Beans and Cornflakes

Friday February 13, 2009

This week my sister Lee and I have been camping out at our other sister's home in Denver while we watch Mom slide into "the next life" on a wave of audio books. It is both fascinating and exhausting to participate in this transition.

Yesterday when I went into Mom's room to "touch her forehead, and say her name, not mom, but Donna", she looked weakly at me and said she didn't want to talk now, and waved me away with her ring bejeweled and delicate hand. I have been able to keep a stoic and upbeat demeanor around Mom as she has requested- no "hoobooing"- and have saved my just-under-the-surface tears for when I am out of her sight. But that waving away really got to me, and I cried my way back to the living room, where Lee joined me, releasing a few tears from her otherwise dry eyes. The nurse said we were going to make her cry. We are all human after all.

After being filled in by our wonderful day nurse about the state of things- no bowel movements for day, a suppository might help, Mom is crabby and uncomfortable and they have been increasing her pain meds, though she doesn't want Adavan any more, and she really isn't eating except for the oatmeal, applesauce and Ensure that helps her get her pills down- Lee and I played a game and a half of Scrabble. This is a long time passion of us both, so without her daughter, our husbands, jobs or regular lives to distract us, the game gave an air of normality to the afternoon, and gave us something else, more fun, to think about.

After a while Mom stirred from her la-la land - I could hear her through the monitor the nurse has set up- and I went in to see her lying on her back eyes open, staring at the ceiling. She said she wanted to go to the bathroom- yay!- so I summoned the nurse (whom I will call Mary) and got back to Scrabble. After the necessaries, Mom announced she wanted to come into the living room to visit. So Mary and we helped her with much difficulty to her big comfy chair and put her feet up.

The day before we had brought a six pack of little bottles of lotion all with exotic scents at her request for some good smelling and smooth lotion for her skin which was "dry as a cob". Once seated comfortably she wanted some lotion, so we slathered her arms and legs with White Tea and then settled in for a chat.

Mom wears as many rings on her fingers at a time as possible; gold and gems are among her most favorite things on this earth. She had asked me on Tuesday for ring, and I knew she wanted to wear an amethyst and opal ring my husband had bought for me before we were married. She had loved that ring, and I had stopped wearing it when one of the stones fell out. I called my husband in California and he took it to the jeweler next morning and sent it overnight here to Denver. I gave it to Mom and she was delighted. "Now I have everyone represented", she said. I told her she could just have the ring.



This brings up another gem-related story that I have to share just for the dark humor of it. Another of Mom's rings, a large garnet set in gold, had dropped its stone and the ring with the stone lay in the bottom of her jewelry box. We had offered to get it fixed, which also delighted our mom. So here we were in the jeweler's yesterday ring in hand. The lady behind the counter was Indian and we told her that we wanted this for our mother. "Oh you are sisters" she commented. "How old is your mother?" 82 we told her. "Oh is she still living then?" (A dumb question, but oh well) Lee and I sort of hemmed and hawed...."well, sort of...barely"."What," the lady asked, "is she a living vegetable?" We assured her, no, she's actually pretty with it, but has cancer and her time is short. (We are going to get the ring, we hope, tomorrow). We didn't make any outward reaction to such a tasteless question, but when we got outside and for the rest of the day, we cracked up, laughing so hard we almost cried over it.



So back to the living room, mom enthroned and holding court with splayed daughters on couch.
She shared stories with us and some information about family and friends. We remembered things, we laughed.

One story we had never heard before was about when her older sister Corolyn had scarlet fever as a child in Hadley Minnesota, and the whole family had been quarantined for a period of time. With her mind in a fog Mom kept confusing the word "quarantine" with "camouflage". She also had trouble getting the time right. First she said they had had to stay in the house for three years. "What?!" Then she said she meant three months, and finally she pounded the arm of the chair and said "I mean three WEEKS!" The story went on that her dad had had to live on the back porch in the freezing cold because he had to go to work, and that was as close as he was allowed to the family. Grandma slipped him food through the door, and for that period he lived mostly on "beans and cornflakes". The kids from school brought homework for the three Larson girls and left it for them at the end of the sidewalk. When finally they were allowed out, the whole family had to submit to fumigation, and then the girls could go back to school where they were shunned for a time by their friends.

Another story: Our father's brother Herb married a Mennonite girl named Catherine in 1947. Mom and Dad weren't married yet, but were engaged. Mom was confused about whose children were along the day of the wedding, but we assured her they were none of us. Must have been our cousins. But she exclaimed that this was the strangest wedding. Everyone went out into the country and sat in a square. No one spoke. There was no music. There were no flowers or attendants. Finally one man in a stiff black straw hat stood and asked them a couple questions about their intentions. And that was it. No kiss. No dancing. Mom nudged Dad and said "That's not how I want to do it!" Or something like that.

Finally Mom was out of steam. We had covered topics from music to family to travels. It felt almost like the countless hours we have spent talking just this way over the years. She shuffled with help back to bed, and we left her with her ear bud in and CD story winding.