It is amazing what perseverance and determination will do. Yesterday morning I went out to feed Mom and found her showered and dressed in her sweats, her white hair (cut short by Sister Sara) washed and askew, sticking up in every direction. She couldn’t find her comb, but she wanted to go out, somewhere, anywhere. […]
I returned home to find Mom, still in her jammies at 5 in the afternoon, happily drinking a glass of caregiver Pauline’s wine and eating a bowl of ice cream. Checking the refrigerator, it seems she had reheated the bowl of spaghetti successfully for supper. Checking the sink, she had made herself a bowl of […]
“Love you.” “Yeah, love you, too.” I said it as I left Mom yesterday. I said it as I do every day, without thought, perhaps without meaning, maybe even without real feeling. Was it guilt and resentment and anger, rather than love? What is love and why am I having such a hard […]
She calls it the “little red card”. It works in lieu of cash. No worrying about getting money from the bank anymore. No carrying her entire clumsy purse into the grocery store anymore. No concerns about paying us back for gas to take her to Conroe anymore. Just the card. An amazing and magical concept. […]
It’s not that we don’t trust her to feed or care for herself. As Mom told my cousin in a phone conversation the other day with considerable vehemence, “I’ve been feeding myself for 96 years! I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself!” True, she has and she is, but how do you tell someone […]
In the Hispanic culture, both in Latin America and throughout the U.S. Southwest, death is celebrated on November 2 with magnificent altars as a way of remembering and honoring our deceased loved ones. Many years ago our dear friends from Mexico, the Gottfrieds, created one in honor of the passing of their father. I remember […]
Mom has spent her entire adult life, almost all 96 years of it, in doing and going and being active. Painting landscapes with her best friends, the three Marthas – Martha Gottfried, Martha Sauer, and Martha Lou Castillo, pus Mary Ann Hendricks. They could be seen all over Mexico City painting, and playing bridge, and […]
Are you related to a hoarder? I’m sure everyone has had a glimpse of those appalling TV shows about hoarders who collect prized junk that fills houses and spill out into yards. Mom, blessings on us and thank the Good Lord, is not. She has spent so many years riding the roads, north in the […]
I’m going to have to learn to laugh more. The ability to laugh at ourselves is a talent we don’t practice nearly enough. Last night, Mom staggered across the floor looking like a Laurel and Hardy cartoon and caught herself on the chair to keep from falling. She burst out laughing, just guffawing and snorting […]
What is it about humans that we have this desperate need to live longer? The Good Lord put something in us that is so strong that we cling to life as though it were the last doughnut in the box at Sunday school. Even cockroaches hang on to their miserable little lives, scurrying for the […]