Softly and Tenderly

   They usually came at the end of their shift. Sometimes we only knew them by their first name but we stopped trying to remember that during those long days and nights. It didn't really matter anymore because we knew we would probably never see them again.  Life is funny that way. People come and go. They can be a vital part of your life for a certain period of time and then something changes and they disappear......forever. We knew their faces well.  They had compassionate and kind faces. Their actions were loving and strong. How do they do this for a living especially when they are surrounded by death? Individually they came. Softly and tenderly they knelt and held her hand. Softly and tenderly they prayed for her. Softly and tenderly they kissed her goodbye. We watched this and quietly wept as our mother slipped away from us.  

   We were surrounded by the act of dying; a process that took hours and hours.....and days and days. It was torturous to watch yet baffling when we looked at the peace and beauty on our mother's face.  We were trapped in the strangeness of surrealism. We floated through the mornings, we floated through the days, we floated through the nights and then we started it all over again. When we asked the time or looked at the clock it didn't really mean anything to us. Our lives were on hold as we waited and watched, cried and laughed, sang and hummed, prayed and wept...and wept some more.  We shared memories....oh the memories.  How sweet it was to look back and remember. How sweet it was to spend one last time together as a whole family........and then softly and tenderly, He called her home.
        "Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past, all safe and blessed we shall meet at last."

Complete Sentences

"No, the coffee has no flavor," she announces. I am constantly stunned when Mom produces such clear and appropriate sentences. I shouldn't be so stunned. After all, I did ask her if she was enjoying the coffee. I just never expected to get an answer, or rather, an answer in the form of a complete sentence. Ohhhh thank God she is still in there even though she is locked behind the glassy stare. Now she is looking at me intently and I know she wants to say more to me but her brain will not let her. I wait hoping that she will say more, but it just doesn't come. That's okay! I'm happy to hear her at all. I heard her slight southern twang when she spoke! I've missed that. It's ever-so slight, but it's there and if you knew my Mom back in the day, you would know what I'm talking about.


Then suddenly she exclaims, "Those are beautiful flowers!" Wow! I look where she is looking and sure enough, the hydrangeas are beautiful. I agree with her and then ask her if she knows what kind of flowers they are. I know I am pushing my luck but I thought...just maybe....she would tell me. She looks at me and says, "Yes", but she goes blank and looks away. That's okay. I don't care if she can't say the word but I know that she knows what it is and that's good enough for me. What a day! We're talking to each other...sort of. It's so nice to talk with her again. When I dream about her, she can talk, she can walk, and she is wearing flip-flops. It is cruel to awaken and discover the truth.

I am blessed to hear one more complete sentence before I leave. She says, "He has a cute head." Mom is referring to Chase. She has always loved the mini-dachshund breed because those cute heads have adorable floppy ears, big curious eyes, and a long, cold, and wet nose. How wonderful it is to hear her speak again!

Chase

I park the car, get out and go around to open the passenger side. His feet hit the ground running and so I am running too. No matter how much I tell him to slow down, he ignores me. He has one thing on his mind: seeing Mom. I pause to sign the guest book but my arm is being tugged. Donna, the front-desk receptionist, leans over and comments on how big he has grown but there is no time to respond because he has taken off down the hallway and I have to frantically follow. It is strange that at his young age he knows where he is and he knows who he is going to see. How can that be? He is only one. Why can't I keep up with a one year old? I run. I pant. He runs and runs. We are a flurry of activity down the hall but the residents know us well and chuckle when they see us whizzing by. I always tell them that I will come back and say a proper hello once we have seen Mom. Whizzing by the nurses station, they say a quick "hi" to us but know not to bother asking us to stop until we have achieved our goal.

Finally, we find her. How does he know which wheelchair is hers? It is remarkable, really. So young and so smart. I wish I could take credit for that. With my help, he climbs up into her lap and lays a huge, wet kiss on her mouth. Mom does not like this at all but she is so happy to see him that I hate to pull him off. After he has kissed her as much as possible, he finally settles down and sits on her lap. He fits perfectly up there and Mom loves to rest her hand on his back. I push them both down the hall and we enter her bedroom. I close the door and Chase hops down. He loves this part. There is a stuffed animal on the window by her bed. It's his favorite. I give it to him and he happily plays with it while I give Mom and hug and announce that it's nail-cutting day. I hate nail-cutting day but Chase loves it. I bring over the pink bucket filled with soapy, warm water and I put it on the floor. This is always a big mistake but I really have no choice because Mom's bare feet have to soak in it before I can tackle the awkward nail-cutting thing. I quickly put her feet in the water with one hand while I am holding back the one-year-old maniac with the other hand. He loves water! If I am not careful, he will jump right in. The last time we did this he tipped the entire bucket over with his clumsy little feet. It is usually at this point that I wonder why I bring him on nail-cutting day. Okay, the feet are done. Now on to the hands. This is always difficult because when I cut the nails on her hand they usually go flying off of the table and I have to scurry and get them before you-know-who picks them up.

We are finally done and cleaned up. We have to hurry upstairs now because floral arranging is taking place and we need to get a spot at the table. I put Chase on Mom's lap and he balances himself on the edge of her knees while I push them. The ladies upstairs love to see Chase. He is a bit of a distraction at first but once we get settled, I allow him to walk around the room by himself and greet everyone. He is so friendly and sweet. They love his little wet kisses.

It is already lunchtime and Mom needs to get to her table and we need to say our goodbyes. Chase kisses Mom on her mouth again. He always does that before I can stop him. I kiss Mom and tell her that we will be back. She is always glad that we came and tells us to come back soon. We scurry down the hall again and get to the car. I open the passenger door and lift Chase up into the seat. He climbs in without a struggle, I give him a biscuit and he collapses before I can shut his crate door. He is already sound asleep. It was a good day at Barclay.

Lipstick

She opens her mouth forming a perfect oval so that her lips are stretched over her teeth in order not to let them show. I lean in close and steady my hand as I apply the first sweep of lip color. Her lips are pale and dry but the shape of them are surprisingly perfect looking. It is strange why I have never noticed this perfection before.

I am running barefoot down the hallway to her bathroom. I stop short at her left hip and gaze up at her just in time to see her apply lipstick. This is our daily ritual. I wait until I hear her open the medicine cabinet and then I flee to her side like a puppy running to retrieve a biscuit simply because he hears the biscuit jar open. I marvel at how well she stays in the lines of her lips and wonder why I am unable to stay in the lines of the figures in my current coloring books. Within moments her pale dry lips are transformed. There is an art to her application. She never applies the lipstick to her bottom lip. Instead, she only applies it to the top lip. She carefully but swiftly colors in the shapely contour of the upper lip and then she lifts her right pinky finger to repeat the contour-tracing-action in order to smooth out the color. Then she closes her mouth and rubs her lips back and forth so that the bottom lip gets the color too. She grabs a tissue and rubs the leftover color off of her pinky and then closes the lipstick into the medicine chest where it will sit until tomorrow's ritual. All of this is done in one swift, effortless motion. In fact, all of her motions are multi-tasked, swift, efficient, and effortless.....always. Her daily tasks are met head on with one purpose only: to be swiftly completed.

