The Third Floor

I'm writing this shortly after a visit to Baptist Hospital South to see my sister, who had surgery to repair a broken femur this afternoon. She's going to be just fine.

The orthopedic ward is on the 3rd floor. You go up by elevator, you exit them and go through the doors to your right, and at the end of a little hallway -- at the first "intersection" just next to a private sitting room where boxes of tissue rest on every available surface -- you take a right....

No. That's not it.

If you take a right you will wind up at the doors of the MICU. You walked that way so many times for so many days that muscle memory just came into play, and although you realize you meant to take a left at that intersection, your feet keep walking toward those closed automatic doors, your hands begin to reach for the disinfectant pump containers mounted on the walls, and it is only when you allow yourself to face the fact that her room now holds some other mother, maybe, some other person whose family you had a hard time making eye contact with when you got off the elevator and saw all the MICU families hovering there waiting for their own limited visiting hours because they looked like wounded animals just like you and yours did when you sat there, waiting...   well it's then that you remember to turn around and head the other way.

The way that leads to the room where your sister is, where she will spend a few days recuperating, and taking some measure of rehab, and leaving from there to go home not much the worse for wear ultimately. The way that reminds you with each step that life is going on, that for every heartbreaking story those hallways could tell, including your own, stories of healing, and joy, and medical miracles great and small are being told there, too.  Right now. And your sister will be one of them, and this time, a woman you love deeply will come home from that 3rd floor.

And you are grateful to have felt, and moved through, another little landmine.

Shhhh.....

It's been a bit since I shared a landmine. Do not take that to mean that I've ceased to run across them; the busyness of the last few weeks has meant less time to feel the weight of them, to allow myself to fall fully into the gift they inevitably bring, and certainly, to write about them when they happen.

But here I am on a quiet Sunday morning. We will be getting our granddaughter in a little bit for the day, something we've not had an opportunity to do for too long, and we've an afternoon of just soaking her up planned. We aren't even heading to church today -- she has a mild viral infection to which we don't wish to expose other people's children.

So, I'm here at my computer. I opened Spotify, that wonderful, eclectic music sharing site, and typed in the keyword "strings," and just let it find music for me as I continued to work away at the computer here on the things I've not been able to find time for during the rest of an overscheduled week.

I was hardly listening to any of it, at least up to the moment I heard the opening strains of Barber's "Adagio for Strings, Opus 11."  Surely this is one of the loveliest, most evocative pieces of music ever written.

And in my heart, I heard Mama say -- as she always did, when something particularly lovely fell on her ear and we weren't paying due attention -- SHHHHH -- listen to this!  Her face would light up, and she would close her eyes or just get this dreamy look on her face, and nothing would annoy her more than for you not to listen with her just as intently.

Since Mama died, a hundred things have caused me to think "Mama would love this," and then have felt tremendous emptiness because there really isn't anyone else in my life with whom sharing those things would mean anything. This morning, though, it was almost as if she wanted to share something with me.


So, when the first strains of this magnificent piece fell on my ear, I listened to the urging that is so impressed on my psyche that it found a voice I could hear. I stopped everything I was doing, closed my eyes, shhhh'ed, and listened.  The gift of stopping, just for a few moments, and then allowing myself to weep just for missing her, and to weep for the beauty of that -- and for the beauty of the music -- was another precious landmine.

Lost in the landmine

January 18, 2008

This picture was taken at a centennial celebration of the 20th Century Literary Club to which Mama and I both belonged for a number of years. At the end of last year (we meet from October - May) Mama tendered her resignation, citing my father's health and her fear that he might have even greater need of her tender care when meetings resumed this year.

The first meeting of the new year was on October 21, on what would have been her 84th birthday, just three days after her death. I am the recording secretary for the club this year, and a thoughtful fellow member came by to pick up the recording book. She had called me to offer her condolences, and I remembered that this task needed to be done, and she obliged. 

Today was our second meeting of the year, on the one-month anniversary of her death. I tried not to think about it too much, because I was also the scheduled speaker for the month, giving essentially the same program I gave last week to another literary club without so much as a sniffle.

I don't know that it was -- I suspect it was sitting at the little round table in the back where she and I always huddled, usually with Joyce and her daughter Emelie, or Bonnie and her daughter Linda, or Jule and her daughter Carol, or Frances and her daughter Virginia -- that made something shift on its axis, but as I launched into leading the club in our collect, I was overcome and unable to recover sufficiently to continue.  As it happens, I was sitting with Virginia and her Mama, and Virginia moved over, placed her arm around my shoulder, and finished this beautiful prayer for me, the one we hear read every month at our meetings: 

"Keep us, oh God, from pettiness;

Let us be large in thought, in word, in deed.

Let us be done with fault-finding, and leave off self-seeking.

May we put away all pretense

And meet each other face to face -- without self-pity and without prejudice.

May we always be generous and never hasty in judgment.

Let us take time for all things.

Make us grow calm, serene, gentle.

Teach us to put into action our better impulses,

straightforwardly and unafraid.

Grant that we may realize it is the little things that create differences;

that in the big things of life we are as one.

And may we strive to touch and to know the great common woman's heart of us all.

