The little lost soul

For many years after King and I were first married, and then when our children were small, the million dollar question in the days following Thanksgiving was which family we would be with on Christmas Day.

We lived in Ohio and since King's  parents lived on the east side of Michigan and mine lived on the west side of Michigan, dividing the day between both families was not an option. King's family generally won out and we spent many years traveling back to Michigan to celebrate the holiday. To be honest, it was not something I generally enjoyed. Packing up four kids, presents and a dog into the car and driving eight hours was not my idea of a fun time. King and the kids were of the same mind. So at one point we decided we would start our own family tradition and spend Christmas at home -- our home.

When we moved back to West Michigan in the mid-1980s we told family members they were welcome to spend Christmas with us, but we were going to continue with our tradition of spending the holiday at home. Since Mom and Dad lived just down the street from us, it then became a tradition for them to come visit on Christmas Day.

They were a cute couple. On Christmas Eve they hung their stockings by the fireplace and would take turns looking away while the other filled a stocking. They got up early Christmas morning and opened their presents, had breakfast and then drove over to our house to see what Santa had brought our children.

Some years I would fix a huge turkey dinner, other years we would have stir fry. One year Dad refused to come unless I promised I would keep the dogs outside (they were rather obnoxious, but he was equally stubborn). We played games, ate dinner, drove around in the evening and looked at Christmas lights. They were good years.

The years passed. The children grew up. We moved to the middle of the state. Our daughter joined the Navy, our son went away.There were Christmases when I would swallow a huge lump in my throat and pretend everything was fine for the sake of those who made it home. But there were plenty of joyous occasions. Children would travel home from Hawaii or California to spend Christmas with us. Our numbers depended on who could get leave and who could get tickets home. The days leading up to Christmas were busy and filled with trips to and from airports, juggling family parties, Trivial Pursuit competitions, clandestine trips to the store and emergency runs to Kroger after the dog discovered ham dinners in the crock pot. The one constant though it all was Mom, Dad and my older sister always joining us for the holiday.

As the kids got older and started families of their own it was understood they were welcome to come spend Christmas with us. Our home was always open, but we understood the need to start their own traditions. By the time we moved back to West Michigan  our children had, indeed, started their own family traditions and our numbers dwindled to King, our granddaughter, our son, my sister and (sadly) just Mom.

That first year without Dad we all missed him, but no one could ever miss him as much as Mom. They had been married 65 years. Mom was lost without him and we learned -- to late -- how much Dad had been covering for Mom's loss of any type of reasoning.

This year Mom and my sister came to our home Christmas day. They arrived, I helped Mom into her slippers and she then was ready to go back to the nursing home. Thirty minutes. A record. And she was so confused. What was she supposed to do with the carefully wrapped package? Should she rip the paper?

But a part of her remembered. She asked several times if Santa was coming tomorrow and if everyone would be with us then. Apparently our house was too quiet. It seemed she did remember the noise and happy chaos and she missed it. But that is as far as it went. There was no way to explain to her that it was Christmas and everyone was at home with their own families. She simply stared with a blank look on her face and we were left wondering if she couldn't hear us or if she couldn't comprehend what we were saying.

And that confusion carries over to our daily routines.

Since Mom has moved to the nursing home it has become somewhat of a tradition for my sisters and I to meet on Saturdays to take her out for coffee. Yesterday  was an especially rough day, but we are always ready to find a reason for her confusion.

I arrived at the home first and the residents were milling about acting far more animated than usual. It seems they had just completed a fire drill (something a staff member said was a necessary evil, but enjoyed by no one). So when Mom displayed some extra unusual behavior we were ready to find a reason. . . Did the fire drill at the home throw her off?  Or is she really that far gone?

My niece was home from college and joined us for coffee. We had to take two cars. That seemed to confuse Mom a little bit. We were sitting at the restaurant having our coffee and she kept asking if we were all going to go somewhere. We all looked at each other, raised our eyebrows, shrugged our shoulders and said in unison, "We ARE somewhere Mom, but yes, we will go wherever you want."

No sign of her understanding. No sign she even heard us. Just that same blank look. Her question was repeated several times.  We eventually said our goodbyes and my granddaughter and I headed back to our house and my sisters and niece took Mom back to the home. Mom had some sort of a panic attack and kept accusing them of conspiring to take her to a new home.

I would say it is difficult to know what is going through her mind, but that is not correct. It is impossible to know. She visits our homes and is always ready -- eager even-- to return to the nursing home, so we assume she is comfortable there. But once she gets back to the nursing home she sobs when we leave, asking over and over again when we will be returning. Days have no meaning to her. You can tell her: "I will be back Monday," but she doesn't know what day that is. We might as well be telling her we will be back "Snuffel-day." Since we don't know if she can hear us, we write our answers out for her. She reads them aloud, but often times doesn't seem to understand what she has read.

We wish there were answers. But lets face it, there are none. Apparently the demented don't come with an instruction booklet. And she remains the little lost soul.

Christmas traditions

Christmas was always a huge deal for Mom. Sometime after the first of December she would start getting out the red candles and a few decorations would find their way into the house. Her decorations were always tastefully done.

Although they didn't do a whole lot with outdoor decorations, Dad had a wooden wreath form made of plywood and Mom would go out into the woods and cut pine boughs to make a wreath for our front door. Sometime during the 1960s Dad made a wooden Christmas tree frame and stapled large outdoor lights to it. He then put pie plates around the lights so we had an outdoor tree that kind of looked like rings of giant life-savers. King and I inherited it and it's been an outside decoration for our home for almost 10 years.

Toward the middle of December Mom would finally send one of us into the garage to get the boxes of decorations down from the attic and we knew we would be getting the Christmas tree soon.

Each year -- usually on a Saturday in December -- Mom, my younger sister and I would take Dad's saw from the garage and walk across the street to the Veldhoff's Christmas tree farm and choose a tree. I believe they were commercial growers for a while and then got out of the business, but the trees remained and for many years that's where we got our tree.

Now, choosing a tree was no small deal for Mom. This trek would take several hours. My sister and I would run from tree to tree. "This one is perfect Mom." "Look at how tall this one is." "This one has pine cones." Mom would walk over and judge each tree. "That one is nice, but I think the trunk is a little crooked." "That one is too big to fit in the living room." "No, I think this year we will go with something a little (rounder, smaller, taller, fuller)."

Mom would agonize over the right tree and inevitably the one we would bring home would have a 90 degree angle in the trunk. Dad would work in the garage on the stand until he could finally find a way to make it stand upright. I recall the year Dad, in total frustration, jumped in his car and drove to the shop (the machine shop in the dog food factory he managed) and welded a cast iron stand. Mom swore the living room sagged in the corner where the tree was, but that tree, and every tree after it, stood upright.

Mom also did a lot of baking during the holiday season. Cut out cookies, rolled cookies, fondant, thumbprint cookies, popcorn balls . . . the list was endless. Plates were set out when company came and we would often have cookies and milk as an after school snack, an evening snack or a waiting for the bus snack . . .

Years later, when I met King and would spend the holidays with his family, his mother hoarded cookies. A plate would be passed and we would be allowed one cookie, then the box would be hid away in her bedroom. She once confided in me that at the end of the season she had to throw cookies away because they became stale. She asked what my mother did with her leftover cookies. I tried, but I could not help myself, "There never were leftovers. We ate them." (Ok, there was always plenty of fruitcake left over after the holiday).

On Sunday afternoons in December we would go to church to practice for the Sunday School Christmas program. They were always lavish affairs with lots of singing, verses to memorize, angels, wise men, shepherds, and of course, Mary, Joesph and Baby Jesus.

The program was almost always performed on Christmas Day -- no matter what day of the week Christmas fell. After the program oranges and boxes of Cracker Jack were distributed to everyone in attendance.

These are the memories I have tucked away to pull out when I think of Christmases past. We now how our own traditions -- a blend of those from my childhood and King's, melded together with traditions our children are creating. It is as it should be and they, too, will be able to pull them out someday and reminisce.

I hope they will remember for a very long time. Because, as we have learned, memories are fragile and can be very fleeting.

Did that really just happen?

I have a propensity to start a sentence and then get lost in thought and fall silent. I think I do it mostly with my daughter or perhaps she is the only one who calls me on it.

I can zone out quite easily.

The other evening after work I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items. I rounded the corner to the tea aisle and there was Paul Simon perusing the Celestial Seasonings.

I stood there for a few minutes staring at him, reasoning it could be him. Perhaps he owned a home along Lake Michigan and did his grocery shopping when few people were around. My mind wandered to the last time I actually saw Paul Simon and that would have been when he did the video "You can call me Al." This guy looked just like the Paul Simon in the video. Hmmm, wonder if he'd aged at all since 1986.

I was thinking about listening to his cassette tape in the car with the four kids while we were trying to find a bulldozer that had tipped over in the Kalamazoo River. The dozer had tipped over while dismantling a controversial dam in Plainwell (or maybe it was Otsego). The newspaper I was working for wanted a photo. One would think finding a bulldozer in the river would be easy. It wasn't. I was thinking about how naughty the kids were that summer day while we drove around aimlessly with no money for McDonalds and how frustrating it was not to be able to find the stupid bulldozer and damn dam.

