Moments and connections

This past weekend was a ‘moments’ weekend, where something I read or heard triggered memories of my parents and my childhood. At mass this morning, something the priest said must have unconsciously triggered a memory of my mother, and all of a sudden it was almost as though I could feel her standing in the aisle beside me. Going to mass together was one of the things we used to like to do when I visited her in Tarrytown during the 1990s. I remember sitting in the church with her, singing the hymns that she liked, and hearing her sniffle when something in the hymn touched a nerve that made her tear up. Now, fifteen years after her death, I cannot sing those hymns without the same thing happening to me because they remind me of her. Perhaps those hymns reminded her of her own mother. I thought of how tightly I am connected to my mother, that the bond between mother and child is so strong, stronger than death. That’s a comforting thought, not a sad one.

Later on, when I was standing in the kitchen cutting up a pumpkin to prepare puree, I remembered how much my mother loved the autumn, how much energy it gave her for new projects. I was feeling that way the entire weekend. Whenever I have worked in the garden, I have felt her presence as well, and that is no surprise since she loved planting her own garden in the spring. A small flower garden, but one she was very proud of and that looked so lovely each year. She planted morning glories at the base of the lampposts so that they would have a post to climb as they grew. She planted a trellis on the side of the apartment building we lived in, and grew red roses there. And she ordered her tulip bulbs from Holland each year from a catalog company I don’t remember the name of. Whenever I hear the birds in my own garden, I am reminded of my mother’s love of birds. She would watch them from our kitchen window as they gathered in the dogwood tree outside the window, and during the winter she made sure they had enough food.

I think of my father too, when I am sitting at the dinner table with my husband and we are discussing different world situations. It reminds me of all the times I sat with my father after dinner and discussed the state of the world with him. That was when I was growing up in the 1970s. In the 1980s, when I was working in Manhattan, I would sometimes meet him for lunch since he worked there as well, and we would wander over to St. Francis of Assisi church on West 31st Street. I seem to remember that the church had a bookstore/gift shop then, and we would purchase a book or two and look forward to discussing them after we had read them. I checked the church’s website but could not find any mention of the bookstore, so perhaps it no longer exists or perhaps my memory is faulty. My father and I bonded over books and faith, and they led to spiritual and intellectual discussions that buoyed me through my teenage years.  He was my link to the outside world and to the work world. He died over thirty years ago, a lifetime in so many respects. Yet that connection too remains strong.

Books are the portals that allow me to connect to my parents. I remember them individually and together. I was closest to my father when I was a teenager, and when he died, I grew very close to my mother. As a child, I remember them as a couple, sitting together in the evening reading their individual books. Before my father’s health diminished him, he would sometimes tease my mother or chase her around the dining room table. That vision sticks in my mind—that they had their happy moments in the middle of their trying times, mostly due to my father’s poor health. His health is what I remember most as I neared my twenties; I can see my mother walking with him after he had his first stroke, helping him cross the street to the church so he could attend mass with her. She never wavered in her care of him. She took care of her blind mother before she met my father, and then my father and us children after her marriage. It is her faith, loyalty and devotion that stand out in my mind to this day. She had the strength and courage to live her life the way she felt it should be lived. She found grace in the small things; she did not seek the limelight nor would she have been comfortable there. The older I get, when I think about who are the heroes in my life, they are my parents. Their lives were far from perfect, but their faith in God and in each other did not disappear. No matter what private doubts they may have had from time to time, they stayed true to each other and to us. That is all that matters in this life. Nothing else—not worldly glory or fame or money. What matters to me is that the connection to my parents remains strong even though they are no longer physically alive. But they are very much alive in my heart and soul.