The lipstick ritual that we shared eventually faded into my childhood past as I grew up and filled my selfish youthful life with seemingly more important things to do. However, her lipstick clad lips became an indicator for me for I could always tell when she was tired or feeling poorly by the lack of lipstick on her lips. No child likes to see their parent ill or tired because in our minds they are invincible. Perhaps this is why I obsessively apply it to her lips when I come for my visits. Now I know that she is not invincible and now I know that we both feel better with our lips colored in.

I step back to admire my lipstick-application-handiness and frown. "Darn it, Mom! I've made you look like a hooker again!" She chuckles as she rubs her lips together. I grab a tissue and clean off my pinky while telling her that applying lipstick for someone else is an art in itself.

Aqua Velva

Aqua Velva is not the gyrating noun as described in the Urban Dictionary:

1. A human male, usually bar-dwelling, who seems to use the trendiest cologne as a body lotion, and thinks that he is the reason every lady in the place came out on any particular evening. Sometimes known to wear shiny clothing, lip gloss, eyeliner, and enough hair gel to make his head bullet proof. Can also be identified by his Justin Timberlake "Sexy Back" ring-tone.
   
2. That guy at the bar in the tight shirt with the slicked back hair and the big muscles who thinks he looks good. He may also be dancing like an idiot.

Nor is it the Caribbean blue vodka-based cocktail that contains:

• 1 oz vodka
• 1 oz gin
• 1 oz Blue Curacao
  

topped with sprite and ice that is mixed together and served with an attractive nano-umbrella.

It is, however, a line of men's grooming products, including a widely advertised aftershave. In 1929 it was originally introduced as an alcohol-based mouthwash for men. NO WAY?!

To me Aqua Velva means one and only one thing: My Dad. He was, and still is for the most part, a well groomed and hygienically clean person. He always had his nails clipped and he was always clean shaven. His hair, although a little scraggly now, was always neatly cut and smoothly combed. He had a way of gently running his hand over the top of his hair just to make sure that there were no irregular pieces sticking out. The best part of his cleanliness was the way that he smelled: Wonderful. Crisp, clean, fresh and spicy. I can smell it now, although it has been years since I have actually caught a whiff of this fragrance. I laugh when I hear all of the tacky descriptions and frankly I am a little embarrassed to say that I really only like that men's fragrance. I find all of the other ones way too annoying. Besides, it obviously has multiple uses. I had no idea about the mouthwash one but I do know first hand that it was wonderful for fixing little boo-boos and unsightly preteen blemishes.

"Marfs," he would say as I walked into the room (it astonished at how he could spot my blemishes from across the room which meant they must have been hunaucious in size), "come over here and let me take a look at that on your forehead." He was kind to never actually come out and say what that really was which was a: Big.....Ugly......Festering....... ZIT! Instead, he would look at it and then beckon me to the bathroom where he would produce the Caribbean Blue bottle of magic. He would dab a little on his finger and then gently dab it on my big,ugly, festering that. I felt better already. I knew it was working its charm and now I could go out and greet the day! Plus I had the added benefit of smelling a hint of Dad all day long.

When the movie My Big, Fat Greek Wedding came out and the patriarch of the family repeatedly used Windex as a cure-all for life's blemishes and unsightly problems, I nearly wet my pants with laughter because that is exactly what Dad did with his bottle of Caribbean Blue magic. He would dab it on here, and dab it on there and I would feel so much better! It was the kind of private care that a child received from a parent that had a way of making me feel more special than anyone else in the family. That is until our little dachshund had a slight boo-boo on his ear and I spotted Dad dabbing a little magic on our Bloody German Beast! Hey, that was for me not the "Wretched-Rotten-Worthless-No good-Stink-Breath" dog (this is what he nicknamed our dog)!

Oh well. I was special for a moment.

The Ring

I am thinking that it was because I had my sunglasses on and because I was not wearing my sapphire ring. The salon sapphire ring, that is now mine, was given to me by Mom. She wore this beauty on her right hand for years until she handed it down to me. I adore that ring. Not only is it exquisite to look at and to wear but it reminds me of her. She never took the ring off. She stuffed turkeys with it, gardened with it, talked with it, administered enemas with it (a family favorite event. Not.), polished silver with it, spanked us with it, swam with it, coached softball with it, made crab soup and herb bread with it, took our temperatures with it, raised four children with it, suffered breast cancer and treatments with it, and suffered brain cancer and treatments with it all while wearing that sapphire ring. Surely this is why she does not know who I am today? I am not wearing it now. I take it off in the summer months because I am afraid that I will ruin it with all of my own activities.

"I'll give you a hint," I say. "I am your favorite child" (my siblings still think that each one of them is her favorite, but they are mistaken. I am. Why else would she name me after her?). Still no recognition. "I share your name. What's your name?", I coax. "Martha," she says. "Yes Mom! Great! Now what do you call me?" We are outside at the Barclay enjoying the beautiful sunshine. I take off my sunglasses and look into her soft blue eyes but still not a flicker of recognition. Determined I say, "My nickname rhymes with Barfie." A slow smile appears and then she laughs. "Marfie!", she says. Relieved I say, "Yes! Excellent! I knew you would remember!" Her smile fades and we sit looking at each other for a moment. I marvel at her memory and how all she needs is just a little coaxing. She knows me. I know she knows me. Of course she does. How does a mother forget her own child?

We sit silently for a moment and then I ask her what she is thinking about. She gets annoyed and says, "Why are you asking me so many questions? Who are you?"

Next time I will wear the ring. She will know me then. I know she will.

Havana, Cuba and Panama

Havana, Cuba

I am told that Havana, Cuba is still one of the most attractive cities in Latin America. Havana was one of the first cities founded by the Spanish in the New World and had one of the most magnificent natural harbors. Despite periods of great instability and a turbulent history, Havana grew substantially since it was the stopping point for most of those traveling to the New World a unique exchange of ideas existed. In 1868 the Cuban War of Independence brought a halt to the modernization of the city but the war ended in 1898 when the US intervened and a change from European influence to American influence began. In 1902, the republic was established and Havana started to blossom again. In 1940 Havana became a desirable tourist destination for Americans who were looking to escape the winter and enjoy the warm Cuban climate. The revolution in 1959 brought about tremendous social changes for the country. Although Cuba is one of the last bastions for Communism in the world, it should really be admired for its natural beauty, its rich history, and its unique urban architecture. (summarized from Llilian Llanes' book Havana Then and Now)

The Republic of Panama

The southernmost of the Central American nations, Panama is south of Costa Rica and north of Colombia. The Panama Canal bisects the isthmus at its narrowest and lowest point, allowing passage from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Panama is slightly smaller than South Carolina and is marked by a chain of mountains in the west, moderate hills in the interior, and a low range on the east coast. There are extensive forests in the fertile Caribbean area.

