Tag: Mom

The day after Mothers Day…

Grief comes in waves, but it lasts forever. It changes, but it’s still there. Mom died in June 2022, but for the past few months, I’ve missed her more than ever.

Some people say I look like Mom. Sometimes, when I’m dressing, I catch just a glimpse of that. In her later years, Mom got a perm every four months. Shortly before she died, my hair began to curl. At first, I blamed the anesthesia I got when I had my shoulder replaced in the spring of that year, but it kept getting curlier. Now, it seems to kink more by the day. It takes on a look that resembles my mom’s just after I’d arranged it before she began her day.

Without my ash-blonde highlights, my hair would look like Mom’s — almost white in the front, with a sprinkling of silver through the rest. I’m afraid to let it go because I’d scare myself every time I passed a mirror.

I’ve started blowing my hair straight.

I’ve gone to my jewelry armoire and taken out pieces that meant something to Mom. I have my great-great-grandmother’s wedding band, a tiny little yellow gold band with inset diamond chips, two of them missing, and Mom’s original engagement ring and band. My oldest great-niece wears her upgraded set from the 70’s. Mom’s eternity band fits my right hand. I wear it sometimes. I hold her gold bracelets in my hand to warm them. I can’t wear them until the clasps are repaired.

Most of Mom’s never-ending collection of costume jewelry was sold in the estate sale after I removed a few pieces and sets that I remembered from childhood, things that she continued to wear until her passing. A blue and light blue rhinestone brooch and earrings set, another with settings of various hues of gold, and her Christmas brooches are safely tucked away.

I have some of her dreamcatchers in the kitchen window, and I’m thinking about hanging the rest of them. She strung them in the apartment windows and on the arms of her Rollator, Dolly.

I often shower with Mom’s favorite fragrance, Pure Grace by Philosophy, which our dear friend Neil gave her for Christmas in 2019. Sometimes, I spritz with the half-bottle left of her Pure Grace body spray.

She dressed in coordinating pants and feminine tops, and when there was a special event, she made a spectacular new dress. She chose jewelry to match the outfit, whether she was dressed for a day at home or a special event. She looked terrific in royal blue. I’ve been wearing blue a lot lately.

I told my nail technician how Mom’s nails were so beautiful and that she even did them herself until her last year or so.

Then we discussed how the older ladies knew how to dress, apply makeup, and accessorize themselves with jewelry, even when they were only getting their toes done. I told her how Mom would get up every morning, do her hair and makeup, choosing which red lipstick to wear that day. She was never without red lipstick. Oh, she tried deep coral and fuschia and all shades in between, but Revlon Red was her standard.

Mom had the most magnificent walking stick that she used before she had her knee surgery. I can’t remember where she got it, but I do remember that she told me. It was handmade by some man in Gainesville, I think, or maybe it was Cookeville. I don’t know where that treasure is, but I think of Mom every time I grab some sort of stick to walk the rock path downhill to my fish pond.

I think of Mom every time I see trout on a restaurant menu. She always ordered fish. I try to cook green beans like Mom’s, but they don’t taste the same. Mom made a banana cake every year for Christmas. She even baked one for my son Jade’s birthday. I’ve made banana cake, but not like Mom’s, using a recipe from my dad’s mother, Effie Blair. Mom’s actually tasted like Mammy Blair’s, and that was a hard thing to accomplish. I may try to bake one again.

Mama loved to sing and play the piano. She thought she and I sounded great together. I’d be the soprano, and she the alto. After years of asthma and inhalers, I am now the alto. I have never parted with a music box my mom bought for me, so I have an extensive collection. The one I wind most often is the one that plays Wind Beneath My Wings.

Mom was always so proud of me. If I sang at an event, she was there to quietly cheer me on. I played the lead, Sgt. Sarah Brown, in our high school’s production of Guys and Dolls. Mom and Dad had moved to Billings, Montana, to shepherd an old Baptist Church there. I tried to talk Mom and Dad into coming for the production, but they said they could only afford to go once and that they intended to be there for graduation. I wish I had insisted they come for Guys and Dolls.

I did so many things that Mom didn’t get a chance to do. She married at fourteen (almost fifteen) and gave birth to my brother Denny a year later at fifteen (nearly sixteen). She was eighteen when I was born. Her whole life was given freely to support Dad, facilitate his goals, and encourage him. She was somewhat militant in her role, especially as a pastor’s wife. She was never sorry for her early start, but she told me once she missed having girlfriends like I did.