Through the fog of long ago memories I hear, "Can I help you with something?"

Busted. Although my mind was 27 years away, my eyes were still staring at a man buying tea.

"Sorry, " I mumbled while I started pushing the cart past him.

"I'm not him you know," said the man with the Celestial Seasonings in his hand. "But I can give you an autograph."

And for those who are wondering . . . I'm guessing it wasn't him.

Wonder what THAT tastes like

A friend posted on FaceBook: Gravy on pancakes. That is all.

I seriously wondered if she was having breakfast with Mom.

Since on onset of dementia Mom has embraced some unusual food combinations. Marmalade on French fries.  Ketchup on pancakes. Our granddaughter was grossed out when she dipped shrimp into vanilla pudding. I watched her eat an entire restaurant cup of sour cream while waiting for her taco salad.

That's not our mother.

I can't imagine being so far gone mentally I won't  recognize food. Or know how to eat it.

And it's a shame Mom has lost touch with food as our family celebrations seem to center around food.

Mom came to our house for Thanksgiving. When my sister told her a few days beforehand they would be coming here for dinner, Mom was quite excited. Thanksgiving day she wasn't so sure what the day was or why everyone was in our dining room. We have our good days and bad days. Thanksgiving was a mediocre day. We ate early and she was ready to leave by 1:30. We had estimated she would last until 2 p.m. Our estimations were close.

As much as Mom has forgotten, she still knew she liked cranberry relish. And yes, she still enjoyed it smothered over her turkey. She always has. Perhaps her new-found food combinations are simply a matter of experimentation.

We can joke about it, but who would have thought it would come down to this?

Years and years ago I was an editor of a senior citizen's magazine. I worked closely with Senior Services in Kalamazoo. I did countless interviews and wrote countless articles on how to deal with aging parents.  I remember thinking: "But not my parents. They are so vibrant. They are so healthy."

Mom and Dad were healthy and vibrant. Dad downhill skied until he was 82. Mom stayed  active in their church. They walked for exercise. They had gym memberships.

But aging plays dirty, and it plays for keeps.

Dad died from complications of old age and Mom is losing her mind. Who would have guessed?

My sisters and I often talk about our concerns for our own mental health. We wonder if this is something we are destined for as well. Our mother read and kept active. Mom ate healthy. Her cholesterol and blood pressure were good. Still, she lost her mind.What about us?

It's a sobering thought.

Oh, and just for the record . . . I have loved dill pickles dipped in sugar since I was pregnant with our first son.

Traditions, Part I

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. It does not seem possible the wheel has turned and another year has passed. Christmas decorations hit the stores the day after Halloween. I'm fairly certain we don't need to rush the season that much. Seems to becoming a retail tradition I would just as soon live without.

Today is our oldest granddaughter's 19th birthday. Yesterday she and her family came to our house to celebrate. I'm wondering if it will be the start of a new tradition. It's always entertaining to have a house full of people.  I am one to follow my mother's tradition of saving each memory in photos. While Mom would take her rolls of film to the local drug store to be developed, I now slip a SD card into the computer and download my photos. I can instantly share them with family via Facebook or the old-fashioned way -- e-mail. And for the really old, I can print them and send them via the post office. Ahh, such changes.

We have had a lot of Thanksgiving traditions throughout the years. My earliest recollection was of Mom spending days preparing Thanksgiving dinner. She made her own breadcrumbs for stuffing, ground cranberries, made mashed potatoes from scratch, agonized over the thawing of the bird and made sure we had a big bag of mixed nuts for cracking later in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day.

Despite her preparations, Mom somehow managed to squeeze in an hour the day before Thanksgiving to come to school to watch our Thanksgiving Day program. There were five grades in our small elementary school -- kindergarten through fourth grade. Even grades did the Thanksgiving program and odd grades did the Christmas program.  The programs were held in the town's "Community Hall," an old brick building next to the school. The building must have been a marvel when it was built. It came complete with a balcony, main floor seating (which doubled as a basketball court) a stage, scary bathrooms in the basement and a kitchen. Our school productions were of the amateur-ish variety but naturally, those parents who could make it to the program, thought they were wonderful.  Mom would drive all the neighborhood kids home after the program and get back to making pies and grinding cranberries.

Grandpa Stehower and his cousin, Andy would come for Thanksgiving dinner. When Grandpa could no longer drive, Dad would drive to Grand Rapids and pick them up. Sometimes Dad would leave early in the morning so Grandpa and Uncle Andy (that is what we called him) could go to church with us. Other times we would leave for church and Dad would make the trip to Grand Rapids while we were sitting in the pew singing hymns of praise. Thanksgiving would not be complete without a rousing chorus of "We Gather Together."

I'm not certain how or when this began, but at some point Dad started the tradition of taking an annual Thanksgiving Day horseback ride. After dinner was over, the leftovers stored in the refrigerator, dishes were washed, dried and put away, and Mom's good silver was tucked away in the cupboard until Christmas, one of us would go out and saddle up one of the horses and Dad would take a ride around the block.  Dad had a pair of cowboy boots and a white denim Levi jacket he would wear. I believe it was the only time he ever wore them.  We could watch him go until he disappeared over "Grisson's Hill" and then we would watch for him to appear 10 minutes later on the other side of the block. As far as I know he never traveled faster than a walk and never deviated from his route.

When Dad's little excursion was over we would unsaddle the horse, go inside to enjoy our bag of mixed nuts. When Mom got out the vacuum to clean up the shells, it was Dad's cue to take Grandpa and Uncle Andy back home.

When I was a freshman in college, Mom and Dad sold our home and moved into an apartment. It was their home for six years while they built their retirement home along the shores of Lake Michigan. Uncle Andy was no longer with us but Dad would still drive to  Grand Rapids to pick up Grandpa.

Then came marriage and a family of our own. Mom and Dad sold our home and moved into an apartment while they built their retirement home along the shores of Lake Michigan. Although there were a few years when they traveled to my sister's for the holiday and King and I had Thanksgiving alone, or invited friends over, Mom and Dad's new home was  soon finished and we started traveling home for the holiday -- adding children each year for several years until we decided we either had to stop having babies or buy a small bus.

There were occasional holidays when we had snow, and the kids spent hours sliding down the hill to the beach at Mom and Dad's house.  There were times with it was warm enough to dip our toes into the water. And there were other times when the waves crashed on the shore and we would stand screaming into the wind . . . just because we could.

The horse riding tradition tuned into rousing games of Trivial Pursuit. Men against the women, with the women almost always winning because my older sister happens to be a walking encyclopedia -- the men's one saving grace against total annihilation would be the "Sports and Leisure" category.

This year, I will undoubtedly be working. We are planning an early dinner at our house with any family members who want  to share the day with us invited. I don't think I'll break out the good china or my mother-in-law's silver. We may use paper plats and plastic silverware as I'm not so much into washing dishes and I haven't owned a dishwasher since 1978.

Maybe it will be the start of a new tradition.

Now THAT was winter

King and I drove home from the airport late last night after a long, long day of air travel. Seeing the new grandsons was a joy and I miss them already. My daughter and son-in-law and even the dogs are being missed as well.

But life goes on and today is being spent trying to get back into my routine. As if I have one.

I managed to somehow stay awake on the drive home from Chicago . . . until we got to a truck stop somewhere in Indiana. Since the car has been having a propensity to not start of late, King sat behind the wheel with the car running while I pumped gas. For some reason, and I don't know why but I have my suspicions, King has not mastered the art of paying for gas at the pump. So rather than shut the car off and both of us make our necessary pit stops, we took turns sitting in the car with it running. And I pumped gas because King truly can not get the credit card to work at the pump. I've watched him.It never works for him. One would think a person with as much education as he has, it would not be difficult. Apparently it is.

However, I digress as I rant. I dozed off after our stop and woke to find snow hitting our windshield. A lot of snow. Then it stopped. And started again. It continued to snow off and on until we got to just outside South Haven and then the snow stopped. I'm not a big fan of driving through snow. I will whine and complain with the best of them. However, I fear we have all become lazy, complacent and just plain stupid when it comes to winter driving. And come on, this is Michigan. We used to get a lot of snow.

When I was a child winters were always snow-filled. And we walked to school. Five miles. Up-hill. Both ways. In sub-zero weather. With bread wrappers over our socks inside some pretty ugly snow boots.

The area where I grew up generally received a lot of snow. People today talk about lake effect snow. We got it then as well, although we didn't know it had a name. Snow would blow in off the lake, go airborne once more and then dump with a vengeance 10 miles inland. Right on the community where we lived. There were winters when we would have weeks off from school because of snow.

Needless to say there always was a lot of the white stuff. So much so that snow plows were of the road grader variety, not big trucks with plows. They were huge and threw snow up onto banks that were 15 feet high, annihilating  hapless mailboxes and filling driveways with snow along the way.

Walking home from school

Scrambling up these banks to avoid the snowplow was my first
and only experience in mountain climbing.

was a test of determination, tenacity and bravery. Roads were narrow and we would plaster ourselves against the banks when a car passed. However, if we heard a snowplow coming, the panic would commence. Snowplows were big, they were loud and they created a blizzard of snow when they went past. We were certain the driver would never see us on the road and we would be tossed onto the bank along with the snow, never to be found until spring.

