Random summer thoughts

Some random thoughts about summer. . .

My childhood summers were spent around the sounds of water. Whether it was the sound of Dad's homemade pool filter recycling water back into the swimming pool (think fountain sounds),  the sound of a ski boat slapping the water as it pounded through a wake, or the gentle dip of a canoe paddle -- summers were associated with water.

When the kids were young we lived in a rented farmhouse, which was a short walk through the woods to Lake Michigan. Some of my most fond memories are of the waves lapping the shore, the sound of children's laughter as they dove into the water or played base-runner on the beach with King, and the cry of gulls as they swooped in to check out picnic baskets.

It is that sound, in fact, that I can recall each time I have my blood pressure checked. I close my eyes and picture myself lying on the beach with the warm sun on my face and those happy sounds filling my ears. Works every time. The doctor thinks I have remarkable blood pressure. One day I will have to tell her -- no, I've just gone to my  happy place.
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Today would have been Mom and Dad's 70th wedding anniversary.  Some anniversaries I remember quite well. Their 25th was spent with friends at their cottage near Gobles. Then there is a long space where I know we probably celebrated, but I don't recall what we did. For their 40th anniversary we all met at their home in Glenn and went out to eat. We did the same for their 50th and 60th. Funny how the time between the celebrations seemed to fly by more quickly each decade.

Next spring King and I will mark our 40th anniversary. I still feel as though I'm just getting to know him. Then again, we feel we know one another so well we can often argue because we THINK we know how the other is going to react to something. Marriage is not for sissies.
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We had a small family gathering at our son's home this past weekend. My younger sister rode her bike from Spring Lake to Grand Haven. I get tired walking to the the shed to simply look at my bike. She and I once rode our bikes from Hamilton to our family friend's cottage in Gobles. We stopped in Allegan for a hot fudge sundae. I don't believe we had to count calories back then. That was my last summer home before leaving for college.
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Although we've just experienced some of the hottest days of summer so far, King and our

The woodshed is full but now the
driveway must be lined with wood as well.

granddaughter have been splitting and stacking wood for the winter. The gentleman who owns the farm where we are caretakers heats his home, our home, and his greenhouse with a wood burning furnace. It's a lot of work. And anyone who makes the comment about heating with wood warming you twice (once when cutting it and again when burning it) will probably receive a scathing look from all three of us.

Our granddaughter is using the proceeds from her wood stacking venture to help fund school clothes this fall. Ahh the value of good, honest, hard labor. Or at least that is what I keep telling her. I believe she is dubious at best.

Enjoy the rest of your summer everyone. Fall (which happens to be my favorite season) will be here before we know it.

Selective memories

I'm surprised when people will ask "What did your parents die from?" Some may take it as a crass statement, but I truly do understand the intent and take no offense (although I do find it a strange question).


So to that question I will reply, "Hmmm. Let me think. Dad was 90 when he died and Mom was 92. I think it's safe to say they died of old age."

Yes, I wish they could have both passed away peacefully in their sleep. Dad spent a week in intensive care because his heart was tired of pumping. So I suppose, technically, he died of heart failure. I do maintain he had an old heart and it was through working.

Mom's body outlasted her mind, but it wasn't the dementia that ended her life. Like Dad, her body was tired and ready to quit.

There were many people at Mom's funeral who expressed surprise Mom lived another three and a half years beyond Dad. Mom and Dad had been married 65 years when Dad died and theirs was a deep, loving and committed relationship. To be honest, I think had Mom been in her right mind she may have died from grief. Her first few months alone without Dad were heartbreaking to watch. Mom simply did not know how to live without him.

Then the dementia began to progress. It became clear Mom could not live alone. Not just for the loneliness, but for simple every day things she could no longer handle. She went first to live with my younger sister and then, later, she came to live with King and I before her needs became greater than any family member could provide.

But in those months she lived with one of us Mom would often become melancholy and sob, "I miss Daddy."  We all missed him. We all miss both of them now.

But as Mom's dementia progressed further she began to forget. Or if she did remember she had no words to express how she felt. Toward the end she didn't talk much. There were huge smiles when we came to visit and a lot of hand holding, but few words . . . other than "stay," when it was time for us to leave.

In one of her last conversations with my sisters she pointed to a photo of Dad and asked, "Do I know him?"

We were never certain how to feel about that. Was it good she couldn't remember the man she grieved for? Or was it a blessing that she didn't remember him? Most likely it was a combination of both.

But memories are a funny thing.

