at times.

Bobbie Ann appeared a little wafty, but some say that’s normal. Wiley was cute, young, and animated. Ron…well, Ron was thoughtful and quietly funny, subtly spiritual, I guess, the type of guy you just want to pat softly on the shoulder. But I knew what he’d be like. I’d seen on Wiki that his birthday is September 25.

I almost told him the red dahlias are in bloom.

Little Things Mean a Lot

My dad planted Rose’o’Sharon bushes all over The Compound. I’ve even found three purple ones just barely down the bank of the ravine. Rose’o’Sharons are not everybody’s idea of a good landscape bush. They drop those big juicy blossoms on the ground and make a mess. I didn’t enjoy them, either, until we moved here On the Ravine.

Dad brought sprouts with him from the farm, and with no particular plan in mind, tucked one here, one there, one everywhere. The one that made me fall in love with Althea, another name for Rose’o’Sharon is a soft, bridal pink that now stands as a ten-foot tree in the vegetable garden.

In The Study, Dad’s old digs in the ground level of the apartment now overhauled to suit me, a white Rose’o’Sharon fills the window with greenery and the occasional blossom with a deep red center sporting a white stem laden with pollen. Last year, I cut the bush down to the bottom of the window so I could look out on the shady private space on the side of the building. I planned for a future birdhouse, a couple of feeders, and plantings of native wildflowers.

The sweet little plant almost got a haircut again a few weeks ago (it had grown back the foot I lopped off last year), but my attention was drawn elsewhere, and Althea was left to try to catch up to the purple one and another white flanking it on either side.

For two weeks now, I’ve arrived at The Study by 6:30 A.M. I spend the first few minutes just sitting, letting thoughts wander through my mind and breathing with lazy rhythm while I gaze out the window. For the past three days, a hummingbird collecting from every blossom catches my eye. He only leaves the view momentarily to check the pollen supply on the larger bushes beside the window. When I settle in to the day’s work, he stays with me and the Rose’o’Sharon. I look up from time to time. I see him sipping and buzzing around when I leave The Study at about 9:00 each morning to attend to Mom’s morning activities.

It is a rainy afternoon today, I am writing this at almost 4:00 P.M., and here he is again! He provides a sense of calm for a while–again, even a sort of renewal, and then reminds me that it’s time to cook dinner. I say, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” turn off the monitor, and start toward the lift to the apartment.

He hovers to chatter at me before he darts away toward another feast.

I think he said, “None for me tonight, thank you. I’ve been eating all day!”

Easter in the time of Coronavirus

The March family birthdays came and went. Grandson Evan turned FIVE on March 2, a Monday. Mom and I got our annual physicals from Dr. Linda Bonvissuto that day. Dave had an assortment of doctor visits the rest of the week, so we planned to take Evan a present the next week.

China was overrun by the Coronavirus, more accurately identified as Covid-19. We had a few cases, and one of them had died on February 29.

I called my son John on March 7, his forty-fifth birthday. He seemed more surprised to be forty-five than I was to be the mother of a son that age. For some reason I can’t remember, I talked to my ex-husband the same day. He asked me, “Can you believe we have a forty-five-year-old?”

“No,” I said, “because, in my mind, I’m just forty-five.”

I remembered my fiftieth standing in my kitchen together when I solemnly told my mother, “I cannot be fifty years old.”

She answered, “Of course, you can’t, Darling. I’m only fifty-five.”

Our sons and their wives could not come up with a suitable March date to celebrate birthdays. The first half of the month, The Compound oldsters were taken up by physician visits and procedures. The kids and grandkids were so busy we decided to have birthdays for March and April at the annual Easter Soiree at The Compound. Jerry Wong’s birthday is March 29th and Vicky’s April 5. We’d have a big party!

The Easter gathering is a B.I.G. event. The grandkids show up in their finest, the girls wearing dresses I make. We hunt eggs, play games, and everyone gets a prize. Last year, we whacked the Easter Llama and wondered if that might be considered an inappropriate observance of the death and resurrection of our Lord.

This year, Carly, Savvy, and I shopped for patterns and materials in February, giving Grammy a good two months to get the outfits finished. This year’s color is lavender and the style is Fancy. We settled on a satin dress with a cut-out heart on the back and an overlay of tulle on a big skirt. Savvy’s mom, Anjie, and I really wanted more sparkle on that bottom but the price of sequined or patterned sheers was wild. Savvy and Carly seemed fine with the plain tulle.

By March 10, we suspected our Easter assembly might be iffy. Vicky and I talked about how we were going to handle the fittings. We thought maybe I could hang the dresses outside when I had them ready to alter, Vicky could pick them up, mamas could pin appropriately and hang them back outside for some of us to pick up, drop off, etc.

I decided right then I did not want to sew the expensive material this year. The lavender frock would have to wait until next year, but squirreled away in a bureau downstairs, I knew I could find cotton to sew some casual get-ups which, if they fit or didn’t, things could be fine.

Vicky told me she and her bunch were taking extra-precaution and were severely limiting their exposure to the virus. The President warned to limit group meetings to ten people. Since the virus is especially deadly to seniors, all the residents of The Compound upper section began to take sheltering in place seriously. Neil continued to work since electronics and communications are necessary jobs.

We began to order groceries online, some delivered and some to be picked up. All physician visits for March and April were cancelled, either by the respective offices or me.

We’re pretty well socked in. I’m attentive to everyone’s aches and pains. If it happens, I want to catch it quickly.

Jerry Wong and I talked on his birthday. We all sent greetings and Mom bought him a Walmart gift card. I’m still looking for the perfect piano books! He says he’s doing well but that he has broken his fast of travel for a trip to Walmart. “I didn’t stay long,” he said and assured me that he’s washing his hands and wiping things down with Clorox wipes.

It was no surprise when he asked me about playing Amazing Grace with two hands on his keyboard.

“So do you play G then D?”

I stuttered a little. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

The conversation went downhill from there. I’ve taught music but that was not one of my finest explanations. I just didn’t know what he was talking about and not sure that he did, either. I do know where there’s a piano book with an easy version of Amazing Grace.

Vicky wants terra cotta pots for her birthday. I’m going to load up all that I can find here and figure out a way to do some more gardening stuff. Took care of John with a gift card yesterday. Now I have to deliver it. Evan gets another present, and Jerry Wong gets those piano books from Amazon.

We’ve now suffered more deaths from the virus than China. We expect more. Praying for more birthdays.

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