My sister and the neighbor kids and I would spend most of our walk home listening for the plow. If we heard one we would would scream, "The plow! The plow!," and  would throw our lunch boxes up onto the snow bank and scramble up after them. The climb was my first and only experience mountain climbing. Once we reached the top, in our minds we still were not safe. There was no telling how far frozen chunks of snow would be thrown. One hit with a chunk of cement-block sized ice and we would be goners.

When the distant growl of a plow was heard, one child would quickly be elected to be lookout, while the rest of us would make a mad dash up the bank and then head for the field on the other side. Twenty feet was considered a safe distance. So after scrambling up the bank, grabbing a lunchbox and rolling down the other side, we would still battle waist-deep snow to get as far away from the dreaded monster as possible. All the while we would scream to the lookout, "Is it coming? Is it coming? Run!" There were many false alarms. The plow would be on the next block over or would turn down another street before reaching us. What was normally a 10 minute walk home would turn into an hour during the winter. We would often arrive home rosy-cheeked and ready for a nap.

No wonder we were skinny.

Let's go for a ride and stop for coffee

I think Mom has settled into a routine at the home. Everyone there seems to enjoy her company and Mom participates in all the activities they offer. I am happy for her but I don't know if I will ever be totally comfortable with her living there. I tend to be a huge fan of the "What if" game.

Last week Saturday the staff at the home had a breakfast for friends and family of the residents. My sisters and I went for breakfast with Mom. I'm not certain Mom understood what was going on, but we were there and that made her happy. After breakfast we took her for a ride to Hamilton. It's really hard to say how much of living there Mom remembers, or if she does remember, what her thoughts are. Mom doesn't say much any more.

We drove past our former home -- twice. It looked tired and the best way to describe it was it was in need of a bath.

We drove out in the country and tried to remember names of people we knew who used to live there. Between the three of us we were pretty good. Mom looked out the window.

We commented on how short the trip between Hamilton and Holland was and how long it seemed when we were kids. Going to Holland was a big deal when we were growing up.

While many families from Hamilton drove to Holland for weekly groceries, Mom and Dad shopped in Hamilton. The grocery store had creaky wood floors, one check out counter and a screen door that banged shut. It was a big deal when our groceries were placed in cardboard boxes rather than grocery bags. Cardboard boxes meant hours of fun making doll houses and furniture. To this day, I still get that "what can I do with this feeling" when I see a cardboard box.

There were two grocery stores in Hamilton when we were growing up. Both buildings are gone now, but one of them has moved to a new location and can boast multiple checkout lanes. Progress. I bet they don't have creaky wood floors and the quiet hiss of automatic doors just doesn't compare with the creak-bang a screen door makes.

Mom was pretty quiet for the trip. She made some indication she remembered the house, but it wasn't much of a nostalgic trip for her. What she wanted, we discovered when we arrived back at the home, was to go out for coffee. Despite the fact we had just had breakfast, Mom wanted to go out for coffee. Who knew?

I'm not certain what the attraction is. I've taken her out for coffee many, many times. There is not  a whole lot of conversation going on as we drink our coffee, stare at one another, pay our bill and leave.

But Mom was clearly upset with us for not going out for coffee. Maybe it's a Dutch thing.

I went back on Tuesday and took her out for coffee. We sat in the restaurant, drank our coffee, ate our pig-in-the-blankets, stared at one another, paid the bill and then left. She didn't want to go for a ride, she thought maybe she should get back home. They might need her.

What is it like to lose your mind?

I've been doing a little research on the web to try to figure out what is going on inside Mom's head. What I have found is there is darn little on the topic.

Oh, there is plenty on how to deal with dementia and the right thing to say and the wrong thing to say. That is not what I am searching for -- what I want to know is what is going on in Mom's mind. Is she aware of how much she has lost and simply can't put it into words?

The other day she introduced me to her dining companion as "her daughter." She didn't call me by name, but she knew I was her daughter. Two hours later when my sister visited her, she didn't remember I had been there. What I want to know is what is it like for the person who no longer thinks clearly. What kind of jumbled confusion is going on in her mind?

I found a letter from Mom, written three years ago on my birthday. It started, "Dear Daughter, I know I'm slipping. I try the best I can . . ."

I don't know how much any of us realized what was going on at the time. One of my older sisters saw it, but it was difficult to tell how much was Mom "slipping" and how much of it was her trying to cover up the fact she could not hear us. Everyone was frustrated with Mom for "not trying."  Personally, I think she was trying as hard as she could and had been for years. She just couldn't hide it any longer.

Mom's letter went on to say she and Dad had joined the YMCA and that she walked a mile on the track (19 laps) and then rode a stationary bike while Dad "gives it all a try." I'm assuming she meant Dad worked out on the weight machines in addition to the treadmill.

A few weeks after the letter was sent, Mom and Dad were getting ready to go to the gym when Dad had a stroke. They thought he wasn't feeling well and decided not to go and Dad napped the rest of the morning. It was later that afternoon that Mom called my sister at work and said she needed help with Dad. My sister called the ambulance while she was on her way to Mom and Dad's apartment. The ambulance was already on the way and we thought Mom had been able to call for help. That wasn't the case. A neighbor had  found Mom in the driveway in a panic and called for her. Mom didn't know how to call 911.

It's hard to believe that was just three years ago. Three years ago, Mom realized she was slipping, but could still write me a letter to talk about it. Today, she can't sign her name. How much of this lost knowledge is still there, trapped inside her brain, trying desperately to come out? How frustrating is it to not be able to tell people what you are thinking?

Mom is pretty quite these days. She doesn't talk much.Is it because there is nothing to say? Has she given up trying to communicate because it it too frustrating to get the words out?

What is it like to lose your mind?

October's bright blue weather

When we were growing up, Mom would often quote to us poems she memorized as a child in school. I can't say for certain, but I suspect they were from the famous McGuffey Readers used in schools throughout the country from 1836 through 1960. (I am a member of the Dick and Jane generation).

Her favorite was by Helen Hunt Jackson: Oh sun and skies, and clouds of June and flowers of June together, Ye can not rival for one hour October's bright blue weather. . . There is more to the poem, but that is all Mom quoted us.

The pond on the property where we are caretakers.

The past few weeks have certainly been bright, blue and beautiful. So yesterday when I visited Mom I decided to take her for a ride. The fall colors are almost at their peak. It was lovely.

We drove through Saugatuck. As we got off the highway and onto Blue Star Highway, Mom suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, I know where we are now!"

My thought was to drive through town and stop at a coffee shop for coffee and a muffin, but it was pretty busy so we opted for breakfast at a diner.

Mom has always been a huge fan of the "clean plate club," and often we would have to remain at the table until we cleaned our plates. She still is a big fan, however, now she has the annoying habit of pawning off her uneaten food on her dinning companions. If she knew what she was doing she would be horrified at her actions. But she doesn't and she can be content in the knowledge her plate is clean, while the rest of us must share the angst of losing our memberships.

We drove to the Oval Beach and watched the lake for a while. I prattled on about spending time there as children. I don't think Mom had any idea what I was talking about but chatter makes me feel better.

I was really, really small when our family and another family from our hometown would picnic on the beach evenings after work. Dad and his good friend would put the speed boat in the water in town and the women would drive to the beach, unpack our picnic dinner and wait for the men and the boat.

It wasn't long and the boat would come around the end of the south pier and Dad would gun the boat and fly up to the beach, killing the motor just in time to land gracefully in the sand. The men would then jump out of the boat in John Wayne fashion. Our heroes.

One evening they made a spectacular landing and Dad's friend jumped out of the boat, stripped off his shirt and removed his pants, expecting, I believe, to be standing there in his swimming trunks. Only he wasn't. He stood there in his whitie-tighties. No one said anything for probably a full 20 seconds. Finally Mom picked up his swim trunks and said, "Maybe you want to put these on."

Ahh the memories from our childhood that remain with us.

I think it's safe to say Mom is gone

Mom has been in "care facility" almost two months now. I don't know if she is adjusting or not. I can't tell because, well, Mom is pretty much gone.

She is always so happy to see me when I visit. She springs up from her chair (as much as an almost 91 year old can spring), throws her arms around my neck and cries for a moment.  She does this with each of my sisters when they visit as well. There is no way of knowing if they are tears of joy or tears of sadness.

I don't think Mom knows who we are -- we simply are familiar faces. She likes Jennifer the young woman who cares for her during the day. She pats Bob, the gentleman who sits across from her during meals, on the arm when she sits down. She sits with the other women in the lounge area and watches television with them. Today they were watching the Brady Bunch. She asks us if we are coming again when we leave. But there is no conversation. There is nothing to say. She can't tell you what she did yesterday. She can't tell you what she ate for lunch. The other day she didn't remember who Dad was.

Having no conversation is okay. Comfortable companionship is fine.

That's not to say we don't try to converse.Sometimes you grasp at straws to see where it gets you. I tried once. I decided to engage her in some small talk about our hometown and asked her something about our neighbor.

