quiltersmuse.com Blog

My mother when she was 21.

At 12:19 a.m., I cannot get to sleep. I am thinking about my mother. Most of the time now, I do not think of her. With the holidays fast approaching, there is a lot to remember. Tonight I am considering the phenomena of love and loss. If one never loves, then there is nothing to lose. I lost my mother long before she actually departed this mortal life. In fact, I can tell you about the exact night that I felt that reality.

Mom had been experiencing a period of declining health. She was living alone, by her own choice, although we had tried to help her to relocate into a more sensible living situation than an 89 acre farm and a hard-to-maintain rambling farmhouse. Little did we know that she had spent all of her assets, save $16.00 in her checking account. She owed back taxes and had accumulated massive credit card debts to buy groceries and other basic necessities. She was always so private about her finances, we had no inkling that she had fallen on such dire times.

She did not know what to do. I received a call at 4:30 a.m. one morning. Even that was too early an hour to be called for substitute teaching. I knew something was up. The medics told me that my mother had experienced a cardiac infarction and that they would be transporting her by ambulance to the nearest hospital. As it turned out, she had bleeding ulcers, too. In the hospital, she started acting a little strange. The doctors determined that she had a urinary tract infection. That, in the elderly, can bring on symptoms of dementia.

They treated the UTI and her mental outlook did seem to improve. She was sent to a nursing home but there, she continued to act up. She was well enough to be unreasonable, demanding, and accusatory of poor care. I took her home with me. She started acting a little crazy here, and really had me concerned the day that she locked herself in the bathroom for hours. When she finally emerged, we found that she had been lighting matches and throwing them on the (wood) floor, a major fire hazard in this old house.

Bumblebee on Rhododendron. We seek the beauty in life, especially when all else fails.

She had a doctor appointment that afternoon. I helped her to get ready for that, and once there, she could not understand that she needed to keep some of her clothes on. The doctor found her to be unmanageable and refused to see her, as she could not follow instructions and was very agitated. We were told her to bring her to the emergency room and again, it was determined that a urinary tract infection was the source of her behavioral problem. After that, we brought her home again.

By nightfall, I was a nervous wreck. She would not settle down, and as we sat on the couch together, alone in the dark, I started to cry. She had no inkling why. I did. At that very moment, it hit me that I had totally lost her, and that she had irretrievably lost her mind.

There was no way she could remain in my home. The guest room was on the second floor and with her osteoporosis, she found it very difficult to climb stairs. Our bathtub was impossible for her to use as we do not have a shower in this antique home. Most of all, the responsibility was overwhelming.

So, unfortunately, she was in and out of a number of nursing homes. In one of them, there were also male patients on her unit, and when she would not keep a stitch of clothing on, I was told that she was going to be transferred to a gero-psych unit at a hospital across the state.

Barely was she admitted when a doctor went into her room and asked her to go with him to another (examination) area. Alarmed and frightened, she pulled away from him, and in so doing, she landed on her head and as a result, suffered friction burns from the carpet. When I saw her next, she had bruises all over her face and a black eye. To save her life, she had been whisked away to the emergency room in Hanover, NH. I was told that she  suffered bleeding inside her brain and that the diagnosis was now Vascular Dementia.

She lived for quite awhile after that scare. I had the responsibility of selling the farm, and with the proceeds of that transaction, she was able to have a nice room in a special home for dementia patients. That initial room overlooked a flower garden and had its own bathroom. When her money ran out, and she had to go on state aid, she was put in with a series of roommates but she could not get along with anyone.

Eventually, she was placed in a room in which there was no window and that really bothered her. The room was located down a hall where no one went, except at meal time. She was having difficulty getting to the bathroom, trying to navigate, first with a walker, and then, with a wheelchair. She became more and more depressed and despondent, and very agitated when she saw us. Somehow, it seemed that she was resentful that we could not take care of her at our home. She had another heart attack in 2005 and she passed away.

I am finally getting to the point where I can recall some of the humorous things she did and said. I am finally reaching a time when I can remember her good qualities and the days when she did not have so many medical issues. If any of you have a parent or loved one with mental illness, it may be helpful to concentrate on how that person was, in better days. In the long run, the good times are what you will choose to remember most often.

