Slipping Away

The thing about moms is- there aren’t always a lot of pictures of them. They’re usually the one taking the pictures.  It was no different with my mom.  Lots of things were different about my mom- but I know she did love me- very much.

And she loved my sister and my brother.

But perhaps even more, she loved our father.

So, just a month and a day short of four years after his death, she joined him. 

While we had almost a year of saying goodbye to Dad, Mom’s final take-off seemed to collapse into a one, short week.  In a way, we’ve been saying goodbye to her for years, maybe even for all of our lives.  For some people the world is just too much- too loud, too demanding, too busy to nurture a shy, fragile, brilliant girl.

When Dad launched I knew he was happy to be on his way to a new adventure. But with Mom, I’m not so sure.  There weren’t as many signs.  She was gone before we knew it- struggling and laboring for days and then, with a small, quick, exhalation, gone.

The Best Dandelion in the Graveyard

I think when Dad died, a part of me went right along with him.

He wouldn't want that. And now- finally, I don't want it either.

The greatest monument to the life of a loved one is not some marble edifice erected atop a grave. It's not how long we mourn or how deeply we grieve. We are the testament. Our tribute is in how we live our lives without them.

My mistake, thus far, has been in thinking I have to use all the tools Dad gave me every day, perfectly, just as he would have used them. But today I realized something- if I did that, I'd be living his life and not my own. Dad would really not like that. He was all about the importance of living your own life.

Besides, I would only be a cheap imitation of the greatest dad in the Universe.

I've tried to be a carbon copy of him and failed miserably every single day for the past 18 months. I've even tried to write like I imagine he'd want me to write- and it just hasn't worked.

I'm not a very good graveyard angel. That's okay. Maybe my job is to be the dandelion that grows beside the marble monument, stretching its roots deep and lifting its face toward the sun.

Pickup Trucks and Pennies From Heaven

We miss Dad.

My brother and I are standing outside in the dark beside our trucks, talking in low voices about our dreams of Dad.

"Yeah," my brother says. "The day I bought my banjo, that night, I dreamed Dad and Papa Lee were laughing and dancing. Dad was doing that thing he used to do, you know how he'd hunch his shoulders up and go in those circles?"

"Like Bill Cosby?"

"Yeah, I always thought he danced just like Bill Cosby."

We love Bill Cosby,too.

"I think he and Papa Lee were happy I got the banjo," my brother says.

That would be like them, I think. Dad's father, Papa Lee, had a banjo, used to play in Vaudeville theaters before my father was born and then continued to entertain his family by playing the ukulele. I could see him dancing with happiness that the musical gene has continued on through the generations.

I tell my brother the dream I had where Dad comes and hugs me. But I realize in the moment that he takes me into his arms, he's dead. This isn't real.

I say this and my brother begins to cry. I look at him and dissolve myself. We stand between our two pickup trucks, crying, our children clustered around us, awkwardly patting our backs.

"I'm sorry," I tell my son later. "I didn't mean to do that."

"That's all right," he says, hugging me. "It was bound to happen. Every time you get together with your brother or your sister, you guys wind up crying."

Yeah, true that.

It's bedtime. Tomorrow is a new day, I think. No more tears for the rest of the trip, I promise myself...but I feel like I could cry forever.

I reach into my bag for pajamas. There is a penny resting on top of the bag. Another penny from Heaven.

There You Are- There You Go...

In my dream I am lying on my bed. It's Saturday morning and the Youngest Unnamed One has come in to beg for a chicken bisquit breakfast. We are lying there laughing when suddenly my Sister Flea pokes her head around the corner of the bedroom door.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, surprised.

She explains she and her friend are going to another psychotherapy conference and stopped by to say hello. "Hey, did you see Dad yet?" she asks.

"What?"

"Dad," she explains patiently. "He's in there." She gestures to the Youngest's room.

I get up, round the corner, and there stands my father. He's wearing his plaid pajama bottoms and a maroon t-shirt. He's just standing there, grinning and opening his arms to hug me. He is very happy, like we're sharing a delightful reunion or a secret surprise. But he's also very, very pale I think.