Mom became indignant and asked, "How did you know Mr. Albers?"

"I lived next door to him Mom. He was our neighbor."

"No. I lived next door to him."

"Yes Mom. So did I. I lived with you. I am your daughter."

"Well, if you say so. I'll take your word for it." Those were her words anyway. Her face looked more like she was thinking, "You are a lying sack of shit."

I think life has settled into a routine for her. My older sister visits and they work on puzzles together. My younger sister visits after work and stays until dinner time. I arrive and the first thing that comes out of Mom's mouth is, "Where are we going?"

Mom loves to go places. She doesn't care where. She just wants to go out for coffee and take a little ride. There are no familiar places to go so we drive around. Sometimes she remembers things. Sometimes she does not.

My granddaughter and I take her to the little country church in Glenn each Sunday. Glenn is a tiny town that consists of a deli/party store, a restaurant, an old-fashioned hardware store, a hair salon, two antique stores, a real estate office, a three-room school and the Methodist church.

When Dad retired they moved to Glenn and became very active in the church. Mom loved it there. She always was one to be involved in the church and the community, and with Dad retired the two of them did a lot together. And the church community embraced the newcomers.

Dad and several of the men in church built the handicap ramp so the elderly woman who ran the hardware store in town would not have to use the stairs each Sunday. It really offended Dad when she never used the ramp.

Mom baked cookies for church bake sales, hosted fund-raising teas and worked at church rummage sales. The months leading up to the annual Christmas Bazaar both Mom and Dad were busy making craft items to be sold.

The other Sunday as we rounded the curve into town Mom saw the sign designating the entrance. I watched her mouth the words "Glenn."

We pulled into the church parking lot and she said, "Have I been here before?" I assured her she had been there before and she usually enjoyed it.

"Okay," she said. "I'll take your word for it."

Life's little changes

I've discovered a few things over the past few days: 1) employment is a major drag, 2) the internet is as much a boon as a bust, and 3) no matter how old they are, little girls still need their Mommas.

My daughter and son-in-law brought their sons home from the hospital yesterday. I can only imagine what it is like to bring home two babies. I remember the uncertainty I felt when I brought our first son home. Thankfully my mother was there to help. She stayed a week, went home for a few days and came back for another three days. I think Dad thought she was running away from home.

Those first few days/weeks home I spent an inordinate amount of time with my nose buried in Dr. Spock's book. (For the current generation, that's Dr. Spock the pediatrician, not Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared, logical, first officer/science officer on the starship Enterprise).

I believe I read the book religiously for a few weeks and then it was relegated to evening out the coffee table in the living room of our apartment in student housing.

Today, Dr. Spock has been replaced by the internet -- and the electronic advice comes complete with dire warnings of doom and hopeless failure. If the babies are too hot they may die of SIDS. If the babies are to cold their little fingers and toes may fall off (okay, I made that one up).Immunize. Don't immunize. Put alcohol on the umbilical cord stump.Don't put alcohol on the umbilical cord stump. Dress them. Don't dress them. Put them on a schedule. Don't put them on a schedule. (By the way someone entrepreneurial genius is making a killing with the creation of swaddling jackets. They kind of look like straight jackets and are the best thing out since sliced bread, according to the young mothers offering advice to my daughter during a baby shower earlier this summer. I used receiving blankets. They worked great).

So my daughter and her husband are home with two darling little boys. The uncertainty is slowly settling in and exhaustion has found a new home. There is something to be said for childbirth and hospitals in the "olden days" when babies would spend their first few days in the mother's hospital room and then be rolled to a nursery at night. Those two extra night's sleep before the reality of bringing baby home was wonderful.

I spoke with my daughter last night. She explained to me they were working on arrangements for the babies, because -- as they have discovered -- getting up in the middle of the night, walking down the hall and feeding in the nursery is not always practical. Especially for the sleep deprived.

I remember those days. When our first son would cry during the night, I would get up. Change him. Bring him into our room where there was a rocking chair. Feed him. Rock him. Change hium again (I know, right?). And put him back to bed. King would roll over in bed and stretch out, a smile on his sleeping face. I learned to wipe that smile off easily by kicking the bed. But it did get easier. By the time our fourth child was born, I would roll the bassinet closer to the bed, tip it on its side, roll the baby out, feed him. Roll him back into the bassinet, push the bassinet back into its place and go back to sleep. These are things parents have to figure out for themselves.

In the meantime I want to go see those babies. And I promise I won't offer advice or tell them "You should do it this way . . ."

All summer long we had plans for flying out to California to help with the babies. Our son-in-law has four weeks paternity leave and the plan was when he went back to work King and I would come and help out. We talked about King flying back to Michigan without me and I would stay an extra week. A great plan. A sound plan. But things don't always work out they way we want.

The elusive job I've been looking for the past year has manifested. I should be grateful. I should be elated. I should be relieved. I'm not. Having a job is just plain inconvenient. And please, at my age this is no career. It's a job and a paycheck.

In the meantime I will say to my daughter, "Hang in there honey, Mr. Spock is coming."

Just one more time around the lake, please Dad?

Today is Labor Day.

This year I am in California with my daughter. It is blazing hot and she has no air in her new home. I have suggested we pack a picnic lunch and simply drive around the city. She didn't go for it.

At home King and our grand daughter are getting ready for the start of the school year. They have purchased volleyball equipment as she has made the cut for the eighth grade volleyball team, and my sister has taken her school clothes shopping. I can't believe we have an eighth grader in our house again. I have listened as she excitedly told me all the outfits she has for the start of the year. Today King says he will cut wood and they may possibly go to the beach. It sounds like a typical Labor Day at home. Quiet and peaceful.

In the years before our (semi) empty nest, our daughter, youngest son and I would go camping with the horses at Yankee Springs Recreation area. Three full days of riding the trails with members of the local 4H club. Fond memories.

When I was growing up, Labor Day weekends meant we would be going to the cottage belonging to family friends from Chicago. It was a summer retreat at a small inland lake near Gobles, Mich. The weekend was spent getting things ready for winter. While there were still  plans for weekend gatherings and Halloween parties at the cottage, Labor Day was the time the dock would come in, the boats would be pulled out of the water, water toys put away and lawn furniture tucked in for the winter.

It also meant gas tanks had to be run dry.

I'm not certain how other families did it, but the weekends leading up to Labor Day we would slow down on our gas purchases for the boats (it was something like 34 cents a gallon then). On Labor Day the pontoon motor would be run until it sputtered and died. The same was done for the outboard motor on the small row boat. But the speed boat . . . that was a different story.

Dad, his Chicago friend and a third friend from Chicago had purchased a inboard boat one summer. Tradition called for it to be the last boat to be pulled out of the water on Labor Day. After a majority of the other summer residents had put their boats away for the winter, we would take turns pulling one another around the now empty lake.  Even Dad would don a pair of skis and my sister and I would take turns driving the boat or acting as spotter as he skied around the lake a few times. No other boats, no other skiers. Just us. We would spend the late afternoon skiing, salomon skiing and discing.

For the uninformed, discing is being pulled around the lake at break-neck speeds on a round, flat piece of wood. My sister and I would lay, knee or stand on it while Dad would make quick turns trying to help us over the wake and onto the smooth, flat water. At least that was the intent...Most of the time it worked.

Dad would keep a careful eye on the gas tank.

"Time is up girls. We are almost out."

"Just one more time around, Dad? Please? We can tow the boat in if we run out."

And we generally would run out of gas. My sister and I would unhook the ski rope from the back of the boat, swim around to the front, hook it to the bow and, as promised, pull the boat to shore.

The last time around the lake for the summer and off to school the next day.

Heartbreak and healing

Mom is leaving our home on Monday. The deed is done, the deposit made, the evaluation complete. Now the time for self-doubt has really kicked into full gear.

And the calls are coming.

Have you thought about respite care? Have you thought about daycare? Have you thought about bringing someone into the house?

Yes. Yes. And yes.

Then there are those well-meaning people who take great pleasure in telling you what horrible places nursing homes are, how the staff mistreat and abuse residents and how they had a relative that went into the nursing home and was dead the next day.

Am I abnormal for wanting to stick their faces into a waffle iron?

The killer was a Facebook comment (and I'm paraphrasing) . . . I took care of (so and so) for as long as I could and then I needed to have some income coming in and a steady job. Fortunately I had relatives in Michigan who could care for (so and so), so she didn't have to go into a nursing home. I think that should be avoided at all costs.

Really? You don't see the irony here? You could no longer do it, so you pawned the person off on more relatives. Well, guess what? We've run through the relatives. And people are not exactly lined up to give me respite care. They all have lives of their own and rightfully so.

But to my children, I will say this . . . If the time comes that I can no longer care for myself. If the time comes when I panic whenever you step outside to check to see if you left your cell phone in the car. If the time comes when I don't know how to make toast, wash my hair, take a bath or order from a menu, put me in a home. No guilt, no self-doubt, no broken heart. I never, ever want to be that kind of burden on you. I never want to put you through this.

This is hard. This is not fun. This is heartbreaking. Most of the time Mom doesn't know who I am and I know I am simply a port in a storm for her. The person who stays with her during the day. The person who helps her get ready for bed at night. And then for one brief moment she will have an epiphany, the light will shine through and there will be recognition in her eyes.

