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Good-Bye, Mom

11/25/2020

   Late the night before last - November 23 - I received the call from the Sunrise senior care facility that my mother had died.
It was a strange moment. As soon as the phone rang, before even checking my phone, I knew who was calling at this hour and why and yet it didn't seem possible that what I'd known all along was going to happen - and dreaded all along - could really, truly, finally have happened.
  For just the snap of a fleeting moment this felt like the recurring dreams from my childhood,

...in which something I was frightened of in real life - invading Russian soldiers, the Devil, robots from outer space, the neighborhood bully - had finally trapped me, this time for real, this time not a dream...except that it always was a dream. But this time it wasn't a dream. This time it was real. My mother had really died.
Of course she'd been dying for the past ten days. The Sunrise staff and the hospice nurses told me as much, though it wasn't necessary, I could see it for myself. I sat with my mom for hours every day as she drifted uneasily in and out of some vague consciousness. I talked to her, held her hand, pulled up her favorite music on my phone and held it close to her ear. I held my phone in front of her face and Facetimed her with relatives, though she appeared unaware of any of their screen presences, or mine very much, for that matter. But then I guess it hasn't been determined of what and to what degree a person might be aware when their mind has moved on but their heart is still beating.
Sometimes my mom lay calm and still, but more often than not she moved her arms or legs as if in a restless half-sleep, or as if she were trying to get up out of the bed. Often her eyes were open or half-open. I wondered where my mom was. Sometimes I asked her. Was she suffering? Was she in distress? I couldn't stand to see her in this state. And yet I didn't want her to die. I didn't know what I wanted.
But, of course, I did know what I wanted. I wanted my mom to return, to open her eyes, to sit up, to smile and get out of bed. I wanted her to be herself again, the self she'd always been, the self she was just last year.

It's true that my mom was one hundred-and-a-half years old, which was, I suppose, more than long enough to expect one's mother to live. But then the longer she lived, the longer she was a presence in my life, and the harder it was to imagine that she ever wouldn't be.
The day before my mother died one of the Sunrise nurses stood by her bed and said, "Your mom moves so much because she never liked to sit still. She was always up talking to people and trying to help people. She would help feed people. If she saw one of the residents crying she would go to them and try to get them to stop. She was always trying to help the care managers with their work. Now she doesn't want to lie still."
Yes, that sounded like my mom.

"It didn't seem like Grammy would just die," said my daughter. "It seemed like there should have been fireworks or shooting stars, or something."
Yes, it seemed like there should have been.

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Twelve Beautiful Cupcakes

11/21/2020

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TWELVE BEAUTIFUL CUPCAKES

It's been a rough week. But then, for most of us that probably goes without saying.
After all, there are currently so many possibilities of how life can be rough, the COVID-19 pandemic having dropped a whole new world of interconnected maladies, misfortunes, and unhappiness on top of the already vastly numerous run-of-the-mill happenings that can make life rough.
I suppose a variation of the famous quote from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina could sum it up: These days everybody's life is rough in its own way.
As for me, it was a fairly run-of-the mill development, I suppose, yet ushering in no less of an emotional upheaval than a more seismic one might have, that propelled me into my rough week: A week and a day ago I was told that my mother, 100 years and 5 months old, was near the end of her life.
My mother lived in her own house until one year ago,

...when she relocated from Seaford, Delaware to Gahanna, Ohio to take up residence at Sunrise of Gahanna, a wonderful senior care facility one mile from my home.

From the time she arrived at Sunrise I visited my mom every day, took her to church every Sunday and out to eat a time or two a week. I watched her make friends and thrive, even after she was moved to the Memory Care unit, where she received the kindest care I could have hoped for.

Then the epidemic struck, life became surreal, and by March senior care facilities across the country were put under quarantine and I didn't see my mother for three months except for a weekly digital visit via my iphone screen, and even for that I was grateful.
By June the quarantine had been lifted slightly for care facilities and for the next five months I was allowed to spend half an hour once a week with my mother sitting outside twelve feet apart. I watched her hearing and cognition deteriorate week by week, though the Sunrise staff assured me that she was still active and quite social. I felt that if I were able to still come and see her every day she wouldn't forget who I was; if I could just sit with her and hold her hand she would be better.
One of the nurses suggested that, as several of my mom's friends had baby dolls, I buy a baby doll for my mom, too. From then on, they tell me, my mom was never without her baby. She always brought her baby along for our visits.

