Motherless daughters

A young woman who I hold very, very dear is grieving today. She’s traveling a landscape that I know very well: being a motherless daughter.

My friend’s mother was in good health; her death was accidental. It has cast her family, which was already in the midst of a contentious divorce, into confusion and uncertainty. My friend, young as she is–young as my own daughters–is the oldest of three siblings. She must be strong for her brothers as well as for herself.

Her relationship with her mother was complicated, and now there is much left unresolved. This is the part of loss that is surprising the first time one experiences it, but becomes very familiar: discovering that there is not, in fact, a lifetime in which to work out the complexities of our relationships. All too often there is much less time than we had assumed.

These days, my own siblings and I are figuring out what to do with a few of the things my Dad left us: his coin collection, his memorabilia from world war II, and some jewelry from our mom. A few days ago my sister told me that I should keep my mom’s ring, telling me that she and my brother wanted me to have it since “we had Mom longer than you did.” None of us had Mom long enough, though; my brother and sister were still teenagers when Mom’s accident happened, and I was only eight years old. Still, they remember who she truly was. And I have the ring, which I sometimes slip on my finger in hopes that it somehow contains a bit of the energy of Mom’s original self.

Years ago I asked a friend what it felt like to be “mothered.” She told me, “Having a mother is like having a place inside that is always safe.” Motherless daughters must create that space themselves, and that has been my own work for many years.

Doing this work can seem very complicated. I have spent much thought and imagination trying to reconstruct my mother, scrutinizing photographs of her, asking people who remember her what she was like, and speculating on what kind of relationship she and I would have had, if only she had remained herself.

But this work can also be very simple. Creating a place, inside, where it is always safe. Realizing that I contain a bit of the energy of Mom’s original self; energy that she invested in me, her daughter.

If there is one thing I would like to give my friend in her grief, it is the confidence that she is strong enough to create that safe place for herself.

Sweater

This is a post about fashion. Now, my friends and family know that I don’t pay that much attention to fashion. The only things I ask of clothes is that they be comfortable and not make me look ridiculous. If an item of clothing comes in my favorite color, which is somewhere in the territory between blue and green, it gets extra credit.

For my birthday last November my husband gave me a sweater and a blouse. The blouse is great; it’s the sweater I wish to address here.

The sweater is a loosely woven wool that makes me itch. Actually, all wool makes me itch. It also makes me break out in a rash. This often happens even if I wear something under it. Just being within five feet of particularly itchy sweaters makes me break out.

This allergy should not be news to my husband. We have known each other for thirty years. But he shopped at Anthropologie and apparently fell under some sort of spell that makes him forget all my clothing preferences and buy the kind of things they sell at Anthropologie. (I think he shops there because my daughters like the place.)

But the sweater is pretty and blue-green in color. I admire the hand-knittedness of it, too. So I unwisely removed the tags and decided that probably I could tolerate it if I bought a cotton turtleneck to wear under it. I returned to Anthropologie and bought not one but two cotton turtlenecks to wear underneath a sweater that makes me break out in a rash, thus turning one Anthropologie purchase into three.

Did I mention that turtlenecks make me feel claustrophobic?

The thing is, I still can’t wear the sweater. I have tried, but even with a turtleneck underneath, it itches. In fact, my nose, which is several inches away, itches when I try to wear the sweater.

Itching, feeling claustrophobic, fighting the urge to sneeze; no, I can’t go through the day like that.

There’s another thing. Remember upstream where I mentioned the criterion that clothing not make me look ridiculous? Well, this sweater, despite the prettiness of its color and its admirable hand-knittedness, has a cowlneck. Not just any cowlneck, either; it has the biggest cowlneck I’ve ever seen. The neck, in fact, is bigger than the entire rest of the sweater, including the sleeves.

