Tag: family

family

Woodchucks

Sally5 Comments

(October 14, 2023 — This post was originally published in 2014. For whatever reason, I had made it private some years ago. Now it’s back.)

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks.”

I’ve been known to perform worm rescues when I see them squirming on the sidewalk.

I rather like cool days. (Cool, not cold.)

But woodchucks — yes. I’m thinking about declaring war on woodchucks.

Yesterday, Helen and I were talking in my parents’ kitchen when we both started looking around.

“Did you hear that?” Helen asked.

It sounded like someone was coming in through the side door. We heard it a couple more times, but could find no explanation for the noise. I shrugged it off as a quirk of a very old house.

Later, I was sitting on their sun porch and heard a different odd noise, like the furnace kicking on with a rattle of the metal air vents.  The heat yesterday was not from my father’s furnace, I knew that. After a few more clanks and rumbles, I decided to investigate.

I was halfway down the cellar stairs when a massive woodchuck, pretty much the King Kong of woodchucks, ran across the dirt floor at the bottom of the stairs and disappeared into the shadows.

Once my heart started beating again, I went back upstairs to find a flashlight. Crazy, I know, but I wondered where it could have gone. Suffice it to say that, upon further investigation and based on the noises I heard, there was more than one woodchuck in the basement.

“Dad, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” I told my father, and then informed him of the presence of woodchucks in the basement.

“I kind of want to see them,” he said, and went to the top of the cellar stairs. With the door open and the light on below, he stood and watched. Nothing happened. He began sorting through papers while he watched, got sidetracked, and left the door open.

I ran an errand in town and came back 15 minutes later to learn that the woodchuck was now in the living room. I kid you not.Aviary Photo_130487086496962973

He was hiding behind the woodstove.

It must have been Behemoth’s offspring. This version was considerably smaller.

Still. A woodchuck in the living room?!

With a little teamwork, we got him out from behind the woodstove, but then he raced behind the piano.

Aviary Photo_130487086712967775

We finally got him to scamper out the front door.

Still, I worry about the giant in the basement.

My brother says, “If he got in, he can get out.”

Yeah, but, what if he’s taking up residence there?

Thoreau’s stated enemies — worms, cool days, woodchucks — are in the context of growing beans. Still, I wonder what he would have said about a woodchuck in his house.

 

Stewart

Pieces of Stewart

Sally2 Comments

IMG_3634[1]The following is the text of what I said at my brother’s memorial service.

My siblings and I carry little pieces of Stewart in our hearts and in the way we live our lives. Each of us reflects Stewart in little ways. Today I want to mention some of the ways I see Stewart in my brothers and sister.

First, I want to say something to my mother and father. Dad, Mom, as I went through the papers from Stewart’s apartment, I saw something about you that I didn’t want to go unnoticed or unmentioned. Mixed in with all the other papers were notes from you – words of encouragement, spanning years and years of his life. Every step of the way, you were there for Stewart. In his times of accomplishment – when he graduated from Hamilton, Yale, and Syracuse – and Dad, I know you were especially proud that he passed the New York State bar on the first attempt – and when Stewart encountered difficulties, both of you were faithful and supportive. I don’t say it often enough, but thank you for all you have done and still do.

Donabeth – you and Stewart shared the secret language of Presbyterians. And it is a secret language. You Presbyterians say the word “Session” with a capital “S”. I can hear it when you say it. You and Stewart used words like synod and polity and stated clerk, and you knew what they all meant. The Book of Order, a Presbyterian thing for sure – you know, Stewart had at least 20 of them. And all that General Assembly stuff, you knew about it. I was clueless. Donabeth, the other thing you share with Stewart are the most memories. Being the two oldest, you had the most time together. Things like Stewart doing that dance before he pulled up the stump are memories I have only because of the movie Dad took – you probably remember that moment. Lucky you.