"Dad, it's you!" I fly into his embrace but as I do I suddenly realize this can't be happening. Dad is dead. The pain this realization brings twines around the joy at seeing my father, at having him back. I am losing him, I think. I have lost him. I am sobbing as he strokes my hair. "Oh," he soothes. "Ohhh."

He knows I know. He is only here to let me know he's fine and really, really happy. He's here to let me know he is always with me. He doesn't say this. Somehow this is already in my head. But it's too late. I am waking myself up with my crying and he is fading, fading, fading away again.

Eulogizing Life

My old guys love homemade food...any homemade food. But it's Strawberry season and the old guys love strawberries it seems, more than anything else.

They were making quilt squares when I saw them Tuesday, sitting around the table, some sleeping, others just hanging on to their fabric pieces and staring past them at something or some time none of us were privvy to.

The assistant director and I have bonded in one of those soul deep ways that transcends who we are on the outside. We love our old guys. She likes to tell me that on her worst day, coming to work always makes her feel better- that they give more to her than she does to them...but I don't know about that.

Once she and the director drove Pearl all the way to the beach...five hours away, and stayed in a hotel, just because blind Pearl had never "seen" the ocean. That picture is taped to the side of the assistant A.D's file cabinet.

Last month, when we lost so many, the Assistant A.D had to give their eulogies at the memorial service. The hospice chaplain was late and as it so often does, the job fell to Benny.

I had slipped into the room, filled with residents and family...but oddly enough, not staff. Benny's eyes met mine. In front of everyone she said, "I don't know if I can do this y'all, but I'm gonna try."

I have never heard anyone so eloquently capture the essential spirit of a human being like Benny does.

Last week Benny sat in her office, crying with me. She was mad at the staff for overlooking her partner, the Activity Director. "She's done so much for them, and now, when she needs them, they can't even get up off their asses to sign a damned card!"

And then she cried for "Papa Franks." "I don't know if I can let myself get that close to anyone again. He was like my father, Nancy. He was!"

But we are too alike, me and Benny. We will look into a resident's eyes and take them into our hearts without a second thought about the cost later- when we lose them. I tell her this. I tell her we have been given such a gift to have these old guys in our lives and that there is never a guarantee, with anyone we love, that they will be around tomorrow. "We will all die," I tell her.

But I don't tell her that when I go, I hope she does the eulogy.

Life in Miniature at the K & W Cafeteria

The Eldest Unnamed One is drunk on being 18, in love and his impending high school graduation. He is brash and goofy, a know-it-all and a kid again...and it is only Tuesday.

We are in line at the K & W Cafeteria, trying to pretend we don't know each other. I ignore his silliness. He ignores Mertis's silent disapproval. I talk to the Youngest Unnamed One and wish the line wasn't so long.

It has been a hard day in Old People Land. The social worker at one place, one of the young, good ones, may not quit after all, but only because her heart's been broken by the new boyfriend. I am selfishly glad.

I am thinking about this when I hear a voice say, "You know, you keep chewin' on that pen and you'll wind up swallowing it. You don't want to write your name that way, now do you?"

I turn and catch my breath. Hell. A frail old man in an orange ball cap, his jeans loose and cinched tight around his waist with a canvas belt, a frayed hole in the back of his pants exposes his shirt tail. His smile is disarming, his eyes gray-blue and too happy for what I am sure is about to come.

He has taken on the Eldest, the one who is never wrong, facing off against the kid with a happy smile and the clear expectation that this is going to be a wonderful conversation.

The Eldest chuckles, sticks the pen in his pocket and says something I don't hear...but the Beloved smiles, so I know he can't have insulted the old man.

"She your sister?" the man asks.

The Eldest smiles indulgently while the Beloved explains, "Girlfriend."

"Girlfriend, eh?" He gives the Eldest a collegegial smile. "Well, you favor, that's why I asked."

"I graduated high school in 1947," I hear the old man say. Two women I take for his wife and daughter try to pretend they're not with him, turning their attention toward the cafeteria line and murmuring to themselves about what they'll have and what will disagree with their tricky stomachs.

The Old Guy is oblivious. "1947," he says. "That was probably before your time, huh?"

