Month: February 2021

A Sweet Goodbye

The decision to move my mother to a senior care place after four-and-a-half years in our house was a difficult one.  Our house had become her home, and she was not eager for another big life change.  Plus, she balked at the expense; but my brothers were ready and willing to pay the freight.  They were so grateful that Liza had given so much of her time and energy to our mom, and they wanted to step up and contribute to Mom’s care.

Audrey’s diminishing eyesight, her unsteadiness, and her increasing needs for personal care were becoming more complicated for Liza to manage.  I had promised my wife that we would find another home for Audrey when her care became more than Liza could manage.  Because Audrey fell a lot, Liza developed a sore back from lifting her up, and she feared further injury.  I would feel guilty at times for “kicking my mother to the curb,” but our whole extended family had my back.  It was time.   

We were also at the point where Audrey could not be left alone in the house, so for a while we contracted with an in-home health care service to take care of her when we could not be around.  The brochure crowed about their years of experience with elder care and the skill of their “trained professionals.”

When the doorbell rang as the first caregiver showed up, I opened the door to Margaret and thought to myself:  they just might have exaggerated a bit.  Standing in our doorway was a young woman, nineteen or twenty years old and right out of the pages of a teen magazine.  Doc Martens, knee high socks, jean shorts, bare midriff, various face piercings, and spiky hair.  Audrey was sitting in her armchair when we introduced them, and Audrey’s first glimpse of Margaret was her navel, also pierced. 

We rolled our eyes, but Margaret turned out to be great.  As we were leaving the house, they were laughing it up.  When we got home, she had checked off all the boxes on the checklist for Audrey’s care.  Audrey made it clear that she would not allow anyone else to Grammy-sit.  Only Margaret. 

Still, that was stop-gap.  Liza was still the main caretaker, but in Mom’s last few months in our house I had to raise my game.  In the same way a mom of small children hands off her brood to hubby around dinner time or on the weekends, I took charge of Audrey most Saturdays and many evenings.  Some lovely things took place in the waning weeks of her time with us.

She loved it when I took her to the market.  I kept a small plastic step stool in my pickup, which she needed to climb into the cab.  She loved the truck.  It was easier to get in and out of the truck than to get in and out of the car, and she felt SO HIP perched high up in the Dodge Ram.  And she loved the market, because she could push a shopping cart, much more to her liking than being tethered to her walker.

Walking up and down the aisles at the local Pavilions was a lot like hanging out with my youngest grandson, who is eighteen months old.  Like him, Mom wanted to touch everything in the store.  And to know the price of everything as well!  She was always that frugal Depression-Era housewife on a tight budget.  No longer able to read the little price tags on the front of the shelf, she asked, “Is that the cheapest coffee?” when I grabbed a one pound can of Yuban.  When asked about the price of Yuban, or any other purchase in the store, I did what any self-respecting and dutiful son would do.  I lied.

And we always went through the checkout line where Nancy rang things up.  She caught my signal and knew what to do.

Audrey:       

“Is that the cheapest coffee?”

Nancy:          

“Not normally. Today it’s on sale. Your son is a smart shopper.”

Whenever I was home of an evening, our goodnight routine was delightful.  After helping with her nighttime ablutions and getting her in her jammies, I tucked her into bed, connected her to the oxygen, sat on the side of the bed and sang her to sleep.  We kept a hymnal on the bedside table; she loved those old hymns of the church.  It reminded her (and me) of the holiday gatherings at my grandparents’ house.  At the end of the day, we would gather at the piano in their parlor and have a multi-generation family sing-along.  “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” “Living for Jesus.” “God Be with You ‘Til We Meet Again.”  She loved ‘em all.       

She also loved show tunes.  Broadway!  For years she and three of her buddies had season tickets for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, and occasionally she roped me in.  I was nine or ten when I sat for the first time in the center front row of the mezzanine and watched and heard Gordon McCrae belt out, “There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow…”  I was hooked like a fish and became a rabid fan of musicals.  “Oklahoma.” “Kismet.” “South Pacific.” “Guys and Dolls.”  She loved ‘em all.

Sometimes she wanted me to read to her.  It took two or three weeks to get through “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom.  The author wrote about the conversations he had over several months with his favorite professor and mentor from Yale, who was in the throes of ALS.  At one point, Albom asks, “Are you afraid of dying?”  The prof answered that he was not afraid of dying.  He was afraid of something else.  He was afraid that soon enough someone was going to have to “wipe my butt.”