And, oh Lord God,

Let us not forget to be kind."

~ Mary Stewart~ 1904

I was able to pull myself together finally, and presented the program, enjoyed a lovely lunch with the ladies, and went straight back to work. 

I do very well at keeping my vulnerability under wraps, of holding things together in order to reassure others that I am, if not fine, at least all right.  It was a very hard thing to cope with that wall falling away so unexpectedly today. It was bound to happen somewhere, sometime, and I am grateful that it happened in the company of others whom I know miss her, too.

Laughing in the Pew

My brothers and sister and I all have corporate memories of Mama, the ones that we will tell and share together, and recognize with just a few words, and which will elicit much joy in the retelling around the table for all the years to come.

But it's the private ones -- the ones I am sure each of us have that don't involve the others -- that have become like little gifts in shiny boxes for me.

Mama and I always sat together, flanked by Daddy (on her right, closest to the aisle) and my husband (on my left), on Sunday mornings in our pew at First United Methodist Church, two rows back from  the 50-yard line, pulpit side, and we loved singing harmonies together. We'd tap each other's arms when we'd sing a favorite, roll our eyes at some of the newfangled ones, or old ones that have been reworked to be gender inclusive or otherwise made more politically correct. "Sing this at my funeral," we often said to one another, "and sing all the verses." Our deepest connection was music, always music, and much of that was the music of our faith.

You should know here that my mother was not especially well-behaved in church, which is why my sons enjoyed sitting with her when they were little. She'd pass notes up and down the pew, and she and our youngest son played so many games of Tic-Tac-Toe on orders of worship over the years that I feel certain they were folded them into his own personal liturgy of faith.

Anyway, you know what an eye rhyme is, right?  Eye rhymes happen when two words look like they should rhyme but don't. The Methodist hymnal is full of them, probably not unlike any other denomination's hymnals. 

This past Sunday one of these hymns was the final one in the service -- Take My Life, and Let It Be -- and it had one of these things in it. She and I stood shoulder to shoulder more than once singing it in harmony (well, as much harmony as two women of decidedly questionable voice could muster), and it was inevitable that when the eye rhyme was approaching that she would lean over, and sing loudly in my ear, forcing the rhyme....

"Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy looooooooove..."

When I got to that part this week, I braced myself for a landmine, and it came, just as I knew it would, but not in tears. I giggled a little. The tears came later -- but just then -- nothing but sweet, happy memory.

Trade last!

There's an old tradition in our family, one Mama elevated to art form, called the trade last. Those who were at her funeral heard the preacher reference this custom, but for the uninformed, here's how it works.

You hear something nice about me, so you call me and say, "Trade last!"

In order for me to hear the accolade I must first tell you something lovely I've heard about you. You Trade Last, you see.

It is always a devilment to be on the receiving end of one of these, because the universe seldom conspires that we each should hear something nice about the other in a convenient time frame, so one is often left wanting for something with which to trade first.  


Of course, Mama had a way of making it always work out for her: if she hadn't actually heard anything complimentary, she'd say "Tidge says....."  followed by whatever bit of puffery she could make up in order to extract your tidbit.  (It must be said here that she didn't always use "Tidge," but that's the phantom friend I heard from most often.)

But, oh, what a wonderful thing it was to know that someone might have said something kind when you weren't around to hear it! Trade lasts, on a much more meaningful level, meant that we never held back on sharing compliments or praise we'd heard about one another. Knowing how delighted Mama would be to hear something nice about us created an environment in which we strove to be the best we could at something, because we knew it would get reported back. She had more fun giving a trade last than getting a trade first.

**

I frequently give book chats to literary groups. I can't say I'm the world's most polished public speaker, but I do think I get folks to laugh pretty well sometimes, and that makes me happy. As it happens, there is almost always somebody in one of these groups who would call Mama shortly afterwards, and dole out some praise.

I know this, because without fail, I could always count on the phone ringing around suppertime after one of these chats, and hearing her say, "Trade last!"


This afternoon, three weeks to the day after her death, I spoke to the Jr. 20th Century Literary Club. I got 'em laughing a few times, and some of the women had awfully nice things to say. I know at least four of them who might have gone home and picked up the phone to call Mama to report on how I did. I think I did okay, and I think someone might have been complimentary.

But the phone won't ring tonight.

The only cries of "Trade last!" I'm likely to hear again in my lifetime will be the ones I spring on my sons (who hate the game as much as I did when I was their age), and on my granddaughter.

I hope Tidge is out there, ready to help them out when they hear it.

Worth a Thousand Words

Early on the morning of August 26, my younger son packed as many of his earthly goods as he could into his car and headed out for Columbus, Ohio to work for a year. As a person who loves having her "chicks" where she can get her arms around them in a hurry, this was a hard change for me, but he was so excited at the opportunity I wouldn't have stopped his going even if I could have.

He had lots of things to do before he left, lots of people he needed to see, and that included his Pap and Granny. His Granny always asked Thomas when he'd head out on one of his adventures, "Don't you need me to go with you?"  It was a running joke with them, and I have no doubt but that she asked that question on the evening of August 25, at around 7:03 p.m., right about when this picture was taken.

