Eulogy for my Mother

My mother Catherine M. Stone ,died at 1:30 AM at the nursing home on March 29, 2010. She was nearly 91. Her birthday April 30, 1919. In her early 80's she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I have my doubts about the diagnosis.

I asked the doctor if it could just as easily be vascular dementia, he didn't disagree. There are two reasons I believed this. As it turns out she had significant clogging in both of her corotid arterties..and the history of her ilness was different from Alzheimers.

Alzheimers is very aggressive, attacking short term memory, then long term memory, then, eventually, the body functions begin to fail. Both diseases lead initially to short term memory dysfunction. But Alzheimers is more lethal - more quickly. The other disease, vascular dementia, is probably more preventable in terms of the amount of clogging, and when it occurs in life. Ischemia from clogging is a problem we all face as we age, in some it occurs faster, and at a younger age. In some it occurs in the coronary vessels.

My mother had her long term memory to the end. She couldn't make new memories because the dementia prevented her from encoding short term memories into long term. Toward the end she was eating less and less drinking less and less. But she always responded and brightened when we went there.

Ultimately this article is not about the distinction. My mother died of old age where it matters. This is really about my mother, who she was, and what my mother was like.

This is more of an Elegy than it is a eulogy. It is my poetry about my mother.

I didn't know it but my mother almost married Stanley. He was a “looker.”

"Was he Ma?"
"Oh yes, he was hannnsum!"

But she ended up marrying Sam. My mother called my father Sam when she was mad at him. His name was Joe. It was two weeks ago she said this. bright as a bulb. My wife and I had awakened her from her afternoon nap. When she talked of Stanley I said, playfully:

“Ma, why in the heck didn't ya marry Stanley, Sam could be a pain in the neck!”

“Naw, it wasn't him, it was his mother, she was a witch...but Stanley was gooood lookin!” My mother was very funny.My mother was always receptive to the humor, even in hard times, she would resort to the absurdity in it all.

My father died a year ago, and when I visited my mother she would ask where he was. I'd say “he's working , but...he told me to get my ass up here, so I did.” She smiled.

Ma mother could see my father barking orders. I would say, his back hurt so he couldn't come. Or he was using his inhaler a lot, and felt breathless...she recognized those symptoms. They were appeasing, ironically enough, but for a reason. He was still there, thinking of her. And she knew if he could get there, he would.

It bothered me to keep having to come up with something new each time, and I feared she'd get the idea.We all tried to spare her from hearing he'd died. She'd forget it and ask again, but it would be too much for her in the moment. And those moments would repeat, and we'd have to say he died over and over, wounding her anew each time, He was her anchor in the unfamiliar world of the nursing home, her anchor to the familiar. Her house was her other anchor. Her kids and grandchildren were all anchors to her identity. There'd be no new memories made. No new anchors. No new familiar things. Parts of self were disappearing. Her familiar world. So, we could not tell her that the biggest part of her world was gone.

If he was not there, he was somewhere, that she could hold on to...

Luckily she wouldn't question whatever creative white lie I manufactored too deeply. They were all plausible white lies. After awhile she stopped asking, so I was a little relieved. I was running out of reasons why he didn't come.I think subconsciously she knew...and let it go.

When my father visited, she brightened, he visited every day. But, she'd forget he was there after he left. She would get mad that he didn't come. We would say, “He did come, you can't remember that's all. You have CRS”

“CRS, what in Christ is that?”

“It's ...Can't remember shit. Mother you definitely have CRS”

“My memory is tip top!”

“OK, I'd say...What's your phone number?

“8913719.”

"No Ma, that's Sam's number yours is 935...?"
“I know it, 9351507”

Ok Ma, heres a tough one, what's your address”

“25 SQUANTO RD”

“You got it. Nothing wrong there!”

The old memories were fixed. If she went home, and she could never do that, she'd know every nook and cranny in the house. She'd know everyone's name. But, she would not remember that my sister was just there five minutes earlier.

In the nursing home, every day was a new and different world. Even tho the same nurses came in everyday.She didn't retain their names. Even though she woke in the same nursing home, in the same bed, it was a new nursing home every day. A new bed. This must have been very hard for her initially.

