November 20, 2008

• Thursday Thirteen #41 (LONG!)

  Thirteen Things About My Mom A brief history of my mother.  Her beginning, her transformation, and her demise. She grew up “painfully shy” (her own words) and any attention shown to her would make her cry.  Being called to stand up in school.  A big “to do” made over her birthday.  She cried.  She suffered from severe asthma but, due to my grandparent’s religious beliefs, remained untreated and suffered terribly at times with struggling to breathe.  Over the years, she grew into a more confident adult and became outgoing, silly, a tease, and someone other people enjoyed being around.  She still cried, but not due to lack of confidence, at least, I don’t think so.  She was a great artist.  I have some of her pencil sketches (one great one of my cousin, Claire, when she was a baby) and she enjoyed ceramics. In my china cabinet are several ceramic pieces she made – a pair of pheasants, a candy dish, etc.  Really beautiful stuff.  That said, on the anniversary of her death 11/19/83 (that would be 25 years ago), I decided to pay tribute to 13 memories I have of her.  It was hard to pick only 13 – there are so many more. 1.  I remember being young enough to sleep with a blankie (I called it my “cubby” – don’t ask me why!) and my mom decided I was in need of a new one.  She said she would make one over night.  Literally, to me in bed, it felt like *during* the night.  Every time the sewing machine stopped, I’d call from bed, “Are you finished, yet?”  A patient “Nooooo, not yet” was her response.  FAR MORE PATIENT THAN I WOULD HAVE BEEN!!! 2.  I had a sailor suit style of dress in Kindergarten.  A blue dress with square collar in back, stars in the corners, and a little scarf tied in a square knot in the front.  I loved it.  In first grade, a friend and her mother called me and asked if I’d like to walk with them as they went door to door selling Blue Bird candy.  I said yes, and quickly changed into my old Kindergarten dress.  (I wanted to look cute, I guess!)  My mother came home from where ever she was (I was in 1st grade, so I can’t believe I was home alone, maybe a neighbor was keeping an eye on me ????), she saw me in that too little, too short dress from Kindergarten and came unglued, realizing I had been out in public like that.  Remember, public opinion mattered a lot back in the late 50′s, early 60′s.  She took the dress away from me.  I told her I loved sailor collared dresses, but in the trash it went.  She never bought another dress with a sailor collar or motif for me, assuring herself I would never again appear in public with a dress that was too small!  (an aside) EVERY SINGLE ONE of my girls has had sailor suit dresses for July 4th!!!!! 3.  I loved the Mousekateer Show.  The old, original one, in black and white.  When I was little, they were already showing reruns!!!  My mother patiently explained week after week, day after day, minute after minute, WHY I couldn’t grow up to be “Karen” (the youngest female Mousekateer) and someday be on the Mickey Mouse Club Show.  All I wanted to be was “Karen” – was that too much to ask?!!!  Today, I can’t believe she was so patient and didn’t tell me TO never bring up the name “Karen” oR the Mousekateer Show again! 4.  My mother had these pastel Tupperware plastic glasses.  I remember, as they became more worn, the plastic on the edge of the glass was rough and felt like pieces of plastic “hairs” tickling the inside of my lips when I drank.  It grossed me out; but, owning Tupperware was the “rage” of the times and she was determined to use them.  Another “rage” of the times were the new Christmas trees that made their appearance in the early 60′s.  The metallic ones in silver.  SHE HATED THEM!!  DESPISED THEM WITH A VENGEANCE!!!  They invented a multi-colored, plastic filter that circled a light and caused the silver “tin tree” to change colors.  Finally someone got smart and manufactured the trees in light blue and light pink, in additional to the original silver trees.  My mom hated them and said colored aluminum was hideous in any way, shape, or form.  HOWEVER . . . she also owned aluminum drinking glasses in frosted dark pink, blue, gold, and chartreuse (I believe).  I thought they were hideous and the sharp metal edges threatened to cut my lips when I drank; but, she made an exception for her beloved drinking glasses that were colored metal!!  5.  Once when I was very young, I had a serious case of pneumonia.  The doctor made me promise to stay in bed, so he didn’t have to admit me to the hospital.  My mom took pity on me and invited me to join her for lunch in the living room while watching Art Linkletter’s show.  On that one day, he had the “Kids” portion of the show featuring guests from his “Art Linkletter Totten Dance School.”  