When death is an occupational hazard

Photo adapted from Three Crosses by Tim Green

Someone I cared about passed away on Saturday morning. Her death was unexpected; at least I wasn't expecting it.

I came to know Pat about 18 months ago when I began taking Holy Communion to her -- and others -- once a month at a nearby nursing home. I didn't see her every time I visited. When the weather was good, she would take the city bus for people with disabilities to go to Mass at our church. But in the winter, I'd get to spend some time with her. It was time I looked forward to.

Pat was blind, but she saw with faith. She used a wheelchair most of the time, but she walked a life a service, even until her death. When I would visit, she would ask me to read that day's Gospel to her. Then I would do my best to recount the message of the homily. On certain days I had to admit that my mind had wandered during the homily and I couldn't recall what the priest had said. Pat & I would talk about the Scripture and what in the passage spoke to each of us. Most of my visits with other residents at the nursing home are fairly brief, made so by the residents' limitations with communication, so these conversations with Pat were opportunities I looked forward to.

Based on how old she told me her children are, I would guess that Pat was about my mother's age. Maybe a little bit older. She was determined to really live the life she had. She had a large reading machine that she would use to read books, letters, the church bulletin. Although she was dependent on others to meet most of her physical needs, Pat still lived the call to serve.

Over the past several years, she handmade more than 1,000 cards of encouragement for members of the Indiana National Guard. In her room, she had photos of herself with some of those soldiers who had been on the receiving end of her kindness. So often people think of nursing homes as a place where old people are warehoused until they die. There was no putting Pat on a shelf.

My last visit with Pat was on Christmas day. I'd gone over to the nursing home in the early evening to visit a few people. She and I sat and talked for close to an hour that night. I learned that she had been a nurse and that she preferred working with psychiatric patients. She told me that it had been her birthday just a few days before. She mentioned that she was having some difficulty with her new reader and that she thought some brightly colored tape might help her see where to line up what it is she was trying to read. I told her I'd find some and bring it with me on my next visit. I had no idea that the Christmas visit would be my last visit.

When the phone rang last night and I saw it was a call from one of the other women in this ministry, I knew it had to be bad news. One of our ladies has been fading and has hospice care set up. I had a feeling that this was a call to let me know that she had passed away. When I heard that it was Pat who was gone, I could not believe it. She seemed so good -- finally recovering from a nasty fall, upbeat and like her old self. I halfway thought that there must have been some mix up and that she would be sitting in her chair waiting for me when I got to the nursing home this morning. I wondered whether I would tell her about the errant message and we would laugh about it or whether I would just silently give thanks that it had not been true.

That was wishful thinking. When I arrived, her name was already off the placard outside the door. I hoped I might see her daughter there, clearing out her mother's things so that I could let her know how sorry I am and how much I really liked her mom. But no one was there at the time. The bed had been stripped, the dark blue plastic cover on the mattress piled high with Pat's belongings -- many of them the holiday decorations that probably would have come down soon anyway. I put my hand on the pile and said a prayer for my friend.

Visiting a nursing home on a regular basis, it's not unusual to know people who die. Since I started, I can count six people who've gone on. Most of their deaths have made me briefly sad. Pat's death? It has left me weeping with an aching sadness.

One of the volunteers told me a while ago that I shouldn't get too close to the people I visit. I don't know how to operate like that. So I just accept this feeling of loss as an occupational hazard, because in the end, the losses are so outweighed by the faith and love I gain.

Rest in God's peace, Pat.

Missing GoGo

One year ago today, I wrote "What the obituary will not say."  Incredibly, a year has passed since my mother-in-law died. In that year, there have been birthdays and holidays and sacraments -- milestones in our lives that she should have been here for. That she was here for in spirit.

At Christmas, I gave each of the kids something I found among Karen's vast collection (the nice, memorial way of saying "basement full of crap") that I thought she would like them to have. Mike's dad had given us baskets full of old sheets -- Star Wars, Super Heroes, McDonald's, Battlestar Galactica, Peanuts -- that his mom had saved over the years. I had a friend turn those sheets into a quilt for Mike. It's a memory of his childhood and a hug from his mom all at the same time.

So now we've gone a whole year without her. Sometimes it doesn't seem possible. We've been sad, absolutely. Sometimes the tears come out of nowhere.

But we've also laughed, recalling stories of her, thinking out loud what she would think or say in certain situations. That's kept Karen alive for us and for the kids. Mike even started a Pinterest page where we've pinned things that remind us of her or things that she enjoyed.

She would have loved to hear all about Annie's first year of high school, expected phone calls after each of Charlie's basketball games and laughed at the funny things Robbie says. She would have questioned my sanity when I dyed my hair blue and given Mike at least 2 tubs of Vaseline for his dry elbows.

