Mom always did hate flies

We lived in the country. Not on a farm, but we were surrounded by a Dahlia farm, a poultry farm, a Christmas tree farm and and a celery farm. We had horses and occasionally had a steer or two that we raised from babies for beef. (Calsie I, Calsie II, Daisy and Ralph -- Daisy was not a steer, obviously).

Needless to say, there were occasions when the flies were thick on our back screen door. Every time we went in or out of the house Mom would admonish, "Don't let the flies in." Of course an occasional 10 or 20 would find their way into the house and Mom would go on a search and destroy mission.

She would run through the house with a can of Raid in her hand spraying the offending insect. She had also been known to track them down with a can of Aqua Net. I'm not sure if it was a mix-up or if she thought she could stick their wings together to make them an easier target for her favorite method of extermination -- the dreaded Church Herald.

If you were Reformed, you received the Church Herald in the mail every week. Those of the Christian Reformed persuasion received the Banner.

So every week a new flyswatter made its way into our home. Dad would deliver it with the mail and Mom would place it next to her chair in the living room to be read in the evening. Once it was read, it was rolled up and placed next to the washer -- which was in our kitchen -- and the old one was sent to the burning barrel behind the swimming pool fence. I don't ever remember having a real fly swatter in the house. The Church Herald was the perfect weight and when rolled up, fit nicely in the hand. After a day or two it even retained its rolled-up shape.

Even if the flies didn't have sticky wings from hairspray, Mom's aim was deadly accurate. We could hear her attack from any room in the house. . . Whapp! And then swish, swish as she scraped the remains off the ceiling. Then the kitchen cabinet under the sink would open and she would discard the corpse into the waste basket. Any that fell to the floor were swept up immediately.

Funny how little things can make your remember small details from childhood. We went out for coffee this morning and a fly landed on our table. Mom went after it with a vengeance, but it got away.

"I hate those things," she said to me -- her first complete sentence all day.

"Really Mom? I never knew."

Where is the Church Herald when you need it?

Generations

Last week I spent some time with our daughter and her family in San Diego.

Her twin sons turned one and she and her husband celebrated with a "We made it without killing each other and are still married" birthday party. The guest list included about 40 adults and their children. I arrived a few days early to help them get ready as our daughter decided to incorporate every party idea she saw on Pinterest. That's fine. At one point in my life I enjoyed throwing parties as well. And she really outdid herself with decorations and food.

I haven't seen our grandsons since shortly after they were born so this was a very special visit. We played on the floor, read books, went to museums (okay, so they are a little young to appreciate art), sat in fountains and played some more.

In between I watched my daughter as she made baby food, entertained her sons, cleaned house and ran errands. I marvel at the woman she has become, and wonder if my own Mother felt the same about me.

Our daughter's children are the great-grandchildren Mom will never know. She has met and played with our three sons' children and somewhere in the recesses of her mind their memories linger. Although they are too young to remember her, she still had the opportunity to read to them, bake cookies for them, and show them where Grandpa kept the candy. Only the two oldest great-grandchildren, however, will remember Great-Grandma as she was -- the woman who could play board games, sing songs and would listen as they practice reading for hours on end.

For the younger children, their memories will be the stories they hear about their great-grandparents. Often times we remember those who are gone with fondness though it is only stories we remember. I never knew either one of my grandmothers, but that doesn't necessarily mean I never knew who they were. I can look at photos of my Grandma Daling and those photos -- combined with the stories Mom told me -- help me know who the woman was. And I hope that is how our grandchildren will remember their great-grandmother.

Mom Update:
After a two week absence from visiting Mom, it was evident I was an "extra" in the company who joined her at our weekly "breakfast with Mom." If there were ever a glimmer of recognition during these meetings, it was gone during this visit. Or mostly gone. When I kissed her goodbye at the end of our visit, she gripped me tightly and held me for a moment. "I'll see you soon, Mom," I whispered to her. She may not have heard. She may not have understood if she did hear, but the thought was there.