The Eldest chuckles. When the Old Guy asks where The Eldest will be going to school, he feigns mock indignation. He's a State grad.

"What was your major?" I hear the Eldest ask. He seems truly interested.

I decide maybe I won't disown him after all.

The Old Guy tells the Eldest every parable and bit of advice he can think of and fit into the ten minute trip down the food line...And all the while my son listens, nodding and commenting, smiling and agreeing...even when I'm fairly certain he doesn't truly agree.

I look at the Old Guy and do the math. He is my father's age...were he here. I think of the Eldest and my Dad, of the way my father loved that boy and of how the boy loved his grandfather.

I remember the dream I had the night before. I am in my father's parents' living room. Both my grandparents are there, sitting enjoying the cocktail hour just as they did every afternoon. Only, I know they are dead. I know they are dead and I know my father is dying. He is with me, following me into the room. In my dream, dad is much younger. He is the same age he was when I was five.

He walks into his parents' house, sees his father sitting in his favorite arm chair and Dad's knees buckle and give out as he sags against me. I am trying to hold my father up and he is crying. He knows his father is dead. He knows he is dying. But I think he cries because he is so glad to have him back.

I am standing in the line at the K & W, watching my son and the new friend who needs to pack every bit of his life into the Eldest's awareness before they come to the end of the line and there is no more time.

I am following the two of them, half-attending to Mertis and the Youngest Unnamed One, pretending I care what we eat when all I want is my dad.

The Eldest Unnamed One realizes none of this, surely doesn't know what a microcosm this cafeteria has become for our lives and probably would care less if he did know.

Some days I wonder how the world can keep spinning without Dad. Missing him takes my breath away.

And then I see him in the Eldest or in the Youngest and I realize he is here after all...Dad would've listened to the Old Guy. He would've smiled indulgently at the Eldest, found his way into the heart and soul of the Youngest and made Mertis laugh.

He would've understood life in miniature at the K & W on a Tuesday evening.

Dancing on the Rim of Immortality

Okay, were I not technologically challenged I would show you my cell phone movie of John Brown's birthday celebration out at the barn. I have, on video, preserved for posterity, Little Elvis in his new black polyester yarn wig, playing "Love Me Tender" while Thomas Edison's modern day twin plays bass behind him.

I have the movie of this couple who appear to be so strikingly angular that all we could wonder about was how they had sex without piercing each other in life-threatening places.

I have a video of sweet Caroline smiling more than she has since her dear Raymond died, swirling across the tiny dance floor as she waltzes with an old friend.

Now, I could download AND show you multiple videos of Marti and Mertis disco dancing over here Satruday night but Mertis swears she'll kill me and you know, I do believe she might. It was a night to remember!

And what I don't have on video, but do have etched in my heart forever is the funeral Sunday afternoon for dear Trae. The church was filled with brave, tearful high school children wearing Trae's favorite color, teal.

My heart broke over and over again as I watched those children turn a corner and become adults. One by one they walked past their friend in his casket, then turned to hug Trae's poor parents. They spoke or read or assisted as pall bearers or flower carriers with an aching composure that was all too apparent when you looked into their eyes.

They closed ranks around each other and we, their parents, were outside that circle, unable to take any of the pain away. It was a goodbye to Trae, to childhood, to invincibility, to the idealized world where children outlive their parents and goodbyes are never necessary.

What's Really Important...

It is so easy to get caught up in the little velcro hairballs of life and forget what is truly important.

The past few days I have been all balled up in finishing the taxes so the Eldest Unnamed One could do his financial aid applications for college, hiring and firing handymen so I can get the house on the market while simultaneously preparing for, undergoing and recovering from my first rite of old age passage...my first colonoscopy...that I forgot about what was real in the world.

And then the Eldest Unnamed One came home in the middle of me trying to reinvent the financial details of the last year. I was so busy I just tossed off "Unless someone's dying, I can't talk to you."

He said, "Mom, Trae's dead."

