mom — Page 18

Walking Together

February 21, 2012 at 9:48 am by Claudia

On a not-a-cloud-in-the-sky Monday, Don and I took a walk on the Rail Trail.

There is such beauty in the stark landscape of winter.

A splash of red berries against the browns and grays.

It felt good to be walking in the woods with my sweetie.

We, like everyone else I suppose, tend to get in a rut. Don works until late in the evening and I’m usually asleep before he gets home. I rise early. If we just let the time go by, Don doing his thing, me doing mine, before you know it, it’s time for him to leave for work and then our little window of opportunity is gone. We’re going to make a concerted effort to change that.

Yesterday we talked of camping, the smells of the forest, childhood memories, being a camp counselor, lashing together a lean-to. You know, the kind of exchange that doesn’t happen on just any old day. It was special and we need those special times together.

Then last night, I spoke with my dad. After our usual early evening conversation, he called me back. He’s so sad nowadays as he watches my mother drift away. He wanted – needed – to share some memories. Good memories. And some of them were of our family camping trips, days at the lake, driving us back to our respective colleges after a weekend at home. He talked about having very little money when my brother and I were kids. I assured him I never felt deprived. And that he was and is a good father. I’m crying as I write this, because my heart was touched so deeply by his need to talk about happy memories. His days now are about visiting my mother, hoping she might feel like talking, hoping to catch a glimpse of the wife he once knew. He’s devoted to her. He takes her magazines, and plays her favorite music, sometimes just sits there as she sleeps, holding her hand. Such sadness nowadays.

Don and I have been together over 17 years. My parents have been together 66 years. I don’t know how I would feel if I felt Don slipping away from me. I can only imagine the heartbreak, the realization that the end of our days together was near. How my parents, together so many years, can even begin to face this is beyond me.

Sometimes life is so beautiful. Sometimes it is absolutely heartbreaking. All in the course of one February day.

The Story of Shannon & the Dentures

February 5, 2012 at 10:19 am by Claudia

Source: Wikipedia, Irish Setter from 1915, W. E. Mason, Dogs of all Nations

My friends, I’ve been very blue this weekend as I contemplate the deterioration of my mother’s already fragile health and listen to my dad cry out his heartbreak during our phone calls. I feel as if I’m on the edge of a precipice of loss. When it will happen, I cannot know, but that feeling lurks in every corner of my daily life.

So often lately, I choose to remember my parents as they were decades ago. In my head I see a photo of us together in San Diego (I’ll have to share it with you someday), that first summer I lived there, just weeks before I met Don for the first time. Big smiles, still vital – happy to be with me in my new city. Or I picture my mom and I laughing over something or other. We laughed a lot together; we’d laugh so hard that we’d clutch our stomachs, tears in our eyes. Laughter is the best medicine.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share a funny story with you. A true story. When I was a teenager, we had an Irish Setter named Shannon. Shannon was smart as a whip and constantly into something or other. Oh, he was a handful, but how he would make us laugh! He’d grab a dish cloth or a hand towel and run through the living room with it in his mouth, hoping to get our attention. If one of us purposely ignored him, he would reverse direction and run back through the room, dish cloth still in his mouth. This would go on and on until, exasperated, he would finally just drop the cloth in our lap as if to say, See? I took it. Doesn’t anyone care???

My dad wore dentures. He would sometimes leave them on the sink in the bathroom when he went to bed. One morning, my mom was in the living room (dad was still sleeping) and Shannon tore by her with something in his mouth. Then he tore by her again. She glanced up. Not a dish cloth. Something she couldn’t see was hidden in his mouth. She called out his name – Shannon! He did what he always did when he had something he didn’t want us to get from him. He went under the dining room table – just far enough to make it hard to reach him. By this time, Mom had asked for my help. We got down on our hands and knees and reached for him – he moved his head away from us. We reached again. He moved away. Finally, Mom got hold of his collar. Then we tried to pry his mouth open. When we pried his teeth apart, we saw anotherset of teeth – my dad’s.Oh no.

In a panic, all we could think was that my dad would completely lose it if Shannon chomped on his expensive dentures. And he would have. As I kept his mouth open, Mom, with the skill of a surgeon, began to remove the dentures from his mouth – praying the whole time that he wouldn’t bite down on them. Somehow we did it. Adrenalin-infused strength, I bet.

Afterwards, she took those dentures, scrubbed the life out of them, used some denture cleaner and put them back where they had been – on the side of the bathroom sink. She knew she couldn’t tell my father about it. I was sworn to secrecy and dad didn’t find out about it until many years later. For years, mom, my sisters and I would tell that story and laugh our heads off.Shannon was always up to something. We had a travel trailer parked in our driveway (right outside my parents’ bedroom window) and many was the time that mom and I would be out there on our hands and knees, one on either side of the trailer, trying to get Shannon to come out from under it. He would invariably lay there, right in the place where we couldn’t reach him, taunting us. We’d do this in whispers, trying not to disturb my dad (sleeping again) or our neighbors. After what seemed like hours of this rigamarole (confident that my dad was still sleeping) one loud bellow of Shannon! from the direction of the bedroom would bring him out from under the trailer and into the house, making Mom and me, on our hands and knees, look ridiculous.

All these years later, those stories still make me laugh. And that’s a good thing.

The Day Before Christmas Eve

December 23, 2011 at 10:55 am by Claudia

Happy day before Christmas Eve! I completely forgot to display this Santa until this morning. And that would have been a shame, as he is absolutely beautiful. My mom gave Don and I a few of these large Santas over the years – I think there is another one in the shed. Note to myself: go get it.

This Christmas, especially, I want to honor my mom. She will be spending Christmas in the nursing home. It will be the first Christmas in 66 years that my parents haven’t woken up together on Christmas morning. My dad has been decorating her room and he will spend much of Christmas day with her. He decided not to decorate his condo. When you’re alone and your beloved wife is not by your side, decorating loses its appeal.

Isn’t the detail incredible?

Don isn’t feeling well. He had chills last night, so I tucked him in with an afghan and my childhood quilt (my grandma made heavy quilts.) He’s not up yet.

He’s mad at himself for letting me open my iPhone early. He says he should have stood up to me, been firmer. I know he wants to buy a couple of small presents so I have something to open on Christmas morning, but if he doesn’t feel better, that might not happen. Present opening may be confined to Don and the dogs!

Lots of movie watching yesterday: White Christmas in the afternoon and two of The Thin Man series in the evening. Love some William Powell and Myrna Loy – they had such great chemistry. Plus, the series was shot in the 30’s, so there are beautiful Art Deco sets and fabulous clothes. And the wonderful dog, Asta, played by a dog named Skippy in real life. Skippy was a popular dog in the thirties; he worked in lots of movies, including one of my favorites, The Awful Truth.

Can you tell I love old movies?

If they took my ridiculously long list of cable channels away, and let’s face it, I’m usually complaining that there is nothing worth watching on television, I would be fine if only I still had Turner Classic Movies. Is it possible to subscribe to only one cable channel? I sure would save a lot of money.

I’m making my list of things to buy at the grocery store. Don has to work on Christmas Eve, so I will spend the time baking our Christmas Coffee Cake and a pumpkin pie.

How are your preparations going?

Walking Together

The Story of Shannon & the Dentures

The Day Before Christmas Eve

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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