I think she did retain some familiarity with all of that. But not like we do. What was consoling was the idea that she didn't seem terrified. She seemed eventually to be flowing with the strangeness of it all. She felt safe in the nursing home, and she was treated very well.

Getting there was a hard road. She broke a hip from a simple fall in early 2007, a shoulder was next, then another shoulder, and then the other hip. We resisted placement til the last. The second hip did It. These were all from simple falls. One broken hip set her up for the next fall. She went through hell, the initial traumas, the surgeries, the post operative pain, and agonal residual pain, together with advancing problems in memory. She took the memory problem in stride. We joked about it.

My mom grew up during the depression and she was set in her ways. She was definitely queen of her castle, and if it were a vote on the dominance issue between my dad and my mother I'd vote for my mother.

My mother and father ultimately didn't get along - and so to keep from driving each other crazy, they divorced. My father always stayed in touch. Ultimately, they loved each other, they'd been through too much together, but they were better off somewhat independent in the last 20 years.

And when my mother was vulnerable, my dad moved back in to take care of her. This is love. Being there.My dad was 85 at the time, and this was something he could not understand initially -about her memory. But he recognized her vulnerabilty and learned about the disease. He adapted well, and made light of her memory issues eventually. I helped educate him, as I had worked in nursing homes, I'd seen it too often. I said " Dad, she won't be able to remember five minutes ago...there's no point to get frustrated, she can't make new memories." I told him, she'd remember all the old ones, but if you tell her something, she won't remember a short time later. Her learned quickly, and took the bull by the horns. The idea was to make her comfortable and safe.

My mother was the matriarch. The family mostly revolved around her. And she laid down the law. I was probably the only one to buck heads with my mom. She and I were polar opposites. She was a neat freak and the frugal one. I was the one that ran around the house making messes. One mess after the next. I was an endless mess maker. I think I was messy, because my mother was so neat. It was rebellion, I confess.

But, I inherited a sense of melody and a love of music from my mother. When I was very young she was always singing, and I liked the songs she played on the record player. Even Jerry Vale: I remember liking his song LINDA, or she'd play Johnny Matthis, Patti Paige. There was no generation gap for me if the song was good. If it was catchy or sung well, I'd stop to listen. What ever tunefulness I had, I got from my mom, meanwhile my father couldn't carry suitcase much less a tune. He did like the same songs as she though. The music gene was a Cain trait - it was in the blood.

We lived a very poor life as young family. My father worked in a factory. But, they, my mother and father saved money and bought a small house in the suburbs - moving out of the military housing projects built to house upwardly mobile families who had come back from the war. What we eventually got was a "match box," like the other match boxes on the street. Very small house. 7 people were crammed in it. But my sisters married and my brother went into army so there was enough space soon enough, We didn't want for much.Gradually both of my parents through there own industry became comfortable econmically.

My memories are filled images of my mother making our lunches before school. Cooking turkey on thanksgiving. The small kids were always the "wild indians" making trouble. That'd be myself and my cousins. House work was hard in the 50's. I distinctly remember a washing machine that was automated to agitate the clothes, but, drying them was a physical challenge by todays standards involving two steps: using a manual wringer to get out the water, and then hanging them outside on the clothes line to dry.

I remember I did something when I was very small that really annoyed my mother. I got a fishing line and put a little loop on the end, and put some bread in the loop. I wanted to catch a pigeon.

I was in my sisters room with the window open fishing for pigeons. A hair brained idea hatched from boredom.

“What are you doing up there?”

“I'm fishing mom, whoops I got one. She came barreling up those stairs and there was a pigeon flapping wildly bouncing off of the ceiling.

I wont repeat what she said, but she scared the hell out of that pigeon.

When the pigeon entered the loop, I snared him. The pigeon darted straight up into the air and I reeled him in through my window. My mom chased me and the pigeon right out of the house. Dennis the menace stuff.

My mom had a hard life. She saw two of her children die. Two of her brothers died when they were very young. Her father died of appendicitis. And so – she had to quit school and go to work. She worked at the Waltham Watch factory.