Trae, his buddy since second grade. Trae who played soccer with my boy since forever. Trae the boy who's Mama was the toughest loving woman around, the woman voted most determined to see her son make something wonderful out of himself. Trae, the boy who had the Eldest Unnamed One and me hiding underneath my dashboard,laughing our asses off and waiting on his late arrival at the home where their dates had gathered for the pre-Prom pictures. Trae who gets hyper on sugar. Trae who chases my boy around his car after school, Trae the wingman, Trae the perpetually happy kid who defines himself as "Living life to the fullest times 10" on his myspace page. Trae who feels life is worth nothing if he can't make others laugh and feel good, too.

Trae is gone and his wingmen are in shock, walking around in disbelief, their faces frozen in the smiles left over from the second before they heard the news. And here we are, all of us mothers, crying for the boy and the mother left behind to grieve.

I can't remember...Did Dad meet Trae? I think he did. Dad died 5 months ago today. I wonder if he's been up there long enough to be on the Welcoming Committee yet? I think Dad would be a good guy to hook up with if you were young and full of life and energy- then suddenly it all ended. Dad would be good with easing the transition.

I wish he were here to help the left behinds accept the loss.

The Big Take-Away

Nope, no pennies from Heaven this morning!

I called my brother yesterday to tell him the "Penny Tales."

"What're you doing?" I ask. He's an electrician, so I ask because it wouldn't do to freak him out while he's wiring something. Call me overly cautious but I just don't think you should fool around when you're working with live wires.

"I'm wiring in a new panel box," he says.

I give him the headline, so he's forewarned. "I think I heard from Dad."

"What?! What did you say? Did I hear you right? You heard from Dad?"

I think he put the screwdriver down. I tell him about the pennies and what Ellen's said about signs. I'm kind of holding my breath in case he thinks I'm nuts.

"Wow! I'm gettin' shivers! You know, when Vicki's dad died she got the sign from lady bugs."

I breathe a sigh of relief. I may be nuts anyway, but at least my brother doesn't seem to think so, at least, not about this.

When I get off the line with John, I go on into my next nursing home of the day. I want to say something, tell somebody, but there's just nobody here I'd trust with that kind of story.

Clarence, a thin little man who resembles a plucked, beakless chicken wearing a tweed fedora is sitting in a wheelchair in the hallway. "Hey," he says. "There's my sweetheart," he croaks. He smiles and I stop to hold his hand and reassure him that I am his sweetheart.

I walk away and behind me I hear him saying "She's my sweetheart! She loves me. She said she loves me. Hey, you hear that? She loves me!"

I enter the social work office and sit there doing paperwork, listening to Clarence out in the hallway. "Do you know my mama? Do you? Do you know her name? Tell me her name?"

Throughout the afternoon I pass Clarence, each time stopping to take his hand and tell him all over again that I am his sweetheart. When I am leaving I give him a hug and hear all the way down the hallway and out the door "She hugged me! She hugged me! I told you, she loves me!"

And really, I do.

I walk to my car feeling better than I have in a good while. I feel maybe like Clarence, comforted by the knowledge that I am loved- by lots of people; and blessed and not as alone as I've felt, not as lost.

I feel like I haven't really lost Dad- which I knew but didn't feel. No one can take the Dad out of me.

I guess my take-away from this entire penny deal is this- It doesn't matter what the pennies signify to anyone else. It only matters what it means to me- how it makes me feel. For me it is a huge cosmic hug.

This morning I found this article. I think I agree.

Everyday Miracle- or Rise Up Lazarus

I know, after the past few posts, you're trying to figure out whether your heretofore somewhat normal blogger friend has lost what little hold she had on her sanity. I hate to say this, but I doubt this post is going to do much to reassure you.

The penny thing?

It continues.

I have to admit, finding the second penny in my bed this morning was a bit of a jolt. I mean, that's two days in a row.

But I was able to set it aside, even to almost forget about it as I went about my day, traveling to visit my patients in the nursing homes.

Once there I was met with a host of problems but chief among them was a man who's been beating up staff, swearing, cursing and in general, being an out of control maniac. My friends at the nursing home didn't ask much- they just wanted me to fix him- preferably today.

This gentleman's been on my list of referrals for a month now but everytime I go to interview him, he's off somewhere- in physical therapy or at the hospital. It's always something. Well no such luck today.

There he was in his room- a big guy with thick, beefy hands that looked like they were quite effective at throttling meddlesome social workers.