Peter – When Stewart passed away, the mantle of the oldest son passed to you, and you took it on admirably. You handled the phone calls and the arrangements and speaking at the Memorial Service in Pittsburgh so well. Thank you. When I think of the similarities between you and Stewart, I think of his sense of humor. It’s a sharp wit, an educated wit, that makes mathematical jokes or periodic table jokes. I also think of the way your minds both can see numbers as playthings. The tessellation art that you gave each of us for Christmas one year reminds me of that fractal thing Stewart had running on his computer in Jamesville. That was back in the days before everyone had computers. Stewart had a home computer and wrote computer code things back in the ’80s. Stewart also could take the complex and make it seem simple – something a teacher does, something you do, Peter, as you teach and tutor. It’s a gift – and a similarity to Stewart.

Jim – You and Stewart are the bookends. I have always appreciated the symmetry of our family – boy-girl-boy-girl-boy. Stewart was the oldest, and you were the youngest. When we were cleaning out Stewart’s apartment, I found a pile of neatly cut wood blocks in the closet, and they made me think of you. You’ve made some beautiful things out wood: shelves, frames, planters. Stewart was obviously planning his own wood project. It’s that ability to create something tangible, something beautiful, the ability to craft something – you shared that with Stewart. I’m only sorry that the wooden walking stick that Stewart made didn’t make its way back here to you, but all things are transient. We have to hold everything with open hands, even the memories, as Mom reminds us. But we can tell the stories and relive our times with Stewart. You’ve mentioned to me several times about your time spent with Stewart when he moved to Tarentum. What a gift for you to have had that one-on-one time with him! Precious memories of two bookends together.

Me? – Stewart and I shared a love of books. Mary has been going through the boxes of books at our house. “I just love the smell of books,” she said to me one day, because there is something special about that dry papery smell and the feel of old hard-bound books; a Kindle can’t replicate that. Stewart and I also shared a love of new notebooks. When I was a kid, one of my favorite places in all Cooperstown was the back room of Augur’s Bookstore, where the office supplies were hidden away. I loved to go look at the brand new notebooks, clean and unspoiled. There’s something about a new notebook that holds so much promise. As we cleaned out Stewart’s apartment after his death, we found, I daresay, over a hundred legal pads, composition books, steno pads and other notebooks, nearly all with only the first few pages written on. He was always looking for that fresh start – and I can relate to that.

In closing, I found Stewart’s little black notebook that he used for funerals. On one page was written the poem “Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye. I rewrote it for Stewart.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I’m a ride to the doctor, a helping hand.
I’m the good listener. I understand.

I’m the synod, the session, the stated clerk.
I’m the thing that is funny, the little quirk.
I am wit and pun, fractal, tessellation.
I am homemade chili on family vacation.

When you see and feel the beauty of wood,
Think of me then, and do something good.
I’m a partly used notebook, the words of a hymn.
I’m in Donabeth, Peter, Sally, and Jim.

So do not mourn that I’ve gone afar.
Once again I have passed the bar.

Stewart

Vultures (and a boxful of Buechner)

Sally9 Comments

I’ll admit that I felt a little vulture-ish, looking through my brother’s belongings, and, in the course of deciding where things should go, choosing a few things to keep for myself.

The good thing is that my family is really not about material possessions.

Q: What did one vulture say to the other vulture?

A: I’ve got a bone to pick with you.

That (^) never happened, not even once.

We sorted through piles and piles and piles of papers. We sorted through boxes and boxes of stuff. I know stuff is a terribly nondescript word, but it is so apropos that I feel okay about using it.

Stuff includes notepads (see previous post) and office supplies, playing cards, games, craft supplies, photographs, and books.

One collection of odds-and-ends I put together was party supplies: crepe paper, balloons, plastic eggs, strings of styrofoam skulls, strings of ceramic chili peppers, a giant plastic sombrero serving dish, and smaller Cinco de Mayo serving accessories.

Two vultures were eating a dead clown. One asked the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”

I found a tin full of little plastic doo-dads.  I showed them to one of his friends, and she laughed. “I’d like to keep that if I could,” she said. “Those were all cupcake toppers from celebrations.”