A cowlneck, for people like my husband who don’t have the first idea about such things (as if I do), resembles a large droopy turtleneck and looks like someone grafted a tube-shaped shawl or long scarf onto the top of the sweater. Cowlnecks only look good on women who are at least eight or nine feet tall. I am just on the upper edge of petite, so on me a cowlneck looks like I’m playing dressup in a grown-up lady’s clothing.

So I am going to try to return the sweater, even though I received it two months ago and have lost the tags. I don’t know if Anthropologie will take it back. I’d be happy to exchange it for something else, like a tablecloth or a set of goblets. It’s not that I want the money. (I’ll even keep the two turtlenecks, so Anthropologie still comes out way ahead.) No, it’s just that I hate waste. I don’t want to shove the sweater into the back of the closet where all the other wool sweaters given to me over the years are languishing, unworn. I want someone to wear, enjoy, and even love the blue-green cowlneck sweater.

Surely somewhere there is an eight-foot-tall non-allergic unclaustrophic woman who can wear this sweater without looking ridiculous. The sweater deserves a good home.

The Littlest Pumpkin

I’ll be blunt. I dislike autumn, pumpkins, Halloween, cold weather, and the winter holidays. To me, the opportunity to eat turkey and put up a Christmas tree do not in any way compensate for having to put away my sandals.

So when pumpkins appear at the produce stands in September I feel dejected and morose. My dear friend Lila, who celebrates Halloween and actually decorates her yard for the occasion, understands this about me. So a couple of months ago she presented me with a tiny pumpkin from her garden, saying “I thought we’d start small this year.”

I placed the pumpkin on the counter above my stove, and tried to feel a sense of appreciation and love for it. I’m not going to go so far as to say that a miraculous conversion has taken place, but I was just a bit more comfortable with the holiday season this year. I had time on my hands; Apple closed down for a week, so I had another week off from work. I treated myself to fires in the fireplace whenever I felt like it, and went out with Lila to our favorite Indian restaurant several times. And I spent much time ruminating over holidays past.

When I was very small, each Christmas my parents would load my brother, sister, and me into our Ford station wagon and drive from our southern Ohio hometown of Waverly up to my grandmother’s house in Metamora. Mom made a play area for me in the “way back” — no seat belts or child restraints in those days — and I’d play and sing to myself. I don’t know what my brother and sister did in the back seat. Tried to stab each other with forks smuggled from the kitchen, probably.

Memories of Christmas at my grandmother’s house are like a slideshow running in my head. Here’s my dad and my three uncles, exchanging foil-wrapped bottles of whiskey, hamming it up for the home movies. Here’s Mom baking pies (her specialty) in Nana’s kitchen. There’s my sister and me and our three girl cousins, dressed in matching aprons and baking mits made by my mom. And there’s my sister’s dream doll, decked out in a wedding gown designed and sewn by my mom. My, how my sister loved that doll. I removed its hair later in the day, when everyone else was in the dining room.

I can’t help it if these memories seem like something out of the 1950s, because it was the 50s and we were innocent. Well, we were innocent except for the doll hair incident. And I swear, I was just trying to brush and style.

The family singularity, the automobile accident that caused my mom’s brain injury, occurred on December 29th in 1961. That year marks the end of halcyon 50s-style holidays. The slideshow presents darker material. Here are the take-out containers of the “Marriott Hot Shoppes complete turkey dinner,” representing Dad’s thinking that a turkey and cranberries would give us a sense of normalcy. There’s the locked bathroom door; Mom barricaded inside, screaming, sobbing because she knew she was no longer capable of sewing or baking pies. And there’s me, hiding in my room, terrified of my mother’s accident-fueled moods.

It’s hard for a tiny pumpkin, even one from my darling Lila’s garden, to combat that slideshow.

But in the three months that it stood guard on my kitchen counter, till I finally had to discard it because pumpkins, like childhood, don’t last forever, that little gift from Lila must have worked some magic. These days, I’m able to ruminate in peace. I’m not feeling regret and guilt that the good days sped by so quickly. The sad memories don’t seem to hold the same emotional charge.