One of the little girls, dressed in a party dress that had slips to make the skirt stand out “to there,” did the new dance called, The Twist.  A few hours after returning to my bed, my mother checked on me and found me dressed in last year’s fancy Easter dress, with several school skirts underneath to make the skirt stand out “to there.”  I was doing “The Twist” with all my heart.  She called the doctor and asked for a sedative.  For ME, not her! 6.  She almost died when I was in 6th grade.  I remember so well my parents buying a new house.  It looked beautiful to me, compared to our old house.  I guess a lot of work needed to be done, pulling carpet and grass cloth wallpaper, because the previous owners had had a dog.  My mother was VERY allergic to dogs (well, she was allergic to just about everything).  The scheduled move that took place the first of December happened with my mother in the hospital suffering from a nasty case of bronchial asthma.  All the medicine in the world didn’t subdue her suffocating cough.  I’ll never forget how sick she was.  We lived with my dad’s parents (one city over) during the day and they drove us to and from school.  My mom came home shortly before Christmas with instructions to NOT have a real Christmas tree and our cat “Smokey” was banished to the basement garage and outdoors.  (Thankfully, by then, the tin trees had been replaced by some close to real looking green fake trees and we purchased one the NEXT year!) I remember that Christmas so well, no tree, no carpeting, and my styrofoam nativity scene made by me in a desperate attempt to “decorate” for Christmas.  My parents had been unable to continue my enrollment in dance lessons (something I loved dearly) and I was devastated, but I intuitively knew our family’s finances were not in the best shape.  That whole Christmas was weird.  My mom’s best friend bought us (with my parent’s money) Christmas gifts and wrapped the gifts with her own paper, since my mother was unable to shop.  The gifts she chose were all wrong and obviously bought by someone who didn’t know me well. Then, again, what to you buy a girl in those “in-between” years???   The paper was “ugly” to me and the whole Christmas was a disappointment, except for the fact my mom was alive and back home with me.  AND, what do you say when someone has done your family a favor?  You say, “Thank you” and make sure no one sees your disappointed face.  My grandparents always came in the morning to watch us open gifts.  My grandma handed me an envelope and a check fell out – I would have rather had a wrapped gift to *play* with later.  I politely thanked her and Grandpa.  She asked if I had read the card and I lied and said, “Yes,” but looked again.  There was a note written at the bottom of the card that said the money was the first month’s tuition fee for me to be returned to dance classes.  I flew into my grandmother’s arms in tears, thanking her through my sobs, and she whispered in my ear, “And we will continue to pay for your classes for as many years as you want to dance, honey.”  Wasn’t she a dear?  My mother cried. 7.  Beginning in 7th grade, my mom took a job to help pay off the previous year’s medical expenses.  She didn’t get home each day until 5:30 or 6:00 and started leaving me a list for after school chores and instructions for beginning dinner.  I graduated from tossed salads, to peeling and boiling potatoes, to preparing and putting the roast in the oven.  My mother has no idea what a monster she created.  To this day, cooking is second nature to me and I can always throw something together, no matter what.  When I cooked for mother, she had no idea how I had learned to cook so well! 8.  When I was 19 years old, I visited a high school friend who was going to college in Oklahoma.  While visiting over the 4th of July week-end, I found a job and made arrangements to move in with my friend’s room mates, because my friend was getting married.  My first time away from home was almost 2000 miles away in a city where I knew no one.  My mother never tried to stop me.  She asked questions and I guess I sufficiently answered them with my intentions and plans.  I packed everything I could into my Ford Pinto hatchback, and “left home” on a Sunday afternoon.  I realized I had forgotten to pack a sweater or jacket and returned to the house.  My mother was lying on the sofa (probably in a dead faint!).  When I came into the living room she said, “Oh!  You’re moving home already?”  Funny now, but at the time those words made me more determined than ever to make this move last at least 6 months.  By the way, my girlfriend canceled her wedding and moved back to California 2 weeks after my arrival in Oklahoma! 9.  When I became pregnant, I called my mom, wanting her to be the first one to know.  