By August 15, 1914 the Panama Canal was officially opened by the passing of the SS Ancon. At the time, no single effort in American history had exacted such a price in dollars or in human life. The American expenditures from 1904 to 1914 totaled $352, 000,000, far more than the cost of anything built by the US Government up to that time. Together the French and American expenditures totaled $639,000,000. It took 34 years from the initial effort in 1880 to actually open the Canal in 1914. It is estimated that over 80,000 persons took part in the construction and that over 30,000 lives were lost in both French and American efforts.

To read more about the Panama Canal see this website:

http://www.eclipse.co.uk/~sl5763/panama.htm#History

White Family History

Somewhere around 1923/24 my maternal grandfather, Harold Somerset White, was in Tela Honduras working for the United Fruit Company when he was invited to a friend's house party. My grandmother, Martha Bell lived in Atlanta, GA but had gone to Tela to attend the same house party. The two met and carried on a long distance courtship for five years until finally marrying in Atlanta, GA in 1928 and moved to Honduras so grandad could continue his job with the UFC. Here is the time line as best as I can remember from my interview with my parents:

• 1930/31, the White family was transferred from Honduras to Colon, Panama.
  
• 1932 on January 1, my mother Martha Bell White was born. Martha Bell, or MB for short, had dual citizenship in both the US and Panama/Cuba.
• 1942 they moved to Havana, Cuba in a suburb called Miramar
• 1946 mom's brother, Chiefie ( Harold Somerset White, Jr)
• 1949-1953 Mom attended Wesleyan College in Macon, GA but came home to Havana in the summers and then to Panama after the transfer.
• 1949 Dad arrived from Hartford, CN to Havana to spend his summer after prep school and before entering college. He and his brother Ted lived in a fully furnished rented apartment that their dad was keeping while he worked the 3 years for the Cuban/Venezuelan Oil Co. The first apartment was in a very exclusive neighborhood called El Vedado and the second one was in Miramar. Both Dad and Ted attended summer school at the University of Havana.
• 1949, June/July Mom and Dad met at a beach party at the exclusive Biltmore Beach Club in Havana given by Joan Condon Bear.
  
• 1950 the White family was transferred back to Panama to a place called Cristobal, a port city that resides at the entrance of Limon Bay that leads to the entrance to the eastern side of the Panama Canal, and the Barnett family move back to Hartford. Mom and Dad spent the summer of 1950 dating seriously while attending summer school in the morning and sailing and attending beach parties in their free time. During the winter, Mom and Dad wrote each other and carried on a long distance relationship.
  
• 1952 Dad went back to Panama for the summer and stayed one month in order to visit the White family and continue courting Mom.
  
• 1953 Dad graduated from Trinity College and asked Mom to marry him.
  
• 1953, September 9, Mom and Dad were married in Colon, Panama in an Episcopalian Church. Ted could not be there due to his military commitments, so grandad Barnett was Dad's best man.

TID BITS

Mom's first house in Colon, Panama was a wood house on stilts and was very close to the water.
The house in suburban Miramar was a little, white suburban house. They had hired help: a laundress named Beatrice and a cook named Gladys. The second house located in Cristobal, Panama was a very nice house with a back yard that backed up to the jungle much like our houses back up to woods. The jungle contained an assortment of wild animals like iguanas, black panthers, monkeys, land crabs, exotic birds, boas, and poisonous snakes. Grandmom and Grandad White owned a beautiful fresh water aquarium and raised budgies(parakeets). The jungle is where my grandmother gathered orchids and propagated them in order to sell them to local florists as well as making an exhibit out of them. They also owned a pet parrot named Lorita. She spoke Spanish and mastered the neighbors' high pitched laugh and was constantly cackling and shouting "fuego, fuego (fire, fire)!"

To me, Havana and Panama have always seemed like the home away from home. Although I have never physically visited these places, I vicariously enter these countries through my parents' stories. I hope to visit Havana as soon as Americans will be allowed to enter the country. I know I will visit Panama one of these days and trace the steps of my parents. I have read many articles explaining that it is a great place to retire. We'll see what becomes of this for me and my husband.

pg. 106

Memories are like a series of bookmarks that we use to jump back and forth through the text of our lives, returning again and again to the past events that we hold on to dearly. It simply takes one small trigger: a whiff of something, a color, a sound, a picture.....and then suddenly the pages of our memories turn quickly to that exact spot in our distant lives and we are miraculously thrust into the past. We can taste it, hear it, smell it, see it just as if we were still there caught in time warp. As I get older, this seems to be happening to me more and more.

It was towards the end of a very long 17 credit semester (what in the world was I thinking?). Things were winding down but the work load was not. I had so many papers, projects, power points, and exams due practically all at the same time that my head was spinning constantly. Fortunately, besides gardens, libraries are my next favorite place to be. I like to research topics the old fashioned way by actually going to the library and reading a book to find my information. This is where I found myself when the unsuspecting bookmark of my brain triggered a memory. Who would have thought that researching bryophytes (mosses) could lead to such a thing?

In order to conserve space and pack as many books into this particular library, the book stacks are intriguingly arranged on movable electronic tracks. This is a brilliant idea! Not only can the library hold more books but the nerdy-library-researcher can entertain herself by moving the stacks simply by pushing a little green arrow! Realizing that I really do need to get out more since I am too easily entertained by this, I finally got to the correct stack. Feeling a little like Moses, the stacks parted and I walked down the isle in search of the bryophyte section which to my astonishment was huge. I was in search of one book in particular and with my expert elementary school Dewey Decimal System training, I was able to find it quickly but something else caught my eye. The book that I needed happened to be the last one in the moss category but right next to it, in another category, was a very familiar book titled Perennial Garden. This book sits in my own library at home, but I have not looked at it for a long time. I pulled it off of the shelf and held in my hands. When I opened it, seemingly having a mind of its own, it opened to page 106. To the ordinary person, this page boasts a lovely picture of a weathered fence line adorned with a beautiful perennial border. To the Barnett family, it is glimpse of our home and our childhood.