Maybe the good memories have achieved some sort of critical mass, and now outweigh the bad. My siblings and I created a new tradition of gathering with our children at my brother’s place in Texas every other year. My daughters’ Christmas memories are Texas-infused, and there’s no accident; no singularity. These days all the kids are grown, and we don’t go to Texas anymore, but we do get together with the family of a beautiful friend who knows to give me a tiny pumpkin.

Winter’s not so bad after all. I think I’m going to make it through to sandal weather.

What an excellent November!

First of all, the flying monkeys worked. Enough people decided vote for someone other than the party of wealthy oilmongers and godbags. I’m not crazy enough to believe that the Bush-fed crisis is over, but as I watched the election results flow in, I felt something unfamiliar: hope. It’s just a glimmer, but it has potential.

Second — and I know this doesn’t have quite the global effect of a U.S. election — our Thanksgiving dinner turned out well. I feel good about this because of a little incident from a couple Thanksgivings ago that involved a backed-up sink, a plumber, a refrigerator that went AOL at the worst possible time, and a trip to the urgent care clinic. I’ll tell all about it another time. This year was peaceful. We brined the turkey. We made good gravy. We ate pie (my cousin made the best apple cranberry pie we’ve ever had, and it’s all gone, sorry) and we relaxed. We raised our glasses to toast Steve Jobs, who gave me (and all Apple employees) the entire week off, contributing in no small part to my ability to actually pull off a successful Thanksgiving dinner.

Third, I am a year older, and still kicking.

The only thing I didn’t like about November this year is my dear aunt couldn’t visit. She was recovering from eye surgery. Preparing for holiday festivities without the family matriarch is not easy. For one thing, she’s a trained nurse and stays calm in emergencies. We had to consult with her at one point to ask if covering the turkey with strips of bacon could substitute for basting it (it could not). Fortunately, she kept her cell phone handy.

What wonderful times we live in, when family matriarchs can be reached by cell phone! It makes me wonder what will come next. Perhaps an overthrow of the patriarchy and an end to the dominator model of human organization?

Please, allow me my dreams.

It's election time — bring on the flying monkeys!

I wonder how many of us hold, deep inside, a terrible fear of flying monkeys. I blame the annual ritual of watching the televised version of the Wizard of Oz.

There was something particularly horrifying about those flying monkeys. As a child I judged them to be the scariest thing I had ever beheld. They inhabited my nightmares. It wasn’t just that they bore a malevolent, wicked grimace on their nasty-looking faces; I was terrified by the way they moved. My fear of them was very specific: I hated that little bounce-leap movement they made just before becoming airborn. And those wings! The way they flapped was terrifying.

As much as I hated those flying monkeys, I adored the good witch. Ahhhh, Glinda. She was so lovely in her sparkling dress and long wavy hair. When she spoke in her melodic tones, I swooned. I fell hard for Glinda; she was my first crush. Never mind that she was a fictional character. At seven years old I didn’t know, or care, about such details.

Recently my sister-in-law, who has a quirky sense of humor, told me that she has a sign in her house that reads, “Don’t make me call the flying monkeys!” I need to have a sign like that. The sentiment is a perfect way for me to communicate, “You have pushed me too far. Shape up or I will bring down on your head the most terrible creatures I can imagine.” The very idea that, now that I’m grown up, I could actually control and direct those flying monkeys fills me with a sense of empowerment.

So watch out, all homophobic, misogynistic, patriarchal power mongers. You have pushed me too far. I’ve got flying monkeys, and I’m not afraid to use them.
 

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Progress!

A few months back I posted a list of things I want to do, and one of them was to finish this sampler. It’s a pretty daunting task — lots of tiny stitches on linen. But as you can see, I’m actually making progress!

Someday I’ll even give Santa a face.