Mom’s best girlfriend after she and Dad moved back to Tennessee was my Aunt Bessie, Dad’s youngest sister, nine years Mom’s junior. They talked every Saturday morning, sometimes for hours. My Aunt Bessie started to decline in the months after Mom was gone and died soon after. Things just weren’t the same.

We laughed a lot.
Mom and Bessie

She did not neglect her education. She had graduated from 8th grade at thirteen, and when Mom and Dad married, she taught him to read. When he attended high school at Harrison-Chilhowee, she helped him with his homework. She studied and passed her GED exam. She studied alongside him at Tennessee Tech, Cumberland, and Belmont colleges. Meanwhile, she enrolled in night business classes, taking Denny or me with her, whichever one was available. Her first office job was at an insurance company in San Francisco. She commuted across the Golden Gate Bridge from Mill Valley, where we first lived, and later worked in several Sears locations in the West.

And when Denny and I were both out of the house, she owned her own business.

She was always an avid reader and kept up with news and current issues. I loaded up her Kindle with romances and literary novels. And God love her, she kept a diary.

I believe I was Mom’s best friend. I think she loved me more than she loved herself. But I never had a one-on-one relationship with her until my father died. She became my most vocal supporter, my most learned elder, and a girlfriend who loved to go on drives to pick up items I’d bought on Marketplace. Oh, the places we would go!

And the laughter. Every day, we found something to cause us to bend over, wipe joyful tears, or pee. Mom wore Depends, but there were times I didn’t make it to the bathroom.

I don’t wear red and don’t want to look like Mom. In personality, I have never been like Mom; I have always been much more like my daddy. Maybe it took us a while to bond one-on-one. And now I’m somehow empty without her next door.

Maybe you miss your mama, too.

***

Years ago, I was the assisting minister on Mother’s Day and wrote this prayer.

Father, we praise you on this special observance of Mother’s Day. We thank you for showing us your creative, nurturing, loving side, which we naturally associate with motherhood. We are reminded that while you do seem to bless our mothers abundantly with those special gifts, you offer those same gifts to all as we learn to live by your example. 

We give you thanks for our mothers, and we know that the unconditional love they give us could only come from you. We ask your special watch over those soon-to-be mothers, and we beg your healing and comfort for those who struggle to conceive. We invite your wisdom and reconciliation for those who find themselves with children and aren’t truly ready to be mothers;  in your wisdom, bring them to a true soul-blessing through whatever path you design. We are grateful for adopting mothers. We thank you for “stand-in” mothers, the ones who are just like mothers to us. We pray for your guidance for mothers in difficult situations, and we ask for consolation for those who have lost their mothers, whether through death or separation. 

All these things we ask in your name,

Amen.

Grafting and Healing Gahhhh

Maybe forgetfulness is part of healing. I know it’s related to grief.

I didn’t remember Mom on June 24, the day she died two years ago, but I had a restless, sad week. I thought I was anxious about the debate between, you know, Him and Him.

The debate passed, and I was a bit nonplussed by the performance of both Hims. Good Lord. However, after that day, I was still uneasy and lethargic.

Friday, I went to the nail salon so Wii could put that powder stuff on my nails. I’m growing nails out under those shells, and I think this week will be my chance to go au naturale. I’m going to the salon where I took Dad three weeks before he died and Mom three weeks before she passed. It took me almost two years to get back there. I just went anywhere I hadn’t been with Mom or Dad.

When Wii began to speak, it came to me. June 24 had come and gone, and I hadn’t remembered that Mom died on that day two years ago. I grieved for a few minutes. I was surprised that the date hadn’t come to me. I think about her almost daily. But it had arrived in the form of almost a week of depression. My condition is better named Sorrow.

The body and the mind managed the grief. After the week had passed, I felt a small healing, and now I can laugh at some of the predicaments Mom and I got into. There were so many.

I’d started this blog piece three weeks ago, and now I felt I could write.

***

In April, my dentist and I decided I might need a gum graft. This is where the surgeon excises live gum tissue from somewhere in somebody’s mouth and then “plants” it in receding gums. It’s not a delightful procedure, but I endured it well with the help of whatever stuff they used to sedate me.

After the first look at my lower front teeth post-surgery, the doctor told me that after the new gum tissue had settled in, I might also need a frenectomy. Another dental surgery, whereby the little thing that holds the bottom lip to the gums is clipped. Yay for me.

I said, “Goody.” This procedure is scheduled for July 24.