Audrey laughed so hard that I was afraid she might hurt herself, but it was no laughing matter.  She made it clear that she did not want me, or Liza, or our daughters, or any other family member to be the ones to wipe her butt.  She did not want any of us to share the indignities of aging that were to come.  Mom was so resolute and stubborn about not being a burden, she investigated the possibility of living alone again in an apartment — ninety-seven, legally blind and immobile.      

Audrey fought it a little longer, but down deep she knew; and in the last few months in our house, Mom and I shared some tender moments and memories.  One evening we emptied a bottle of wine, and Audrey turned maudlin.  She told me about the most painful experiences of her life, the loss of two babies.

My parents were married in 1927, and she became pregnant with their first child in 1929.  In those days there was no ultrasound.  They found out that the baby was a girl the day she was born.  Janine was a striking redhead, but it was immediately apparent that this baby would be severely handicapped.  A breech delivery had resulted in severe birth trauma, and she never made it home.  She died in the hospital at six weeks.  Then after both of my brothers were born, and before I came along, Mom became pregnant again in 1940; and that baby was stillborn at 14 weeks.         

Two girls.  I had heard about this heartache from family members, but never from my mother’s lips.  The grief over her loss was overwhelming to me:  the daughters that my mother would have loved, the daughters she would have mentored in all the arts and crafts and handiwork which she learned from her own mother!  The grief over my loss was also overwhelming:  the big sisters that I would have dearly cherished, but never got to know.   

To this day I believe that my mother conspired to open a vein and share this intimate grief to comfort me.  To tell me that she and I were OK!  That she trusted me with this bolt from her gut!  That this departure from our house would not be a departure from the ties that bind us together.  She put up some resistance right to the end; but I was able to cajole her with humor and she finally left her beloved room behind and got in the car.  At the end of the day, she bid our home a sweet goodbye. 

To be continued…

Next week:  Audrey, Part Five

                        Another Sweet Goodbye

The Later Years!

“The Last Samurai” is a beautiful film about an American expat veteran of the American Civil War (Tom Cruise) living in Japan, who encounters the last samurai warrior of the title (Ken Watanabe).  They form an unlikely friendship, and they are the last men alive on the battlefield, when the Cruise character assists his friend to depart this world in a noble and “good death.” 

At the end, the American limps into the royal palace and presents the emperor with the sword of the departed warrior.  The emperor says, “Tell me how he died.”  The American pleads with the emperor, “Let me tell you how he lived.”        

My mother died a good death at the age of ninety-nine; but before I tell you about that, let me tell you how she lived, starting with a story.

She was in her late eighties when she booked a flight to visit her kith and kin in Dallas and Austin.  We drove to the Van Nuys Flyaway, where I stood in line to buy her ticket for the shuttle bus to LAX.  When I caught up with her, she was in an animated conversation, and it was a striking tableau.  My five-foot-three, 105-pound mother was chattering with this African American man who was at least six-four, two-seventy-five.  Their laughter and their familiarity led me to believe that she had run into an old friend.    

No, they were perfect strangers.  They had never laid eyes on each other before; but in less than five minutes they were lifelong chums, sharing pictures of their grandchildren.  That was Audrey all right.  It didn’t matter your race, creed, color, national origin, or station!  She embraced others with enthusiasm — young or old, man or woman, black or white, gay or straight.  She had an open and curious nature, turning otherwise ordinary encounters into adventures.

Well into her eighties, she had been the picture of health, energetic and buoyant, defying gravity and expectations for the elderly. She was the inspiration for the Energizer Bunny.  Always ready to get up and go, she was eighty-eight the last time she undertook the four-hour, five-bus trip from her apartment to our house. 

But not long after her ninetieth birthday she began to deteriorate; and since she was still living by herself, there was considerable worry throughout our extended family about her future and her care.  Especially when she admitted that she had taken a few falls.  Perhaps because she was petite, didn’t weigh much, and didn’t have far to fall, she had not broken anything; but one fall severely damaged her rotator cuff.   That set things in motion for her last chapters.

