The little old lady in the wheelchair

My daughter called the other day and asked if I could dig up a photo of her with Mom and one of her brothers.

"Do you know the one I'm talking about Mom" she asked. "It's the one where we are walking down the trail with Mittens (our dog)."

Yes, I knew the photo -- it was taken when our youngest son was about a year old. We had just moved to a new house -- it was in the woods east of Mount Pleasant, several miles from where the Soaring Eagle Casino is today.

Mom and Dad came to visit to check out our new digs. It was a big house and they spent the weekend with us -- for the first time not having to kick the boys out of a bedroom so they could have a place to sleep.

The entire family wasn't in the picture as King, Dad and our oldest son were playing golf. I was carrying the baby in a backpack. Funny how some photos can bring back memories like they were yesterday.

Mom arrived with a measuring tape in hand, ready to measure windows and sliding doors for curtains.

She almost always made the curtains for wherever we found ourselves living. For years our curtains were always made of unbleached muslin. They go with any decor -- especially my decorating schemes, which tend to be  Early Marriage. Even today, on the eve of our 39th wedding anniversary, our house is decorated in furniture cast-offs.  Our one piece of new furniture is a rather large recliner that King has claimed as his throne. It is only after he retires for the evening that one of us reaches for the Scepter of Power, claim the throne, lean back and watch television shows of our choosing.

Dad was the same way. He watched television in the evening, switching from channel to channel, watching a little bit of everything. Mom would sit in the living room next to him and mend clothes or hem curtains. (We moved a lot).

When I look at Mom today -- hunched over in her wheelchair, staring at Heaven knows what, absently folding her napkin over and over again -- it's sometimes difficult to remember the woman who took our children for walks and sewed my curtains.

Photographs like the one I dug up for my daughter are a good reminder of the woman who was in them. May we always find comfort in these little reminders.

Church Ladies love to cook

After my sisters and I went through Mom's things last summer, I brought home several boxes of odds and ends that I promptly put in the spare bedroom to go through at a later date.They've stayed there until this week when a son moved home temporarily. I pulled out the boxes to make room for him. It seemed like a good time to see what was in them. Inside were Better Homes and Garden cookbooks and a lot of church cookbooks -- created by the women of  whatever church Mom was attending. . . Haven Reformed, Glenn United Methodist, First Reformed.

Church Ladies love to cook. And nothing says love like a Church Ladies cookbook.

Whenever the Church Ladies decided to write a cookbook as a fundraiser Mom always contributed. She had a list of her favorite "go to" recipes that she would pull out and send off for the fundraising effort.

Buried in her pile of cookbooks was the source of her recipe inspirations -- a spiral-bound notebook with "My Favorite Recipes" on the cover Not a very original original title. The notebook looked as though it had been purchased from a school fundraiser. But inside that little unremarkable spiral bound notebook was a lifetime of recipes clipped from newspapers and pulled from magazines. Some were glued to the pages, some were simply stuffed between the pages. There were some pages with recipes written in Mom's neat handwriting.

I spread it all out on our dining room table and looked through them all. It was like having a little bit of Mom right there with me. I could almost hear her say, "I like this one. I served it at the Glenn Church breakfast," or "Dad didn't like this one, but I might try it again with less seasonings."

The pages also contained little notes from Mom: Use 1/2 cup butter instead. This one is a keeper. You Bet! (I'm guessing it was a particularly good recipe).

There was a long hand-written page with the recipe for "Friendship Cake" or, as we called it, "Herman Cake." The margin had "From Don Mac" written in it. . . Don Mac was a very dear friend of Mom and Dad. Mom used her "Herman Starter" to make zucchini bread, which Mr. Mac particularly liked.

There were letters from my sisters with recipes they shared with Mom. It was a little piece of everyday life that was so very much a part of Mom. There were recipes from the Wayland Globe and The Gratiot County Herald (I never worked at the Globe, how she got the recipe I'll never know). There were recipes from neighbors written on notebook paper and recipes written on bank scratch pads. There were recipes from the 1970s, 1980s and some from the 1990s. I wish I could find some older ones but I'm guessing those are long gone.