When she married my father, she was a house wife. But she managed the money, cleaned, washed, polished and took care of her kids when they were sick. Made sure they all went to Sunday School.

My relationship with my mom was not tactile she was not a coddler, or physically close. I think that was her mothers style. My mother was probably the guide for my sense of right and wrong more than anyone. I think I worried what she would think more than what my dad thought. She was my conscience. There's a connection between mothers and son's that way. Her connection to me, was very about me being honest and forthright and moral. Her effect on my brother was different. My mother could not look at my brother and induce guilt. She could make me feel guilty with a look. She could induce guilt at 50 paces. That sense was so strong that I felt she knew if I was even contemplating something naughty. My brother was un-phased.

My mother didn't teach me morals, I was psychically bonded to her moral sense. Don't ask me to explain.

My mother hated animals. I would always try to sneak something of nature into the house. A cat, a stray dog, a rabbit. She wasn't buying any of it. “Dirty filthy animals” I think this came from her sense of germs, and the potential for infection, there were no broad spectrum antibiotics in her day.Simple infections killed people in her day. Peritonititis for example killed her father, bacterial pneumonias could only be treated with sulfa drugs before the forties. These weren't effective. So her defense was hygeine and cleanliness, orderliness in her environment.

But I could not have a dog or a cat so... I had to settle for a neighborhood dog that I befriended, Midnight, a labrador retriever. Midnight sensed my deep need for a canine friend. My sister took to midnight too, even my father did - but not my mother. Although my mother saw what it was about animals that I liked from Midnight, and tolerated her from a distance. I played with her often in the back yard, and my mother'd be watching from the window. Midnight spent more time with me, than she did with her owner. I would call out the front door for her, and she'd come bombing around the corner every time, and we'd be off to some adventure.

I one upped mom that way. It was an ego contest I suppose - me and my mom. "I got a dog ma, haha. Midnight. She's not so bad. "

I would argue with the stalk arguments females seemed to use quite a lot, she'd say

“You're just like your father”

And I'd say " Nope, I'm just like me, why is everyone like somebody?"
Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt or some dynamic like that. I would be like me, not "like" someone. There you have it, if you're into psychobabble.

My mother took very good care of me and the others. She went without for our sakes. She was the cheapest person there was - a regular skin flint. This is because she grew up during the depression. Her special affections for any one of her children if they existed, were hidden, we were all treated equally. This came from her mother I think.

I remember my mother's mother as similar in as much as she was practical, orderly, and self disciplined. When my mother went into the nursing home , my father pulled a bag out of the closet. And, in the bag there was quite a lot of cash.. My mother had cash stuffed everywhere. We counted it.

There was lot's. Saved for the rainy day. It was always a rainy day.

She saved money in a bank too...and she was getting rich. But at the paper boy's expense, he didn't get a raise for 10 years. I think she upped it a bit on his birthday, and Christmas. Tight? yep.

She did what many did during the depression she kept saving money, not spending it, an old habit. As a result though, we were able to get her the best - end care.

My father would joke with her.

“You have more money than I have. You are a rich old lady, and I thought you had no money smarts, can you lend me a dollar?
“Go fish!”

“You mean to tell me, that when You go, you won't leave all of your fabulous wealth to me, you loving husband”

“I'm not goin anywhere, I'm taking it all and I am going to buy a new blouse?”

“and then?
“Then I am going to Las Vegas and I'm going to blow it all, I'm not leaving nobody nothing”

“Well, I'm disappointed dear.”

“I'll bet you are”

My father always teased my mother about her thrifty ways. But secretly he admired her for her frugalness.

“You've got more money that ROKAFELLA (Emphasize the New England accent,) " and I love you!”

“I'll bet you do, but you get nothing” She'd take two fingers to emphasize and pinch them together:

“Not one red cent!"

My dad would laugh.

My mother was religious in as much as she believed in God, and believed in a higher presence at work in the world. In her older years, she would read philosophy. I gave her a book “Behold the Spirit” by Alan Watts. She read it through - cover to cover. She was always reading. It was her favorite pass time. She was a seeker. She told me once that she felt the presence of God in church,

it wasn't in the church proper, it was near the entrance. . She told me what it was like but I don't remember what she said. It didn't sound like fancy, it sounded like a moment of insight or transcendence.