I had a frenectomy when I was nineteen years old, living in Lewistown, Montana, with my folks, working for radio station KXLO. My dentist was Dr. Harry Ziolowski, known to most of us as Dr. Z, a man who weighed at least 400 pounds. I liked him but wondered how he could get close enough to work on my teeth. He always attended to my mouth with gentleness and efficiency. And he was funny.

The day Dr. Ziolowski clipped the frenum, I drove myself to the office. He numbed me up, and it didn’t take long. Dr. Z had just received a new kind of bandage for such a task. He explained that this material would feel like three big pieces of bubblegum inside my lower lip. He pressed it to the double incision and told me to pretend I had a wad of chew in there.

I tried to laugh, but he stopped me.

“No, don’t laugh. You can’t pull on that bandage. It’s supposed to settle in against where I did the work.”

Dr. Z had already prescribed some painkillers, and I had picked them up before the appointment. I headed to the restroom to clean up my bloody face and popped two of them before I drove home.

I was drowsy, but I knew Mom had not been feeling well when she went to work, so I fixed the Littles hot dogs, canned chili, and potatoes. Our Littles were the three Wong boys that we were fostering. They were happy to eat as soon as they came in from school.

“What in the world is wrong with your mouth?” Johnny Wong, the youngest at age nine, asked.

“Had surrrrzhy,” I said.

“What’s surrrzhy?” Jerry asked.

Johnny answered in a low tone, “They cut something out.”

“Her tongue?” Jerry asked.

Johnny huffed. “No, probably a tooth.”

I didn’t bother to correct him. I just wanted to get that bottle of ketchup on the table and make it to my bed. The numbing was wearing off.

Jimmy didn’t acknowledge his brothers’ conversation. He just said, “Good, Dinah,” as he pushed a large piece of chili-laced hot dog into his mouth.

“Oo eyes puh disses in dihwahher,” I said, turning toward the hall to my room.

I didn’t hear Mom come in. My mother was plagued with migraines, and I knew the worst of this one was on its way when she left for the bank. She was seeing an aura. I assumed she would go to bed early after talking to the boys and saying goodnight. She always read to them, but maybe not that evening, and Dad was away from home for some educational reason. She did go to bed, I found out.

At about midnight, I woke in terror with a giant bubble still attached to my mouth but lying on my pillow. I screamed and jumped away from the bed. Blood from this melon-sized balloon spattered over the whole room, pink bedspread, white ruffled pillows, and the walls. I grabbed a pillow and held it against my face. Mom was in front of the bathroom by the time I got there.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” she asked.

“I tink my buhbuhguh boke,” I answered, muffled by the pillow.

“Good grief. I don’t know what you’re saying, but we better call Dr. Z. And go get a towel.”

I grabbed a green hand towel from the bathroom and left the pillow in the tub, then weaved and wobbled back to Mom’s bedroom, helped her lie down with the princess phone, and propped two pillows behind her back. I was right. She was in the middle of a migraine.

I could hear the phone ringing.

“No answer,” she said. She hung up. She dialed again. It rang and rang, and finally, Dr. Z answered.

“This is Ethel Blair,” she told him. “Something’s wrong with Diana’s mouth. There’s blood everywhere.”

“Okay. Okay,” he said, half asleep. “Meet me at the office.”

“Alright,” she said to him and to me, “Honey, put some clothes on.”

I grabbed a yellow sweatshirt and a pair of wheat-colored jeans from the chair where I’d left them and staggered down the hall and through the kitchen to the garage. I jumped when I realized Mom was behind me. She was wearing her bank uniform skirt, a blue chenille cotton robe tied around her waist over her pajama top, and red fuzzy house slippers.

“You on’t hah tuh doh wif me, Ma,” I said. “You toh tick.”

“I’m in better shape than you are. Get in the car.”

I was in my seat by the time she made it to the driver’s side, holding onto our co-owned sixty-six Mustang. She backed out of the garage and handed me a brown grocery bag.

“Here, hold that in case I vomit,” she said.

We knew we’d probably make it to the doctor’s office before he did, as he and his family lived farther out of town.

We sat in the car in the dark. Mom held onto the steering wheel. After a few minutes, she said, “He’s not coming. I bet he fell asleep.”

There was a phone booth between Dr. Z’s place and the Dairy Dip.

“I doh cah him,” I said. “Do oo how caynzh? Doh hab pursss.”

Mom grabbed the paper bag and heaved. She leaned back against the seat, sighed, and said, “While you do that, I’ll throw this away.” Then she handed me her purse. I lifted her wallet and was glad to see she had a zippered pouch full of coins. I took it with me as I made my drunken way to the phone booth.