My how things have changed. I have a collection of recipes as well. Unfortunately mine are on my hard drive. When I am gone or demented my children won't be able to go through them and see my handwriting and my notes about how to tweak a recipe or what works and what doesn't. There is something definitely lost in the age of hard drives, Pinterest and Facebook.

I thought about transferring everything from my hard drive to paper and making a recipe box for the kids. But my handwriting is anything but neat. And as much as I'd like to preserve things for my children, it seem like a lot of work. However, the other day I found a program on the computer that can create a font with my handwriting. . . one click and drag of a mouse and everything is there . . . almost written by me. 

Pookie and Pineapple

It was 10 years ago this month our daughter graduated from the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Fla. She was an air traffic controller in the Navy for a number of years. It seems like yesterday and it seems like a lifetime ago.

King was in the middle of the winter semester and could not get away for the graduation so the plan was I would drive Mom and Dad to Pensacola to watch the graduation and then we would drive across the state to stay at one of my sister's condos in St. Augustine. I would drive them down, leave the car with them and fly home. My sister would drive them back later in the spring.

We made a vacation of it and I took our two granddaughters with us. They were 5 and 10 at the time. Mom and Dad were in their mid-eighties. 

In truth,  Mom and Dad made the trip almost every winter, but my sisters and I decided the drive to Florida was bit much for Dad to handle. Mom had quit driving sometime in her 70s.

So we packed the car and got ready for an adventure.

I never quite understood why, but Mom and Dad seemed to think they didn't have grocery stores in Florida. So they packed about four weeks worth of food. That's food for five, plus suitcases and entertaining games, books and puzzles for two children and three adults packed into a Nissan. I had to insist they leave their food behind, but I promised Mom and Dad I would take them grocery shopping once we reached our final destination. They were dubious and Mom did manager to smuggle a couple of boxes of cereal into the trunk that promptly exploded once the trunk was closed. We vacuumed Rice Krispies for weeks.

We traveled slowly -- making a lot of pit stops and visiting whatever sites were available between Grand Haven and Pensacola. I did most of the driving. My one mistake was allowing Dad to drive around Nashville. He decided since there were five of us he could travel in the commuter lane -- at 80 miles per hour. Has anyone ever ridden in a car with an 85 year old man driving 80 mph? It's terrifying. I sat in the passenger seat praying. He looked over, "What are you doing?" "Oh, nothing Dad, just singing to myself. Could you watch the truck in front of you?"

I drove the rest of the trip.

We spent several days in  a hotel in Pensacola. And we developed a routine . . . Mom, Dad and I would get up in the morning and make our way downstairs for coffee and bagels. When the girls got up later in the morning we took them to iHop.

The girls on the beach in St. Augustine.

We were eating second breakfast one morning when the girls announced they needed different names for great-grandma and great-grandpa. Having two grandmas on the trip was too confusing for them and calling them great-grandma and great-grandpa was too much of a mouthful. So they decided Dad would be called Pookie. I have no idea where the name came from, but Dad rather enjoyed it. But finding a name for Mom was a challenge. Our oldest granddaughter watched as her sister slathered her waffle with a load of pineapple syrup. "That's it! We'll call her Pineapple."

Dad loved it. Mom was quite offended. "Do I look like a prickly old pineapple?" Nonetheless, the name stuck for several years until the girls outgrew nicknames.

Those are the memories that endear our hearts to our grandchildren.

The little old lady in the bread aisle

This month King and I will celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary. Yes, it is a long time. We've been married longer than most of my co-workers have been on earth.

Thirty-nine years. Wow. And what do I think about the accomplishment? That's 39 years of trying to come up with meals. King does not cook. I was amazed the other day when he made himself a fried bologna sandwich with a fried egg. (Ok, he's not good at healthy choices, but the point is -- he cooked).

Mom and Dad were married 66 years when Dad passed away. That's 66 years of cooking and meal planning. Dad did not cook. Not even a fried bologna sandwich. If Dad wanted a dish of ice cream, Mom got it for him. If Dad wanted a lemonade, Mom jumped up and poured him a glass . . . with ice.

And no, Dad was not demanding. He did not insist. But they were of the generation where cooking and cleaning was Mom's job. That is what a housewife did. Mom laid out his clothes every morning. She cooked all their meals. She made the bed. She cleaned the house. She paid the bills. She balanced the checkbook.