Stuff also included artwork, mugs, dishes, canned foods, toiletries, and books.

A vulture tried to board an airplane lugging two dead raccoons but was stopped by the stewardess. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but airline regulations only allow one carrion per passenger.”

My sister found two framed pieces of art that she really liked and was able to pack them in her suitcase.  She called me later to tell me that she just realized that she had probably given Stewart those pictures years ago. “No wonder I liked them so much,” she said, laughing.

Other stuff included old computers, monitors that no longer worked, flash drives, cameras, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, a Kindle, and books.

Did I mention that Stewart had books?

Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vulture?

A: A vulture has wings.

Quite honestly, Stewart was the antithesis of a vulture and a lawyer.  He did, however, have boxes and boxes of books. Several of them contained all his law books from when he was in law school. Is there a market for twenty year old law textbooks? I rather doubt it.

DSC00719It was in these boxes of books that I found my treasure, my keepsake from Stewart. I found a box full of Buechner. In fact, it held 15 books by Frederick Buechner, 6 books by Robert Farrar Capon, a Henri Nouwen book I didn’t own, and a book by Elie Wiesel. Jackpot.

Frederick Buechner is one of my new favorite authors. His thoughts are profound and full of grace. In fact, this quote of his, not about vultures, captures some of the most comforting words I have read since Stewart’s death.

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.”

When I look at this collection of Buechner on my bookshelf, I will remember my brother.

And I won’t feel like a vulture.

Stewart

A New Notepad

Sally5 Comments

It became a theme. A legal pad with only a few pages written upon.

When I found the first few of these on his kitchen table, I laughed and commented to his friend, “I can’t believe he only uses a few pages on each pad.”

“Welcome to my world,” she said with a smile.

As we dug deeper and deeper into the apartment — my brothers, my sister, my father all helping — it became abundantly clear that we had had a minimal understanding of Stewart’s struggles. Layered in with the notepads was a paper trail that told such a sad, sad story.

I daresay that each of us wept, though not collectively. Individually. Privately. Alone. As my family is wont to do. Hearts breaking, not just with the loss of a family member, but with the pain that we uncovered.

While over the years I was busy looking down my nose and saying things like, “I don’t understand why Stewart doesn’t just (fill in the blank),” Stewart was hitting yet another pothole on the bumpy road of his life. And I had no clue. I truly didn’t understand.

“I found a notepad if anyone needs one,” one of my brothers would call out occasionally.

DSC00693
the tip of the iceberg

We would laugh. There was no dearth of notebooks. He had legal pads – yellow and white, composition books, loose leaf paper and three ring binders, ring bound notebooks, blank journals, and paper, just plain white paper.

As I put together a timeline for Stewart’s life — the hidden part that I didn’t know — I began to see a theme. An attempt to put old things behind and start new, followed by a problem, followed by yet another attempt to start new.

This plethora of notepads was a metaphor for his life. A clean notebook. A fresh start. Followed by something I couldn’t always see that made him want to start again.

At the beginning of the weekend, I had driven to the Pittsburgh airport to pick up my sister. On my way, I had passed a man standing along a busy road where there was stop-and-go traffic. He held a battered cardboard sign that read something like, “HOMELESS. VETERAN. PLEASE HELP.” I had watched through my rearview mirror as someone handed him money out the window of their car. My cold hard heart felt nothing for him.

At the end of the weekend, after driving my sister back to the airport, I saw him again. I had no loose change to give him, but I wanted to ask him, “Do you have a sister? Does she live in a little town in a two-story house with her family? Does she know about your gritty exhaust-filled life here by the road?”

Stewart had never reached that point of standing by the road. But I never knew all the struggles he did have.

I wanted to roll down my window and hand that homeless guy a notepad.

Stewart

The Receiving Line

Sally5 Comments

One by one they took my hand.

“I’m Sally, Stewart’s sister,” I would say.  Then they would tell me their name and how they knew Stewart.