I knew his phone number. I dialed.

“Ethel? Is that you?” he asked.

“Dr. Z, ‘s Dinah. Dat baddash bust.”

“Oh no,” he answered. “I thought I was dreaming when your mom called. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m sorry.”

“‘Tay,” I said.

Mom had driven across the parking lot to the Dairy Dip. She was hurling into their big garbage can.

“Ma!” I called. “I tumih.”

I was beginning to gain control of myself, although I’m sure I staggered a little across the lot to the Dairy Dip trash can. I held Mom. She turned and said she thought she was feeling a little better.

“Oo dit ih duh sigh, an I dwibe,” I said. I pushed her into the passenger seat and rounded the Mustang, balancing myself against the vehicle with my left side.

She looked comfortable in the car. “Is he coming?” she asked.

I nodded my head.

“I’ll just stay here,” she said.

I drove slowly over a couple of bumps between the lots and parked as close to the door as I could.

“Whah if oo bahf?” I looked in the back seat. Nothing there to throw up in. I got out and opened the trunk. There was one of Dad’s leather book bags. It was sturdy. I emptied the books, papers, pens, paper clips, and whatever else was in the bag. I handed the bag to Mom and saw Dr. Z’s big truck with its bed cover-camper shell coming down the road.

I leaned against the car and waited for him to park and get out. He was wearing yellow and brown striped cotton pajamas, a matching plaid robe, and a bowler hat.

“Oh, Diana, I’m so sorry. Come on in here. Where’s Ethel?”

“Ih duh cah,” I said. “Siht. My-way.”

“Oh, gosh, I remember she gets migraines. Let me get her out of this car.”

He ran to the vehicle and opened the door.

“Ethel,” he said, “You can’t stay out here in the dark. Let me help you inside, and I can give you something to calm this old headache. “

Never mind me, I thought, moving the towel to a dry place.

Mom held his forearm with both arms, Dad’s book bag dangling from her left, as he carefully ushered her up the steps to the door. I held the wrought iron banister, glad to be a bit more with it than an hour ago.

“Diana, go on back,” Dr. Z said as he turned on the hall lights with his right hand and held onto Mom with his left. “Ethel, can you curl up on this sofa? I can give you a shot of Valium. I think it would help.”

Mom nodded. The sofa was a red velvet Victorian loveseat. It looked odd compared to the rest of the chairs in the room. Mom scrunched her knees up on the sofa as Dr. Z pushed her into place. She looked like she belonged on the short couch.

“I’m going to give your mother something for that headache,” he said, rambling around in the hall closet.

I climbed into the dental chair in the back room. It was dark.

I heard Dr. Z say, “Ethel, I’m going to pull your sleeve up. I normally give Valium in the buttocks, but I’d have to move you.”

Footsteps in the hall.

Dr. Z turned on the task light. I was nearly blinded.

“Where’s Rev. Blair?” he asked me as he prepared a tray.

“Pihwins,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Ah, Billings. I bet he’s at the State Teachers’ Conference. I thought it might be in Great Falls this year.”

“Es,” I answered. “Oo dib Ma sot?” I wrapped the white towel he gave me over my chest and under my chin. still holding the bloody towel against my mouth.

“Yes,” he said, “She should be feeling better in a few minutes. Okay, now, open up. Just a little. “

I opened my mouth and pulled down my lower lip.

“Oh my God, this is a mess,” he said. “That stuff…It’s not supposed to do THAT.”

He paused for a minute or two.

“After I numb you up, I’ll pull this bandage out and temporarily replace it with a stack of gauze. Then I’ll get you to hold it. You can be my assistant.”

“Here comes the numbing,” he said as he pushed the needle into several points on my lower gums. I remember seeing stars alternating with pitch black.

“Now, while that’s setting up, I’ll get that stuff out of there. Open just a little more.”

He lifted some instruments from the tray and started gently pulling on the rubbery mess. I held the gauze against my cheek.

“Okay, it’s almost out. Give me the gauze.”

He pressed it between my lips and my gums. “Hold that pretty tight,” he said. This was a bigger wad than the bubblegum.

“Oh, good lord,” he said, dumping the messy lump from his other hand onto a stack of paper bibs, which he carried to the waste can in the hall, along with my bath towel.

Blood ran from my mouth and filled the gauze. I kept holding. He gave me a second stack and left the first on the tray.

On his way back into the room, Dr. Z said, “Diana, I may have to cauterize this thing. You just keep holding for a minute.”