My mother was excited with the news that a young couple would be coming to our house to interview her and take pictures of her gardens. They were writing a user friendly book about growing a perennial garden and, not surprisingly, their research led them to my mother. How exciting! As it turned out, the picture on page 106 was one of two pictures of our garden that actually made it into the book. No matter, mom was thrilled and her name, her quotes, and her garden were portrayed. The book was published in 1985. Fast forward to 2010 and here I stand with the book in my hands with it opened to the very page of my childhood home. It only takes a glimpse and I hear the clang of the horseshoes as Dad makes one of his incredible ringers. I see Mom bending over in her colorful bathing suit, with flip-flop clad feet and wearing yellow Platex dish gloves as her garden gloves while she tends to the perennial bed along the fence that surrounds our pool. I inhale the heavy muggy air and the sweet scent of wild honeysuckle fills my nose and lungs. Ahhh, how beautiful the perennial border looks this year with the blue Echinops, and the golden Heliopsis. The Hemerocallis and the Lythrum are blooming so it must be July. My stomach growls as I catch a whiff of the turkey that is smoking on the grill. Dad has been feeding the grill with wet hickory chips all day and the succulent aroma of his smoked turkey is driving us all crazy with hunger..........my home.

I put the bookmark back in the pages of my memory and closed it along with the book. I placed it back on the shelf before the embarrassing flood of tears came. I will allow them to privately flow later when I can close myself in my bedroom and look at page 106 again and quietly reminisce.

Return to Me

It is another "gambling" Quaker Sunday and I find myself back at The Barclay visiting with Mom and Dad. It pains me that I can not get here that often due to my heavy course load at school, but I am happy to be here now and grateful that my husband can pull up a chair and gamble away with the men while I visit with Mom. I have missed her so much. In fact, I have missed her for the past 15 years that she has been hidden away behind a glassy, distant expression that has taken over her being. My mother was always so expressive in everything that she did: her face, her movements, her words, her laugh, and even her gardening. I miss my connection with her. A connection that grew from the moment I was a teen. I actually liked my Mom when I was a teenager. She was fun and she was a good listener. She always had the right words for me and I relied on her so much in those painful adolescent years. She was the one true friend for me. She was someone I could always count on, someone who was grounded and unconditional with her time and love.

I hold her hand and kiss her gently. She looks so pretty today with her snow white hair and her sparkly blue eyes. I am thankful that she knows me. She may not be able to name me right away but I know she knows me because in a flash her distant stare focuses on me and she gets a look of complete and utter bliss. She does this with all of her children when we come to visit her and I am eternally grateful that this has not been taken from us.....yet. This is all I need to satisfy me. No, that is not true. I am selfish and need her to be her again. I am momentarily shaken out of my self pity when there is a commotion in front of me. The boys (the gamblers) are in a frenzy. Dad has just gotten up to go search for some ice and drinks for our lunch while Scott and Phil (Dad's best Barclay buddy)are frantically trying to rig the cards for the next game. This is hysterical to watch because Phil, who suffers from early stages of Alzheimer's, can not seem to remember exactly which game of poker they are rigging. Scott is hurriedly trying to sort the cards and seems to be throwing them everywhere while saying, "It's Night Baseball, Phil." Phil responds by saying, "Oh yes!" and then he whips out his little pad that he keeps in his shirt pocket and writes this down. He is forever doing this in order to remember the goings on in his life but most of the time when he reads it back, he can't remember it anyway! Dad is back and the rigged game is on!

I turn my attention towards Mom again (or is it really towards me and my inner thoughts?) and try another tactic: conversation. Both of my parents have the gift of conversation. They could (Dad still does) engage anyone and everyone in an interesting conversation. Words flow from our mouths, a true Barnett trait. My words are flowing easily as I fill her in on the kids and my life. She used to eat this up but now it seems to fall on deaf and distant ears. How cruel this is. I stop my selfish babble and swallow hard. For now I will settle on holding her hand and sitting quietly while watching the boys play their game.

I miss you Mom. Come back to me.

A Quaker Sunday

Quaker principles are simple and true. Their mission is based on treating people with a sense of equality, peacefulness, integrity, community, and simplicity. Barclay Friends is a Quaker run facility and their mission statement runs true there. Maybe this is why they do not frown upon my Dad and his entourage while they sit in the "narthex" of a Barclay aisle and play poker.... with money...on a SUNDAY! This is the site my family and I came upon last Sunday as we walked down Barclay's long hallway. Scott and I and two of my three children had just come from church and we were hoping to spend some time with my parents and my sister who was flying back to Booneyville, USA later that day. At first glance, it just looked like a few elderly people gathered in a circle enjoying a nice conversation with each other. Dad has a way of gathering people around and engaging them in quick games of cleverness whether it's a made-up word game or a card game of hearts or spades. We used to do this after dinner at home when I was young and I always loved it especially since he was so entertaining. He is famous for never really following the actual written rules and so he would always come up with a much better, more simplified version of whatever it was we were going to play. He even does this when he golfs. It's a typical, fun quirk of his personality. Today, however, he was corrupting the minds of his octagenarian friends on a quiet Quaker Sunday! It was hysterical to watch and now my children and husband were scrambling to find chairs so they could gamble their silly heads off......they were only using pennys, but a lot of them!

I walked further down the hallway to head to my Mom's room where I know I would find my sister pecking and squawking over my Mom like we always do when we gather. I had a moment to quietly reflect over the past few years of my parents' "new" life apart from each other. I gave quiet thanks for the miraculous solution to my parents' previously horrible situation that was spiraling out of control. We had come a loooooooong way since those dark and troubled days. I actually had to stop for a moment and collect myself. I realized that it was 3 years practically to the day that Mom had been abruptly moved into Barclay. We had to separate them for their own safety. It was awful. This was the second time. The first time was to get Dad to realize that he needed to move out of his home and go to a smaller home. That was awful too but we succeeded. The second go 'round was three years ago. I slept in a hotel with Mom that first night right after Christmas when we stole her from Dad in order to keep them safe. It was the only place we could think of that would be handicap accessible. After that, she lived with us for 3 days and then lived with my other sister until a bed became available at Barclay. What a miracle that someone had to die and give up their room in order to save us from our situation. That was 2 days after Mom's birthday. She's a New Year's baby. I stood there realizing that today was the exact day only three years later. Wow.

I hear them cackling and laughing at who just won the hords of pennies for that round of poker. It shakes me back to reality and I again give quiet thanks that my Dad is happily and healthily gambling, on a Sunday, with elderly people and his grandchildren, in the comforts of a Quaker environment!

Later on that week, Mattie announces that she and some friends are going to the community center to play B.I.N.G.O. She said, "Mom, do you know that you can win money?!" She won that night. 85 BUCKS!!! She said that all the old ladies at her table were annoyed with her. Thanks DAD!

Left Turns

Dad has always had an impeccable driving record. He is probably the only person I know who actually drives the speed limit. ALWAYS. We lived on a long, straight road that had a 25 mph speed limit which was tortuously slow when you were driving with Dad. It was another story when you were driving with Mom. She had a notorious lead foot and so for the longest time I thought that the speed limit on our street was much higher than the posted 25 mph time. Since most of my travels were in the car with Mom, I was always shocked at how painfully slow my father seemed to drive when I finally had to get in the car with him. Somehow this always made him seem so much older than my Mom just because he was driving like a geezer. His motto in life was to avoid any unnecessary exposure at all times which really meant to drive painfully slow and actually stop and look all directions once, twice and one more time before venturing out into more hazardous traffic situations.