Last Looks

In my mind I rehearsed many times what I would need to do after Dad’s death. He wanted to return to Ohio, to be buried next to Mom in a cemetery on the outskirts of the tiny town of Metamora. Metamora is in the far north of Ohio, on the Michigan border.

But the mortuary Dad had chosen to handle the arrangements is in Waverly, in southern Ohio near the border with Kentucky. Waverly is the small town where Dad and Mom established their home in 1953 — perhaps the only place Dad could work as a nuclear engineer at a gaseous diffusion plant and own a small farm.

I had to get Dad’s body to Columbus by air, and then arrange transportation to Waverly, and finally from Waverly to Metamora.

Characteristically, Dad had set up a savings account to use for these expenses, with me as a cosigner. I contacted a mortuary near my home in California, and gave them the name of the mortuary in Ohio. Mortuaries, by the way, are very good at customer service. Within less than a day, the plans were made. One funeral home would get him to the Columbus airport, and the other would take over from there.

Waverly is a small town. My siblings and I grew up there, in a ranch-style home my dad built on a hilltop two miles outside of town. Fifty-two years ago my folks bought that hilltop from Mike Fleser, the farmer who owned the surrounding acreage. When Mom died three years ago, Dad sold the house and land back to Mike’s son Carl and daughter-in-law Peg.

Dad’s body was taken to Boyer’s Funeral Home, which is run by Dave Boyer, the man who once drove the ambulance that bore Mom to the hospital after her accident. Dave also drove the hearse that more recently took Mom back to Metamora. We were about to follow that road once last time, for Dad.

But first we had to take a few last looks. For one last time, my brother, sister, and I gathered with our spouses and children for dinner at the Lake White Club, where my family had had fancy Sunday dinners and observed special occasions for as far back as I can remember. That night we all checked in, one last time, to the only hotel in Waverly (which, it happens, is owned by an old classmate of mine).

The next morning we had a service at Boyer’s, and then formed a caravan to head for Metamora.

We headed out of town by way of the house Dad built back in 1953. We wanted to take Dad past his house once last time. Wayne and I reached the top of the hill in our rental car, and slowed down. I gazed at the house for a moment.

All times are one time.

In my mind’s eye I could see Dad and Mike Fleser standing on that hill looking over the land and agreeing on a price. I could see Dad showing Mom where the house would be.

I could see the house looking brand new: new bright yellow kitchen counters, new hardwood floors, new plumbing.

I could see us piling into the station wagon to go to my grandmother’s house, returning to be greeted by our wildly enthusiastic beagles.

I could see my brother walking and then carrying me across the backyard the evening he told me, “Mom’s been in an accident.” And those terrible days after she came home, frighteningly transformed, from her long hospital stay.

I could see my own children years later, playing in that yard with their cousins, riding the tractor around for hours.

And I could see us dismantling the place just three years ago, packing up fifty years’ worth of stuff, and moving my Dad to California.

Now he’s home again.

——————–

“What I have learned from my life, through travel and vegetables, through love and heartache, through books and people, can be summed up in two words from the philosopher Heraclitis: all flows.


Nothing lasts, nothing is permanent. Your joy is transient, your anguish is transient, your home is transient, your dreams, your ecstasy, your happiness transient — Everything is flowing through your hands at the moment you are aware of it.”

Terence McKenna

Thanks for the Blue Eyes, Dad

Dad spent his last evening having dinner with my younger daughter — his youngest grandchild. She prepared dinner and helped him to the table; they had Polish sausage, which was always one of his favorite meals. Forbidden, too, since he was on a low-sodium diet. Naomi says Dad ate well and was in a good mood.

He left us the next day, on a peaceful afternoon. His heart stopped while he was resting in his chair.

I prefer to believe that Dad was not conscious of the chest pounding, the electric jolts, and the breathing tube. I think he was already on his way out when the emergency crew arrived at our home and tried to re-start his heart. Wayne had made it back to the house before me, but a policeman stationed in our front yard prevented him from going in. I wonder if it might, someday in an odd moment, occur to that officer that he kept a dying man from seeing the face of a loved one one last time.