He went into a storage room across the hall and started grabbing equipment.

I didn’t care. I just wanted the whole thing over with.

I heard a thud closely followed by, “Oh, no, Ethel.”

I jumped from the chair, still holding the gauze, and followed Dr. Z.

Mom was on the floor, and this big man was going to try to put her back on the sofa.

“No, no,” I yelled. “Eeb huh oh tuh foohr.”

I rushed around the two of them, pulled a cushion out of a side chair, and pushed it under her head.

“You get back in there, young lady,” he said. “You’re going to cause that mouth to bleed.”

Like it’s not already bleeding, I thought.

He was back in the closet in a couple of moments, and called out to me, “I’m getting her a blanket and a towel in case she vomits.”

“See otay?” I asked.

“She’s good. She’s just sleeping.”

That’s what they say when somebody dies, I thought, and I got up and down the hall again.

“Mom, Mom,” I said, leaning over her on my knees. “Tan oo heeh me?”

“Yes, Honey,” she mumbled. “I hear you. I’m okay.” She put her forearm over her eyes.

Dr. Z. pulled me up and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

He followed me to the exam room. I climbed back into the chair.

“Leaning you back,” he said. “I’m going to stop that bleeding now.”

“I’m going to put this over your face,” he said, “and then you just let me lift your lip off the place, and it will only take a minute.”

Something heavy lay across the top half of my head.  Dr. Z. pulled my bottom lip out and started to remove the heavy gauze. I instinctively put my hand to my chin, thinking I would help him, I guess.

“No, no,” he shouted. “Get your hand back!”

I immediately heard a small sizzling. Then the smell hit me.

“Uhhhhhhgg,” I said and shivered.

“One more time,” he said as he touched the wound again. It did not hurt, but I heard it, and I smelled it.

“I doh be siht,” I said and wretched.

Dr. Z. fanned me with something, probably a magazine, and said quietly, “One last small one, and we’re done.”

He probed the third time and fanned me again.

“Wait, wait, wait just a minute.”

I did…wait. And then I threw up. All the blood I’d swallowed all night, and for all I knew, all my insides.

Dr. Z. helped me out of the chair. I stepped into the bathroom. I’d wet my bloodied jeans, and my yellow sweatshirt was a sickly-looking brown. There was blood in my hair and on my white tenny-runners that would never come clean.

“Diana,” he called. “You may want to shower yourself off before you go home. Is there anyone that can pick you up?”

“I tan dwibe,” I said. “I doh hab kwobes.” I hadn’t known there was a shower.

“You can wrap up in my bathrobe. It’s still clean.”

I opened the door. He was a mess, standing there holding out his bathrobe. “I’m going to throw your towel away. Is that alright?”

“Es.”

“How about your clothes?”

“No. I hab to tate dem ho.” Even in my sad condition, I wanted to save my favorite jeans and sweatshirt.

“I’ll find a bag or something,” he said.

“I nee tet oh Ma,” I said.

“I just did. She’s fine. Get yourself cleaned up a little.” He opened the door to his office and led me to his personal bathroom in the corner.

How about that? I thought. Corner bathroom with a corner shower.

“All I got is Lifebuoy. There’s a towel and face cloth on the sink,” he said. “Leave your clothes in the shower,” he said. “You can get the mess tomorrow.”

“Now,” he said, “I’m going to close my office door, and you can lock the bathroom door if you want.”

I closed the door, locked it, and turned the water on in the shower. I pulled the sticky sweatshirt over my head and unzipped the jeans. I decided to rinse them out. It took me longer to give the clothes a bath than my shower. I wondered what LifeBuoy hair would look like in the morning.

It took both Dr. Z and me to get Mom in the car. She was fairly limp.

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” he asked.

“Es,” I said. (I had a big gauze wad in my mouth.)

When we pulled into the garage, I realized I was not okay to get Mom into the house by myself. I was uncomfortable waking a neighbor at that hour of the morning. I leaned her seat back as far as it would go and went into the house to get blankets. She wouldn’t need a pillow, but I would.

The boys were all sound asleep.

I tucked a red bedspread around Mom, scrunched up in the back seat, and pulled a blanket over myself, still in Dr. Z’s bathrobe. I hope those boys set their alarm, I thought. I smelled Lifebuoy soap.  

***

***

Grief Goes to Granville

Mama died in her sleep a year and four days ago. June 24 is the date. I had not cried except when I was lying on the couch with the flu this spring and heard Bocelli singing Amazing Grace in front of the Vatican. The weeping was over when the music stopped, and I returned to my coughing, headache, and sore joints.