She was sure about it. She said she hadn't felt it before, and hadn't felt it since. But she emphasized it was real. Who was I to question.

I have had major blows with my mother. When I visited we'd always get into arguments. Nothing that lasted in resentment. That was how we related I suppose. We were both stubborn. I believe she was more stubborn than me, but I suppose she would argue about that. My relationship with my mom was ambiguous. But I respected her and loved her.

Yesterday I went to see her at the nursing home. I remembered the 1001 times I'd driven my father there, I would go get her in the dining room and wheel her in to see my father who did the same thing every time, he'd hold out his arms from the chair he was sitting in, as I wheeled her in -

“Who is this ravishing beauty I see before me, “ he'd say

“You're full of shit”

“Lovely as a May flower....” he was buttering her cracker. And she'd laugh.

I'd say “I'd watch out for him ma, I think he's after your money”

“I'll bet”

When my father and I left, I'd wheel her to the dining room to watch the old time movies.

These movies she'd remember, as they are fixed in her memory. Her surroundings were not, the kitchen staff were not, and never would be, the nurses were not. But, Fred Astaire was...

This was an astute idea for patients with vascular, or Alzheimer's dementias because they could connect with something familiar.

Although we resisted placement for some time, the nursing home was probably among the best there was. I am a nurse, and I can say, Ive worked in worse. She did well. And in part that is because of her own foresight and self discipline.

In the past two years my family has lost my brother my father, and my mother. This is sad, because being at middle age. You see parts of your self disappearing, even the family home where we gathered was sold, part of self. A big part of my mothers identity was there, my father had his own place. We are left to find the nature of things in these kinds of losses.Only we can find it, and it is never found if we don't bother to look. Therin lies the temption - to believe there is no meaning. The meaning is there, somewhere, hiding.

When your mother dies tho - it's different. There's a sense of one's own mortality that comes with her passing. This is the one who birthed you, nurtured you, and even she is limited in her ability to fend off nature. She can no longer be a help. You are grown up, and mortal. You are on your own - people will lean on you now..

I was reminded by my wife of the Catholic tradition which the reader may see as fact or myth - that if you die during Holy Week, you go straight to heaven, Like passing GO and collecting 200.00 dollars. You don't have to deal with St. Peter, it's a straight shot in.

I would like to think that is true. And I would like to believe that my father will be there, holding out his arms saying:

“What is this ravishing beauty I see before me, could it be my lovely and ravishing wife”

And I can see my my mother saying:

“You're full of shit..I should have married Stanley!”

"Stanley?"

"That's right, Stanley...he was better lookin!" I can see that happening. And I can see my father laughing.

In any case, my mother is released from frailties that wear down the body, she is released from the confusion of dementia, and the agony of her broken bones. My mother is not dead. I never liked that expression:

“He is dead, She is dead”

No, she has passed on. She lives on, here inside of me. I believe she lives on there, in heaven. God bless my mother, as she has done it well.

Post Script:

My mother will be buried April 30, on her birthday in the same family plot my brother and father are buried in...the idea of thinking ahead, realism, and practicality is a middle class value system. The idea bothers me, it's against my instincts to think like that, but there's a spot for me if I need it someday, hopefully that won't be for sometime. But in many ways I've assimilated my mothers values. I have set up a trust for my kids, and what is passed to me, will be passed to my children, with out any principle being spent, What my mother saved, and my father earned deserves more respect. What they left me, does not belong to me, it belongs to the trust, and I have designed it so that I can only spend a percentage of what it earns. I will teach my kids those values before I go, so that they can learn where they came from and that they should take care of what my dad earned, and my mother saved, out of respect.

It's been a long hard vigil for my family seeing my mother decline as she did. Very hard to watch. But now she is at peace. And our journey goes on having experienced her strength when she was young, and her frailness when she was older. A special thanks to my sisters for being there more often than I was. And to my father who comforted her through all of her travails. And lastly to the nursing home, Woburn Skilled Nursing Center for their very good care.

******

© Toylanders Press International (Gary Stone). April 2010

Here is the eulogy I wrote for my father.

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