After Dad retired they started doing more things together. Dad helped with the dishes. He helped make the bed. They even shopped together. There were times when Mom commented on the fact she would like to do some things by herself. But I don't believe she EVER told Dad that. She would never have wanted to hurt his feelings.

As they got older and Mom started having memory problems, their shopping together became somewhat of a chore. Mom had a very difficult time making decisions. Looking back, we should have seen the signs, but we didn't.

Dad liked raisin toast for breakfast. Mom would stand in the bread aisle and contemplate the type of bread to purchase. While she was agonizing over bread, Dad would become impatient and march down the aisle ready to move on to the next item on their list. Mom would get angry at his leaving her behind and march behind him and tell him he should wait for her. Dad would look irritated, shake his head, and continue on to the soup aisle where the process would start over again.

Mom, being deaf, would kind of be in her own little world. She would do her contemplating in the middle of the aisle. People would become irritated at the little old lady standing in the middle of the aisle and huff around her. Mom had no idea. Dad could see this and it bothered him that she was so oblivious . . . it was an exhausting, vicious circle.

After being married 39 years there are plenty of things King does that makes me crazy. Not being perfect (although King claims I think I am perfect) I am sure there are things I do that drive him insane. I can only imagine what it will be like after 66 years.

But oh, how Mom and Dad loved each other. On what was to be our last trip to the Golden Brown Bakery in South Haven before Dad died, we sat in the dining room and had our coffee and pastries. Mom and Dad used to bring our children there for a treat when the kids were small. We talked about those visits and the things small children do that endear themselves forever into the hearts of grandparents. On our way out I stopped and purchased some pastries for King and our granddaughter. Mom and Dad continued out the door -- holding hands. The cashier looked at me, tears in her eyes.

"Sixty-six years the end of this summer. We should all be so lucky," was all I said.

For those who have never lived it . . .

Few things are as hurtful as those well-meaning (and I use the term loosely) people who will say things like, "We kept Mom with us to the very end. I would never put her in a home," or "I don't think I would have been much of a child had I sent Dad to a nursing home."

Really? Is that what you think? We don't love Mom enough to keep her with us? To them all I can say is: "If you haven't lived it, please don't say anything.You have no clue." And if I were to wish to be as hurtful as they are I would add: "And you are the meanest jerk on the face of the earth." I might even add some expletives, but I'm trying to cut down on my swearing. Mom always said: Swearing is the sign of a weak mind.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than having to visit Mom in the nursing home. My heart aches every time I walk into the building and search for her (she likes to wander) only to find her sitting in her wheelchair staring absently at a television screen. She has learned how to scoot around the building (in her wheelchair) and one evening my sister found her in a lounge area staring at a wall. Apparently she could not figure out how to move backwards.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could bring Mom home and assimilate her into the household once again. But Mom isn't Mom any longer. She can't do simple things like bathe herself, brush her teeth, use the toilet or get in and out of bed. Mom can't even communicate with us. We have no way of knowing what she is thinking. What she wants, or what she would like to do. We sit and hold her hands. That is it.

Mom needs round-the-clock care. She needs things one family can't provide for her.We know. We tried. It is exhausting. It is a strain on marriages.

Mom could not be alone. Ever. She panicked when we went into the bathroom. She panicked when meals were not on time. She couldn't sit through grandchildrens' sporting events. Someone had to stay home with her. And guess what? Babysitters for an adult are impossible to find. So your Mom/Dad stayed with you for a month? How nice for you. Did you have to bathe him/her? Did you have to change his/her diaper? Could you still go to a grandchild's sporting event? Did you and your husband/wife have the opportunity to have dinner out? Did you give up a paying job to care for her/him? I thought not.

I don't write this as a means for alleviating the guilt we feel for not being able to care for Mom. It is a cold, hard reality. We could not do it.

I've heard people suggest hiring in home care. If Mom and Dad or my sisters and I were rich, maybe that would have been an option. But at $112 a day (average cost) and the care not covered by insurance -- who would shoulder that responsibility?

I wish there were easy answers. I wish our Mother did not have dementia. I wish our Father were still here to help take care of her. I wish "well-meaning" people would just keep their mouths shut.