I knew the trip to Granville’s Heritage Days on Memorial Day weekend would come near to killing me. Tears welled up when I opened the invitation to the annual memorial service for all the people who were attached to Granville in some way. All these people passed away since the last Heritage Days service. She was fourth on the list, Ethel Blair, just below Barlow, Barrett, and Birdwell. There was also a handwritten note in the bottom corner announcing that a brick would be dedicated in Mom’s honor on the museum’s Memory Lane.

It hit me that Mom was no longer real. She had spun herself into a memory. Had she floated away from my reality? I was about to face the place where Mom and Dad served a community in their older years. Dad was the pastor there, and Mom played the piano.

Since last June, grief hasn’t been hidden, but we’ve been trying to sell our beloved Compound On the Ravine, a place that requires a particular buyer with a situation similar to ours.

We bought a new home, The Cottage, and the moving and the paring down proved unmerciful. We fell for the idea of an estate sale, a disastrous experience that left us with more of a mess than we started with. One friend and I emptied garages that could fit six, maybe eight, vehicles.

The upkeep of The Compound has taken a lot of time and energy. We contracted Covid, then the flu came for a long seven-day visit. In winter, spring, and summer, we’ve made almost daily trips to The Compound. It hasn’t sold yet. Besides that, we have been trying to make The Cottage our new home.

Grief is adaptable. If it couldn’t move in with me, it would devastate others around me. While I was busy with Mom’s last days, my cousin Reba lost her husband Lewis. What a sweet couple. My Aunt Bessie died March 23, nine months to the day after Mom. Her kids say she just wasn’t the same after Mom died. Ethel and Bessie talked every Saturday, sometimes for two or three hours. My cousin Brenda Gail died within a month. Her mother was Aunt Elois, my dad’s oldest sister, long gone now. My writing group friend Debbie’s sister passed away in Alabama, and just a few days later, Bonnie, another of our group of 5 Ladies in Writing, suddenly lost her husband. I’d visited her at the St. Thomas Hospital cafeteria just days before. After that, the husband of my dear ex-sister-in-law Vickie in Montana surrendered abruptly to just-discovered cancer.

And then, one day, about two weeks into May, the servicemen came to check out our HVAC at The Cottage, just as they had always done at The Compound twice a year. George finished before his partner and was leaning against the white truck when I came out the front door. I don’t remember where I was going nor who came with George that day.

George might be sixty or maybe a little over. I said, “How’re you doing, George?”

He said, “Fine,” and quickly added, “Probably as fine as I’ll ever get.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, I lost my wife in a car accident a month ago.”

“Oh, George, I am so sorry,” I said.

“It was a one-car accident,” he said. “Day before her birthday. She’d gone to get her toes done. It was her birthday present. I guess she just lost control of the car. She would have been home in less than ten minutes.”

“Where did that happen?” I asked.

“Tater Peeler Road, out from Lebanon. Kinda out in the country is where we live.”

“I know Tater Peeler Road. I lived in Lebanon for several years. And we had a farm before that in Norene.”

“Well, we was close neighbors. I’m towards the end of the road there at Cedars of Lebanon. She was a wonderful person, always helping somebody. She loved flowers, gardening, you know. She had back surgery one time. We went to the grocery store, couldn’t have been more than a week after, and she was waiting in the car for me to get everything. I got in the car and she saw this elderly couple having trouble loading their groceries, and she got out of that car and went and helped them. Always doing something like that. Yeah, she was getting her toes done. She loved to dress up and keep herself pretty. Loved jewelry. I was always getting her some jewelry of some kind.”

I smiled and he went on. “I don’t stay at the house. I go there to sleep and then I get up and go to work. Put myself on call every weekend so I work every day.”

“So you eat out?”I asked. “You just don’t want to be there.”

He shook his head. “Naw. She was a good cook. Sometimes we ate out. It was always for something special.”

The other serviceman came around the corner of the house.

George lifted his ballcap and put it back on. “I guess we’re ready to go,” he said.

“George, I’ll remember you in my prayers. What was your wife’s name?”

“Diane. Her name was Diane.”

I was so moved that I wanted to see a photo. I looked at the obituaries for Lebanon, Tennessee, and found a picture. I imagined what it was like for George to lose his Diane.