From the food bank. “I volunteered with Stewart at the food bank. We could always count on him.”

From Habitat for Humanity. “Stewart took the minutes for our meetings. They were always precise and thorough.”

From the church in Tarentum. “Stewart had been our pastor.”

From the Presbytery. “Stewart served on a committee with me.”

From his apartment complex. “Stewart sat in the gazebo with us every night and we talked.”

From a coffee shop that had become his family. “We didn’t even know he was a pastor for the longest time.”

A young couple said, “Stewart performed our wedding.”Stewart 017

One man told me, “Stewart changed my life.”

A man named Buster stood in front of me, humble, awkward. He was as tongue-tied as I felt all day, his eyes watery as they looked at mine. “Stewart was a good man,” he finally said.

“Thank you,” I said, over and over and over.

I wished I had more words.

No, I wished they had more words. I loved hearing about the lives he had touched.

“Stewart drove me to the doctor.”

“Stewart drove me to the store.”

“Stewart loved that skate park.”

“Stewart listened.”

“Stewart helped.”

The two hour receiving line became almost unbearable. All these people. All these names. All these words — good words — but I couldn’t hear any more..

After the service, while people were still milling around and chatting, I sat by myself a short distance away. Maybe I seemed uncaring. I only knew that I was exhausted. Mary came to sit beside me and I hugged her.

This may sound crazy, but instead of a two hour receiving line, I wished for a two month one, where I could sit, one day at a time, with the people, share a cup of coffee with them, and really hear their story.

I have so many questions for them.

Did Stewart laugh a lot? I always liked his laugh.

Did Stewart cook for you? He was a pretty good cook.

Tell me everything you can about Stewart and his life here. Please.

I’m so hungry for more.

A Month with a Muse (or an amusing month) · Stewart

Ash Wednesday

Sally6 Comments

It was an ominous way to begin Lent.

An early morning phone call let me know that my oldest brother, Stewart, had passed away from a heart attack.

And I stood in the kitchen, and I stared at the wall
And I prayed for some wisdom, so I could make a little sense of it all.
And I thought about the seasons, and how quickly they pass
Now there’s little to do but hope that the good ones will last…

Andrew Peterson, “Three Days Before Autumn”

I stood in the kitchen this morning, but I didn’t stare at the wall. I left the lights off and stood at the window, waiting for the sunrise.

Some sunrises are so spectacular with bursts of color lighting my horizon. I could have written, then, about how God spoke to me in the richness of the dawn, in the vast of array of pinks and golds and purples and oranges.

But He gave me an unassuming dawn, black to deep blue to gray. Gray. Non-descript.

I felt dull, like the sunrise.

My eyes filled with tears and I can’t even tell you why.

Stewart called me for my birthday, but I wasn’t home. He said he would call back, but he never did.

I had thought about it. I should call him, I thought, but I never picked up the phone.

And it’s easy enough to say, “He’s better off,
Chalk it up to the luck of the draw,
Life is tough, it was his time to go,
That’s all.”
Well, I don’t know about that…

Andrew Peterson, “Three Days Before Autumn”

Life is so short.  Just yesterday, I had been looking at Isaiah 40 —

The grass withers,
the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows on it.
Surely the people are grass.

I had thought about the Tenebrae services a woman at Laity Lodge had described to me, with candles being extinguished one by one until the church was in total darkness. I had been thinking about the breath of the Lord, withering the grass, blowing out the candles, one by one.

Our world is dark and sad.

I suppose that’s an appropriate place to start Lent, in the darkness and sadness of a broken world. Surely the people are grass. Surely Stewart is grass. Surely I am grass.

The grass withers,
the flower fades,
but the word of our Lord will stand forever.

I suppose that’s an appropriate place to start Lent, too.

Beyond this grassy withered world, there is eternity. And it is filled with hope.

005

A Month of Remembering

The Teakwood

Sally3 Comments

Where did you spend your happiest memories with your loved one? Before all this, of course, were there special places you lived or traveled to that you can look back on and feel good about?