A few weeks ago, I was at the national headquarters of Karen's sorority. While waiting for the person I'd gone there to see, I stood in the foyer of the building filled with memorabilia. It was as if I could feel her there. If it wouldn't have seemed weird, I might have pulled up a chair and just soaked her in for a while.

The next day, I was giving a keynote address at a caregiver event. I was wearing Karen's favorite bracelet and sat down at one of the tables to go over my notes. I looked up and there was a pot of pansies sitting in front of me. Karen's favorite flower. She was there. I can only hope she'll be there in the next several months when Annie starts driving. (Heaven help us all!)

I'm not exactly sure how Karen would have us mark this day. Probably with a trip to the children's museum and a dinner of chicken pot pie. And a lot of laughter.

Mom, Karen, GoGo, Friend

Missed & loved.

The way I see it

I've written and re-written this post 3 times. I think I'm hesitant to share my view of the afterlife because I don't want to be criticized or debated. I don't want my cousins to feel like I am using their loss as mere fodder for my blog. So I'm just going to put this out there and say it's from the heart and it doesn't begin to describe the fun and loving woman who slipped from this earth today.

My Aunt Connie passed away today after a long and valiant battle against ovarian cancer. I am sad that she is gone, but have found myself comforted by what I'm choosing to believe happened in heaven this morning.

When Connie arrived, escorted by angels, I imagine that God met her at the pearly gates with a huge hug, nodding his head, saying "very good, very good" -- which was one of Aunt Connie's signature phrases. Tell her about a deal you got on a pair of jeans and she would smile, nod and say "very good, very good." Share a joke she enjoyed and get a "very good, very good" in response.

In my mind, God was not the only one waiting for Connie's arrival. My NaNa (Connie's mom) and MaMa (her grandmother) were there too. Seeing the three of them together again brings a smile to my heart. In no time at all, I'm sure NaNa showed Connie where the Ohio State loving angels hang out.

Connie's illness and death have made me miss all the more my mother-in-law who passed away last spring. I think she was there to welcome Connie, too. Karen was so welcoming in life that I'm sure she would be on hand to greet someone I loved. Though Karen and Aunt Connie only met a few times, I know they would have been friends if they'd lived closer together. For one thing, they both believed if one is good, 10 is better, evidenced by the fact that on one of our annual shopping trips, Connie bought 8 pairs of boots for my cousin, just because she couldn't make up her mind which ones Teresa would like best. I think a lot of those went back to the store, but I just laughed as the boots kept piling up. (It was also Aunt Connie who taught me about themes for Christmas gift giving.)

It's been a year of loss in our family, as my sister lost her father-in-law in January. I'm sure Steve was on the welcome wagon, too. His love of running and beer and his sense of humor reminded me a bit of my Uncle Ed, Connie's husband. I like to think that Steve is there to look out for Connie.

It's probably a juvenile view of heaven and probably not 100% theologically accurate, but today it has helped me. I think Aunt Connie would even nod and say "very good, very good."

The pic is fuzzy, but Aunt Connie is the first on the left in the front row.

Digital comfort

Thank you all so much for your kind words regarding the loss of my mother-in-law, Karen. Some of you are people I know in real life, people who will be quick to offer a hug or help the next we see each other. Many of you, however, are people I'll likely never see face-to-face. We've been brought together by the magical workings of the internet.

I've spent quite a bit of time over the past 24 hours reading posts on Facebook, e-mails sent directly to me, comments on the funeral home's condolence page and on the newspaper's article about Karen's legacy and I have to say I am so thankful for the "digital comfort" that has been shared.

It's been enlightening to read the words of people who knew Karen in different ways than I did. She was my mother-in-law and I saw her through the lens of "family." So many others knew her as a friend, a mentor, a teacher, a guide.

I wanted to share some of the things that have been written in various places online about Karen since her passing:

Karen loved fiercely, gave generously, and encouraged others in a way that empowered them to do more.

I worked for Leadership Evansville many years ago....I never met her but remember she was the one who made sure I had a paycheck once...what a generous soul. 

She was a bright light in this world ~ bless her.

She always impressed me as one gutsy dame ... 

Her work with children, especially cMoe, and all of her unsung, known-only-to-her kindnesses will live on. She will be missed, but the love she has spread will live on. Everyone who knew her is a better person because of her.

SHE SHOWED ME HOW MUCH ONE WOMAN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN A COMMUNITY AND TO A PERSON. EVEN WITHOUT MANY WORDS AT THE END, SHE WAS ABLE TO SPEAK TO MY HEART. 


I'm going to be away from this blog for the next couple of days. Don't fear, though, I've got a couple of terrific guest posts lined up for you. And I'll likely check in on Facebook from time to time, because I can do that from my phone.

Thank you again for the comfort you have shared with me and with my family. It really has meant more than I would have expected to receive via a computer screen.

