Some weeks ago a student in class mentioned to me that his daughter was disappointed about school being cancelled because of snow. Why? That day was her day to be first in line. Cupcakes were involved as well. I can recall grade school life and these “firsts.” The elation of leading everyone else, of being called by name and moving to the front of the line.
Now that my Mom passed away the idea being first in line seems entirely different.
I now realize how close to death my Mom was in the last weeks. Seeing her often, I noted small degrees of decline, but somehow thought she was really as she had been, only diminished. The hospice physician listed coronary heart disease as cause of death. My mother suffered from chronic hypertension, a symptom of cardiovascular disease. Medication helped keep her blood pressure down. After she’d retired, she sold her house in Mill Valley, California, the 1980s. She returned to the city where she grew up, Portland, Oregon, where as Virginia van Hyning she graduated from Washington High in 1934. She moved into an apartment with a panoramic view of the city and the river. Life was good.
Then suddenly she learned that the new owner in California was suing her over damage from cypress trees on the property during a storm. Mom was beside herself; she went to court and during the hearing suffered a stroke. Mom recovered and the case settled, but damage was done. Chronic hypertension remained and became her nemesis. No longer able to live on her own by 1998, she moved to Michigan---and so began ten years of life with Virginia for me and my son Chris.
Calling elderly friends proved difficult. I have to speak loudly into the phone, repeat my phrases. Then the phrases have to be abbreviated. No modifiers, nuances. Details of my Mother’s decline are lost. The conversation is too simplified to satisfy my need to convey to Virginia’s old friends how it was for her. The elderly high school classmate in Portland sounds both philosophic and forlorn. She too is unable to share shades of feeling. It’s unsatisfying.
The days since Mom’s death vary. Small stabs of grief or loss or loneliness unpredictably puncture the last days of the semester. Just get through; I know that Christmas is coming. It seems like a custom from another culture. More importantly, Dennis arrives December 17. The initial disorientation is passed. People remind me that a new life is beginning. I am first in line.
Now that my Mom passed away the idea being first in line seems entirely different.
I now realize how close to death my Mom was in the last weeks. Seeing her often, I noted small degrees of decline, but somehow thought she was really as she had been, only diminished. The hospice physician listed coronary heart disease as cause of death. My mother suffered from chronic hypertension, a symptom of cardiovascular disease. Medication helped keep her blood pressure down. After she’d retired, she sold her house in Mill Valley, California, the 1980s. She returned to the city where she grew up, Portland, Oregon, where as Virginia van Hyning she graduated from Washington High in 1934. She moved into an apartment with a panoramic view of the city and the river. Life was good.
Then suddenly she learned that the new owner in California was suing her over damage from cypress trees on the property during a storm. Mom was beside herself; she went to court and during the hearing suffered a stroke. Mom recovered and the case settled, but damage was done. Chronic hypertension remained and became her nemesis. No longer able to live on her own by 1998, she moved to Michigan---and so began ten years of life with Virginia for me and my son Chris.
Calling elderly friends proved difficult. I have to speak loudly into the phone, repeat my phrases. Then the phrases have to be abbreviated. No modifiers, nuances. Details of my Mother’s decline are lost. The conversation is too simplified to satisfy my need to convey to Virginia’s old friends how it was for her. The elderly high school classmate in Portland sounds both philosophic and forlorn. She too is unable to share shades of feeling. It’s unsatisfying.
The days since Mom’s death vary. Small stabs of grief or loss or loneliness unpredictably puncture the last days of the semester. Just get through; I know that Christmas is coming. It seems like a custom from another culture. More importantly, Dennis arrives December 17. The initial disorientation is passed. People remind me that a new life is beginning. I am first in line.
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