A few weeks ago when the weather turned cold our weekly 12-feet apart outdoor visits became weekly 12-feet apart indoor visits. Last Friday, November 13, when I arrived at Sunrise for my visit with my mom I was met by the charge nurse of patient care who informed me that I could go back an visit my mother in her room. My mother appeared to be approaching her final days, and so I could now visit her in her room every day if I wished.
She was weak when I saw her on Friday, bedridden by Saturday. On Sunday I was told my mother was "in transition" - from life to death, I suppose. I've sat with my mother every day for the past eight days, two, three, four hours a day in mask, face shield and gloves.

I talk to my mom even though she doesn't seem to hear me. Once in a while she'll say something, usually incoherent, and so softly that I struggle to hear her. Sometimes she lies with her eyes closed, so quiet and still that I become fixated on a vein in her neck, watching it to make sure it's still pulsating.
But sometimes when one or two of her Sunrise caregivers enter the room, all cheerful and bubbly and fussing over her, my mom springs back to life, reaches for a hug, kisses them, tells them she loves them, that she’ll miss them, prays that God will bless them.
And so it's gone for the past eight days. And while I've felt mostly bathed in the comfort and kindness of family, friends, and the Sunrise caregivers, several days ago I fell apart, briefly. A remark was made to me concerning my mother, so harsh and unkind and unexpected that it left me not only momentarily speechless, but momentarily breathless.
For the first time since I learned that my mother was dying, I cried. And cried. I told my sister about the mean remark that was made to me. I told my husband, my children, my friends, I laid awake at night and ruminated and cried some more.
The following day I spent an hour sitting in our family room on the phone with a friend discussing, dissecting, analyzing and psychoanalyzing the remark. When I hung up the phone my husband entered the room and said, "Look in the kitchen. Somebody sent you cupcakes."
On the kitchen table was a box of a dozen beautiful cupcakes.

They were a gift from my sister Romaine, who'd sent them to make me feel better. And, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, these twelve beautiful cupcakes did make me feel better. Immediately. Romaine had ordered them from a Gahanna bakery called Fate Cakes owned by a young pastry artist who delivered the cakes to our house herself.

"I asked her to make the cupcakes look like desert succulents and to add extra icing," Romaine told me. These confectionary cacti were little works of art, down to the sprinkling of graham cracker crumbs for the desert sand.

And the icing was just the way I like it: two parts icing to one part cake.

And were they delicious? Oh yes. These little Fate Cakes and my sister's kindness nourished my sweet tooth and my spirit.
My mother used to say that a little kindness was like water that could bring a parched flower in a desert back to life. I might add that a cupcake desert can work wonders as well.

Reference:
https://www.thisweeknews.com/story/news/local/new-albany/2020/08/29/gahanna-bakers-stress-relief-turns-into-fulfilling-business-with-fate-cakes/42345053/

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Director Of Kindness

11/17/2020

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DIRECTOR OF KINDNESS

Last Friday was World Kindness Day.

I'd never heard of this holiday before, but apparently it was conceived in Tokyo and established in 1998, from which time it has been celebrated every year on November 13. And though the United States is putatively among the 28 countries that observe World Kindness Day, the day is obviously not celebrated very robustly here.
Would be nice if it was, though. Would've been especially nice this sad, frightening, contentious year to have a day which we all spent being kind to each other.

But fat chance of our country celebrating World Kindness Day this year of all years, thanks in no small part to the gospel preached by our President who, praise him if you want for whatever merit you find in him, is unquestionably among the hardest and most unkind people on the planet. One would hardly expect a shout-out to World Kindness Day from the likes of Donald Trump. Which is too bad because, when we're not caught up in our politics or ideologies, Americans are for the most part kind people.

Still, it's nice to know that such a day as World Kindness Day exists on the global calendar, even if we in the United States haven't yet gotten around to celebrating it very much. There's always next year, though, and all the years to follow from then on. In fact starting next year we'll have a new President who is certainly many clicks higher on the kindness scale - as is almost everybody else in the world - than the current occupant of the White House, and so will at least be a better example to the country.
However, if the U.S. as a whole is at the moment behind the World Kindness Day curve, I learned
on the same day I learned about World Kindness Day that Columbus, Ohio is ahead on the national kindness-as-a-movement curve.
It so happens, I learned, that our city has a Director of Kindness. Not, that is to say, as a member of the municipal administration, but rather as part of the staff of the Columbus Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic organization whose stated mission is "strengthening and improving our community for the benefit of all its residents."
A couple of years ago the Columbus Foundation started an initiative called Kind Columbus, the purpose of which is to cultivate and facilitate acts of kindness in our city.