It happened the other night. I was helping her into bed. "I love you. I loved you when you were little too." And in the morning she was gone again. But for that brief moment, those few moments between wake-fullness and the dreamworld, she was there. My Mom was there. Those moments make our decision all the more difficult.

PS  The day after we take Mom to her new home I am leaving to help my daughter in California as she nears the end of her very long pregnancy. It is suggested we stay away from the care facility for two weeks while Mom makes the adjustment. When I come back it will be time to visit Mom again. I want to start remembering the good times. Right now the hard times are overshadowing the fond memories. That has to end and it will.

Changes, they are a' comin

The winds of change have blown through our lives. Once again.

My sister found a care facility that will take Mom. We had initially not considered this nursing home because of cost, but after being turned down by a home last week, I think we were more willing to consider other options. Our concern has always been Mom would outlive her money and this facility does not take Medicaid. It's a harsh reality people don't consider until faced with it: Care facilities are expensive and when the money is gone, there has to be a way to continue to pay.

Enter the U.S. government or wealthy relatives. None of us are wealthy.

I have no doubt if Mom were in her right mind and if Dad were still alive this would absolutely devastate both of them. It was very important to them they have money to live comfortably and have something left over for us when they were gone. The reality is, none of my sisters and I expected or anticipated money being left to us. It's not being noble. It's not being unselfish. It's just a reality we've joked about since we've all reached adulthood.

So tomorrow Mom will have to endure another mental evaluation. This evaluation will be used to determine how much care she needs rather than being used as a tool for admittance.

Once again I'm dealing with self-doubt. This time I am being more realistic. I can't do this much longer. I can't divide my time between the growing need for constant care for Mom, my need for an occasional escape and trying to be a mother to our granddaughter. I may not be fully aware of what lies ahead were I to continue to care for Mom. I do know what lies ahead in parenting a teen. I am as prepared as any second-time-around parent can be.

And Mom is becoming more difficult. This afternoon she wanted to go for a ride. I was reading a magazine and our granddaughter was watching television. Mom can't really read any longer and she found the blue people on the screen (Avatar was on) simply too confusing. So she kept asking "When can we do something different?" I finally stopped ignoring her and said, "Let's go for a ride."

Mom came over and gave me a big hug and told me she loved me. Even in her demented state she can pour on the guilt. We got in the car and headed north toward Saugatuck, taking the back road along the lake. It's difficult to tell what sets off her but once she gets agitated there is no calming her down. She suddenly wanted to know where we were going; how long we would be gone; were her clothes still at home; would we go home to make sure her clothes were still there; and did she have a jacket when she got into the car?

At some point I realized she didn't recognize where she was and was panicked. Despite the fact this was a road we travel many, many times she didn't recognize any of the landmarks. This is happening with more and more frequency. It's time. It's only going to get worse.

I will go into this evaluation with an open mind. I can't be all things to all people. We all simply do the best we can with the hand we've been dealt and carry on from there.

Mom was always the hostess with the most-ess

It was Mom who taught me the basics of cooking. She taught my friends the basics of cooking as well. Mom was one of several community members who taught cooking through the local 4-H club.

Classes were held after school in our home and generally started sometime in the fall and ended sometime in the spring. At least that's the way I remember it. 

Each 4-H member in the class would take a turn demonstrating the preparation of a dish, cake, pie, cookie . . . whatever. Mom would fill in with ideas and demonstrations of her own. We learned how to stretch budgets, make desserts, serve tea and host a party.

In the spring of each year we would host a Mother's Tea for our mothers and Mom taught us to make finger sandwiches, tea cookies, punch and tea. We were taught how to set a table and serve correctly, how to present food and how to be genuine hostesses. Times have changed, but good manners are still good manners. 

Mom made it her mission in life to expand her horizons and look beyond the normal and mundane.

When my sister's high school German Club hosted a progressive dinner, Mom volunteered to provide the Hors d'oeuvres. I am eight years younger than my sister, so I don't remember the work involved, but I do remember the smoked oysters, the cheese platters, the fruit, fondue and punch. 

The dinning room table was stretched to the max and all different kinds of food covered its length. It was artfully displayed and I'm certain it was different fare than most expected. 

Mom also hosted Women's Teas for that conservative political party she campaigned for during election years. State representatives and senators would make campaign stops in Hamilton and Mom would open our home for them and serve the usual tea fare. It was all very formal and proper.

I was a small child the year we built our swimming pool. That summer Mom was preparing to host a tea for a state representative. Since the pool was in, Mom and Dad thought it would be a good idea to pour the cement for a patio area adjacent to the pool. If they planned correctly, the cement would dry and cure and the patio would be ready in time for the tea. Ahhh, the best laid plans . . .

The cement truck arrived on the designated day and backed in to the space where the cement was to be poured. Unfortunately it backed over the area where the drywell for the kitchen sink was located. (The greywater from the kitchen sink drained into this rather than into the regular septic tank). There was a loud groaning sound and the truck sank about six feet into the yard.

There was no way it could be fixed before the impending conservative political party tea. So Mom, ever the resourceful one, had Dad line the gaping hole with saw horses and hung potted geraniums from them. I think they may have covered the pit with large tarps.  

When Mom and Dad retired and moved to Glenn, Mom continued to host afternoon teas/coffee. The women of the community looked forward to the events. Mom would pull out all the stops and bring out her good china and her Fostoria and serve cakes and cookies. 

Playing hostess was something Mom truly enjoyed. She was good at it and taught her daughters to do the same. We may not have followed in her footsteps and played hostess the way she did, but we did learn the proper way to do things. Whether or not we decided to follow in her footsteps was our decision.

When company comes to my house we order pizza, serve it from the box and set out two-liters of pop for everyone to help themselves.  I definitely am not the hostess with the most-ess.

Disappointment

Yesterday was the day for Mom's evaluation -- a step toward moving her into an assisted living home. She didn't make the cut.

We were trying to get her into an assisted living memory unit (or something like that, I'm learning the correct terms for this new chapter in our lives, but apparently I'm a slow learner). We had hoped we had found a solution. She would have her own room with a small bath attached. Meals would be served in a communal dining room. There was also a communal living room and small kitchenette. Unfortunately Mom isn't cognoscente enough to handle the situation. She can dress herself, she can bathe herself, she can feed herself. She can't follow directions. You can't ask her to go into the living room and sit down without taking her by the hand, leading her to a chair and showing her where to sit.

In the back of my mind I had always wondered if perhaps my sisters and I were over-stating the problems we were having with Mom. Perhaps the problems we were having were the result of our own inability to handle Mom's diminished mental capacity. I mean after all, she still can do a lot for herself. Apparently I was mistaken and Mom truly is further gone than I was willing to admit, or was unable to realize.

A medical social worker came to the house to do the evaluation. Mom sat through the medical review . . . what meds she is on, does she have allergies, what surgeries has she had, etc. etc. etc. Then came what was called a Mini-Mental evaluation. Mom could not make it past the first question, "What season is this?" You could see she was shutting down. It's the blank stare and then the questioning look directed to me to help her out.

I took a breath and looked at Mom, "She wants to know what season it is. Is it summertime or wintertime?"

Mom got that what kind of idiot do you think I am look on her face and snapped back, "Well it's not wintertime."

That ended the evaluation.

"She isn't going to be able to finish this," the social worker said. Then she dropped the bomb. Mom won't be able to function in an assisted living center -- even if she does't have to cook. She needs more individual attention than the staff would be able to provide. So we are back on the waiting list.

I thought I wasn't ready for  Mom to go to a nursing home, but I have to confess, I am disappointed. I want my life back. I know to many that may sound harsh, but for the past year I have not been able to step outside without telling Mom where I am going and then waiting for her to go to the bathroom, put on her shoes, find a jacket and come with me. It's a procedure we follow to simply take a bag of garbage to the dumpster or to pull a few onions from the garden for dinner. It may not sound like much but after a while it is. I selfishly want to be able to simply jump in the car and drive to the neighborhood party store to buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk without making a major trip of it.

I love my mother. But I am close to my limit. She is joined to me at he hip. I can't walk into the kitchen without her following me. If I go to the bathroom without telling her she will panic and run through the house looking for me. She doesn't know my name. She doesn't know I am her daughter. I'm just the familiar face that takes care of her during the day.

But life has a way of going on, so this morning we started our usual routine . . . a drive to the store for milk, a drive past the lighthouse, a stop at the greenhouse to give King is morning caffeine fix and then home for coffee and blueberry muffins. Because she was up so early the post office wasn't open. We will make the trip in a few minutes. I am trying not to go out for coffee, I don't need the calories or to spend the money -- be it her's or mine.

I know something is bothering her because she is reading her "trouble" Psalm. "Wait I say on the Lord and be of good courage. . . " I don't think she realizes she is reading out loud. But she only reads this verse when she is bothered by something. After Monday's trip to the doctor and yesterday's visit from the social worker, I am guessing she knows something is amiss. It will take a few days, but we will eventually get back to our normal chaos.

Life has a way of doing that.