I called, she answered, I said, “Guess what?  I’ve got some news!”  She said, “You’re pregnant!”  I never have figured out how she knew.  We hadn’t announced our intentions to TRY to start a family!!!  Must be a “mother” thing! 10.  She made a couple trips to Oklahoma after I was married.  But also paid for me to come see her several times in San Francisco.  After the birth of my first child, her parents would send money to her and to me to come to Phoenix and visit over Memorial Day week-end.  They conveniently left out my “hard to get along with” husband.  It was always good to see my mom and watch her enjoy her first grandchild!  She was so different with my daughter from how I remembered being raised!!!  Maybe she was infatuated with me, too, when I was still young and unable to talk back!!! 11.  July 5th is a “not so great” date in my life.  My first husband’s sister was still born on July 5th.  Twenty years later (1976), my father-in-law died on July 5th.  Fast forward to July 5, 1982 and Oklahoma banks began to fail and close.  People were only able to collect a fraction of the money they had in the bank that exceeded the amount FDIC had insured.  My money was in the first bank to close and the one surrounded with mysterious FBI charges of fraud, but I was safe with my $50 balance!  I called my mom, who was in the hospital again because she couldn’t get over a cold she had caught on New Year’s Day.  I told her the “unbelievable” story that had happened to Oklahoma’s banks.  She told me she was just getting ready to call me.  I laughed.  She had just found out that morning she had cancer.  July 5th – not a good date in my book. 12.  Thanksgiving of 1982 I took Stephanie with me to visit my mom, knowing (after doing research on multiple myeloma and finding it was ALWAYS fatal – still is) that the visit would most likely be the last time Stephanie would see her grandmother.  We had a great time together, my mom and I, and thinking how short her time left would be never crossed my mind.  But, when I visited her in May of 1983, I was sure she was near death.  She rallied and did well through the summer and early fall.  I went to visit her October of 1983 and was shocked.  She wasn’t doing well at all.  I took her back to the hospital on a Friday (before a large coastal storm moved in) and had to carry her on my back to get her up the stairs to her carport and into the car.  I left for Oklahoma the following Tuesday with many misgivings.  She had just been informed the cancer had spread to her lungs and brain and radiation would soon be necessary – something that she wanted no part of because radiation therapy scared her.  I returned a week later, on November 1st, to stay “as long as she needed me” (the way I worded my intentions to her because she still hadn’t admitted she was dying).  She died November 19, 1983, the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Her parents told me to just plan her service and have it without them.  They would drive and be in California as soon as possible!  HER OWN PARENTS DIDN’T CARE ABOUT ATTENDING THEIR DAUGHTER’S FUNERAL?????  My aunt flew in from Philadelphia a week later and WAS there for the service.  All of us got my mom’s condo ready to sell.  I flew back home to Oklahoma on December 7th, after spending December 6th with my dad’s mother (the same one who gave me dance lesson money) celebrating her 87th birthday.  Being with Grandma on her birthday helped with my grief.  Although I had lost my mother, I still had my grandmother.  She was so sweet to tell me that despite my parent’s bitter divorce, she had prayed for my mother the whole time she had been ill. 13.  There was some bitterness surrounding my mom’s death; and, maybe now, it just feels like unanswered questions.  Writing makes me feel a wee bit bitter again, when I remember how wonderful my mother was to everyone.  When my mother died, the nurses on the cancer ward wept.  The ladies who had cared for her from Hospice also wept.  Neighbors and friends offered condolences of how much they would miss her laugh and fun personality.  She had that infectious, likable personality that my husband also possesses.  For all “the good” that people spoke about her, no one came to visit her those last months of her life.  It was definitely hard to see her thin and weak, but it felt like everyone was afraid they’d “catch cancer” if they came close to her, so EVERYONE stayed away.  To others, my mother’s own feelings of lonliness, her physical pain, and her fear of death didn’t override their timidity and helplessness.  It was hard for me to see so few at her side at the end of her life.  She had brought so much joy to so many people.  She had 2 close girlfriends (Ro and Grace) and they were *her* and *my* main support while her life ended and afterwards when I planned a memorial service for her.  