Strangely enough, to me his hands were the only thing that looked dangerous about him.

He sat hunched in his wheelchair, wearing a pair of old-man striped pajamas and looking very, very sad. I tried to remind myself that the charge nurse said he'd grab me if he could, especially if I bent over him and he could reach a breast! (Which contrary to her position, I see as a sign of health, don't you?)

Anyway...

When I walked into the room and identified myself, he looked up at me like a little, lost boy and I just melted. I pulled a chair up to the narrow bedtable an aide had placed in front of my new patient and looked him right in the eyes.

"It must be awful to find yourself in here," I said.

I had to say this three times, with increasing volume because he is almost deaf. At last, when I was just certain the entire home was listening, he heard and nodded.

"How are you feeling?"

He can't make out what I'm saying, so finally I abandon caution, walk around the cart, lean over him and talk directly into his ear.

About one-third of the time, he seems to understand me...but the rest of the time, he gives me nonsense answers.

At one point he covers the tip of my cowboy boot with his huge foot, smiles and says, "Nice boots. My daughter has a pair like that..." Once again, he seems to drift off into a totally unrelated mumbling and I abandon the thought of doing any cognitive testing- at least for now.

I am thinking of leaving when he suddenly straightens in his chair, looks right at me and says, "Pick up the penny!"

"What?" I ask, not able to believie what I'm hearing.

"Pick up that penny!"

He is as clear as a bell. He points to the floor and repeats, "The penny!"

In light of the past day's penny encounters, I am hypersensitized to any mention of the word "penny."

I drop to the ground on all fours and begin searching the floor for a penny I know isn't there. But still I search throughly- under the bed, under the narrow lip of the heater, everywhere.

My old man is getting increasingly agitated. I can see now how he could really get tough to handle. I try to appease him by following his gaze to the spot on the floor that he's identified as having a penny on it. There is nothing there but I pat the linoleum with my fingers anyway, all the while checking with my patient.

"Here?" I ask. "Here?" I keep moving my hand in widening circles until at last he nods.

"Yes, there! The penny...he..." He mumbles something and I believe I hear the words "he" and "said" or "left" but I can't be sure. "Pick it up!" I hear those words with crystal clarity.

I lift my hand to show him there is no penny and stare at the spot beneath my fingertips.

There on the floor is a penny-sized outlined circle. It is so faint I know my guy can't have seen it. He couldn't even see the 2" letters on the notepad I held up to him five minutes before.

I look up at the ceiling and grin. "All right, Dad," I whisper. "I hear you."

I stroke the faint, dark circle before rising to say goodbye. I rub my new friend's stooped shoulders and tell him I will be back to see him soon. He gives me a sweet grin.

It is not until later, as I am driving away, that I realize the significance of this man being the one to tell me to "Pick up the penny!"

My new patient's name is Lazarus.

"Everywhere I Go It's Raining Pennies From Heaven"

Perhaps I should become an expert in procrastination...

Today, in order to continue my quest to become a penultimate procrastinator, I lost my purse...
You know, that thing we women carry around like a camel's hump- And it is without a doubt as vital and life giving to us as any hump is to a camel.

At lunch, my friend Ellen, nodded sympathetically. She reinforced what we both know to be true- sometimes a purse just needs to be lost. Perhaps I needed a day without bank deposits, shopping or unnecessary driving. Perhaps losing my pocketbook was the universe's way of saying, "Slow down! Relax!"

So the two of us had a leisurely lunch at the Pavilion- a Greensboro institution that I had up until now, never made time to visit. I got to spend time with someone who is wise and serene and a true treasure- again a universe intervention as I always want to spend more time with her than I ever do. We talked about intentions and positive imaging and once again, why I haven't heard from Dad.

"I know, you'd like the dream where it's as real as life, but maybe he's there in little ways," she says.

Because Ellen knows about these things, I really listen. She tells me about a psychic who said sometimes these "signs" take the form of scents or birds or, she says, money.

Now money seems completely incongruous to me. Why would a dead person drop manna from Heaven, so to speak? I mean, it's not like they walk around with spare change in their pockets...or is it?