Monday marks the 90-day anniversary of Mom's passing. As as the days progress I remember less and less of the mother who sat in the wheelchair, speaking little, wanting much. Instead I remember the mother who stood at the kitchen sink in the morning as we came in from doing chores (feeding the horses). I remember the mother who brought trays of cookies and lemonade out to our screened porch to serve friends who were over swimming. (It was also -- I now realize -- a signal it was time for them to go home). 

I remember Dad pulling in the driveway after work and everyone scrambling to help Mom set the table and get supper ready.

It is those memories -- the little things -- that I hope I can keep forever in my heart.

A rare day alone

Today I find myself having one of those rare days alone. It doesn't happen very often. King is off playing golf with one of our sons and I have six glorious hours before I have to leave for work. I have all kinds of plans that don't include those time-wasters Facebook or Candy Crush Saga.

My attic sewing space.

My kids gave me a sewing machine for Mother's Day and I plan on making good use of the free time I have. But first I have to go to the store to purchase a fan. I've created a workspace in our upstairs attic/bedroom and it gets incredibly hot up there. So for a few minutes I will be a woman on a mission and then I'll be free to create/play.


When we were growing up Mom did all her sewing at the kitchen table. The sewing machine was kept in the space between the washer and the refrigerator. It was an old metal Singer that Mom used for years and years, finally donating it to me after King and I were first married. When the belt on it finally broke and could not be replaced -- unless I wanted to hunt one down in an antique store -- I got a new sewing machine. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I would imagine today -- with the advent of the internet -- it might be easier to find a belt for it.  Unfortunately that old Singer disappeared about 12 moves ago. 

Mom had a dedicated sewing room after they moved to Grand Haven and I've fashioned my sewing room after hers. Mine will never be as neat and tidy as hers, but I have never been as fastidious about cleaning as she was. My hope is someday the dog hair will miraculously roll across the room and out the door on it's own.

By the time Mom and Dad sold their home in Grand Haven and moved into an apartment, I don't believe Mom did much sewing. I don't think she could have remembered how to thread the machine. Routine things had simply started slipping away. I recall how after they bought a new car Dad thought she should know how to drive it. By that time he was doing the majority of the driving, but he thought she should at least know how to drive the car -- just in case.

It was a dismal failure. Mom, who had been driving for years, could not remember which was the brake and which was the gas. Dad was incredibly irritated -- and probably just a little frightened. How horrifying that must have been for both of them.

Dad would say, "She just isn't trying." Unfortunately we now know she was trying. She was trying to hide the fact she couldn't remember things. She was trying to hide the fact that simple tasks were no longer simple. She was trying to continue to take care of Dad the way she always had. Her mind simply was not working.

So in a few minutes I will leave for the store, driving a car that I take for granted I know how to operate. I will purchase a fan and put it upstairs in my sewing room. I will thread my sewing machine and work on another project. But I will no longer take for granted that I can do those things. And I will hope and pray that the time will never come when I can't.

Gardens of delight

We have been without internet for the past week. I am amazed how much I rely on it for a plethora of things. Sadly, the internet will be the demise of the profession I love -- journalism. It was Woodward and Bernstein and their Watergate investigation that sent me to college in 1974 to become a reporter -- much to my father's chagrin. The media was much too liberal for him. But times they are a changing. Advertising dollars are disappearing  -- why buy a print ad when you can generally find what you need on the internet? Revenue is gone and newsroom are shrinking. Reporters are expected to do more with less at a pay that is less than that of a first year teacher's salary. (The pay has always been lousy). As a fellow reporter said years ago, "It's got to be a vanity thing -- to see your name in a byline -- it certainly can't be the money."

However, I digress. On with today's post.

I stood in the rain this morning and picked snap peas. King absolutely hates peas. If I buy any type of pre-packaged dinner and there are peas in it, he will eat around them and I will find a small pile of peas left on his plate.

But my son mentioned he liked snap peas and I was thinking of him when I picked them. I will drop them off as his apartment later today -- after my hair dries.

Mom never grew peas in her garden. I'm never quite certain why. In fact, I can think of a handful of vegetables that she grew -- tomatoes, cucumbers, butter beans, corn and maybe a few peppers. I'm not certain why that was the extent of her garden, but it was.  She told me once about how her mother used to grow eggplant in their market garden. She said grandma wasn't certain what to do with the eggplant, but every night before they took their vegetables to the market,  Grandma would polish them with a rag until they were quite shinny.

I have been told that when my parents first moved to Hamilton they had a garden in the corner of the muck where our neighbor grew celery. I think I may remember bits of it, but I can never be certain if my memories from that young an age are real, or just things I think I remember because I've heard the stories. At any rate, when our neighbor stopped farming Mom didn't move her vegetable garden to our backyard right away.