I forget how the topic came up.  The way my parents used to tell the story, we were all begging to go to Myrtle Beach, because everyone else was, which just sounds wrong, because our family was never particularly susceptible to peer pressure.  The way the story goes, though, is that we were all begging to go to Myrtle Beach so my father told us to pick out a place to stay and show it to him.

This was all back in the dark ages, before the internet.  With a AAA membership, we were able to obtain a two-inch thick tourbook for the South Carolina.  There was pages and pages of motels and hotels on the Grand Strand.  Those little listing were hard to decipher, so my father suggested writing to the Chamber of Commerce in Myrtle Beach.  I wrote the letter, and then had the thrill of receiving a whole bunch of mail.  (Parents, if your children ever ask why they don’t get any mail, suggest they write to a chamber of commerce somewhere.)

With the stacks and stacks of brochures that arrived, we began culling through and narrowing down the search.  I wanted a swimming pool.  And small.  Even then, I wanted someplace small and homey.  Twelve stories simply doesn’t appeal to me, even if the rooms could face the ocean.  Small, homey, swimming pool — yes, those were the criteria.

I found the perfect motel.  It was called The Caravelle.  It wasn’t huge.  It had a swimming pool.  It was right on the beach. Perfect.

Except they had no vacanices for the week we wanted to go.

So I went back to the pile of brochures and found our second choice.  Small, homey, evening bridge games in the lounge (something I thought my parents would enjoy), a swimming pool, and a vacancy.  We went to Teakwood Motel that year.  And every year after that for about thirty years.

We patronized The Teakwood through several different owners and watched its decline.  The last year we went the roof was covered with blue tarps and one of my children found an insulin needle under the bed. Now a parking lot for a high-rise hotel has replaced that motel.

In its heyday, though, The Teakwood was like family.  We saw the same guests year after year.  We knew the owners well, and one owner actually became family, in an extended sort of way.

There are so many, many memories of The Teakwood — an annual picture by The Teakwood sign, a bagpiper practicing in the Teaky Forest, cookouts, swimming in that pool, sliding down the slide into the pool (until they removed it for insurance reasons), kids freely going from room to room as we often booked four or more rooms in a row, crossing Ocean Boulevard to get to the ocean.

1989 -- picture by the Teakwood sign -- see the bottom of the "D"?
1989 — picture by the Teakwood sign — see the bottom of the “D”?

The slide into the pool at the Teakwood
The slide into the pool at the Teakwood

Wandering from room to room at the Teakwood
Wandering from room to room at the Teakwood

The Caravelle is still in operation today.  I would drive past it whenever we went to Myrtle Beach, just down the road from The Teakwood.

I’m thankful that the Caravelle was full in 1972.

Would my mother have gotten lost trying to find the post office from The Teakwood. (see Six Ways to Anywhere)? Probably not that year.  That would have happened further down the Alzheimer’s road; The Teakwood was like a second home.

If there’s a special place for us, it’s a little mom-and-pop motel in Myrtle Beach called The Teakwood that has now gone to motel heaven.

A Month of Remembering

Scary Travels with Alzheimer’s

Sally2 Comments

What is one of the scariest situations you have been in because of dementia?

Let’s face it — dementia can be a scary thing, for everyone involved.  Every time I see another news story about someone with dementia wandering off, my stomach tightens.  There, but for the grace of God, goes my mother.

My mom and my dad on an earlier trip
My mom and my dad on an earlier trip

My father recently told me a scary story.  Years ago, my parents traveled with a church group to Macedonia, to walk where Paul walked.  They had booked the trip during the days of denial, but there was no denying my mother’s dementia when it came time to leave.  I was worried sick.

That’s probably why my father didn’t tell me this story when they first got home from the trip.  Back then, he told me how the other ladies on the trip all helped with Mom.  “They were great,” he said. “They really looked out for her.”

He saved this story to tell me years later.