Patience is not my middle name

Mom loves road trips. Put her in a car and we can drive aimlessly for hours and she is happy as a clam. Of course there is no explaining to her our trips are running me about $60 a week. Her pat answer for anything she doesn't understand is, "Oh really?"

Today we didn't have an itinerary other than our usual trip to the coffee shop and post office.

Our son showed up at our house this morning to play golf and Mom was ready to go as soon as they left. It was 8 a.m. and she had already been up at least two hours. I had things I needed to get done, bills to pay online and a few other computer related tasks. She views computer time as game time. For the most part she sat quietly, hearing aids whistling a nameless tune. I think she only asked five or six times if we were going to go anywhere today.

I finally announced it was time to go. She didn't understand. "What do you want me to do?" I suggested she visit the bathroom before we left. She didn't understand that either. She went into the bathroom and started cleaning the toilet. Part of me wants to laugh, part of me wants to cry.

I count to 10, then 20 and sometimes 50. I don't want to be impatient with her. I want her last few years of life to be happy ones. They aren't. I know that. She misses Dad. She doesn't understand what is going on. She doesn't know who I am. She refers to me as the "Driver Lady." (At least I think she does. Maybe she's calling me the Dragon Lady). She is lost and confused. She clings to me like a toddler in a room full of strangers.

It must be so horrible to be stuck inside her head. There were days when she would struggle for the words she wanted and eventually give up. Now I don't know if she has given up before she starts or if her mind is so gone she simply doesn't know any longer. Her behavior suggests she no longer knows.

At meals if there is food on her plate she can't finish, rather than set it aside, she will try to pawn it off on someone else. No matter how many times I tell her, "No mother, I don't want your chicken. King doesn't want it either," she will keep asking. When no one will take it she will either put it back on the serving plate or try to give it to the dog.

It really makes her angry when the St. Bernard sits next to her with her head on the table.I keep telling Mom if she doesn't want the dog to beg she needs to stop feeding her table scraps. It's rather difficult to discipline a dog who keeps getting rewarded with food. Sophie (the dog) will rest her head on the table and raise an eyebrow at me. It's as if she's telling me, "Yell all you want. I am going to get some people food here in a minute."

It was Mom who taught us not to feed the dog at the table. It was Mom who taught us our table manners. It's difficult to grasp the concept that woman is no longer with us. I keep asking myself, "Who is this woman in the chair? And where is my Mother?"

Mom was the classy woman who traveled around the state giving book reviews to Ladies Church Guilds. Mom was the woman who served on the board of directors for Social Services. Mom was the one who campaigned for the only president who resigned from office. Mom was an alternate delegate for that conservative political party's state convention.

Who would have thought she would become the woman she is today?

It's just a little stressful

Word has come down there is a room available for mother at an assisted living center. The angst has begun again. Is this the right time? Can I actually do this? How hard will this be on Mom? What if it's the wrong decision?

My sisters all feel it is time. In my heart I know . . . no, I do not know. I am filled with doubt.

King, who can (and regularly does) escape to the farm during the day, thinks we can continue to care for Mom indefinitely. Our daughter and I think his feelings may be some residual guilt over the home his mother lived in the last few years of her life. It was, by all standards, fairly dismal.

For whatever the reason, King has his doubts. When we found out a space was available, King and I fought about it all day. Granted, he said it was not his decision and what we did was ultimately up to my sisters and I, but given all the self-doubt and angst I  was feeling, I thought he could have been a little more supportive. And told him so. Over and over and over again.

On the off chance Mom could understand what we were arguing about, we resorted to texting. Just because we've been married for more than 35 years does not mean our maturity level has progressed and we fought like teens.

In the end King ended up apologizing to me -- via text, and I, being the mature, responsible adult I am, texted back: It's too late. I have a horrendous headache and am having chest pains.

It could have been indigestion. It could have been anxiety. It could have been an over-active imagination. It could have been misguided hope. But I pulled the "I think I am dying and it's your fault," trump card.  I know, I know. A really stupid, self-indulgent, immature move on my part. Since I'm not generally given to dramatics, I can't say I've ever used it before, but I was tired of it all and wanted everything to just go away. Besides maturity had fallen by the wayside long before this.

I was laying on our bed, pretending to be asleep. I may have even dozed off for a moment. I opened my eyes and King's face was a couple of inches from mine.

"Yes. I'm still breathing."

"Okay, good. What's for dinner?"

And so life goes on.

Can you ever go home again??

I grew up in a small town. I worked in the local restaurant and at the local drug store soda fountain. One could learn a lot by listening. At first I believed everything I heard and then I realized those who would gossip and talk about others were often the most fowl of humankind. I have no use for them.

Dad managed a dog food company in town. It was a small, independently-owned company.

A non-union manager, Dad retired when the union was voted in to his company. It wasn't so much the fact the union was voted in, it was the half-truths and out and out lies that were used as propaganda that tipped the scales toward retirement.

When it comes to unions, I shrug my shoulders and say, "Oh well." I have never paid union dues. One of the newspapers where I worked had a union for the pressmen, not for the reporters. The university where I worked had a union for the clerical employees and faculty, not for the administrative employees. Other places I worked were small non-union businesses. So I offer no opinion for that which I have no experience.

What I do know is Dad always went to bat for his employees. When he was offered a raise and no raise was offered to the hourly employees, Dad tendered his resignation. This was done quietly with no fanfare. I doubt Mom and Dad even knew that I knew. I heard he and Mom working on the letter one evening. That was about about 15 years before his retirement. Obviously the employees got their raise as Dad never quit.

According to the union, Dad had a home along Lake Michigan on "Millionaire's Row." Truth is, Mom and Dad scrimped and saved, sold their home in town, moved to an apartment and built their home along the shores of Lake Michigan -- paying as they built -- for a grand total of $34,000. But that, as they say, is water under the bridge.

Friends and neighbors who came to the visitation when Dad passed away commented on his generosity.

"You always knew if you needed money for a school project or for the year book, you could go to Don Stehower and Dog Life for help," one former class adviser said.

That's true. But what no one knows is the money came from Don, not from Dog Life. And we often ate macaroni and cheese while Mom adjusted the household budget. We had horses that came from my aunt. Hay came from my uncle's farm. Our pool was dug by hand and a cinder block pool would be considered primitive by today's standards. Dad built the pool's filter himself, bartering a load of horse manure for the fine sand for filtering the water. Mom kept the water sparkling clear with household bleach. When the pool was first built, neighborhood kids would call and ask to go swimming, Mom and Dad always obliged. Our barn was built from recycled lumber and the leftover lumber from the barn was used to build one hell of an awesome tree house. Mom sewed most of our clothes.

Except for the mean-spirited gossips and the idiot who broke into Dad's office, stole two saddles and shit on our family portrait (and yes, we know who did it), life was pretty good. In fact, it was a great life. Our parents worked hard to make it fun.

Would I ever go home again? Well, you can't recapture the past . . . but maybe for a visit.

Paybacks are hell

I sometimes have these fleeting moments when I wonder if perhaps Mom is faking it and she really isn't as gone as we think she is. I wonder if, perhaps, this is her form of payback.

Things are slowly returning to normal at our house, or better said, we are adjusting to our new normal. It's all about routine. Up in the morning, help Mom choose her clothes for the day (which I know she will change at least three times throughout the day), out for coffee, pick up the mail, come home, dust and sweep the house, fix lunch, work in the garden, putter around the house, fix dinner, do dishes, watch TV, go to bed.

It's a routine and change is not a good thing.

Yesterday I drove to Hartford to pick up a table and chairs I saw on Craig's List. I had an idea to convert it to some outdoor furniture. I want to create a quiet spot in the backyard where I can sip ice tea and read my Kindle -- should the mosquitoes ever go away.

Mom is always up for a ride, in fact she really likes to ride around aimlessly. So I loaded Mom and our granddaughter, who is on crutches, into the car and we took off for Hartford. Things were fine until we loaded the furniture into the car. The questions began. Telling her I was going to convert it to outdoor furniture didn't mean anything to her.

Unloading it and placing it outside the door was not a good thing either.

"Are you going to leave it outside?" "Do you want me to help you bring it in?" "Do you think it's time for us to take it inside?" "Why is it still outside?"

King warned me before he went to bed I was not to bring the furniture in to appease Mom.

And I didn't. But Mom was up early and the questions began again. Same questions, part two.

After our routine trip to the post office and to get coffee she started asking me when were we going to do something with the furniture rather than when were we going to bring it inside.

"I'll get to it Mom. Not right this second, but I'll get to it when I am ready."

That's when it hit me. I have heard these words before. It was the same answer I got when I was a kid and pestered Mom for something. Was this payback of a cosmic design or was it a well-laid plan by my mother?

I have to believe it is of the cosmic design as tonight she asked me if I was going to spend the night with her or was I going to take the furniture home with me.

Yes, paybacks are hell.

Memorial Day

The following probably would have been better had it been written closer to Memorial Day. My mind was in another place when the holiday rolled around. Given that we are approaching my parents anniversary, I've been thinking a lot about Mom, Dad, and their lives in the 1940's. 