This past summer Kind Columbus created a new position, that of Director, whose job is dedicated to "spreading the words and actions of kindness as a defining value for our region."
This position was filled by Dr. Amy Acton,

...who was the Ohio Health Director who valiantly led the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak in our state,

...until the gentle doctor was harassed out of office, not by the by demonstrators who protested Health Department mandates by congregating daily in front of her house, shouting threats at Dr. Acton, who is Jewish, and her family,

...but by the right-wing members of the Republican-leaning Ohio State Legislature who began introducing Senate bills to strip the Health Director of her power to administrate public health policy and reassign that authority to themselves.
In her soft-spoken, sincere voice Dr. Acton always preached mask-wearing, social distancing and sheltering in place as acts of kindness that we do for each other to keep each other safe. In fact she regularly wove the message of the need for us to care for ourselves and each other into her daily COVID-19 update briefings with the Governor.

But in the end Dr. Acton was no match for the forces of ignorance and unkindness that have been not only a terrible symptom of the COVID epidemic nationwide, but continue to feed it's rampant virulence.
However Amy Acton has repaid the unkindness she received with the kindness she now promotes in her job as the Director of Kind Columbus. And in honor of World Kindness Day she shared a beautiful, soothing message on the importance of all of us helping each other get through these hard, dark days by shining the light of kindness on one another.

Here's the link to Dr. Amy Acton's "Message on World Kindness Day":
https://youtu.be/k0kN0im3na8
Do watch it. It will do your heart good.

References:
https://inspirekindness.com/world-kindness-day

https://www.awarenessdays.com/awareness-days-calendar/world-kindness-day-2020/

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/made-us-smile/watch-dr-amy-acton-has-simple-encouraging-message-for-ohioans-on-world-kindess-day

https://columbusfoundation.org/about-us/overview

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What Were You Doing When You Heard The News?

11/10/2020

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Forget your troubles, come on get reading!

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WHAT WERE YOU DOING WHEN YOU HEARD THE NEWS?

True, it's already been several days since the sunny - at least here in Columbus, Ohio - Saturday morning when the news broke that Joe Biden would be the next President of the United States, and - oh happy day! - Donald Trump would not. But I, for one, want to keep floating for a at least a little while longer on my fluffy, happy post-election cloud, taking in deep breaths of relief, and - despite all the Trump-induced post-election racket - reveling in hope.
And I also want to remember and relish that moment when I learned that Joe Biden had won and that the end was nigh for Trump and his self-serving reign of corruption, cruelty, tantrums, and lies. In fact, I want to remember and relish that whole day, extraordinary and ordinary as the day turned out to be.
I woke up on Saturday, November 7, with the same case of stomach-knotting anxiety as probably most of the rest of the country as we waited for the election to tick to a finish. I'd gone to bed the night before with a headache from hours of nonstop listening to CNN's John King and Wolf Blitzer's nonstop talking ,

...while I stared at columns of numbers on the screen and kept elbowing my brain to do quick in-head additions and subtractions.

Hence on Saturday morning, tense and still brain-tired, I made the determined decision that I would not turn on CNN, NPR, WTVN or any other news source until the election was called once and for all.
"Sure you won't," laughed Tom when I told him of my self-imposed news black-out.
But I in fact did not tune in to any news that morning. Except for every now and then. Just to make sure the election hadn't been called and Tom, himself still glued to CNN, had forgotten to tell me.
Around 11:45 I decided to go grocery shopping to help kill some time and also because we were completely out of groceries, myself having been too glued to the polls for the past week to go shopping.
On my way to the store I flipped on the radio and tuned to NPR. Just to make sure the election hadn't been called yet. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, it had, indeed been called: for Joe Biden.
I turned the car around and drove back home, where I found Tom in the front yard raking leaves, apparently also needing a break from John King and Wolf Blitzer. I hopped from the car and called to him that Biden had won. He stopped in mid-rake. For a moment he looked in shock.
I wished at that moment that I lived in a big city where people might be out dancing - hopefullly social distance dancing - in the streets. I stood on the sidewalk in front of my house and looked up and down, but on my quiet suburban street all was still except for some neighbors working in their yards or out walking their dogs. I spied an elderly neighbor (that is, more elderly than me) for whom I'd procured a "Biden" sign. I ran over to him and gave him the good news.
"That's good," he said. "But how are we gonna get the other guy out of the White House?"
"Oh, don't worry," said I, "that'll be the fun part."
I truly felt like celebrating, but it was a Saturday afternoon in the middle of a raging pandemic. The thought hit me how strange it was to hear an election called on a Saturday afternoon with everyone out working in their yards instead of on a Tuesday night sitting on the edge of the sofa in front of the TV set. As I couldn't think of anything else to do I figured that I might as well go out and get the shopping done as we were still out of groceries.
The supermarket was fairly crowded; there was an Ohio State game that evening and people tend to be out shopping on game days to stock up on football-watching snacks. I looked at the people around me. Did they know that Joe Biden won the election? I wondered. I tried to deduce who among them might be happy and exicited, who might be crushed with disappointment. But everyone looked as inscrutable behind their face masks as I myself probably did.
When I returned from shopping I put away groceries, made lunch, called or texted everybody I could think of, and otherwise used up the afternoon around the house doing I don't recall what else other than wishing I were out dancing in the street. But just before sunset I did treat myself to a celebratory walk around the neighborhood.