In his words, “When we were in Greece, I needed to go find an ATM to get some more cash, so I told Mom to stay in our hotel room. I explained that I needed to go out, but that I would be back.  She said she understood, but when I got back, she was gone.”

She had, indeed, left the hotel room alone. In a foreign country.  Wandering off. Fortunately, some people from the tour saw her and kept her safe until my father came back.  It could have been quite disastrous.  There, but for the grace of God…

My own personal scary situation with my mother took place at JFK.

I’m still not sure of the reasoning behind taking my parents to JFK as opposed to an upstate airport.  Maybe, what with my blurry memory and all, it was for that same international trip, and the trip originated from JFK.  I think, though, that it was a trip to Florida.  We thought a direct flight to Florida would be so much easier than trying to make connections.

Whatever the reason, there we were at JFK — me and my parents.  I pulled right up to the door, dropped them off, parked in the short-term parking, and ran over to the terminal to make sure everything went okay.

By the time I got there, they were already well-entrenched in the snaking line leading to the security checkpoint.  I stood and watched as they inched forward.  My father turned and waved at me.  He got my mother to do the same.

Slowly, slowly, they worked their way to the stacks of trays, the conveyor belts, and the scanner.

I watched my parents each take off their shoes and put them in their respective trays.  A TSA agent told my mother to remove her jacket, which she did, and that went into the tray too.

My father, moving much more slowly than my mother, was still untying his shoes.

My mother spryly moved her way through the line, putting more and more distance between herself and my father.  I stood, helplessly, at a rope barrier watching.

A security guard stood near me.  “Excuse me,” I said to him. “My mother has Alzheimer’s and she is getting separated from my father at the checkpoint.”

He glanced in the direction I pointed, shrugged, and said, “I can’t really do anything about that.”

Even as I spoke with him, I could see my mother pass through the checkpoint and grab her jacket and shoes.  My father was still by the trays.

“I really need to get in there to help her,” I told the guard.

He shrugged again, unmoved.  “I can’t do anything,” he repeated.

My mother had her shoes on as my father was walking through the metal detector.  She was heading out of my sight down a corridor.  “Please, sir,” I begged the guard.

“Next time ask for a pass to accompany them through the gate,” he said, but he refused to make eye contact with me.  He stared resolutely ahead. I felt like I was talking to a wall.

My father made it through the  checkpoint and I could see him sitting to put his shoes on.  My mother was nowhere in sight.  There was, quite literally, nothing I could do.

I watched him finish tying his shoes and slowly move down the same corridor where my mother had disappeared. I felt like I had swallowed a boulder.  The security guard, impassive, had moved away from me and was talking with someone else.

My final hope was to call my father on his cell phone.  Of course, he didn’t have it turned on.

I dejectedly turned to leave, but made one last appeal at a help desk.  The woman was so nice, but, of course, couldn’t help me.  She offered me the same advice as the guard — get a gate pass, but it had to be done with the ticketed passenger with me;  I couldn’t do it after the fact.

Of course, when I left JFK that day, I got lost in Manhattan and cried.

My father and my mother found each other in the airport.  It all turned out okay in the end.

Still.  Scary is an understatement for those events.

Because of situations like this, few things have built my faith more than Alzheimer’s.  The rope barrier at JFK might as well have been the gulf between Lazarus and the rich man. (see Luke 16:19-31) With no way to cross it, only helpless feelings  welled up inside as I stood and watched.

Prayer is my main refuge.

I am not in the hell of the rich man, though some describe care-giving in such negative terms.  No, I am stuck at a rope barrier, talking not to Abraham, or an impassive security guard, but to God Himself.

I’m watching my mother as she is carried into Abraham’s bosom.

It is a slow, sometimes scary, good-bye.

A Month of Remembering

Six Ways to Anywhere

Sally3 Comments

What was the first indication you had that something was not right?  Was it a peculiar behavior or a specific incident?

My mother always knew six ways to anywhere.  And the rest stops along the way.  And the quality of the bathrooms at the rest areas.