"Have you found any money in strange places lately?" she asks.

Which is when I remember the penny.

"Well," I said hesitantly, "last night there was a penny on top of my covers as I crawled into bed and I remember putting it on my bedside table so the dog wouldn't get it...At least I thought I did but this morning, there it was back in the bed again."

She nods.

But when she drops me off and goes on to the bookstore I find a penny in the driveway, then one on the sofa in my office. I am looking for my dang purse with no luck but it is totally raining pennies. Everywhere I go I am picking up pennies- not other money, just pennies.

"Very funny, Dad," I mutter. When I search my car and find 4 pennies in a clump on the floor of the back seat, I look up and say, "What? Am I getting hot? Is it under the seat?"

I am being sarcastic but the more pennies I find, the less sure I am about this being coincidence.

I clean up the Christmas decorations- well, I make a path through the den at least and clean the kitchen and mop the floors and find more pennies but no purse.

Finally I sit down to write because really, what else can I do? It's obvious my purse isn't in the house. I give up and try to focus on writing my fiction the same way I do these blogs- from my heart. And just as I get discouraged, the Youngest Unnamed One returns from school.

It is pointless to ask if he's seen my purse- hell, he can't even find his shoes in the morning! But I ask and he says, "Remember, I brought it in here to you last night. You put it on your sofa."

And I remember. I remember coming into the den in the middle of the night because the dogs were snoring in my room. I cleared off the sofa in the darkness and went to sleep. In the morning, still sleep deprived, I folded the sofa back up.

The Youngest Unnamed One and I realize there is only one explanation...The pocketbook fell down the gap as the sofa was opened...and there it is, on the floor exactly where it should be, underneath the sofa.

Along with a penny.

Go figure.

Saying Goodbye to Cookie

I went to see Cookie one last time tonight. The family had visitation at the funeral home, which in this case meant a viewing of the body as well as expressing condolences to the family.

When I am dead- note to family- no viewing. What are you thinking people? I'm dead. It's not like I'm going to suddenly sit up and talk or anything! Furthermore, I don't want a bunch of people standing around saying things like "Doesn't she look good?" or "She just doesn't quite look like herself, does she?"

Well, duh! I'm dead. There is no more looking like myself or looking "good." What is that?!

But I digress.

I was visiting Cookie- but from the other side. She is now "over there" while I am still here, visiting the family I had until now, only seen in pictures pinned to the wall in her nursing home room.

I knew them all instantly and the weird thing was they didn't know me. I was their mother's friend, the one whose name Cookie couldn't remember, the one who listened to her fears and feelings, the one who held her hand when no one else was around.

In a way, it was like walking into a home movie and sharing a secret joke with Cookie.

Her daughter knew me by name, held my hand and said she knew how much I'd meant to her mother. She said everyone at the nursing home had been so good to her mom. I wondered which nursing home she thought her mother was in because it sure wasn't the one I know!

Her son said Cookie died very peacefully. He said he and his sister were sitting in her hospital room with her when he noticed her heart rate slipping lower and lower, only to rally a bit before sinking again. "I kissed her forehead and I said 'Mama, I know you're tired. It's alright to go now.'"

A few moments later, Cookie let go.

I looked around the room at all the familiar faces, feeling as if I knew them so well and yet not at all. No one was crying. After all, Cookie was 93. She'd lived a long, long life and she was much loved.

I walked over to the casket and looked down at my dear friend one last time...until I heard the echo of my Unnamed Ones saying "You know they fill their mouths with foam and sew them shut. There's makeup on their faces and hands. Sometimes they even dye their hair."

Cookie's cheeks were just a bit too full, her bruised hands a bit too thick with pancake foundation. The tie we had here in this dimension broke free in that moment and I had to let go of my earthly image of Cookie. She has gone- maybe back to where she came from, in one form or another. Perhaps her energy lingers in some way near those of us who loved her. I just don't know.

But wherever she is, I hope she gets to say hello to Dad. I took him to meet her one time and she liked him just swell- which was perfect, considering their specialness in my world.

I hope whatever continues on after we lose our bodies meets up with whatever's become of him and they swirl like invisible autumn leaves around me as I make my way on down the path without them.