At that moment I was mid-flight on Highway 280, thinking that this was the first and perhaps last time I would use the capabilities of my high-performance car. I drove directly to the hospital and met the ambulance as it arrived. Rows of parking spaces near the entrance were coned off — reserved for the eight-dollar valet parking. (Has anyone ever heard of valet parking at the emergency room? I had not.) A taciturn security guard directed me to a more distant lot, and I made for it, deciding it would take up too much time to interact with the valets. I ran uphill from that lot, in my sandals, my arthritic back — Dad’s legacy to me, along with our blue eyes — aching with every jolt.

Stanford Hospital’s emergency room requires a pass through a metal detector and a rummage through one’s purse by a guard who attempts humor by routinely asking, “have any grenades in there?” (He would never make it as an airport security guard.) Finally in, I requested to see my dad, only to be told to sit down, fill out some forms, and wait.

After a few minutes the charge nurse came over and explained that a team was working with my dad. She needed to know if he had any wishes regarding heroic measures, and I replied that he had nothing in writing but had told me (and Stanford, during earlier hospitalizations) that he did not want a breathing tube or resuscitation that continued for more than a few minutes. And then I said, “If this is it — if he is going to die, I want to be by his bedside, and I’d appreciate it if you’d arrange that right away.”

She looked startled and then said to wait; she’d be right back. In a moment she returned and led Wayne and me into the room where Dad’s team had just given up. His heart had failed again, and this time they couldn’t re-start it. They were standing around him, several of them looking devastated. I wanted to put my arms around one young woman who didn’t look much older than my daughters, and say “It’s okay, sweetie, you did all you could. Death is normal, and he was ready to go.”

The doctor introduced himself. I could hear the charge nurse explaining that I could hold Dad’s hand if I wanted, and stay with him. But I knew all that, and what I really wanted was for everyone to move aside and let me talk to him. They had said there was still a tiny bit of brain activity and I wanted to get close to his left ear — his good ear — and say “don’t be afraid, Dad.” That’s what I did, as the team removed equipment, withdrew, and pulled the curtain around to give us some privacy.

Later they took Dad’s body to a private room in the emergency unit. A chaplain escorted Wayne and me in to sit with Dad for a while. Wayne left after a moment and I stayed on, thinking about Dad and about how suddenly he left us. And thinking about what an odd culture we have created, where one sits vigil after a parent’s death in a room filled with stainless steel basins and various instruments and plastic tubing, with — incongruously — a happy, primary-color wallpaper border of balloons in flight. Perhaps that room is normally used for treating children.

In Dad’s recent hospitalization, during the long hours I spent simply sitting by his bed, one memory, far away in time but clear as a bell, kept returning to me. I must have been very young; perhaps five or six years old. I’d wait at the window for Dad’s return from work each day, and when he came in, we observed a two part ritual: First, he’d go through his pocket and give me all his pennies — sometimes I’d hold out for nickels and dimes, but he drew the line at quarters. Then Dad would stretch out on the rug, flat on his back, which though he was only in his forties was already aching with (I realize now) the arthritis that would plague him in his later years. And I would stretch out next to him. We’d both lie there gazing at the ceiling, not talking about much.

I once asked Dad if he remembered those days. “Yes,” he replied, “I surely do.” I hope he held that memory as dear as I do.

Hospital

When the phone rang at ten o’clock last night, at first I thought it was a prank call or a wrong number dialed by someone who didn’t speak English. But it was my Dad.

Dad’s in the hospital right now; he was checked in two weeks ago to treat the fluid accumulation that is one of the terrible symptoms of chronic congestive heart failure.

I’ve been spending every spare moment at the hospital, because it is obvious to me that patients whose family and friends are frequently present at bedside receive better care. At least, this is the case at Stanford University Hospital.