Mom's sewing machine

One of the things I acquired when we dispersed Mom's possessions was her sewing machine. It was a much needed item in my house -- although I am not the seamstress Mom was, I do enjoy trying my hand at it.

Yes, I do have a sewing machine of my own. King and I purchased it when I was pregnant with our daughter -- she is now 34. The stupid thing never worked right. Bobbins jammed, it skipped stitches, or needles cracked. I sent it off for repairs at least three times, hoping each time the company would replace it. They never did.

So Mom's sewing machine is a welcome addition to our house.

I remember well the day we bought it.

I was home for Thanksgiving my freshman year of college. Dad, my younger sister, Mom and I were Christmas shopping at Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids. Dad was at a loss as to what to get Mom that year. It really bothered him that he could not think of something special for her.

Mom was off shopping on her own and my sister and I were sitting with Dad in the middle of the mall, right across from a Singer Sewing Center. Now, I should mention there was nothing wrong with Mom's old sewing machine -- other than it was old. But Dad was desperate to get Mom something "big" for Christmas and there we were across from the sewing machine store . . . "I know," I said. "Let's get her a sewing machine."


Dad loved the idea.

And Mom got a new sewing machine. One she really didn't need, but Dad was so tickled to give it to her it made the giving something special.

Mom put it to good use -- maternity clothes for her daughters, baby clothes for her grandchildren, crafts for church bazaars. Mom could always be counted on to have some sort of ongoing sewing project.

I still think of it as "Mom's new sewing machine," although we bought it 40 years ago.

I'd like to tell Mom I have her sewing machine but there is no way to make her understand what I am saying when I talk to her. She can't hear and there is no comprehension if she does hear. And besides, Mom can't sew any longer. I don't think she would remember how. So I have taken over for her.


King is dubious about my sewing ability. In our 38 years of marriage I have more dismal failures than I have success and although I always blamed the sewing machine I know he knows better. However, now that I have Mom's sewing machine I've started making messenger bags -- straight seams, there is not much to mess up there -- and to my surprise King suggested I make one to bring to our daughter when I visit next week in San Diego.

I think I will. It will be a gift from Mom and I.

A letter to my children

Dear Children
I went to see your Grandmother today. I might encourage you to visit her, but truthfully I'd rather you didn't.

I would rather you remember Grandma as the woman who could pack a picnic lunch on a moment's notice, would take you down to the beach, feed you lunch on a blanket spread on the sand and watch you play all afternoon. I would rather you remember her as the woman who would walk you down to the tennis/basketball court and run after your missed shots for hours on end. I would rather you remember her as the woman who always had the cookie jar filled with your favorite cookies, the woman who served you hot chocolate after a day of sledding on their hill and the woman who attended all your high school sports events. Please remember her as she stood, camera in hand, taking years to get the shot, shaking the camera between shots because she believed it made the flash recharge more quickly. Remember the yearly photo albums she put together that contained all those moments she caught on film. Remember that woman.

Today I had to change your Grandmother's soiled underclothing. Today I had to take an ice cream cone away from her as she tried to eat the napkin wrapped around the cone. Today we sat in silence as she stared vacantly off into space with no words forming in her mind. If her thoughts were trapped inside her head she gave up trying to make them come out long ago. I love this woman, she is my mother, but she is not the woman I want to remember.

And I would rather you remember her not as she is, but as she was.

There are so many things I remember about her: I remember her infuriating words, "Yours will be the moral victory." I remember her having a snack waiting for me after school. I remember her sitting at her sewing machine at the kitchen table and making dresses, pants, tops and even winter coats. I remember her campaigning for Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon (we all make mistakes). I remember her organizing the local 4H club. I remember her getting dressed up simply to go to the local grocery store. I  remember all the things that made my childhood good, and fun and safe. All those and more are things I want to remember.  I do not believe, if she were able to put a coherent thought together, she would want us to remember her as she is now. I know she would be mortified if she knew what she was doing.