I am not really sure when I became aware of Dad's aversion to left turns but I am fairly certain he never liked them. Let me clarify: left turns that did not happen at traffic lights. Come to think of it, I can't say that I have ever seen him make a left turn that would cross him into traffic. In fact, he will go what seems to be miles and miles out of his way to avoid doing this. This can be extremely frustrating for the passenger because you end up taking this obscurely circuitous route around a neighborhood, city or parking lot in order to finally make the safer right hand turn. I never could really understand this and so when I learned to drive, I saw non-traffic-light-left-hand-turns as a huge challenge; a challenge that I successfully, fearlessly, and purposely did just to spite my father.

Fast forward. I am now a parent who has miraculously survived teaching one of my three children how to drive and I am now in the process of teaching the second child (actually, I quit that job because it was causing me to have severe heart trouble so now my husband has that job). How will I ever survive teaching a third? I have now become my father. I get it now, the whole left turn thing. I now know that he was right with his seemingly stupid circuitous routes. It makes sense. Why am I forever morphing into my parents?

She starts the engine and backs out of the driveway, pausing to ask which direction she should go in order to get to our local grocery store. I casually point in the opposite direction from which we normally go and she questions this. "Oh," I say, "I just don't want you to have to make that awful left hand turn across all of that traffic with out a traffic light to help you." Yep, I am my Dad.

The Watercolor Portrait

I am not really sure why but I know this happens to me when I look into the mirror. I see what I want to see and what I see is this: a young women with long ash brown hair, streaked with golden highlights from the sun, that falls below my shoulders. Is it my eyes that deceive me? Is it my brain that deceives me? Is it both? Maybe this is why I am always shocked into reality when I see a current photo of myself. This is what I see: a middle-aged women, who is rapidly and horrifyingly approaching 50, with short silver hair! Oh come on? Who is playing this trick on me?

Now I know why my parents reacted the way they did when they received a watercolor portrait of themselves. A portrait that my oldest sister, who is a talented artist, painted as a gift for them. It really was a great portrait but I am afraid that my parents didn't think so. I remember when they received it, they were speechless. This is something that is not a good sign in our family because usually, or rather rarely ever, are we unable to speak (it's a curse, actually). I don't even think they could say thank you. Instead, they did a curious thing. They hung it up, but not in the right place. They chose a place on the wall outside of the bathroom that was located on the third floor bedroom but by this time it had become an abandoned area of the house. It was a location that had once been alive with activities of my oldest sister since it was her bedroom, then it morphed into Dad's office/guest bedroom, and now, at the time of the portrait, it was not even heated since they shut off all the vents. My sister was crushed, but I get it now. For them the portrait was too real. It wasn't like gazing at yourself in the mirror where you can let your eyes and brain deceive you. It wasn't even like looking at a snapshot where you can reason away any blemishes by blaming the lighting or the angle. There is no deception when you view yourself through the eyes of someone else. That is exactly what happened. My sister captured them so precisely that it horrified them. In fact, it horrified all of us because it was what it was: a portrait of my elderly parents. Why did it take a simple portrait to shake us into this reality? Denial is a funny thing.

I selfishly and vainly wonder how my children view me. My middle daughter is an artist, too. Should I start now by only giving her young looking photos of myself so that when she decides to paint a portrait of me she will be so brainwashed into thinking that I am forever young that she will have no choice but to capture me that way? Not a bad idea but really I'm okay with the notion of her painting me as she would see me (okay, maybe not now because I am not her favorite person at this moment and I know the portrait would be seriously skewed, I may not even have eyes and my mouth might contain fangs!). In fact, I will welcome it......just wait a couple of decades.

A Perfect Mother's Day Outing

I missed Mother's Day this year due to my studies but I promised my Mom that I would have a late celebration with her once my exams were over. It was a gorgeous spring day and like the early spring plants, I was slowly emerging from being buried. Instead of dirt and rich leaf compost, I was buried in calculations, molecules, entropy, enthalpy, equilibrium, conversions....YUCK! I could hardly wait to live again! I decided to take Mom on a much needed outing to Longwood Gardens. Dad needed a break, Mom needed an outing and I needed to celebrate!

I had already packed our picnic and reminisced about how I used to prepare the same exact things that I used to pack for my kids when they were little: egg salad sandwich cut in 4 rectangular strips for easy handling, juice boxes, grapes and gold fish (and a hidden piece of dark chocolate to satisfy my serious chocolate problem). It really was a glorious spring day. The kind of day that makes you stop and want to take a mental snap shot; robin's egg blue sky, trees bursting with blooms, and green, green grass. I remember as a kid on early spring days like this that I would wonder off by myself into the woods behind our house and scour the area for new growth. Mom was usually out in her garden methodically cleaning out her beds for the coming warm weather sprouts and I was off trying to find the Virginia Bluebells and wild daffodils that were blooming. It was the first true sign of spring for me. Anyway, I knew this day was destined to be a good day.

Mom was already dressed, fed and anxiously awaiting my coming. Luckily I had some one to help me put her in the car (see Transferring Mom to get an idea of how incredibly difficult it is to load her in a car) so we were off in no time. I was able to get her unloaded by myself since gravity was in my favor and we were soon strolling the breathtaking grounds. She was in heaven and so was I. As we strolled, I talked to her sharing my growing horticultural knowledge and she smiled and listened. We touched and sniffed and wondered at the beauty around us. It was so nice but I could tell that she was fading fast and we hadn't eaten lunch yet. For once, my annoyingly voracious need-to-eat-now problem had not reared its head so I had actually lost track of time. Before eating I realized that I needed to take her to the restroom. She was such a good sport as I yanked and hoisted to no avail. It was useless. I just could not do it by myself anymore. I said that I was sorry and she said that it was okay (thank heavens for Depends). We ate in silence as we observed the plants around us. Feeding Mom is usually not a pleasant job but for some reason today she was not coughing and spewing. For a moment my thoughts flashed back to when Mom used to eavesdrop and people watch. It was painful to be with her when she decided to do this. The first thing she would do was to get a funny look on her face. A look that I recognized immediately as her don't-talk-to-me-now-look-because-I'm-eavesdropping-and-people-watching look. Then she would fumble around for her "dark glasses." This was her word for sunglasses but I think she called them dark glasses because she secretly believed they made her invisible or something thus allowing her to unabashedly invade people's space. She would put them on and then turn her head to glare directly at her victims. To make matters worse she would purse her lips and then blatantly continue to glare all being hidden behind her dark glasses. As soon as we would try to snap her out of this embarrassing habit, she would say "Wait a minute, wait a minute I'm listening!"