IMG_3013[1]This was in the days before GPS.  We used old-fashioned paper accordion-folded maps.  Not that my mother needed them. It was all in her head. For longer trips, she would order AAA TripTiks, but I think were more for us than for her. We could learn the names of the roads and where the rest stops were by using them.  Her mind, however, was a veritable road atlas.

That’s why when she got lost, it stuck out.

Of course there had been little signs, little things she forgot or repeated.  When I do that now, I’m just sure that it’s the first sign of Alzheimer’s.  I think we all have those fears.

But my mother getting lost?  That was almost unheard of.

We were in Myrtle Beach — my mom and dad, my sister and her husband, and my family.  We were all in Myrtle Beach at the time-share condo that my father had been snookered into purchased.

The area was very familiar because we had been going to the same place for a number of years.  Mom decided to make a quick trip to the Post Office to mail out the postcards she had written.  Helen, probably 10 or 11 at the time, went along for the ride.

I should add here, that if any of my children have inherited my mother’s internal atlas, it’s Helen.  Even at that age, she knew her way around and remembered roads better than I ever will.

So off they went to the Post Office while we hung around the pool.

They were gone for a very long time.

You know how it is.  At first, no one thinks anything of it.  Oh,they’re gone to the Post Office.

Then, someone asks where they are. They went to the Post Office a while ago.

A little later, someone asks when exactly did they leave for the Post Office.

You start wondering, how long have they been gone?

Then the misgivings begin, and a thousand scenarios, most of them bad, start playing in your mind.

It was well over an hour, maybe a lot longer, before the car pulled back into the parking lot.  Helen’s eyes were big.  She pulled us aside and she said, “Grammie got lost.”

The Post Office, only about a mile away, was elusive for my mother that day.  It was so unheard of.

My sister and I whispered about it.  Something wasn’t right.  All the other little things suddenly took on new significance.  Maybe there was something more going on.

As it turns out, that something more was Alzheimer’s.

family

Other Duties As Assigned

Sally14 Comments

Last night (and the night before) Laurel said to me as she went to bed, “I’m sorry if I come in.”  Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night with a bad dream and comes in our room.

“It’s okay,”  I told her.  “It’s in my job description.”

I probably should have looked the job description over a little more carefully before I signed on.  Not that I ever really looked over any job description;  I was usually just glad to have a job.

Like when I worked at the Baseball Hall of Fame, I think my job title was “Souvenir Girl” and that pretty much summed it up.  I sold souvenirs and tickets.  Maybe it specified that I wasn’t supposed to try to charge VIPs, like the time I was going to charge Bowie Kuhn admission, but I honestly never read through it.

But a Mom Job Description — whew!  There’s a good one that I’ve seen:  The Mom Job Description. (Click to see it.)

I actually think I could do it in five words.

and other duties as assigned

No matter how complete the list, it would still be incredibly incomplete.

I knew I would have sleepless nights.  I imagined they would end when my children slept through the night.  Not so.  It’s not always Laurel waking me up.  Sometimes I wake with a particular child on my mind and just pray for them.

Prayer is definitely somewhere in the job description.  Under communication — with doctors, teachers, waitresses, and God.  Yep.

Jacob getting a haircut a few years ago.

No one told me that when I became a mom, I would have to cut hair.  But I have cut the boys’ hair for years.  All my boys are now teenagers and beyond.  I tell them to get their haircut by somebody who knows what they’re doing.  And yet, what did I do the other day?  Cut Jacob’s hair.  And I still don’t know what I’m doing.

I knew when I became a mom that I would have to prepare meals.  I was okay with that because I know how to read recipes.  My creativity in the kitchen is pretty limited.  But did I ever imagine that I would have to triple or quadruple every recipe every written?  And kids think math skills aren’t that important…

And all those years of raising children are really just a warm-up for caring for parents, a job I’m now cowering from.  Other duties as assigned.

It doesn’t seem to get any easier.

And I just seem to get tireder.

But Laurel can still wake me up any night of the week.

It’s in my job description.