She told me Grandpa told her she should have a garden but she insisted the ground was not conducive for growing anything. I remember her telling me Grandpa said with all the horse manure we accumulated anything she planted would grow. Grandpa was right. Mom eventually did plant a garden in a corner of one of our pastures and her garden flourished. Years later she told me she regretted not planting a garden while Grandpa was alive. I think we all have those kind of regrets.

In all their homes since moving from Hamilton, Mom never again grew vegetables, but she would spend hours and hours in her yard, planting flowers, making shade gardens, moving bird baths, and trying different varieties of flowers. I would always supply her with the horse manure to make things grow. It became a standing joke ... she could count on me to bring her a large load of horse sh-- for Mother's Day. And she would oohhh and ahhh over it much the same as she did with the macaroni necklaces we made for her as kids.

In the few years before Mom went to live in a nursing home, she spent many hours with me in our gardens. And we have huge gardens. After  King retired as a school administrator I answered an ad in an alternative newspaper to be caretakers on a hobby farm. The gentleman who owns the farm lives in the city and comes to Michigan on weekends. We take care of his yard and gardens during the week in exchange for a free caretaker's home and free utilities. It's a lot of work -- especially since I still work full-time -- but it is something we can check off our bucket list. We've never been exactly mainstream.

With as many gardens as we tend, the weeding is endless. When Mom was with us I would bring lemonade and a big beach umbrella to the gardens and try to get her to sit in the shade and watch me work. Within minutes she would be along side me pulling weeds. At the time Mom was pushing 90. I did not want to have to write an obituary saying she died weeding her daughter's garden. . . although in hindsight it might have been better than her wasting away in a nursing home.

In the backyard of the tiny caretakers cottage where we live I've created a memory garden for our parents. I am definitely my mother's daughter. I've made a shade garden, I've moved bird baths, I try different varieties of flowers. I think Mom would be pleased.

Happy Father's Day

Dad, Patricia and
our granddaughter, Hailey

The other day while cleaning out a drawer I came across a photo of our daughter in uniform standing with my Dad. I actually remember the day quite well.

She was home on leave from being stationed in La Maddalena, Italy. Weeks before she came home Dad asked if she would bring her uniform with her and wear it to church on Sunday. I know how very  much she didn't want to do it, but she did. Sitting next to her in church was probably one of the proudest days of Dad's life and I am proud of a daughter who would do that for her grandfather.

Those from my hometown who knew Dad are probably not aware what a soft-touch he was.  Some may remember the business man who ran a dog food factory. Others may remember the man who danced with all the girls when he and Mom chaperoned after-prom dances. (For the uninformed, during the 1960s and early 1970s dancing was a sin in Hamilton so there were no school-sanctioned dances after proms. Mom, Dad and a few other parents would rent a hall at a different location and chaperone dances). I am sure there are many boys who remember Dad as a terrifying figure who sat in his chair and could grill a young man about his intentions without saying a word.

I remember a Dad who cried when he said goodbye to me at the airport when, at the age of 16, I left for a summer in Finland as an exchange student. I remember that same Dad who, years later,  stood by the window at a hospital nursery and cried tears of joy when our first son was born.

I remember a Dad who would have grounded me for life had I even looked crosswise at a cigarette, but would sneak behind the garage with my sons and smoke with them. "Don't tell anyone. Willy thinks I quit," he would say to them. I remember the guilty look I got when I came around the corner and found them all huddled together, a thick blue cloud of smoke surrounding them. "They made me do it," he said.


I remember a Dad who would stand on the church steps after a Sunday service and announce to the world it was "time for a Hokey Pokey" and then would pile all the grandchildren into his convertible and take them out for a "Hokey Pokey" sundae at Sherman's in South Haven. Mom warning him the entire time, "Donald they haven't had lunch yet."

I miss my Dad. He was probably one of the scariest/kindest men I know. He could have my sisters and I jumping through hoops just by clearing his throat. I don't think he ever raised his voice at us. He didn't have to. One look from him and we knew we had to toe the line or else . . . what that "or else" was I'll never know because we never had to find out. And truthfully, Dad never had to say it. There were never threats.

Were we perfect children? Oh Heavens no. But there was little we could get away with as Dad was fairly well-versed in the ways of misbehavior. Dad missed most of his junior year of high school. Apparently he hung out with friends at a gas station. The next school year he had to have lunch every day with his old-maid aunts.When he would recount the story to us he made it seem as though having  lunch with his aunts was a fun thing. I am quite certain it was not.