And I would ask the same for me if my time comes. Remember the fun times. Remember the good times. Do not try to have me come live with you. I will be demanding. I will be confused. I will panic when left alone. I will disrupt your life in ways you can not imagine. And you WILL resent me.

I am asking you now. If the time comes, put me in a nursing home. And don't feel guilty about it. And don't come to visit me. I really won't be aware that it is Christmas or a grandchild's birthday. And it will break your heart to know I don't know who you are.


So, dear children, I am letting you off the hook now.  If I should fall victim to dementia as your grandmother has, please do this one thing for me. I will bear you no ill will. I won't even know who you are.

Mom likes pancakes

The nursing home called my sister earlier this week with a report on Mom.  Seems she is becoming more withdrawn and more incontinent. It is a difficult process to watch. But all we can do is deal with it. Ringing one's hands and worrying only causes callouses and frown lines.

So we continue with our usual routine as much as possible.

On Saturday we had our weekly meet-up breakfast with Mom. I arrived at the nursing home first. Mom was sleeping in her chair when I walked into her room. I let her sleep, deciding it was easier to let her continue to doze rather than wake and try to explain to her there were more people coming and we had to wait for them.

It is fairly evident Mom doesn't really know who I am. When my sisters arrived she hugged each one of them and then turned to me and wrapped her arms around me, but the look was: "I don't know who you are, but you are here and you are going to take me somewhere so I will hug you too."

It's okay. I can deal with it.

We always go to the same restaurant and I think we have become "one of the Saturday regulars."  Before Dad died, my older sister took my parents out for breakfast every Saturday. They became such "regulars" at the restaurant in Ferrysburg that the staff reserved a table for them each Saturday morning. We have not yet met that status at this particular restaurant.

Mom likes our outings, although I'm not entirely certain she is always aware of her surroundings, simply getting out makes her very happy.

When the nursing home told us Mom was having difficulty swallowing we followed their instructions and eliminated bread from her diet when we went out to eat. We generally ordered something easy to swallow -- usually yogurt parfaits. That gets old. So now we have taken the attitude of "She'll be 92 in November, let her eat what she wants," and we order pancakes for her. She eats them all and hasn't choked or died yet.

Bolstered by our success with the pancakes, we then made the bold step of telling the nursing home no more "thicket" in her beverages and no more mush for meals. They were not very happy with us, but we are paying the bills.  Mom now drinks regular liquids and eats regular food. I think meal time has become pleasurable for her once again. If she chokes we can always write on her headstone, "She died with her bib on."

The dog days of summer

I took Mom out for breakfast yesterday. I had to work Saturday so I missed the traditional weekly family outing -- work is such an inconvenience.

Mom and I sat and ate our breakfast in companionable silence. If she was deep in thought those thoughts were trapped inside her mind. My mind was racing. I kept looking at her trying to decide if her appearance had truly changed or if it was her diminished mental capacity that simply made her seem different. In the end I decided I didn't know as I had never really paid that close attention to Mom's appearance. It's one of those things you never really notice until it's too late.

After breakfast I took her for a ride to Hamilton, where my sisters and I grew up.

We drove past the church we attended and I slowed down as we drove past the sledding hill that spilled out onto a pond. All the neighborhood kids would go sledding or skating on that hill/pond. But I'm told the new owner isn't inclined to let people use it. I can understand. In this days of liability and lawsuits, who wants that responsibility?

Mom stared out the window. If she knew where we were she didn't let on -- until we came to the house. She still didn't speak, but pointed to the house and tried to say something. "Yes, Mom. That's our house. I'll drive past it again." I turned the corner and turned around at the dahlia farm (so glad to see that's still there) and drove past again -- slowly. Mom looked a long time.