Audrey was ninety-three years old when she came to live with our family.  We thought she might last another year — maybe two — because her body had been letting her down, but she fooled us.  She lived until two months into her hundredth year, and she did not go quickly or quietly into that good night.  She was convinced that old age was a temporary condition, from which she would soon recover.

It griped her no end that she could no longer do the normal simple things; like take a pot off the stove, or peel the yams, or get in and out of the tub on her own.  She needed a walker which was also an aggravation.  She loved it when we took her to the market where she could push the shopping cart; it made her feel younger and less conspicuous. 

One day she was standing in our kitchen, hands on the walker and muttering to herself because she was stuck.  She couldn’t lift her feet enough to walk.  She looked down and said, “C’mon feet.  Get to movin’.”  She rocked back and forth until one foot came off the floor, and then the other, took three or four steps and stopped.  Her frustration bubbled up and she swore, “DAMN!  I WISH I WAS NINETY AGAIN.” 

That was some perspective, right?  Truth be told, Audrey had a keen sense of perspective all her life.  She knew how to hold onto a buck, but she was never enamored of the world’s goods.  She always put people over things, but the few things she had were of good quality and well cared for.  She was a woman of enormous talent and creativity, and she never bragged about it.  For any and all successes in her life, she gave thanks and due credit to the Lord.    

That perspective served her well in her last few years.  She boiled her life down to the things of real importance:  A fresh peach from our tree!  The sun streaming through the living room window onto her shoulders!  A newly picked rose from our garden which she could hold up to her face to catch the scent.  Books on tape with a big-button tape player from the Braille Institute!  Getting to the bathroom on time!

And most importantly, connections!  We got for her a phone with huge buttons so she could ring up family and friends.  It was de rigueur for any of our daughters’ friends to drop in on Grammy when visiting our house.  It was not unusual to pass by her room and find two or three high schoolers sitting crossed legged on the floor near her, being regaled with stories from her childhood almost a century before. 

Through all her frustrations with aging, there were three things that kept her going, three things that made it workable for all of us, three things that made us all grateful.

Number One.  She had a strong mind.  Frail of body, yes; but she did not show signs of serious dementia.  She had most of her wits about her until the last month of her life.  

Number Two.  She had a sense of humor.  Audrey could laugh at herself, her condition, her life.  She told wonderful jokes and anecdotes about getting old.  With a chuckle she said, “Son, getting old is not for sissies.” 

Number Three.  She had a daughter-in-law.  There are many jokes about mothers-in-law, and that is because the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship has risks.  Even my brothers questioned her sanity when my wife proposed that we invite Audrey into our home.  Later they would consider a flight to Rome and an audience with the Holy Father to submit a petition for Liza’s sainthood.  They knew very well that our mom’s feistiness and her strength of will could be troublesome.

Indeed, there were moments.  It was not always silky smooth.  It was an adjustment for Audrey to give up her independence, but it was also an adjustment for Liza, who added Audrey’s care to her already busy life with teen age daughters at home.  Liza took on the responsibility to feed and bathe my mom, get her dressed, keep her company, manage her health care, get her to the doctor, organize her meds.

And in the day to day, they found common ground and an endearing friendship.  Each morning they shared toast and coffee.  They discussed the news of the day.  They prayed together; that was the connection that blunted the sharp elbows and sanded over the rough spots.  In brief, Liza had made a home for Audrey.

Liza also had to pick Audrey up when she fell, which happened with increasing frequency until she was falling at least once a week – maybe a total of one hundred times during her stay with us.  There came a time when it was no longer possible for Liza to provide the physical care that Audrey required.  We had some in-home care, but it was not enough.  After four-and-a-half years with us, Audrey moved to a skilled nursing facility, where she lived the last sixteen months of her life.  It was far from us, but close to both of my brothers, who took on the financial responsibility and the communication with her caregivers.  I could only get there once a week, but between the brothers and their wives and a nephew or two, Audrey had a visitor almost every day.

And when Audrey got to her new digs, she was as feisty and funny as ever.

To be continued…

Next week:   Audrey, Part Four:  A Sweet Goodbye.

NOTE:

This post appears on Sunday, February 21, 2021.  Exactly one hundred seventeen years ago in 1904, Audrey was born on this date.