P.S. I should mention I do know a family that opted to hire in-home care. I admire them. I envy their resources. And am impressed by their tenacity and dedication. Kudos to them.

When does one know when they are a grownup

While visiting Mom at the nursing home the other day I ran into one of my former high school teachers. I've been out of high school forty years. The teacher, I am sure, has been retired for quite some time.

Our exchange was brief and I avoided calling him by name. I didn't know whether to call him Mr. or by his first name. The lessons Mom and Dad taught about respecting our elders is forever ingrained in my physche.

But the person who was my elder when I was in high school is closer in age to me than my parents' friend and our neighbors were as I was growing up. When one thinks about it, that 15 to 20 year age difference when I was in high school was much greater than the 15 to 20 year age difference today.

A few of Mom and Dad's friends often told us we could call them by their first  names. It never flew with our parents.

"No, you will refer to them as Mr. or Mrs," Mom would say. A Mom saying "no" always trumped a friend saying "yes."

I was not so insistent on proper titles when our own children were young. Instead I insisted their friends call me by my first name. To me Mrs. McCrossin was a a little old lady who lived on the east side of the state. I am, and always have been, Phyllis. Those who were uncomfortable with calling me by my first name usually referred to me as "Momma Phyllis." It worked for me. However, young visitors  always referred to King as Mr. McCrossin. I'm guessing they have the same problem deciding what to call their former principal as I do deciding what to call a former teacher.

And I still don't know what to call a former teacher.

The delicate art of saying "no"

Mom doesn't talk much now when we visit. There is an occasional "Don't leave me!" Which is heart-breaking. Or an occasional, "This is hot," when her hot chocolate has not stood long enough to be tepid.

Today our oldest sister flew in from out of state. Mom was the most talkative she's been in a long, long time. None of what she said made sense, but we filled in the blanks and answered her as best we could. It was good to see her so animated even if we could not follow what she was saying. Much the same as she can not follow what we say.

But otherwise our visits are met with long periods of silence. I will chatter on about finding a letter from Mom's brother -- written to her on her 18th birthday. The letter admonishes her to be "happy and virtuous." (Although my uncle was a college professor and had seen much of the world, I think he feared that at 18 Mom would never leave the farm and never marry. Evidently he wanted her to be a happy spinster). I also will talk ad nauseam about how our granddaughter is doing in school or about watching our grandson's latest basketball game.

All my chatter is met with the same smile and the same vacant stare. So one has to wonder if she heard, didn't hear, comprehends but can't find the words to respond, or is simply so mad at us she doesn't want to respond.

The staff at the home seem to genuinely like her. They tell us what a "sweet lady" she is and how she always has a smile and will hold their hand when they talk to her. Mom receives excellent care. They are very caring and compassionate.

But I imagine she misses her other home. It was smaller, more intimate and she had more one-on-one time with the staff. But life is what it is and we all have to make the best of situations we don't necessarily like.

During a visit earlier this week we sat in the lounge next to the fireplace.  It was a silent visit but Mom kept looking at a small bag I had made -- I've been sewing a lot lately.

Mom inspected the seams, the lining, the stitching on the decorative button, the stitching on the snap . . . She didn't say anything but kept picking it up and looking at it. I guess it was given her seal of approval as she smiled and said, "Nice."

Mom, as I have often mentioned, was the one who taught me to sew. She was a 4H sewing leader and taught first-year sewing to many young women in Hamilton.

The first-year 4H project was generally an apron. One that tied around the back and had a small pocket in front.  Years ago while going through Mom's cedar chest I found an apron one of my sisters made. It was so tiny it may have tied around my left thigh. I can't believe any of us were ever that small.

I have never found my apron, but I distinctly remember it.

Mom took me to the Variety Store in Hamilton to purchase the material for it. She led me to the table with the bolts of daintily colored calico and told me to choose the one I wanted. What I wanted was a solid purple apron.

"I don't think a purple apron is a good choice," Mom said.

It was as good as saying, "No. I will not purchase purple material for your apron."

So I chose a dainty green and yellow calico print. Mom purchased some additional dainty green and yellow calico print to make a blouse for me and also bought solid mint green material to make a jumper to go with the blouse.

And I made an apron made of daintily colored green and yellow floral calico print and earned a blue ribbon at the fair.

I sill would have rather had a purple apron.