Remembering my mother on her birthday

Had my mother still been alive, today would have been her 94th birthday. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2001. The cause of death was sepsis, which is not a very uncommon cause of death among elderly people for reasons that are not well-known. My mother had been in very good health until she neared her 78^th year; I can recall only two times in her entire adult life when she was hospitalized, once for a viral infection in her middle ear, and the other for an operation to remove an inflamed appendix. When she was in her late seventies, she began to have problems with her back. She was eventually diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the spine, again, not an unexpected diagnosis for many of the elderly. Having been a great walker for most of her life, my guess is that she looked ahead and did not like what she saw—a future with limited opportunities for walking, perhaps the use of a wheelchair and/or walker—in short, a more restricted life than the one to which she was accustomed. She was independent and stubborn; when she was hospitalized initially for medical tests, she was in good spirits and was sure she would be able to return to her old life. Sadly, that was not the case. She ended up at a care center so that she could undergo physical therapy to get her back on her feet again. For some reason, she became quite stubborn (more so than usual) and refused that help. And that refusal was her undoing. Had she worked at her physical therapy, she might still be alive today. All these many years later, I understand that she simply could not accept the idea that she would be dependent upon anyone or anything, and the idea that she was suddenly infirm did not appeal to her. My mother had no patience for being old, for the various small irritations and physical limitations of old age. She was vehement about not giving in to old age. What is surprising is that she did not understand her role in her own recovery, even when it was explained to her; had she taken the reins and insisted upon therapy, had she done what it took to get better, she might still be alive. But she had no personal experience with chronic or long-term illness, even though she had taken care of my father, who had debilitating heart disease, until his death. Taking care of him had not prepared her for suddenly being afflicted herself. Her two brief hospital stays must have convinced her to get out of the hospital and back home as fast as possible. I understand her at the same time that I question her actions during the last few months of her life. But I accept what happened even though I don’t understand completely what happened.

In the intervening years, there have been other illnesses and deaths--family members and friends alike—and I have had a chance to witness first-hand how these people tackled the illnesses that preceded their deaths. Illness does some surprising things to people. Some of them simply accepted their diagnoses and the accompanying conditions, others fought against them. Those who fought were mostly younger or middle-aged people. I also know older people who have done what it takes to get well, who were assertive about getting back on their feet again; interestingly, they are still with us. I've also known older people who did what they had to do to get well, but death took them anyway. Along the way, I've learned that you simply cannot know how you would think or feel if faced with a similar situation. And until you step into the shoes of a person who is ill (with a terminal diagnosis or long-term illness) you have no real idea of what they’re going through. It’s best to be there for them, to help out, to listen, to advise when asked for advice, to offer hope, to be positive, even if we don't always understand their situation or their response to it. Not much more is asked of us. 

My mother and her generation of women

Today, September 22nd, is my mother’s birthday. Had she still been alive, she would have been 93 years old today. I wish she had made it to that age. Sadly, she passed away in March 2001. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her. She lived her life her way and did things her way (like Frank Sinatra whom she liked a lot) and while that could be amazingly frustrating at times, I think it’s what kept her going through the hard times in her life. And there were a number of them, as in the lives of most people. She was not an aggressive or self-seeking person, nor a particularly talkative one. You had to pull personal information out of her about her formative years, her childhood, and even young adulthood. What I did learn from her is that her mother (my grandmother) went blind, probably in her late sixties/early seventies. My best guess is that her mother had glaucoma that was either too far gone when it was discovered, or that there were not very good treatments for glaucoma at that time (1940s). I actually searched online for an answer to the latter and found it here: http://www.brightfocus.org/questions-answers/what-was-the-primary.html. I never had the chance to meet my grandmother since she died before I was born. My mother put her own life on hold for a number of years to take care of her mother, including postponing her ambition to go to college. She had to work and she did so, probably supporting the two of them on her salary as an assistant librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. It was there that she met my father in the early 1950s, and they were married in 1955, a year after her mother died. Whenever my mother talked about her own mother, it was always in a kind way. I never heard my mother utter one unkind word about her mother or about having to take care of her. She did express regret at not being able to finish college; she started but then had to quit. Once married, she had three children and raising them became her life. And when my father became ill with cardiovascular disease, she took care of him too, without complaining about her lot in life. She just did it.

Her birthday today reminds me of all of the older women in my mother’s generation whom I’ve had the privilege and honor of knowing, and they are not few. Most of them are dead now (had they lived, most of them would be over 85 years old): the women in my childhood neighborhood; the mothers of my close friends; my aunts; some really wonderful teachers in grade school and high school; the women I got to know in the different jobs I’ve had through the years. They inspired me with their values, sense of responsibility, commitment, loyalty, and charitable behavior. They were women of faith, many of them. They credited their faith with getting them through the hard times. They also believed in the value of family. They had their imperfections and faults, but they tried to live up to their ideals. That’s all I could really ask of role models when I needed them. I only hope that I can be half as good as they were when it’s my turn to be a role model for young women starting out. I certainly don’t feel as though I’ve got it all together. But I do look to my faith to help me through the hard times. And I remember the supportive natures of most of the older women I’ve known. If I can hang onto my faith and be supportive of others when they need my support, I guess I’ll be alright. Plus I know I’ve got my mother in my corner, rooting for me.