We finished our lunches and the hidden chocolates and continued to view the gardens as we made our way back to the car. I knew that I was going to need help loading her in the van and fortunately two nice security guards were already anticipating my need. I am obviously easily amused at most anything so naturally I enjoyed myself immensely as I watched these strange men huff, puff and grope my Mom! It really was hysterical and they were such good sports. I took every opportunity to razz them while wiping their brows. It was funny but there was no way I could have done it by myself.

The ever present realities of my mother's aging and deteriorating condition always have a way of working themselves into any picture. For me the reality of not being able to take her on an outing by myself was quite devastating to say the least. I hate it in fact but I am glad to have been able to take her on this last solo outing. It was a nice belated Mother's Day celebration for the both of us. I love you Mom.

When I Get Old...

My mother had an uncanny way of coming out with the most alarming things to say. They were things that would stop you dead in your tracks and make you listen. One of her famous opening lines was this, "When I get old......." Now this is not something a child really wants to hear coming from a parent's mouth because these are the three words that would come to my mind and hang gloomily over my head after she would speak: OLD, DEAD, ORPHAN. I have to say that Mom said this so often that I eventually got used to it and stopped sniffling every time I'd hear the familiar opening phrase. What usually followed the first four words was this: "......when the time comes, I don't want you to feel guilty about having to put me in a nursing home if I need to be in one ."

When Mom first entered Barclay, she had a little bit of trouble adjusting to the fact that this was her new home...for good. I would often visit her and at some point during the visit she would tell me to start packing her things because she was ready to leave now. Oh how painful this was for me to hear. I would take a deep breath and look her in the eye and repeat the phrase that she so often had said to me. Once I was finished, she would look at me and nod and that would be the end of it for that particular visit. This went on for about a year until finally she stopped. It was never easy to tell her that she was staying, but I took comfort in her lingering words ..." don't feel guilty...." I had to keep reminding myself that these were her words and I know she meant it. As shocking as it was to hear when I was younger, I am grateful now for her foresight.

I too have an uncanny way of blurting out things to my children to make them stop dead in their tracks. Unlike my mother, I have a more impish way about me and enjoy tormenting my kids whenever possible. So my opening phrase sounds more like this, "When I die...." Unfortunately, I don't have the same idea as my mother did about releasing my kids from the guilty feelings of having to put me in a nursing home. Instead, I am secretly hoping, that when the time comes, I will have to move in with my middle daughter who just so happens to be named Martha. This is strictly to repay her for all the annoying teenager-y-ness that she has put me through lately. I am also secretly hoping that during this time of feeding and diapering me, her ailing mother (while simultaneously adoring me and telling me how right I was), she will be raising triplet teenage girls! The rest of my phrase is this: "...... I want you to spread my ashes in a beautiful garden." I then go on to remind them not to throw them (me) into the wind because then they will get a mouthful of ashes (me) and that would not be so pleasant. However ridiculous this sounds, I am actually very serious and I think they know this.

As usual, my mother had incredible, unselfish foresight for which I am eternally grateful. Maybe someday when I settle down and stop tormenting my children I will follow in her unselfish behavior but right now I am having waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much fun!

Bitter Sweet; Not Just Chocolate

This I believe: God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days and on the 7th day He rested......but while He was supposedly resting, He was really creating dark chocolate.....for ME! 70-72% bittersweet, dark creamy heavenly tasting CHOCOLATE. I have stashes of this dark pleasure hiding in various spots around my house so that I can snatch a nibble ( okay, it's more like a chunk) whenever my heart desires. The combination of the mouth watering sweetness followed by the savory bitterness of this wonderful creation is much like the aging process of our loved ones. The sweetness is the easiest part. It's the bitterness that, by itself, is tough to swallow.

I adored my paternal and very British grandmother who teetered around on her skinny bird legs while calling people Daphne Lightheart and Archibald when she couldn't think of their names. When she had to use the restroom she used to say things like, "I've got to go spend a penny!" I spent many hours enjoying her company and her marvelous sense of humor. She was always my room mate when my brother and I would accompany my Dad on his business trips. What an adventure we would have with lots of laughs, pillow fights, good food and just being together. When she grew old she suffered from Alzheimer's. Her sad decline nearly broke my heart. I was truly relieved when she died at the ripe old age of 98 (dear God take me home before that age!).

I remember the bitter day when reality hit me that Grandmom was loosing it. I was with Dad looking at colleges and we had brought Grandmom along for the outing. Dad was so good to bring her along on our little excursions and I really did love having her with us. That particular day she was just not right. She seemed more agitated than her usual jovial British self and she looked disheveled. What was going on? After viewing Gettsyburg College, we set out to find a nice place to eat (always an added bonus on our excursions and really the only reason why I came!). Grandmom was so confused. She kept rattling on about how she couldn't find her car keys and her purse (they were right there on her lap) until finally she burst into tears. My heart nearly broke for my Dad and for my Grandmom. I don't remember the rest of that trip but I do remember that Grandmom was never the same after that. That day was a mix of sweetness with a little too much bitterness.

As I watch my parents grow old, my thoughts are in constant memory mode. Visually, they are just like any other aging parent or grandparent, but then they do something, or say something that gives me a flash of my past and then I am thrust down memory lane when we were all so much younger and so full of life. These are the sweet memories with just a hint, every now and then, of the lingering bitter thought that they are in the last phase of their life. Okay, okay, I know it's depressing but it is reality after all.

I am thankful that, like chocolate, I can wrap up morsels of my memory in a piece of paper and stuff them in the secret hiding places of my brain so that I can easily pull them out when I need quick fixes. MMmmm, sweet with just a hint of bitter. What a perfect combination.

Wheelchairs: A Necessary Evil

I am not quite sure when Mom and Dad acquired a wheelchair for her use. I do know that they acquired two, one called a transfer chair for easy use within the house and the other for a more regular wheelchair designed to use on a permanent basis. They seemed to have simply appeared out of no where. I do know the exact day Mom started using the regular wheelchair. It was night time actually. I had been given a wonderful opportunity to perform with a semi-professional local orchestra as the second chair flautist. Although not worthy of this position, I was incredibly honored and flattered and to make it all the more exciting, I was to play beside my long time flute teacher who was now just a friend and a part of my past. I could not wait to tell my parents, but mostly I could not wait to tell Mom because she was truly my only fan and I knew she would be ecstatic. She was!

As I searched the crowd for my husband and my parents, I struggled to find them. I was expecting to see them in a usual proud-family location within the first few front center rows but this was not so. Instead I located them in the side balcony. My heart sank when I noticed that Mom was in the wheelchair, but she was beaming from ear to ear and I could swear she was sitting on the edge of her seat just like she always did when she was vicariously enjoying one of my accomplishments. It's funny, but I don't even remember the music that was played that night. I don't even remember where the concert was held or even if I was nervous. I only remember that this was the first time that my Mom had used the wheelchair in public.