My mom’s career as an interior decorator/designer started humbly enough when she answered an ad for a seamstress in the workshop of a prestigious interior design firm.  She had always been nimble with a needle and for years had done piece work at home in the sewing room she fashioned out of our enclosed porch.  She learned her craft at the knee of her mother who was a milliner who owned and operated her own shop in the 1910’s and 20’s, thanks to a determined spirit and the full-throated support of my grandfather. 

When Audrey was hired by the family-owned design firm in 1948, they were well known throughout the area for the quality of their handmade French-pleat draperies.  For my mom, it was like a duck to water.  She often brought the work home to complete on her own worktable, and she was meticulous in her craft.  Her ruler was in constant use as she made sure that every pleat, every fold, every stitch, and every drapery hook was perfectly placed.

And her handiwork was not just limited to sewing; she had learned the use of tools from her dad.  She could fix a lamp, perform simple carpentry, reupholster the cushion on a dining room chair, replace the washer in the drippy faucet, install a traverse rod, hang wallpaper, paint the interior of the house … well, you name it.  Yep, she could wield a hammer, a screwdriver, a drill, a level, a crescent wrench, a pair of pliers, or a paint brush.    

Speaking of paint, she had another ability that was quite amazing; in this she was an outlier, and it had to do with color.  She could look at the floral print on someone’s sofa, and later instruct the clerk at the paint store what to add to the white paint base to create that same color.  Add a drop of yellow, or two drops of burnt umber, or magenta, or whatever, and Voila!  A perfect match.

It did not take long for the husband-wife team who employed her to recognize her practical skill set, her demand for excellence, her work ethic, her total reliability, and her outgoing and gracious demeanor.  Soon enough she was transferred to the sales force; and over the next 30-plus years she lovingly improved the homes and offices of a large, loyal, and diverse clientele.  When our dad died without much in the way of assets, Audrey was not left bereft.  She was sixty-seven years old.  She was a professional.  She could earn a buck.  Which she did, well into her eighties. 

She finally stopped working, but she didn’t stop going.  It seemed as if she would go on forever, and at high speed.  She was just a little spit of a thing, about five-two and 110 pounds, but her personality was huge.  Her enthusiasm, her independence, and her curiosity drove her life.

And her stubbornness!  When she wanted to visit our family, she refused to allow me to pick her up.  Instead, she walked to the corner by her apartment building in San Dimas and boarded a bus to El Monte, where she transferred to a bus bound for Los Angeles.  From the downtown bus depot, she walked four or five blocks through Skid Row to board a bus to Chatsworth, which is in the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley.  She caught the bus to Simi Valley where she hopped on the local transit that loops around the town, debarking at the Simi Civic Center.  She walked about half-a-mile and showed up on our doorstep.  It took four or five hours and five buses to cover the sixty miles, and all the while she was shouldering her bright red canvas duffel bag. She was eighty-eight years old the last time she embarked on this adventure.

About that time, she suffered a bout of pneumonia, which did slow her down.  Over the next three or four years she lost more than a step.  She was losing her eyesight and was diagnosed with macular degeneration.  Her breathing became labored and she needed to wear a canula and get an oxygen boost at night.  Her heart skipped a few beats; it was congestive heart failure.  She was also unsteady on her feet; she had taken a few falls.

The year was 1997, Audrey was ninety-three, and my wife made a most perspicacious observation.  She said, “Hon, it took her a very long time, but finally your mom got old.”

My brothers and I — and many other members of our clan — pondered the dilemma of Audrey’s failing health.  We asked the question that is asked by extended families everywhere.  The question that has provoked anguish in grown children all over!  The question about end-of-life care for our aging parents!                 

What are we going to do about Grammy?

To be continued…

Next week:  Audrey, Part Three:  The Later Years.

As February 21^st approaches, my thoughts turn to my mother Audrey who was born on that date in 1904.  To lend a bit of perspective, just two months earlier on December 17^th, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew their experimental biplane at Kitty Hawk on the outer banks of North Carolina.  The beginning of the Age of Aviation!

Audrey died in 2003, just two months after her 99^th birthday.  Her life span was the 20^th Century, and aviation was just one of the wonders she witnessed.  Oh, the stories she loved to tell.  And she did, with gusto, to whomever would listen.

My students loved it when she came to speak about her life as a young girl.  Born in Oak Hill, Texas; her family had no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity.  They read by oil lamp and cooked and heated with a wood-fueled cast iron stove, where they also boiled water for bathing in a bathtub.  And a shower? Never heard of it.   