In a few weeks my parents would have celebrated their 68th anniversary. When Mom was able to tell me stories, she loved to tell me about Dad coming home from the war in Europe and their wedding.

The war in Europe had ended. Dad was coming home on leave before shipping out to Japan. Mom was working at Willow Run airport in Ann Arbor when she received a call from Dad saying he was coming home. Dad had been gone three years.

"The phone went dead before I could find out when he would get home (to Grand Rapids)," Mom has told me. "I packed my stuff, gave my immediate notice and came home."

At home Mom waited. And waited. And waited.

"I spent two days sitting in a chair all dressed waiting for your father to call again," Mom said. "When the phone finally rang I was so excited I jumped up to get it. My heels had been hooked on the rung of the chair and I snapped the heels off my shoes."

Dad finally arrived at home. They got married August 4, 1945 and while Mom and Dad were on their honeymoon, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan. The Japanese surrendered on August 15. Dad returned to the army to finish his hitch, but he served it in Seattle.

While in Europe Dad was a fireman stationed at an airfield in London. He put out fires on bombers as they returned from their missions. That's all I know about his time in the service. He never talked about it.

Despite his reticence to talk about his experiences during the war,  I've always had a penchant for stories from those who have served in the military. I think veterans were some of my favorite interviews I did when I was an editor. The interviews were not easy, and I generally let the veterans tell me their stories by whatever means they felt comfortable. Some spoke from the heart, some had lists of things they wanted to share, others just talked and talked and talked. I would listen, take notes, wipe my eyes and listen some more. Some, like my father, did not want to tell their stories, others found it was the catharsis they needed.

What struck me with each and every one of them was these were boys. . . young men who were the same age our (King and I) sons were when they were just starting out in life. Fresh out of high school and ready to explore the world. The men I interviewed never had that chance to do the kind of exploring the way our sons did. They saw the world through the sight of a gun.

They spoke about the fear, the constant gripping fear. The cold. The heat. The idiosyncrasies of the military. These were not John Wayne movies where dying was glorified and heroes rode off into the sunset with their women watching adoringly. These were real, honest men who did what they had to do and considered themselves lucky to come back home.

I sat with these men and listened to their stories. World War II vets, Korean War vets, Vietnam War vets. Stories of storming the beaches at Normandy, wading to shore pushing bodies out of the way. I learned about the Battle of the Bulge as no history book can ever describe it. I listened as they described the heat of the jungles where danger hid behind every tree and bush. I listened as they spoke about transport ships that criss-crossed the Atlantic to avoid submarines and felt their helplessness while watching other ships in the convoy sink. I learned of the horror of being among the first to see the concentration camps and witnessing the worst of humanity. I rejoiced in the heroes welcome home for some and felt the anger of trying to avoid picketers for others. . . They all came home with one thing in common; they were young men who witnessed some of the most horrific things one can imagine and now they were home and had to try to pick up their lives and continue on as if nothing had changed. As if they were the same young men who had left home two and three years before.

The war for these young men did not end when they laid down their weapons. For some of them the battles were still being fought 30, 40, 50 and 60 years beyond. It's something to be cognoscente of with veterans returning home now.

It takes a little time

It's hot out. And the bugs are bad.

We have retreated into the house and King has, for the second time in three years, turned on the air. It's not working correctly, but if we don't move around a whole lot, it's relatively cool.

Our first morning since Mom's arrival at our house she slept until 9:30 a.m. Mom is usually an early riser, so yes, I went into her room to check to see if she was breathing. When she finally got up she came out dressed in wool slacks, a turtle neck sweater and a sweatshirt.

"Too hot Mom. You need to wear something a little cooler."

Of course she doesn't understand what I am telling her so I helped her choose some capris and a knit top and we were good to go. The week was off to a great start.

We are slowly adjusting and getting into a routine. We go out for coffee and get the mail each morning and, other than riding around in the golf cart changing sprinklers, we don't venture out into the heat very often. One can work up quite a sweat just walking out the door, add waving arms in the air to shoo away the meat-eating deer flies and it's understandable why we don't go out often. But Mom doesn't get it.

She asks daily, "So, what are we going to do today?" And telling her not a whole lot of anything until the weather turns cooler doesn't really mean anything to her.

So we do what we can to keep busy without expending much energy.

We've picked the last of the peas and shelled them. I wanted to make a peas and peanut dish that Clarence Tuma in Mount Pleasant made famous. His recipe was supposedly secret, but I've seen several variations of it online and in church cookbooks. The dish calls for raw peanuts, which are easy to find in Mount Pleasant. If it's not the holiday season they are not so easily found in southwest Michigan. I settled for Peas and Macadamia nuts. Expensive but pretty good.

That was one day. We learn to spread things out so as not to cause too much excitement.

We drive around looking at the beach. She sleeps. King watches golf. I play mindless games on Facebook.

I know Mom isn't entirely with us as she is still looking for the woman with the two little girls. We still have no idea who this woman is, but I've quit trying to figure it out. Her obsession has turned to concern that the woman is angry with her and does she know where Mom is? I keep telling her the woman is happy she is with me and is not mad. The conversation is repeated at least six times a day.

We will get there . . . it's just going to take a little time.

Learning to live with a new normal

Mom came back from Florida yesterday. Notice I said back and not home.

I am fairly certain she no longer regards this as home. I am no longer certain where home is for her.

My younger sister and I picked her up from the airport. My older sister flew with her from Florida, turned around and went back on the next flight out. I am certain she giggled manically all the way back. I know I would have.

My younger sister and I took Mom out to eat before parting ways. Mom can no longer put a cohesive sentence together but it was fairly evident something was bothering her. Several times during the meal she started to cry. The first few times we did our best to try to understand what it was, but eventually changed the subject, trying to get her to focus on something else.

For a few brief moments on the way home, Mom was almost lucid. She asked me about the farm. She asked what vegetables were ready. She asked about the grass King spends three days cutting every week. But then she slipped back into whatever world it is she lives in and lost touch with reality.

The closer we got to home the more frantic she became. I got off the highway thinking perhaps if we drove along the lake shore she might start recognizing things and calm down a little. It didn't help.

"This isn't the right way. We aren't going the right way."

"Yes it is Mom, I thought you might like to look at the lake."

But she became more and more agitated.

She kept saying, "We were all there in Grand Rapids. What did I do wrong? Why did everyone leave?"

I tried to explain to her that everyone went home. But names have no meaning for her. Telling her Kay went home to her husband in Florida meant nothing. She didn't know who Kay was. She didn't know what Florida was and she certainly didn't know what a husband was.

Then the frantic tears started. I pulled over twice to try to reason with her. Finally I gave up and ignored her. It is so very, very difficult to know whether the tears are real or a ploy for attention. I don't think she's cognoscente enough to use the ploy, but patience was wearing thin.

Then she started pleading, "Please God, help me."

I lost it. I should have continued to ignore her. Instead I took the low road. "Mom, I sincerely doubt God is going to turn this car around and take you to some imaginary safe haven. We are going back to the farm."

Then she started, "Please God, just take me."

Hmmmm. Yes, the thought was there. I am that horrible.

While she was gone we had moved all her bedroom furniture -- a beautiful set she and Dad received as a gift when they got married -- from my younger sister's home where Mom had lived prior to moving in with us to her room at our house. I had hoped things would calm down when she got into the house and saw all her furniture. She barely acknowledged it.

I let her wander for a while and then suggested we unpack.

"I have to wait to make sure it's okay."

I assured her it was okay. If she didn't unpack she would have no place to sleep as her suitcase was taking up the entire bed.

"But I have to go to Grand Rapids to help that woman with her two girls."

Well, now I was lost. Mom was quite adamant about it. The girls were 10 and 11 years old and Mom was supposed to help take care of them.

Mom and Dad had a home in Grand Rapids before they moved to Hamilton. My sisters were probably seven and nine when they moved. Was she talking about going back to Grand Rapids to take care of her own children?  No one is certain who this woman and the children are, but Mom was quite convinced she needed to be there to take care of them.

I finally convinced her to unpack and left her to her own devices as to where things were to go, surreptitiously going into her room to figure out where things were so I could help her find them later. My granddaughter and I took her for a ride to the pier and then out to eat. She still kept asking me if the woman said it was going to be okay if she stayed with me.

"Of course it is Mom. She was delighted you had a place near the beach."

"She's not mad?"

"No she thinks you need a good, long vacation."

And so the new normal begins.

Sometimes you just have to be able to laugh at yourself

My daughter and I got up early this morning for yet another drive to San Diego for another fun-filled day of house hunting.

House hunting in California is interesting to say the least. Houses go on the market one day and have multiple offers ABOVE the asking price the next day. That is not an exaggeration. Not even a little bit. One has to move quickly and be ready to pay a lot of money in order to be a home owner in California.

Needless to say my daughter is pretty tense. Plus she's pregnant and the hormones are running on overtime.

So this morning we were ready to go by 7 a.m. and congratulating ourselves that we had the foresight to fill the gas tank last night. I reminded her we still needed to check the oil to which she replied, "The check engine light is on."

Shit. And she was not impressed with my suggestion we place a piece of black electrical tape over the light.

