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| Mom--Hiram, Ohio August 1958 reading in the sun |
Anyway, that's over ... at least until his phone calls commence!
Mom, born on September 9, 1919 (when women did not yet have the vote!), died at age 98. She was in hospice care at the stages-of-care place in Lenox, Mass., where she had lived for a number of years. She and Dad had moved from the Oregon coast (which they both adored) about twenty years ago (?) when Dad's health had begun to fail, and they had decided to move to western Mass., not far from where my two brothers shared a summer/weekend place in the Berkshires--an old farmhouse they have slowly restored.
Dad passed away on November 30, 1999, and, in some ways, it was a relief for Mom, who had been his principal caretaker for years. His decline had been slow but steady. Small strokes and heart attacks. Cane-walker-wheelchair-bed. You know ...
As soon as he died, Mom moved out of their assisted-living facility and got her own apartment in Lenox, where we visited her quite a few times over the years. Western Mass. is nearly 600 miles from our home in Hudson, but we were young and (relatively) healthy. We went as often as we could.
Mom had a bad car accident (just her car vs. a tree) and had to wear one of those "halo" devices. And then she, too, commenced her slow but certain decline. Cane-walker-wheelchair-bed.
She had enjoyed a wonderful career. Had taught English in public schools in Enid, Okla., and Garrettsville, Ohio. Then she earned her Ph.D in Education at the University of Pittsburgh, and she and Dad got to teach together their final career years at Drake University (they began there in the fall of 1966, the year I began my own public-school teaching career). Drake's president at the time was their great friend Dr. Paul F. Sharp (whom they'd known since college years).
They retired out in Cannon Beach, Ore., built a home there, and enjoyed some wonderful years before Dad began his decline.
Mom was such an intellectually active woman--until she simply no longer could be. She was one of the first in the family to have a personal computer (an Apple II!), was a ferocious reader, got very involved in civic activities. She never, never "wasted time."
Near the end, she was not able to finish the last book she was reading (I think it was a mystery that my younger brother had bought for her), but she left it out in full view--with a bookmark--in her living room so that visitors could see it. The same with her laptop. She couldn't use it anymore--she'd forgotten how to turn it on and off, how to manipulate it. But it also stayed in public view. These were Mom's way of saying, I have not given up.
And she didn't, not really, not ever.
One thing that astonished me about her final months: her remarkable humor and equanimity about it all. By that time she could do nothing that she'd once loved to do: hike, swim, write, read, drive around, quilt with her friends, ...
But she could laugh at her infirmities, could deal with the indignities of old age with a calm I never would have believed she could manage.
If I live long enough to see those conditions in my own life, I know this--for certain: They will have to medicate me--heavily. Otherwise, I will be screaming vile obscenities, 24/7.
It took me a lot of years to figure it out--and to give credit where credit is due--but Mom was a fantastic model for me. Curious, hard-working, devoted to her students, determined to stay current. A true educator and intellectual.
My dad, I should say, supported her without reservation--encouraged her to get advanced degrees, etc. Not something every man in his generation (b. 1913) was capable of, I don't believe.
I think about Mom and Dad every day--I marvel that she died a day after his birthday--I marvel at their fierce work ethic, at their support of their three sons (so different from one another--almost separate species!), at their long (but ultimately hopeless) fight against physical and mental decline.
To say I didn't always appreciate my parents when I was a kid, a teen, is an understatement (I was often a jerk), and I'm so glad they both lived long enough that I could show them--and tell them--how much they'd meant to me. And how sorry I was ...
They were two very distinct varieties of human excellence. And I got to grow up in their home. No one was ever more fortunate.
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