On one street I saw what looked like a little block party going on.

I imagined this to be a Biden victory party but, of course, it could have been just a group of neighbors having a get-together on a beautiful Saturday evening.
I ran into one neighbor whom I knew to be a Biden supporter out walking her dog.
"How happy are you?" I asked her.
"So happy!" she replied. Her poodle expressed it for both of us.

And so happy were so many of us later that night watching Kamala Harris and Joe Biden giving their speeches.

And thus does an ordinary day become a most memorable one.
But what were you doing when you heard the news? If you'd like to leave your own chronicle for the benefit of some future cyberarchivist who might someday come across this post, or just for yourself, feel free to write whatever you'd like to remember about the day Joe Biden won in a comment below.
Oh happy day.

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On Eagles' Wings

11/8/2020

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You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord,

Who abide in His shadow for life,

Say to the Lord, "My refuge, my rock in whom I trust!"

And He will raise you up on eagles' wings,

Bear you on the breath of dawn,

Make you to shine like the sun,

And hold you in the palm of His hand.

The snare of the fowler will never capture you,

And famine will bring you no fear.

Under His wings your refuge, His faithfulness your shield.

And He will raise you up on eagles' wings,

Bear you on the breath of dawn,

Make you to shine like the sun,

And hold you in the palm of His hand.

You need not fear the terror of the night,

Nor the arrow that flies by day.

Though thousands fall about you, near you it shall not come.

And He willl raise you up on eagles' wings,

Bear you on the breath of dawn,

Make you to shine like the sun,

And hold you in the palm of his hand.

For to his angels he's given a command to guard you in all of your ways;

Upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,

Bear you on the breath of dawn,

Make you to shine like the sun,

And hold you in the palm of his hand.

And hold you, hold you in the palm of His hand.

On Eagles' Wings
by Michael Joncas

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Tomorrow Is The Election And My Inner Cat Is Pacing The Floor Of My Brain.

11/2/2020

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It's the day before the 2020 Presidential Election and all I want to do is go to sleep and wake up the day after tomorrow - make that two days after tomorrow; no let's say three; or maybe even four or five.
Fat chance, though, when I - an inveterate insomniac - typically can't manage to get through a night without popping awake every two hours in even the most serene of times which, let's face it, these past four years have not been, not to mention the past eight months, less to mention the past few weeks, least of all to mention these last few days before the Election.
It's not only that I can't wrap my head around the idea that Donald Trump could win another four years; I likewise can't bring myself to believe that Joe Biden might actually win. I'm drifting in a sort of surreal pre-election Twilight Zone. Aren't we all.
After the 2016 Presidential polling debacle that coolly predicted Hilary Clinton trouncing Donald Trump I promised myself I'd never again trust the poll numbers.
And I don't, not one bit. And yet all day long I'm on the internet clicking around from Fivethirtyeight to the CNN Poll of Polls to the New York Times Upshot and back again, poring over the latest poll numbers state by state as if they were cosmic runes or mystic tea leaves whose prognostications I no more believe than I would that of a Magic 8 Ball.

So go figure.
Two of my children, my son and one of my daughters, are going to be poll workers here in Franklin County - that's the metropolitan Columbus, Ohio area - on Election Day tomorrow. And while I'm over-the-top proud of them for being among the thousands of young people who've risen to the occasion to serve on this Election Day, visions of right-wing militias and caravans of pick-up trucks flying Trump flags wreaking discord, confusion, and intimidation, maybe even violence at the polling places dance in my head.

American Presidential elections have always been times of anxiety-tinged excitement, but when did any of us ever think we'd live to see the day when such a terrible national fear of dysfunction, chaos and violence would loom over an election? How, in one single election cycle, did the United States shift from being a country where we its citizens take peaceful, democratic elections and transitions of power for granted to the model of a lawless banana republic dictatorship where retail stores across the country are boarding up their display windows with plywood in anticipation of post-election violence? How did America become this place?