So on this Father's Day afternoon I pay tribute to my father. Miss you Dad. But I will always remember the good times you created for us.

What would Mom have done?

We have an ongoing family disaster at our home. It's volatile, heartbreaking and difficult to know what to do. It involves one of our children and his new family. Suffice it to say blended families are seldom Brady Bunch-esque.

After yet another blow-up at our home, which I did not handle very well  I'm left feeling frustrated, guilty and sad. I can't help but wonder how my mother would have handled it.

Mom was the epitome of class. I don't believe she ever engaged in gossip. I don't believe she ever jumped on a bandwagon for a cause she didn't support one hundred percent.

When the high school in Hamilton was new and a group of parents banded together to "get ride of" an individual, the group was rather deflated when mom refused to join.

At the time I had no idea what was going on, but Mom -- when relating the story to me years later -- said she told the person who called her she would not join their "lynch mob." I was surprised at her words. I would have thought Mom would have found a more diplomatic way to say no. But there are times when brutal honesty is probably best. So I asked Mom, "What happened next."

"Nothing, I guess," Mom said. "I think I kind of took the wind out of their sails."

How cool is that?

I'm not certain how Mom would have handled this situation. But I kind of have a sense that even if she were still with us and in a normal state of mind, she would not get involved. I honestly believe she would tell me to step back and stop trying to fix things.

I have this uncontrollable need to make things better. To fix it. And I can't. I would give anything to have Mom give me instructions from the great beyond and tell me how to handle it. But I guess in a way she has. That still small voice is telling me . . . Let it go.

Never say never

Never say never again, is a James Bond film. The title is a references to Sean Connery's declaration that he would never again portray the character James Bond in a film. . . . I'm still not certain what more I can say about Mom and her dementia, but quite a number of people have asked me to continue with my blog. I'll start it and see where it leads. But as with all things in life there are no guarantees.

It's been a month now since Mom passed away.

I suppose we all grieve in our own way.

My sisters and I continue to meet for breakfast on Saturday. The first meeting was the day before Mother's Day.We agreed Mother's Day didn't hold any special significance in Mom's passing. We all have families of our own and had started our own Mother's Day traditions. Although we always had included Mom, for the past several years she hadn't known what Mother's Day was.Or Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. Or her birthday.

Our Saturday morning breakfast outings will probably continue for sometime. Much like Mom and her sisters would meet once a month for some type of  "sisters day out," my sisters and I will continue to forge sibling bonds that  had weakened while we raised families, attended soccer games and horse shows, held jobs and worked at being responsible adults. Time now to return to our roots as it were.

I miss my mother. But I've been missing her for years. The woman we visited regularly in the nursing home was not our mother. And we often ask one another, "What would Mom have really wanted?" There is no way of ever knowing. Oh, we know a nursing home was one of Mom's biggest fears. But none of us -- including her -- could have ever imagined she would have become the woman sitting in a wheelchair, wearing a diaper, not knowing who we were.

Mom had started showing signs of dementia long before Dad passed away. We chalked it up to her lack of hearing. I think in the beginning Mom -- in an effort to hide her problem from us -- would let us believe it was a lack of hearing that was causing confusion. But after a trip to Florida one spring Mom and Dad came home and Mom could no longer balance her checkbook. It had been a task that Mom had taken very seriously and their finances were accounted for right down to the last penny. (I, on the other hand, will check my balance with the bank and figure they are more right than I am and call it good).

There were plenty of other signs to which we turned a blind eye. Dad knew. And Dad was scared and concerned.

After returning from Florida Dad insisted they both go in to the doctor for physicals. Mom had had several debilitating panic attacks while in Florida. She had had several at home prior to their trip as well. Dad was adamant we find out what was wrong with Mom. So I told Dad I would take them to the doctor and go into the examination room with Mom, freeing him to talk to the doctor alone.

Dad, being of the generation he is, never told the doctor his concerns. He assumed the doctor would be able to tell what was wrong with Mom simply by looking at her.

A shame? Possibly. But truth be told there is little to nothing that can be done to stop the progression of dementia. It can be slowed, but the ultimate end is you end up in a nursing home in a wheelchair wearing a diaper.

So yes, I miss my mother. I miss her warm smile. I miss her understanding ways. I miss her sarcasm. I miss her hugs. But I've been missing them for years. So when you tell me what I'm feeling is the "normal grieving process," (and please, you have no idea how aggravating that phrase is) I guess you might be right. But it's been a long, long process.