At first, Mom was still able to walk and do simple tasks but as the brain damage settled in, she became very off balance and her left side was not cooperating with what she wanted it to do. She used a walker for a period of time, but this became a dangerous weapon in her hands since she was unable to pick it up and slide it while simultaneously taking a step forward. This caused it to catch and thrust her forward. She would have many near misses of tumbling down stairs or inadvertently keeling over sideways. This was such a hazard. Enter the wheelchair. Although obviously a necessary tool, wheelchairs have their evils. For Mom, it became a "crutch". No one is to blame, it is just what happens. She became weaker and her already weak left side deteriorated immensely. Her balance, when having to transfer her, became dangerously skewed. Her posture assumed the conforms of the wheelchair seat making her sit in a chronic bent, slightly drooping position. This, in turn, made her head hang down from her neck like it is an over sized Christmas ball hanging from it's decorated tree limb. Because of this, she started to drool and have increasingly difficult times eating properly without choking. It is a never ending vicious cycle that only spins downward. Now we are dealing with incontinence issues. Before the wheelchair, she could be transferred easily to a bathroom where she could still maintain her dignity by performing her duties naturally. Now, she wears a diaper because no one can get her there in the appropriate amount of time. It used to take one person to help her with the toileting, then it took two people. Now a wonderful piece of equipment called a stand-lift machine does the job. Damn that wheelchair.

Why is it that I melt into gooey mush when I see a sweet little baby or toddler sitting all slumped and cozily squished in their umbrella stroller? It is extra sweet to see their little heads painfully crooked to one side while they drool and sleep soundly like little angels in their chairs. Why don't I feel this way when I see my mother sitting, sleepily drooling in her chair? It is such a cruel turn of events. It is what it is and I cannot do anything about it. I have nothing more to say about the necessary evil of Mom's wheelchair.

;

Change

Christmas was never the same in our house once my oldest sister married and moved on. This event took place four days before Christmas in 1975. I was only 10 years old. Not only did my sister leave our cozy, teasing, obnoxious, and loving family but Mom decided to redecorate the entire living room and dining room which meant that the Christmas tree could not be in it's standard place in front of our huge picture window. These two remarkable events in the eyes of my tender 10 years of age were devastating to me. Once the thrill of the wedding wore off, the reality of knowing that our family and it's dynamics were forever changed. Being the youngest of 4 siblings, I watched as one by one my siblings left the fold, never to return again to the family as I had once known it to be. How was I to survive? Well, I did survive thanks to my ever patient and omniscient mother. She told me that my role in this family as the youngest was to learn to accept change and embrace it, don't fight it. I remember asking her if I could cry about it before I embraced it and she said yes but don't drag it out! Ya gotta love her!

When the aging process began with my parents, I thought, no sweat, I can handle this; I have been well conditioned and well prepared. Not so. I struggled with this terribly. My husband and I are both the babies of the families and we made a decision early on in our marriage that we would not move out of state due to the fact that our parents may need us in their aging years. Aging seemed to happen so suddenly but in reality, it did not. Yes, there was the graying hair and the all-of-a-sudden inability to see anything without any type of eyeglass wear but there were other things too. For Mom, the second battle with cancer really knocked her for a loop. She took to the bed too easily and was constantly watching television. This was because the brain damage had made it so that simple tasks, like reading and needlework, were a virtual impossibility for her. Her handwriting changed too. It became so difficult for her that she stopped trying all together. (Maybe this is why I cherish anything that is handwritten by her). These things I know were premature aging due to her disease but there were other things as well. Like the inability to have multiple plans for one week let alone one day. I was so dismayed by this because my Mom had always been able to go in twenty different directions and not miss a beat. For Dad, his aging process seemed to start after two accidents. The first was his fall from a ladder, resulting with a bad break in his arm. Then just a few short weeks later he had a car accident with a teenage girl who had just gotten her license and ran a stop sign, smashing into my Dad and his car. He never really healed properly from either one of those accidents. I noticed that his pace slowed tremendously and that he too watched way too much television at ridiculously high decibels. What was going on? Then there was this inability to eat lunch at lunchtime and dinner at dinner time. These meals seemed to get earlier and earlier. To make matters worse, they would go to bed at 7! What? We could never call them or reach them after this time of night because they would turn off the ringers. One of the biggest shockers was the fact that they started to eat much smaller portions of food thus enabling them to think that other people eat these small amounts. Our family is big on food, not just any food but good food-okay, maybe any food. We love it. We can't even talk about any type of food without salivating. Most of our family fun was always gathered around an excellent meal. Both Mom and Dad were very good cooks but it was my Dad who had the sophisticated and extraordinary palette. He taught us to enjoy it to the fullest! We did and still do. Why, then, when we invited them over for a meal did they only bring one tomato or a handful of something? What happened to the gloriously large helpings and the well orchestrated food plans? When did my parents become O.Fs? As usual, I took my mother's advice and embraced the change, but not before having a good cry.

As I gaze across the room at my sweet and gentle husband, I watch as he struggles to read whatever it is in front of him because now he needs to wear reading glasses. He never seems to have them on him at any appropriate time. Like any good wife, I comment about this (okay, maybe it's more like a nag) and then he looks at me and holds his hand to his ear and says, "What?" After I fall on the floor hysterically laughing at him because HE WAS SERIOUS, I realize: Oh no, no, no, no, no, I am NOT ready for this change!

Duct Tape

Dad used to always fix things around the house. I have vivid memories of him kneeling on the ground, sweating profusely while his arms were immersed in a huge hole where some leak from the pool pipe ran from our house out to the pool pump. He had a remarkable way of muttering and cursing unintelligible things while working on the problems around the house, yard and pool. If you didn't know any better you would swear that the author of A Christmas Story stole this classic scene from our family when Ralphie's dad would clang, bang and mutter like the Tasmanian devil while trying to fix the furnace in the depths of their basement. While clad in his bathing suit and v-neck Hanes white undershirt ( a very attractive attire I might add), my Dad could fix anything. I have no idea when he switched from using real fix-it items to duct tape but somehow it happened and our house became adorned with this silvery-vinyl-fabric-reinforced-incredibly-tacky (not to mention sticky)-multi-purpose tape. Emphasis on tacky and multi-purpose. This stuff can fix anything and Dad started using it on EVERYTHING. Thank heavens it was after I moved out and started a family of my own before Dad fell prey to his new obsession. What is it with men and duct tape? I just don't get it.