So the past two weeks have been quite a challenge. I started a new job at Apple Computer six days ago, and my husband is on a 10-day fishing trip so I’m on my own. I’ve been following this schedule:

6 AM: wake up, take care of domestic chores, feed the cats & dog
8:30 AM: arrive at the hospital, talk to the nurse, talk to the doctor, help Dad eat breakfast
10:30 AM: go to work; work straight through, no lunch break or business lunch break only
5:30 PM: back to hospital, help dad eat dinner
8:30 PM: home; walk dog, check in with daughter
10 PM: fall into bed, exhausted.

Next day: repeat

When the phone rang at 10 PM, I was half asleep, curled up on the sofa with my dachshund who was frantically licking my foot (he understands that a ringing phone needs to be answered, and a licked foot often wakes up its owner).

I learned later that a nursing aid had dialed my number, placed the phone in Dad’s hands, and left the room. Dad was crying.

“I can’t get to sleep! I don’t know what to do; I’m so thirsty…”

It took me about ten minutes to calm Dad — his hearing is so bad, it was hard for him to understand. I told him I was going to call the nurses’ station, and that I’d call him back.

The night nurse told me, in a rather truculent tone, “I’ve given him at least three cups of waters already!” She said she didn’t know who had helped Dad call me, or why that person didn’t just give Dad some juice.

And I asked her if she didn’t think that a patient who was still thirsty after three cups of water might respond to a little juice or maybe even some Pedialyte.

Well, maybe that would help.

I called Dad back and stayed on the phone with him until I was sure that someone had brought him some juice. And while we waited, I remembered an event from forty years back.

I was twelve years old, and I’d been hospitalized because for reasons never understood, I’d become unable to keep down any food or drink. I had to receive IV fluids. After three days, the doctors said it was time for me to try eating and drinking again, and the IV was removed. However, the hospital’s kitchen never got the message, and no meals were sent up. No one — except for me, of course — noticed. After about 24 hours, I called my dad.

“I’m so hungry! The doctor said I could have food but they haven’t brought me any!”

About fifteen minutes later I heard Dad coming — literally. He was at the nurses’ station, giving them a piece of his mind. Shortly after that I was given the best broth and jello I’d ever eaten; then a full meal. The next morning I was discharged.

I’m writing this from the atrium at Stanford Hospital. I’m going to go inside now, and make an appointment with the nursing supervisor.

Dad’s not a good patient. He complains. He is very demanding. But fair is fair. He had my back, and now I’ve got his.

My Brother’s House

Sometimes I believe that if I concentrate hard, stare into the middle distance and let my mind go cross-eyed, I can experience what I know to be true: that all times are one time, all events are happening simultaneously in an immense eternal instant, and the passage of time — the way we rush in the direction of increased entropy — is just an illusion.

So when I stand in the hallway outside the master bedroom in my brother’s house, it’s not a little crazy that I hear my sister-in-law and me laughing that it’s Christmas Eve and we’re still up, at 2:00 a.m., hiding in the bedroom and wrapping presents for our families. It’s not silly of me to think that if I turned and walked back to the kitchen I’d find my sister, brother, and husband sitting around the butcher block island drinking wine and hot chocolate, my brother-in-law telling a funny story, and all of us looking young and slim, not middle aged and a little tired.

My sanity is intact if I imagine that my little daughters are asleep upstairs, and their slightly older cousins are watching movies on the big screen TV, not getting married and having their own babies. Tomorrow we’ll eat sour cream apple coffee cake and open presents, my brother will receive a CD recording of “Hair,” and my daughters will dance a weird, neo-hippy-ish dance when he plays it on the stereo. They’ll be little, sweet, and charming, not grown and flying off to Switzerland and forgetting to email me for weeks on end.

It’s June. We’re at my brother’s house for our nephew’s wedding. The youngest of our kids is eighteen now. But I can’t take a step in my brother’s house without breathing in some sweet Christmas memory.