She attended a church where she was well liked (albeit New Age) and I was sensitive to the fact people had probably made Thanksgiving plans and would be busy, AND, the fact her parents were driving to San Francisco from Phoenix.  Ever thoughtful me, planned the service for the Sunday AFTER Thanksgiving at 2:30pm, giving her friends plenty of time to return from any Thanksgiving travel.  Almost no one came to the service.(????)  A handful of her friends and my foster family. My mother had told my father for years (while they were married) that she would love to have him bring or send her flowers.  His flippant reply was, “I’ll send them to your funeral and you can have them put on your grave.”  (yes, I have issues there, too!)  He ate his words.  They had been married 20 years, but he was remarried and felt like he should do “something” (probably to make his daugheters feel better) and he said he wanted to send flowers, but his words haunted him.  They should have haunted him!  He asked what he should do and I didn’t mince words.  I told him in lieu of the pain he had caused her over the years by his flower comments, flowers would be extremely inappropriate.  He did nothing, which was as it should be. My mother lived her life without receiving beautiful flowers from anyone besides her mother, who always sent a table arrangement for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and from me on a few occasions.  I bought a huge spray for the funeral, no other flowers or plants had arrived (???!!!!) during the week following her death.  My grandparents had finally arrived Thanksgiving afternoon while I was gone spending the day with my foster family.  On Friday, I ordered a beautiful spray of flowers to sit in front of the podium at her Memorial service.  I did it as a gesture of grattitude for my mom’s life of 54 years and told the florist to say the arrangement was from my grandparents (her parents), my aunt (her sister), and me.  My grandfather (HER FATHER) said the cost of the flowers should come out of the estate’s expenses!  (I have a real hard time with that, to this day!  Paying for your own flowers at your funeral????!!!)  My aunt paid some money to me for the flowers, but her own wealthy parents didn’t pay a dime!  It’s not like they didn’t know about funerals, my grandmother sang at a funeral home for many, many years.  By the way, the cost of the gigantic spray was only $45.00!!!!  California flowers cost less because they are prolifically grown there. So there you have 13 highlights of my mother’s life that entwined my own life.  Oddly enough, 3 years later, on the same day (November 19, 1986), her mother (my grandmother) was found by my grandfather in the early morning hours having a stroke/heart attack.  She was rushed to the hospital and, through lack of communication that a Living Will of “Do Not Resuscitate” existed, she was accidentally hooked to a life support machine, although she was clinically “brain dead.”  The law in Arizona is that once connected, despite a Living Will requesting a person NOT BE, the patient must remain on life support for 48 hours before being disconnected.  So, on the morning of November 21, 1986, my grandmother was disconnected and died in less than an hour.  Grandpa didn’t call me until after the ordeal had passed.  I think my cousin, Claire, had the presence of mind to ask her mother, “Has anyone called, Cher’?” I wish I could say with assurance, “I will see my mother in heaven,” but I can’t.  She was attending a New Age church and had sampled many religions after her departure from the Christian Science church.  I try not to think of it, because it bothers me.  A good person going to a not-so-good place?  My mother?  I know 2 nights before she died, she was in a coma and woke up while her girlfriends and I visited her bedside.  She rallied enough to have her racous laugh back, that made patients up and down the halls in other rooms laugh (very contagioius, her laugh).  She grabbed my arm, pulled me down to her, and looked deeply into my eyes.  With extreme intensity and excitement in her voice she said over and over, “The colors!  The brillance!  The colors . . . I can’t explain them . . . you HAVE TO believe!”  Did God allow her to see heaven and did she have an opportunity to “believe” before she drew her last breath?  Only God knows. I KNOW she was a fun mother, a mother who truly was excited about all of my accomplishments, both big and small, and said she always enjoyed my company and would have chosen me as a friend if I had NOT been her daughter.  If that’s not love, I don’t know what is! A somewhat blurry and faded picture of my mom before she became ill.

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