That's my son Thomas there, with his Pap. His Granny was the photographer.

I discovered this on her digital camera on October 21, which happened to be her 84th birthday. It was the last picture she took on her camera. Finding it was another little landmine.

I wish so much someone had thought to snap a picture of Thomas and his Granny that night, but I don't think Daddy has ever even picked up the digital camera, and it was just the three of them there.

That was my initial wish, anyway. On further reflection, she is as fully present in this photograph as if she'd been on the other side of the lens, maybe more so. These two people represent what mattered most to Mama, and they both reflect their love for her in the smiles directed her way.

Finding it on her birthday was like finding a gift she had left just for me.

Thank you, Mama.

Unfinished Symphonies

This basket is sitting in her sewing room. 

My niece and I both noticed it straight away. I'm sure others did, too. In fact, I went back to look at it a couple days after I took this picture and the needles were hidden. I tried to put them back, just this way. Mama never got too fancy with her afghans. I don't know that the patterns ever varied one iota. 

I always meant to get her to show me how to do this.

I'm not sure I could finish this one even if I knew how.

Mama was working on this blouse, hoping that it would be something that all the adult women in the family might wear as an instant heirloom if they had need of it. I wasn't entirely clear about how that would work, but I suspect she was just looking for a reason to spend time fussing over it because it gave her pleasure. As with the afghan, I'm not sure that even if I could take on the job of finishing it that I would.

It's entirely possible that neither of these projects would have ever been finished anyway. Something deep down tells me she was just doing it to pass time, and to remind herself of all the hours she used to spend sewing, and smocking, and knitting, when her fingers didn't hurt and her eyes wouldn't give out on her.

****

Mama was always an Artist of the Unfinished, though. 

In her day she was an accomplished pianist, but by the time I came along the most any of us ever heard her play were the first 10 - 15 measures of things like Claire du Lune. I honestly cannot remember ever hearing her play anything at all the whole way through. It became part of the soundtrack of my life, all the unfinished songs. 

So, while taking note of the afghan and the blouse initially caused me to shed a tear, when I remembered how beautiful the unfinished music always was -- how complete the "unfinished" life truly is-- I couldn't help but smile a little.

A Thousand Little Razors

My mother was taken to the emergency room in the wee hours of the morning on September 24. On Thursday, September 29, she was diagnosed with small cell carcinoma of the lungs, extensive stage.

On September 30, her oncologist met with her and then with my father, brothers, sister and me to explain that as aggressive as this cancer is, it is also quite often responsive to chemotherapy. Given her age and other health problems, she -- and we -- knew that the initial round of chemotherapy would be very difficult, and perhaps even fatal, but the odds were still squarely in her favor.

On October 1, she was moved to a second hospital's ICU, where chemotherapy began.

That was the the last day I ever heard her voice.  I had just finished my second half-marathon and called to let her know I had done well. She was proud of me. There was so much background noise I could hardly hear her, and we had to cut the call short. Friends were in town to participate with me, and with the blessing of Mama and my siblings, I spent the rest of the day and evening enjoying their company. She was intubated before I had a chance to hear her again.  It is fitting, somehow, that the last words I heard from her were those of encouragement and pride: it was her nature to be a cheerleader for everyone she loved.

The next 17 days were a roller-coaster. As the chemicals that could save her spread through her body, the effects became more and more difficult for her to bear and for us to watch. Even so, she answered each of us with a thumbs up when we'd ask, "Mama? Are we still fighting?"

For a time she could communicate with us using a dry erase board my sister thought to make available. We got lots of interesting messages, some of which we didn't fully understand but later discovered did make sense, but the one I will hold in my heart forever is this one:

The date underneath is not correct, and we all shared a good laugh about it when the error was caught. In our haste to erase and let her keep "talking" we just didn't notice it. This has become, for me, the first little landmine, because this date is in a future Mama will not be here to see.

My father, brother, and I visited her at lunchtime on October 18. She was beginning to get to the other side of the worst part of the first cycle of chemotherapy. She had been extubated the day before, and now was receiving oxygen through a tracheotomy that was generally agreed would be a vast improvement for her. We left that visit with every expectation that the week ahead would see daily progress being made.

Later that afternoon something -- we still don't know what -- went horribly wrong. My sister was alone at the hospital when it happened, and word quickly spread and we all scrambled to be where we were most needed. I think in our hearts that while we all believed this was a crisis, it was surely not a final one.

I was staying with my father when I got the call that things were irreversibly wrong, and it fell to me to tell Daddy that the woman he had loved virtually his whole life was not going to survive the day. We got to the hospital as quickly as we could, but we did not make it in time. Mama was gone.

Like every other person who has lost a parent, I am discovering every day how very much life will never be the same. I decided to use this format to record those little landmines that have occurred in the days following Mama's death, and that I know will continue for years to come.

In a very selfish way I am going to use this space to be my therapy. I've heard about people who cut themselves intentionally in order to let go of pain or stress, and I never understood that until now, because I believe written words will become my thousand little razors.

This will be a place of grief, but also of healing, and laughter, and remembrance. And love.

Always, always, love.