The first couple who bought the house after Mom and Dad sold it thought the pool Dad built in the backyard would be perfect for therapeutic use. I think they kept the pool for about a year and then realized how much work it was and filled it in. I can understand -- a little. Dad was handy and could fix almost anything so when the filter (another homemade invention by Dad) clogged Dad could tinker and it would be fixed in an hour. Mom's daily routine included skimming the bugs and leaves floating on top and then attaching a vacuum to a filter hose and cleaning the bottom of the pool. It was a tremendous amount of work.

When we first built the pool there wasn't a lot of information out there on pool maintenance. And there weren't pool stores or local stores that carried pool supplies. We had a test kit and tested ph balances and purchased chemicals for this and chemicals for that. I'm sure it was expensive and we often had pool water that varied from dirty brown to green to clear. By the time I was in high school Mom was buying a few bottles of bleach at the grocery store and dumping a bottle in every two days. The water was always crystal clear. No more testing. No more fancy chemicals. Just Mom, a vacuum and and a bottle of Clorox.

I remember those long hot dog days of summer: The sound of the water running into the pool. Mom in the kitchen, usually at the ironing board with "Talk of the Town" blaring on the radio, an industrial-sized fan sitting on the floor keeping the kitchen cool, the curtains closed to keep the afternoon sun out. We would invite neighborhood kids over to swim in the afternoon. Sometimes Mom would join us for a quick dip. She would climb down the ladder, stand on the bottom step for a minute. We would quit splashing and diving long enough for her to dog-paddle across the pool once or twice. She would get out, dry off, go back inside to change her clothes and get back to her ironing.

Around 4 every afternoon she would bring a tray of cookies and lemonade out to our screened porch and we would take a break. It was our signal that we had time for one last swim and then it was time for friends to go home.

It was a routine that was repeated week after week, year after year. One of those simple memories one tucks away and pulls out to examine and recall with fondness. I just wish I could remember Mom's face.

Getting into the unpleasant stuff

Our older sister came from Florida to visit Mom last week. While she was here we decided to go through Mom's things and divide them.

It may sound cold and hard, but the reality is Mom will be 92 in November. We know she will not live forever. It seemed easier to do it now rather than during the emotional time following a funeral.

There was another reason we decided to divide and conquer now rather than later. After Dad died we tried having Mom live alone in their apartment for a while. It was a dismal failure. My son would often stop by to visit Mom only to find her sitting in the dark. She could not handle the loss of the man she had been with for more than 65 years. So she moved in with my sister and her husband for a while and later she came to live with King and I. During this transition period all her worldly possession had to be consolidated into the basements of two homes. My basement floods regularly and my younger sister wanted to reclaim the space my mother's possessions had taken over. One can  wind ones way through boxes and boxes of "stuff" just to get to the laundry room for so long.

Mom is long past the time when she can tell us who she wants to have what, so it was left up to us to decide. And fortunately, although we may bicker occasionally, my sisters and I get along well enough that we didn't fight over possession. They are, after all, only "things."

So last weekend we went through a lifetime of fine china, sterling silver, a variety of collections and photographs. We spread them out in my younger sister's living room and spent an afternoon remembering. . . "Those were the Christmas dishes she bought in Plainwell."  "That Christmas punch bowl set was unclaimed freight that they sold at the IGA." "One of Mom's sisters gave her that egg plate as a wedding gift. She couldn't remember who it was when she told me about it." "Look at this photo album I found with pictures of Dad in the army."

It was a bittersweet day. We tried to remember Mom as she was rather than the Mom she is now. Still our Mother, but not.

Meanwhile Mom is beginning to make those tentative steps toward total oblivion to her life as it once was. This past week she slipped a little further away from reality. We observe, take note and discuss, but there is little we can do but wait to see what happens next.

We take pleasure in the simple things like taking her for rides in the country and going out for coffee where we feed her pancakes and sausage, taking pleasure in thumbing our noses at the dietary restrictions she is on at the nursing home.

Sometimes it's the simple pleasures that make it easier.