When she was eight, they moved to Pasadena, California; and one day she saw and heard a “newsie” shouting, EXTRA!  EXTRA!  READ ALL ABOUT IT!  TITANIC SINKS!  They moved to Pomona where she attended high school during World War One.

The students were fascinated — and somewhat in shock — when my mom described things that they did and did not have.  It was not easy to grasp that when she was their age, the only things in her house driven by electricity were a lamp, a radio, and a telephone.  The telephone was on a “party line,” which meant everyone within a mile shared the connection.  You had to take turns and be patient, and occasionally relay a message to a neighbor who did not yet have a phone.  No TV, computer, refrigerator, washer, dryer, garbage disposal, hair dryer, vacuum cleaner, microwave, blender, or toaster.  No electric toothbrush.  No power tools!

They also had no wheels.  My granddad walked to work or took a trolley to his job as a ticket agent for Union Pacific, my grandmother walked to her millinery shop, and Audrey walked to school.  After school she walked to the shop and learned a world of “home ec” skills from her mother as they created hats and fascinators in the fashion of the era.  Grandfather bought their first car in 1922, the year my mom graduated from Pomona High School.

How did she survive?

Quite well, actually!  Obviously, she didn’t know what she was missing or what wonders were to come; but in many ways she was just like my students.  As an eighteen-year-old young woman, she loved the popular music that drove her parents crazy.  She wanted to drive the car.  She “shingled” her hair in the fashion of the day, and she loved to dance.  She wore a “flapper” dress that came just above the knee, and the dress was lined at the hem with fringe that shimmied when she rocked the “Charleston.” 

Thirty years later she decided that I should learn how to dance.  I was in 7^th grade when she put me in a crisp shirt with a bow tie, a sports coat and shiny shoes, and became my dance partner on the red faux-brick linoleum floor of our kitchen.  We danced the waltz, the foxtrot and occasionally cut loose with the “lindy hop” and the “jitterbug.”  Wow! My mom was a hoofer!

In 1926, she became engaged to an earnest, steady, reliable, hard-working, and sober young man whom she knew from school and who already had a responsible position in a bank.  He also attended the local Congregational church.  Her parents heartily approved of this match.  However, before the wedding could take place, my grandmother died of cancer; and just about that time, Audrey met Ted, and she fell for him – hook, line, and sinker.  

Compared to her fiancé, Ted was less reliable, less responsible, less sober – but more dapper, charming, intelligent, and witty.  Granddad was of sane mind and a good judge of character, saw the flim-flam, and was beside himself with worry.  He must have been apoplectic on January 15^th, 1927, when Ted Piatt and Audrey Marie Johnson eloped and tied the knot in San Diego.

Not surprisingly, Ted and Audrey had some real struggles in their marriage.  Some of those struggles are chronicled in previous posts to this blog:  Boater, 5/26/20; Tears on My Space Bar, 6/16/20; Lace, 6/30/20; How Great Thou Art, 9/15/20; and One Last Basket, 10/13/20.    

At the same time, they loved each other deeply and had a shared goal that cannot be overstated in terms of its impact on our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren.  Although Dad went only as far as 8^th grade in school, and Mom had just one or two years of community college, they were determined to get their three sons through college and beyond.  They never took a vacation or spent money on entertainment.  Every available dime was put away for college.

This decision required my mom to go to work.  She would have loved to be a fulltime wife and mom; but needs must.  At a time when there were few working moms, she started as a seamstress.  The skill set she learned in the millinery shop qualified her to sew high-end French-pleat draperies for an exclusive home design center.  This was the beginning of an unexpected and splendid blessing in her life.

Soon my mom moved from the drapery workshop to the design floor, and over the next thirty years she developed a loyal clientele as a much in-demand interior decorator/designer.  Her eye for color and her sense of style took her to the homes and offices of college professors and other professionals.  Plus, she had a killer work ethic.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors invited the class to his home for wine, cheese, and conversation.  Just walking in the door, I was struck with a sense of deja vu.  The arrangement of art on the wall, the placement of the furniture, the quality of the drapes, the scheme of fall colors; they were all familiar to me.  When I introduced myself to the professor’s wife, she asked, “Are you related to Audrey Piatt?”

Audrey did more than get a job; she got a career.

To Be Continued…