My mother was always a difficult person. Even though we all loved her, she found that love difficult to accept or to acknowledge. I am amazed when I see photos of her as a child and as a lovely young woman. She looked so sweet. She was a lot sweeter, I think, when my Dad was alive. She became embittered at losing him at such a relatively young age (63).

I like to think of the times when my parents kidded around, and when my Dad would sing love songs to my mother. I enjoy remembering the fun they had on trips they would take. They enjoyed simple things, like camping, and especially liked it when their (first born) grandchildren could join them. I recall my mother baking pies and cakes and Stollen, an Austrian sweetbread.

I feel nostalgic when I call to mind the mental image of her picking up autumn leaves to press between sheets of wax paper. She would dry them by placing them in her huge dictionary that she used for helping to solve crossword puzzle. Then, she’d mail the leaves to distant relatives who had moved out of New England.

Any holiday would be a time to really celebrate! She would send cards, buy gifts, cook special meals, and otherwise see that everyone enjoyed the day as much as she. There was a lot to like about my mother. Being a daughter, naturally, there was also a lot to dislike. In the end, I guess we have to do ourselves a favor and try to remember the good times more often than the conflicts. Yet, the bad times have their own lessons to teach.

I shall again miss both of my parents, as well as other family members who can no longer sit at the dinner table to share a holiday meal. We can only hope that they have found their eternal rest and a “peace that surpasseth all understanding.”

Time eases all things. Sophocles

Patricia Cummings

I once heard about a man in a large city who made a daily habit of reading the obituary column. Each day, he would dress up in his finest clothes and attend as many funeral services as he could. Usually, he would seek older people to honor with his presence. Most often, that would mean that others in attendance were so few, they would be swallowed up by the enormity of a huge cathedral or church.

The services were usually short. After all, old Uncle Willy had outlived most of humankind who had known him, or he had been such a recluse for the last 35 years that those gathered were more interested in the size of any potential endowment than in wishing him well on his last journey. The same situation would stand for old Aunt Matilda. She was always a little “dotty,” at best, but her behavior had become so bizarre in recent years, the relatives really avoided her. Still they hoped against hope that she had remembered them in her will.

The man who visited church services was there on a mission. He would wander into the building a few minutes late, and creep into a back pew, waiting for just the right moment to spring into action. He had a deep voice, one that would resonate throughout the cavernous interior, echoing better than an opera singer whose voice has been magnified.

When the service was complete, he would leap to his feet. He would begin to speak, slowly at first, and then with more conviction. He would point out that he had been a dear friend of the deceased. He would recount the person’s finer attributes, and say that everyone in attendance should be aware of the marvelous and wonderful, if not astounding accomplishments that the person had kept hidden.

He would emphatically state that the kind soul had founded an orphanage, had purchased Christmas toys for the “needy,” or would impart whatever other tall tale came to mind.

By the time he finished speaking, those listening would be in complete awe of the feats of their deceased acquaintance or loved one, and then the man would simply rush out of the church. He had no need to hobnob with those left behind to grieve or not grieve! He had gone out of his way to validate someone’s life by ascribing to them more success than they ever accomplished in life. In so doing, he had performed a worthy task. Doing these daily acts became his reason to live.

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There are some inherent lessons to be learned from the story. First of all, even though the back pew visitor was, in essence, fabricating stories, he was doing so for a noble purpose. He felt justified in his quixotic quest to attribute significance to every life, especially those forgotten, abandoned souls.

Perhaps the true message of the story is that we should honor people while they are still present. We should seek to know about the loves, the wishes, and the successes of our loved ones, instead of waiting for someone else to tell us about their triumphs, real or imagined, after the person is no longer present.

To me, it seems that the man who constantly showed up was doing so out of love. The end result is that the person who had died was elevated in the minds of the funerals attendees by the man’s faux esteem for the deceased party. Too bad that the timing of the accolades is that they occurred only on the last day of the person’s earthly presence.

Now, dear reader, I will leave you with a question. Did the end justify the means?

Patricia Cummings

Though the details and the retelling of this story are my own, the original story, either real or imagined, is one that I read or heard, some time ago. Unfortunately, I have no recollection as to who set forth the story line. If I knew, I would certainly provide more information. Anyone is free to contact me at pat@quiltersmuse.com, if said source is known. Thanks.