We stopped and checked the oil. It was fine. I showed her where the coolant was supposed to go and even bought some, but I was not comfortable adding coolant. So we didn't.

By this time she was having a meltdown. "I can't drive to San Diego. I can't buy a house. I can't replace an engine."

My telling her it would all work out in the end did not help. My telling her I knew how she felt because it happens to King and I all the time did not help either.

 After learning that automotive stores in California no longer run diagnostics, I suggested we take the car to an oil change place and at least have all the fluid levels checked. It was the best I could come up with without having my head removed.

We pulled into the nearest oil change place and waited the 10 minutes until they opened. We pulled into the bay and the young man servicing her car asked what we needed.

My daughter batted her eyelashes, patted her tummy, pointed to the offending light and said, "I just need to know if this is a check engine light or a service engine soon light. I've Googled it and it says  this car has both and I don't know which one this is."

The kid looked at it and said, "It says the air pressure is low in your tires."

He didn't charge us for the air.

The times they are a changin'

When I was growing up small town newspapers often carried small snippets of newsworthy information such as who was hosting a birthday party and who attended said birthday partiy. The articles would read something like this: Carol Joy Schipper celebrated her seventh birthday with a party attended by eight of her elementary school friends. Guests included Mary Wedeven, Twila TenCate, Sandy Heftje, Patricia Hoekje, Louise Grondin,Gwen Eding, Linda Lugten and Phyllis Stehower. The young ladies enjoyed cake and ice cream. A good time was had by all.
---
While I am in California Mom is staying with my sister in Florida.  I don't believe a good time is being had by all.

Mom says she wants to go home. Now. My sister has explained to her I'm not at home so she would be alone in the house (Mom is terrified of being alone). Unfortunately Mom doesn't remember who I am, so when my sister tells her "Phyllis isn't home. You are going to stay with me until Phyllis comes home," it means absolutely nothing to Mom. We have a photo album with family members pictures in it, but I don't think Mom can make that connection any longer.

Change is very difficult for Mom. While some of us embrace change, Mom can not. It is just one more thing we are trying to learn to deal with in these uncharted waters.

Change is coming for all of us.

I'm sitting in my daughter's living room, surrounded by boxes as she readies for a move. Big changes are coming to her. No matter how much one thinks they are prepared, becoming a family is life altering.

When King and I were expecting our first child, we were students living in a one-bedroom apartment in university housing. The move to a two bedroom apartment was relatively painless. We loaded up the car with what we could and threw the skis and the remaining odds and ends in the crib and wheeled it down the sidewalk. The skis, we soon learned, could have stayed behind. The next time I skied was when our youngest of four children was in kindergarten. King never skied again. He did, however manage to continue to play golf. A lot. Golf seems to be a bone of contention with our sons and their wives as well.

I know his penchant for golf bothered me when the kids were small. It no longer does. In fact, I will load the car, find his golf shoes and go out and buy extra tees for a day of golf for him and a day of reading with a glass of wine in hand for me.

Ahhhh change. It will most certainly come, and a good time will be had by all.

And now a word about time studies

For the past few days my daughter and I have been enjoying doing things on our own schedule. So far our only time constraints have been to be in San Diego at 10 a.m. yesterday for round one of house hunting and a 10:40 a.m. doctor's appointment today.

I could get used to this.

It is so different from my life as an editor/reporter where deadlines were everything. Despite the long and crazy hours, I loved the freedom of being a reporter -- to be able to come and go as I needed. While I didn't always like the late nights, it was never boring.

This new-found freedom I am enjoying today is a seriously different environment from the quasi-corporate world of being a marketing writer for one of Michigan's large universities. Taken as a whole, I would much prefer the long hours and low pay of a newspaper to that of a marketing writer. But absolutely nothing beats being foot-loose and fancy-free.

For the uninformed, marketing people are hated almost as much as the media. The difference being in the marketing world it's co-workers from other departments who can't stand you rather than the general public.  Having a supervisor that was quite adept at setting non-departmental co-workers on edge sometimes made touring the building in search of birthday food a dangerous proposition.

In my five-year tenure as a marketing writer we had to take part in two time studies. These were done basically to justify our existence to the rest of the staff in our corner of the university. I should also mention, for the uninformed, the politics that go with life at a university are unfathomable. The workload for the worker bees is mind-boggling and the ladder climbing for the higher-ups is unbelievable. That's not even touching on the arrogance of those with the alphabet soup behind their names. (Ph.D., Ed.D, Spec. MA, MS, ASPCA, ASAP, etc.)

That said, time studies are taken fairly seriously .  . . by most. Since I didn't really care for marching to their drummer, I found them tedious, demeaning, boring and stupid. My thoughts on the matter generally shone through.

A typical time study requires the subject to write down everything that is done throughout the work day. My record looked something like this:

7:50 a.m. - arrive at work, boot up computer, go get coffee
7:58 a.m. - arrive back at cubicle, coffee in hand.
8 a.m. - computer is still booting
8:02 a.m. - start going through mail while waiting for computer to boot up
8:03 a.m. - since all correspondence is done via email, there is no mail. Read flyer regarding concert on campus
8:04 a.m. - check voice mail
8:07 a.m. - computer crashed, called IT, placed on hold
8:10 a.m. - notified by supervisor computers are down campus-wide, will be around 11 a.m. before they are up and running again
8:12 a.m. - dusted cubicle and watered plants
8:15 a.m. - wandered the building looking for birthday party food days
8:30 a.m. - production meeting
9 a.m. - non-smoking cigarette break to complain about production meeting with smokers
9:10 a.m. - write out copy for new brochure long-hand
10:30 a.m. - wander building looking for typewriter
10:37 a.m. - potty break
10:45 a.m. - find old typewriter, start typing copy, realize it still has to be typed into computer system and give up
11 a.m. - notified by IT will be about another two hours before system is fixed.
11:05 a.m.- leave for lunch . . .

And my mother wondered why I did't last long at the university.

This is the way we decorate our house

I am at my daughter's home in Riverside, California helping her house hunt, get ready for a move AND prepare for new babies. Note, I said babies (plural). Her boys are due the end of September/beginning of October.

I will try to offer her pearls of wisdom, but truth be told every parent has to learn for themselves and when it comes to parenting, new parents have to find their own way.

In the meantime we are sorting baby clothes and doing a little bit of packing. I may not be able to offer great insights to parenting, but I am an expert at moving. I stopped counting the moves when King and I hit number 22. We are a rather nomadic couple but neither of us led a nomadic lifestyle when we were children. Both sets of parents were steeped in the middle-class of the Greatest Generation. They didn't move and they didn't change jobs.

I grew up in a conservative farming community in West Michigan. Dad managed a dog food factory and Mom was a homemaker. Mom had a knack for decorating. She would come across a piece of furniture that would fit nicely with her Early American decor, bring it home and spend the next few weeks stripping, sanding, painting and varnishing. If she could find an inexpensive way to copy something she found in a magazine so much the better.

Teasel is a weed that grows mostly in wasteland.

It was Mom's penchant for decorating and the enjoyment she found in creating that led us to the joys of teasel weed art.

Mom saw a photo in the Christmas issue of some woman's magazine where wreaths and small Christmas trees were made from teasel stuck into Styrofoam forms and then spray painted green. It was the 1960's and  an occasional very modern, linear-looking accent was acceptable in her decorating scheme.

Apparently teasel was to become the replacement for pine cones in mod-era of decoration in the 1960's.  Mom liked the idea and started on the hunt for a teasel supply, which isn't difficult as it is an invasive species and pretty much an unwanted weed. If area farmers had a low spot in pastures it was almost a certainty teasel would be growing along its edges.

It was a  tradition in our family to visit relatives in Grand Rapids on Sunday afternoons. We were on our way home from one such visit when Mom spotted some teasel growing behind a barn near Overisel. The next day while we were in school and Dad was at work she hopped into her little convertible and drove back to the farm to ask permission to cut some of the farmer's teasel.

Mom later related to us that the farmer looked at her as if she were a little odd, but told her to go ahead and take as much as she wanted. So Mom proceeded to start cutting the teasel. It is rather prickly stuff and could not have been much fun, but Mom was determined. Then she saw another, larger patch of the noxious weed a little further out behind the barn. She turned the car around and started driving out to stake her claim. The car sunk into about three feet of mud. Not just a little bit of mud, but large swampy muck that sucked the car down and buried it up to the door handles. Mom waded through the muck and slime to use the phone to call Dad for help. She didn't need to that as the farmer used his tractor to help pull her out. And Mom came home with several large grocery bags of  her treasured teasel.

It became a family joke. Every time we saw a patch of teasel someone would comment, "Don't let Mom near it with the car, there's no one around with a tractor to pull her out."

I wish I could find some photos of the wreath and tree she made with the teasel. From shortly after Thanksgiving to a little after New Year's Day the teasel tree graced our dining room table. Mom decided she didn't like the green spray paint so she left it a natural brown color and added a few miniature red ornaments to it. We had it for years and it never lost its ability to leave teasel splinters in fingers if one was not careful when removing it from the box of Christmas decorations.

I think of that tree and the wreath every time I spot  patch of teasel growing along the highway. But I have no desire to get out of the car and cut some.