***

Spring hit and there have been several lookers at our old house and a few offers, but no sale. The gardens grew at both homes, but I took a break to make that trip to Granville for the memorial service and the dedication of the brick. Dave remained at home with Dixie, and my friend D went with me.

We had plenty of time but arrived in Granville with only a few minutes to spare before the brick dedication. D dropped me off and went to find a parking spot. The dedication was brief. I walked down the street to Granville United Methodist Church, and, instead of taking the steep steps to the double doors, I made my way up the ramp on the side of the church through the pastor’s office to the choir room and restrooms.

I sat on the end of the pew with the large aisle from the choir room. There was the familiar cube of tissues. I knew I’d need them. A woman from the middle of the seat leaned over to tell me she had family coming to sit there.

No bother. I moved forward to the center aisle seat on the second pew, checked for Kleenex, and grabbed a handful.

Something swirled in the center of my body. It spread to the very edge of my neck, shoulders, and legs. All that I could relate to were arms and legs. The twisting in my middle had created a large hole, empty except for the rotating air. I started to cry. Not just a little, but sobbing, and holding two or three tissues to my mouth.

D will be here soon, I thought, but as the pastor started the service, I sat alone in that respectful silence and felt the stark nothingness of grief. I must have walked on someone else’s wobbling legs to the altar and lit a candle when Mom’s name was called.

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-

For the love of firefighters…

We knew it was going to be a rough night. There were pictures of red mornings all over Facebook, and besides, Bree Smith on Channel 5 said so. The rain started in the early evening, we went to bed, and then the weather sirens blew, all the phones sounded the alarms, and we turned on the TV where Meteorologist Kikki Dee was saying “Go to your safe place…”

I swapped my pajama bottoms for a dirty pair of cargoes and headed over to wake up Mama. See, we all gather downstairs in The Cellar, the efficiency apartment where I used to write and cook and sew. Now Neil lives there. We knew he’d be upstairs shortly to herd us down, and he was. Dave told him we were headed down.

Mama used to go down the stairs from our den to The Cellar. She can’t do that anymore, so I knew we had to get her down the lift. When I got to her bedroom, she was ready to go–except for having any clothes on. Actually, she did. She was wearing her red metallic Easy Spirits. I dressed her in a clean gown, grabbed her robe, and got her to her walker, and she began a slow trek to the lift. God bless that lift!

Dave took Dixie and headed to our safe place. Neil was at the ready.

I turned on the lights in the elevator and edged Mom in. She sat on her walker, and I pushed the button.

I said, “I didn’t get my bra on, but I’ve got it tucked into my pants.”

She looked up at me. “I didn’t even have time to get my dentures.”

“Yeah,” I said, “we’re a sight.”

We were about a foot from the floor in The Study when the electricity went out.
“Uh, oh,” she said.

“Hmmm,” I said, “I wonder how the battery kicks in.”

I felt around the outside. Nothing there. “I better call Dave.”

The storm raged.

“We’re stuck,” I told him.

“Where?”

“We’re stuck in the lift. How does the battery kick in?”

“I think it should come on automatically when the electricity goes off.”

I could hear Neil in the background. “I’m headed that way.”

Here he came with a flashlight. I guess he had to prove to himself that we were, indeed, hold up in the lift. He looked around for access to the battery.

“Don’t worry about Dave and Dixie. They’re socked in over there. Dave said he was going to take Dixie out. I said, ‘No, you’re not. You stay right here.'”

“Oh, my goodness,” Mom said.

The storm raged harder.

He tried to open the door. No, there is a safety on that door to keep it from opening to spill its contents onto the concrete floor in my study. Probably a good idea.

“I’m going to get some wrenches and try to get the door off.” He ran out the door to my dad’s old tool bench in the garage, the garage containing my study.

My mother asked, “Are we about half up or half down?” Her inflection asked me to choose between the two.

I peered at her through the dark. “We’re about a foot from the ground.”

“Oh.” She seemed satisfied–and she didn’t seem to hear the storm as it came closer and closer.

Neil loosened screws, dropped them, pried, pulled, all with no success in loosening the door.

“Maybe you should just throw us some cushions from the couch,” I told him.

“Maybe I should just call the fire department,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I told him.

He walked back to the garage and I heard both him and the dispatcher talking.

After getting the correct address, she asked him, “Is this a house or apartment?”

“It’s a house,” he said.

I yelled, “It’s the APARTMENT!”

She asked him the nature of the emergency.

“I’ve got two elderly ladies stuck in an elevator.” (I made a mental note to speak to him about his definition of elderly.)

I yelled, “Wheelchair lift!”