What the obituary will not say

My mother-in-law, Karen, passed away this morning.

I was home asleep on the couch (thank you tooth extraction) and Mike came downstairs to tell me his dad had just called. "My mom died."

We both sat there, almost in disbelief, taking in the words as they still hung in the air between us. The windows were open and I was aware of how beautiful the day outside was. I took small comfort in knowing that the day of Karen's death was one of sun and loveliness.

My tears were the first to come. They were a mix of relief that she is no longer suffering and sadness that she is gone. I called my parents, who loved Karen too, and Mike went to call his brother and a few friends. And then I turned here.

I've been contemplating how I would handle Karen's death in this space. It occurs to me that there is so much more to Karen than what her obituary will say.

The notice of her death might mention her multiple degrees. But it won't tell you that the greatest measure of Karen's brain was her emotional intelligence. She loved people and she loved making connections between people. I often joked that it would take 20 minutes to leave a restaurant because Karen would invariably stop at several tables to talk with people she knew -- and she knew EVERYONE.  Karen was the physical embodiment of Facebook before Facebook even existed.

Her obituary will most certainly include mention of her civic accomplishments, most notably her role as the founder of the Children's Museum of Evansville. It was her second greatest passion. Her first was her family. She was quick to rise up and defend her children from the time they were small and she knew no greater role than that of grandmother -- GoGo as she chose to be called.

She was not overly religious, but she was unflinchingly supportive of the fact that we choose to raise our own children in faith. And every time she pulled out of the driveway, she would toot the horn twice in front of an elderly neighbor's house and instruct her passengers to "Pray for Alma Baker."

I will be listed among her survivors, but no amount of column inches in the newspaper can begin to express how much I loved her. She has been part of my life for more than half of my years (that's what you get when you marry young). And she was my champion in my roles as wife and mother. She leaped to my defense on the Blue River when Mike was hollering at me to "look for the V" from the front of our canoe. She paid to have nearly 100 pounds of unfinished laundry carted out of my house to be washed, dried and folded by the dry cleaner. More importantly, in the recent years when our marriage has been tried, Karen stood by my side and reassured me that I was doing the right thing.

There is no way that the newsprint will be able to convey her laughter. It's one of the things I will miss the most. She'll no doubt be laughing from heaven when I say that her first question at the pearly gates is probably "What's for lunch?"

And no paper in the world would print that her favorite curse word was "F*ck," generally used in triplicate when something went wrong.

The obituary for my mother-in-law will not begin to describe who she really was. And I've probably done a miserable job trying to capture it here.

So I'll just leave it at this: Her name was Karen. And she was loved.

Linking this up with this week's Pour Your Heart Out.

Unprepared

My mother-in-law was diagnosed with a neurological disease about six years ago. From the beginning, we've known that it is terminal. With every passing birthday and holiday, I've considered that there won't be many more of these.

Yet her death seemed so far in the distance. It was easy to think that when she was just a little unsure of foot. It was easy to believe it was so when she was living at home and keeping her weekly beauty shop appointments. Even when she moved to a nursing home two years ago, it seemed so far away because she was still so vibrant, just physically impaired.

Last Christmas, I thought about what gift to give her. She loves pictures of my kids -- her only grandchildren -- so I considered a photo calendar...until the reality hit that she likely wouldn't live to see the smiles of their printed faces for each month of this year. (We went with a digital picture frame instead, which has brought her hours of joy.)

I try to place my calls to her room when I think someone might be there who can answer the phone and hold it up to her ear, allowing me to tell her tales of the kids' antics and accomplishments, as if it were one of those long and winding talks we used to have when we both were home watching Oprah. Though now the conversation is one-sided.

Since Mike lost his job a month ago, he's taken advantage of the free time and gone to see his mom several times. Each time he's come back and reported the latest devastation of her declining condition.

And now, we've come to a point where we are not measuring the remainder of her life in months, or even weeks, but in days. And I am unprepared.

Not my story to tell

There is a post that I've had rolling around my head for a few weeks. It concerns my mother-in-law and her physical condition, which is declining and terminal.

I want to talk about how difficult it is to watch her slip away physically and how unfair it is that mentally she is absolutely aware of all the ways that her body is betraying her. I want to share about the dedication of my father-in-law as her life's partner and her caregiver.

But my in-laws are fairly private people. I'm pretty sure they would not share details about their lives to the extent that I've shared about mine on this blog. And so I hesitate to write the post I really want to write because it's just not my story to tell. 

There is an offshoot of this situation that is mine, however. I can share my unease at how to support my husband in this transition, this long good-bye to his mom. I can confess that I have miserably failed at sending my mother-in-law cards and pictures of the kids and artwork that they've made. I can attempt to earn some redemption by revealing that I do call her, two to three times a week to give her a glimpse of her grandchildren's lives.