The first hints of the silvery adhesive appeared in the interior of the house on minor fix-it problems. For instance, Dad would use it to reinforce the hammer handle or to fix the battery door of our portable phone so that the batteries would stop popping out. These uses were practical and relatively harmless but then he stepped it up a notch and started using it on things like the toilet or the ceramic tiled wall in the bathroom where the tile was not sticking to the grout anymore. Pretty! It also appeared on the porch door handle. This was a puzzle to me because I had to de-tape and de-string (this was also a favorite fix-it item) the handle when we were trying to get the house ready for the realtor. After unraveling yards and yards of string , I would tackle the incredibly durable and amazingly ginormous amount of duct tape only to discover that the handle was not really broken?! Huh???? The worst was when it started appearing outside of the house. Someone had decided to pull a prank on the neighborhood and bat down all of the mailboxes. No problem! We'll use duct tape to put it back on the post! That bloody mailbox never did come off the post again! He was even using it on Mom's wheelchair. For some reason, her side brakes lost the little grip pads so Dad in his ever-so ingenious jerry-rigging way used an old screwdriver handle to replace the pad and guess what he used to adhere it to the brake? Yup, duct tape! I don't know which looked worse, the tape or the unsightly screwdriver handle. Oy Vay.

Okay, okay, so I've saved the best for last. It's the van. It's all over it. What is he thinking? I don't know. All I know is that stuff is holding the van together. It's on the front and back bumpers, the mirrors (yes, both side mirrors), and it is used to cover up any and all of the minor fender bender boo boos that are ALL OVER THE PLACE! What can I say? It is hysterical and my kids get as huge kick out of it. I just wish I could be there when he drops it off for state inspection. You just know those guys are having the time of their life when they get to drive it into the garage and inspect it up close. Can you imagine what Click and Clack, the Tappett brothers, would do with that one on their weekly radio show? They would laugh and snort forever! Wow, it's just that bad!

Ah well, as I have said before, memories are a good thing and so I prefer to remember my Dad as the Mr. Fix-it who used real fix-it items. He really did fix things........didn't he?

The Master Gardener

Although Mom never had any formal training in horticulture nor did she receive any certification for a master gardener program, she was incredibly knowledgeable and fairly well known in the Chester County area. With dizzying accuracy she could spew out nomenclature that included the genus, specific epithet, cultivars, subspecies and hybrid of any plant that grew in our region. I did not fully comprehend or appreciate her knowledge until I discovered a video journal that she had been keeping of her garden (once again this is something she did on the cusp her of second diagnosis for cancer). Here she walks us through her gardens on a weekly basis describing and naming every new growth that had come up that week. Now that I too am a certified plant freak, I was floored by her knowledge and fluency in this floral language. Better yet, I completely understand this Latin language! Oh how I wish we could share that together now.

Our yard was always open for impromptu tours of her gardens as well as the popular, scheduled ticketed tours set up by local arboreta and horticultural societies. People would come far and wide to ooh and ah at her spectacular cultivations. When the gardens weren't on tour, she ran a small perennial sale business where she would divide all that she grew and offer it to anyone and everyone for a steal. It was a word-of-mouth type business that nearly drove my Dad nuts but she thrived on this and loved forming new and lasting friendships along the way some of whom are clients of mine now.

Although horticulture seemed to be her main passion, Mom had other ways of "planting seeds". She was very passionate about her Christian faith and spent countless hours volunteering at our church that was located a mere two houses up the street from us. Unfortunately, Dad did not share this love and neither did we but when Mom had a passion for something, nothing stopped her! Her prayer, faith and gentle persuasion got the best of me and so reluctantly at first, I trailed along behind her. I am forever grateful for this seed that she gently planted in me. My faith grew and grew and I spent the remainder of my teenage years and all of my spare time at church. This is not only where my faith planted itself firmly in me, but it is where I met and married my husband of 25 years. She had a way of not cramming her faith down your throat. Instead, she gently and even quietly planted her seeds and like a good gardener, she would step back and watch them grow only tending to them when she thought it was necessary.

Mom can no longer tend to her seeds of faith and beloved horticultural plants by herself but I know she lives vicariously through me and I have vowed to carry on her passions. Today at The Barclay, I am happy to say that both my mother and my father tend to three house plants that grow in the lounge area. There is a sign posted among the plants and it reads "These plants are lovingly tended to by Martha and Ken Barnett." Dad helps Mom water them. The thought of this usually gives me a lump in my throat but I have to say the plants are happy, healthy and thriving...and so are Mom and Dad.

Jekyll and Hyde

The years that my father spent taking care of Mom all by himself were truly gut wrenching for him and for those around him. I will mince no words here, it was hell. He transformed into a crazed, irrational and vicious being; a Mr. Hyde. How ironic this was because he was truly trying to do what was right, but in the process, he was so wrong. I don't really want to go into detail because I am not sure what could possibly be gained from this. I do know that I will always honor my Dad no matter what, but what I struggled with the most was loving him during the process. Can there be honor without love? I have posed this question many times and now in retrospect I realize that the answer is no. This is not what is important now. What is important is that my Dad has come back to us. He has been reborn, so to speak. We all had missed him terribly.

Once we were able to get Mom settled and adjusted into her new life in the nursing home, my Dad slowly returned to us and he slowly returned to life. At first, I was too stunned and wounded to actually notice his transformation. This is so unusual for me since I tend to rebound quickly from stress but somehow this was different from anything else that I had experienced. Something I hope to never experience again. Dad was finally getting uninterrupted sleep. I remember too well the many sleepless nights of wandering the hallways tending to babies, toddlers, and a husband simultaneously while I was ill myself with some awful virus or nasty flu. How did we manage to get sick all at once? What a cruel joke that was. These seemingly long days, nights and sometimes weeks of illness were short compared to the years my Dad had suffered. Lack of sleep can change a person into an unrecognizable form. With the much needed sleep, my Dad's entire mental well being returned. His bursts of irrational temper flare ups were becoming less and less and there seemed to be a calm that was settling in him. His impatience with Mom was dissipating and he slowly began to release his control over her. I liken this to motherhood again and again because I understand how powerful a mother's care taking control can be. It is so hard to just let go and let someone else take over this powerful instinct yet it is so necessary to relinquish that so-called right.

I am happy to say that Dad has completely returned to us. He has new friends, a new and smaller home and most importantly a better outlook on this phase of his life. He truly has embraced the much improved and manageable role as caretaker. Although the financial burden is incomprehensible (one of the many reasons why he fixes things with duct tape!), I know that he and Mom will still be able to live comfortably for the remainder of their lives. If and when the money runs out, Mom will still be able to live at Barclay ( In order to live at Barclay, you must enter at a status called 'private-pay' but once you can no longer pay privately "out-of-pocket", Barclay allows Medicaid to pay for the rest. Making sense of Medicaid and Medicare has become a complete thorn in my side. I suggest that you read up on this and know your stuff, it will serve you well!). What will happen if Dad needs to enter a home? Ah well, you can only plan so much. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Welcome back Dad. You were sorely missed. We will always love you.....no matter what.