“Are they cognizant and breathing?”

“Oh, yes, they’re breathing,” he said.

“Are they having any difficulty?”

“Well, yeah, I guess they might be having a little trouble breathing. I mean, they’re stuck in an elevator.”

I yelled, “It’s a wheelchair lift!”

“Do we need to send the paramedics?” she asked.

“Noooooo!” I yelled.

He kept talking. “They need to come through a garage door, so I’ll have it open for them. How long you think this will take?”

The storm whirred overhead and I heard crackling and something falling, it seemed like on Nolensville Road, about a quarter-mile away.

Neil called from the garage, “You hear that tree crack?”

I heard him open the garage door manually.

“Yes. Neil, you need to get out there to meet them so they know where to go.” (I mean, we still get lost from each other in The Compound, and I wasn’t sure these would be firemen who had been here before, even though we’ve had the full assortment from the stations on the South side of Nashville.)

Neil came back in The Study and said, “They should be here pretty soon. I think we just heard the worst of it pass.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I believe so. Sounds like something hit a couple streets over.”

He paused to take a picture of Mom and me in the lift. We all laughed.

“Oh, good grief, Neil,” I said.

“Don’t worry, Grandma, I only got the back of your head. Oh, I think I hear them.”

He called out from the driveway, “Yeah, right here!”

The fire truck moved a bit. Surely they didn’t drive into the driveway with that monstrosity. I still don’t know if they did.

“Right through here. I’ve got one ninety-year-old in there. The other is a young seventy-two.”

Yeah, he knows, I thought to myself. He’s trying to redeem himself.

“Are they okay?”

A good-looking fireman with a big white moustache (We’ll call him Sam Elliott) stuck his head in and then out again.

“Oh, no,” Mom said, “He got a look at us and he’s leaving.”

He came back in with two buddies. I recognized Sam Elliott and a young one with almost the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen (Leonard DiCaprio with short hair.) Leonardo spoke first. “Oh, man, I was fearing a lot worse than this,” he said.

“Yeah, you thought it was an enclosed elevator, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s what would be a lot worse.”

Leonardo said, “The worst of the storm has passed. We came from Antioch and had to dodge trees down across Old Hickory Boulevard and then trees down on side streets, and Nolensville Road has some power poles down.”

“Yeah, we heard it,” I said.

Sam Elliott and Neil talked. “What we have to do is get this door loose.”

“I tried,” Neil said. “I think I’ve loosened everything that can be loosened. It must be the magnetic lock assembly.”

Fireman #2 (I never got a good look at him) relayed that message to the others. I think he suggested a crowbar.

Nooooooo, I thought. Thousands of dollars ran through my mind. Nooooooooo.

Sam Elliott spoke to Mom. “What’s your name, Ma’am? Your last name.”

“Blair. Ethel Blair,” she said.

“Mrs. Blair, don’t worry. We’re going to get you out of there.”

“I’m not worried,” she said.

Neil asked if we needed water or anything.

Much discussion continued, and many wrenches changed hands. Neil ran back and forth, here and yon, and found exactly what they needed. Sam and #2 were able to get to the “inside screws.”

“Almost,” #2 promised.

And then they all cheered.

Neil had already set up a ladder in case they had to get in the lift to get Mom out. He took that down and set up a step-stool. Sam Elliott said, “What we need is a little stool.”

Neil came running with a Rubbermaid kitchen stool, the perfect thing.

Leonardo hadn’t been too active in the rescue, but he was fine to look at. He helped #2 open the lift door. He invited me to step out and down. First, I had to get by Mom, and that took a little bit.

Both took Mom under her arms. Sam Elliott told Leonardo, “We’re going to have to lift her down. She can’t step down that far.”

“Mrs. Blair,” Sam said, “We’re going to lift you down to the stool. Can you stand on it?”

“Yes,” she said.

“No,” I said.

Her feet barely touched the stool as they got her feet on the floor and guided her to the wheelchair that Neil had provided.

“Is everybody okay?” Sam asked. “Can you handle it from here?”

“I’ll take care of them,” Neil said.

The three of us gave our gratitude.

One of them said, “It was our pleasure.”

Thank God for first responders. Thank God the lift made it almost to the floor. Thank God for Neil.

Just as they got through the garage door, Mom said, “They can come get me any time. Whew.”

Neil and I both laughed. “Grandma!” he said.

“I can still look!” she said.

Thank God for first responders. Thank God the lift made it almost to the floor. Thank God for Neil. (Neil is handsome, too.)