I know that plenty of times in the past 17 years of my marriage, my mother-in-law has been the cause of many an eye roll, an impatient toe tap, a passing of the phone as it's ringing because "it's YOUR mother." But I can count just as many times that she has been the source of laughter and joy and relief. She once came for a visit and a paid by the pound to have the dry cleaner do all the laundry I was behind on. (We're talking several trash bags full of clothes!)

I can look back objectively and see how she has supported me in my role as wife and mother, how she has only wanted to the best for us and done what she could to help bring that about. I can even look at myself and see that in many ways, she and I are very similar (though I am considerably less busty).

At 40 years old, I still have three grandparents living. It seems absolutely unfair that my children will lose one of theirs before Charlie and Robbie even reach their teen years. So, while the story of my mother-in-law's illness is not mine to tell, the story of her life is...and will be so that my kids are always aware of what a remarkable woman their GoGo is.

Thanks to Shell at Things I Can't Say 

for giving me space to share what I can't say.

Rest in p-e-a-c-e, friend.

I come to you today to report the passing of a dear friend. A friend I could always turn to, day or night. A friend who brought me great joy -- and at times -- great frustration. I'm talking about Scrabulous.com.

(I would offer the link, but the result is now a Danica Patrick ad for GoDaddy.com domain services.)

Though happily married, I've been in a relationship with Scrabulous for probably close to two years. Not to worry, my husband was aware of this intellectual affair and he supported it. After all, if I could get my Scrabble needs fulfilled elsewhere, he didn't have to indulge me in a game he knew he would lose in the end.

It started out as an innocent internet search; we all know where those can lead. One word -- Scrabble -- typed into Google and life as I knew it changed. I found Scrabulous.com, where I could play the game I loved 24/7.

* Where the only cost to play was the hours of sleep I lost in the pursuit of "just one more game."

* Where most people were cordial and of good cheer and where those who resorted to foul language and bad sportsmanship were banned from participating.

* Where the differences between people in the United States, Australia, England and India were less important that the differences between their rankings (mine was 1748 when the end occurred).

* Where I learned acceptable "Q" words that don't require a "u," including qaid, qi and qintar.

* Where sometimes the games were long and linguistically passionate, while other times a "quickie" fit the bill.

* Where vocabulary was sexy. (Don't believe me? Check out this music video -- warning, includes the word a$$ and some "sexy" scenes.)

I knew its days were numbered. When Scrabulous was yanked from Facebook after pressure from Hasbro, I knew it was only a matter of time before my love would be forbidden. That time came yesterday. I clicked my Scrabulous bookmark and realized it was gone.

And so I'm here to say, thank you Scrabulous. Thank you for stretching my mind. Thank you for being there in my times of insomnia. Thank you for being a socially acceptable addiction. It was fun while it lasted. You will be missed.

The underwear question

There are just some conversations that even the most experienced mother cannot anticipate. Charlie brought one to me last night.

Charlie: "Mom, do you wear underwear all the time?"

Me: "Yes."

Charlie: "Even with your pajamas?"

Me: "Yes."

Charlie: "Even when you're dead?"

Hmmm...I never thought about it.

Is it appropriate to arrive at the pearly gates going commando? Does God really care about the state of our undergarments once we are dead? (Which begs the question, does God really care about the state of our undergarments while we're alive?) Did the guy who wanted to stand up during his own wake prefer boxers or briefs for the occasion?

Would I want to wear fancy panties or cotton grannies for the life ever after? A sensible solid or something with a pattern that says "I had flair in this life?" Of course, it will all be between me, God and the undertaker.

So to answer your question, Charlie, I definitely want to wear some type of skivvies when I go to my final resting place, though I'm not sure right now what style I would choose. Once I have it figured out, I'll have to go back to my "Last Wishes" entry and add it to the list.

Last wishes

Every once in a while when I'm using Mike's computer, I click his bookmark for The Drudge Report. Today, when I clicked it, I found a story about a deceased Puerto Rican man whose family said it was his last wish to remain standing throughout his 3-day wake.

Which got me to thinking that there is no time like the present to make my wishes known.

1. Unlike Senor Angel Pantoja Medina, I DO NOT wish to remain standing. I'd like to think that if at no other time in my life, at least in death I will finally have a chance to get off my feet.

2. I DO want my family and friends to cry over my passing. I often hear people saying, "Oh, she wouldn't want us to be sad." Forget that -- I intend to look down from my pearly pedestal and definitely want to see tears flowing. A few wails going up would be nice, too.

3. No matter how much my husband tries to convince you that I want my casket to bear a "My Other Car is the Starship Enterprise" bumper sticker, DO NOT believe him. That's his last wish.

4. I DO want to be buried with a Scrabble board. You never know how much time I'll have to pass in purgatory.

That's all for now. The good Lord willing, I've got some time to think about it.