The End of an Odyssey 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aNQjoDaX1-k

“Ana’s mother needs a triple by-pass so she needs to go [to Brazil].  She wants Gabriel to stay here and keep his life as normal as possible.  She’s wondering if he can stay with you during the day while Frank and I are at work,” I said into my cell phone to my husband Dave, who is driving home from his odyssey as a commuter husband that’s lasted sixteen months. 

“Absolutely,” Dave said.  “I was just talking to Phil about how he and Eva put their lives on hold for the last six months to take care of our parents.  That’s what families do.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s what I told Ana.  She cried.”

We’ve all been crying too much of late.  When Dave made the decision to return to work in June of 2012 it was to pay off some debt and give him some closure with his job which had ended abruptly when Lockheed Martin closed Seattle Flight Service and moved their services to Prescott, AZ.  It was devastating for me personally, but despite my belief that it would not get easier, it did.

At that time I told him that our parents were aging and fragile, especially his mother, and that it was possible that one or more of them might die while he was gone.  As it turns out, both of Dave’s parents passed during his time in Arizona.  Fortunately, he was able to see them several times and was actually at home in Gig Harbor when his mother died in August.  I am glad that he was not alone.  He was not so fortunate, when a day shy of a month later, his father joined his mother.  In the words of his brother Corky, it seemed that he could not do without her.

We are comforted by the fact that Dave’s brother Phil and his sister-in-law Eva stepped in to care for the boys’ parents when their mom’s health took a nose dive in April.  I know that their loving care of Walt and Dottie eased the guilt that Dave felt about being 1,500 miles away and prolonged their mother’s life by several months.  Actually, Phil and Eva uprooted their lives to come from Temecula, California to care for the parents.  They have been the embodiment of how we ought to all treat our loved ones.  They put their lives and creditors on hold because caring for my in-laws was more important than anything as far as they were concerned.  Ultimately my mother-in-law said, “Phil, you need to go home and we’ll go with you.”  That is how it came to be that both of the boys (there are seven brothers) parents died in Temecula and how it came to be that three of the boys—Dave included—are bringing their father’s ashes back to the Puget Sound area for internment with their mother at Tahoma National Cemetery tomorrow.

 

The trip back to Washington has been a sentimental journey for the boys (if you can call men in their sixties boys) and a fitting end to Dave’s time in Arizona.  Phil, the romantic and most tender hearted of the bunch, decided that the best way to return the parents’ motorhome and their father’s ashes was to take Walt on one last road trip, stopping along the way to visit with family including the graves of both grandparents in Idaho and Eastern Washington.  Dave left Arizona on Sunday and in Sacramento on Monday met Phil and Eva who had picked up Steve who’d flown in from Seattle.  They stayed with cousins and then began caravanning home. Tuesday was their long day.  They drove for nineteen hours, only stopping for dinner in Salem, Oregon where they met my best friend, who grew up with all of us, and had dinner. 

Of their stop my friend Nikki wrote, “It was a privilege to spend time with all of them and hear them reminisce about their parents.  Phil got teary eyed when he talked about Walt dying--I could tell he was a feeler!  Eva is very sweet and Steve was quite thoughtful about everything.  It is really a beautiful tribute to their parents and such a touching way to honor them.  Just because the others haven't joined in will never, ever take away from what these 3 brothers have done--together.  They will always have this memory and will be helped in their grieving by doing this.”

They pressed on until midnight where they stopped in Walla Walla before going on to Lewiston/Clarkston where their mother grew up. 

Yesterday they went to Nez Perce, Idaho where their father was born and raised, visiting the graves of their grandparents.  It was on their way there that I was able to get ahold of Dave and tell him about our daughter-in-law’s mother.  He did not hesitate for a second to say that he would become the grandpa version of Mr. Mom, seeing that Gabriel gets to his lessons and activities and does his homeschool work.  The events of the past year and a half have changed all of us in many ways. 

It seems like we will have little time to catch our breaths from Dave’s Arizona odyssey and the internment and memorializing of his parents before he steps into his role as stay-at-home-grandpa.  He’s coming home none-too-soon!

 

 

Sentimental Journey

 



Sentimental Journey was one of the iconic songs of WWII.  Doris Day recorded on November 20^th 1944 with the Les Brown Orchestra.  It is bittersweet about going home.  They say you can never go home again, but ultimately you can.  Two of my six brothers-in-law will be making a sentimental journey with their father’s remains as they drive them in his motorhome from Temecula, CA to Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent.  They plan to stop and see relatives, living and dead, along the way and spots that their parents loved to visit in their motor home.  Said my brother-in-law Phil, the third of the seven boys who cared for both of their parents until they died within a month of one another, “We are going to bring Dad up in his RV, stopping at several locations: Judy and Diane's homes [cousins] in Sacramento, The Redwoods, The Oregon Coast and finally Grandma and Grandpa's grave site in Clarkston. From there on home to the final resting place at Tahoma National.” 

I had to wipe the tears from my eyes when I read of the planned trip.  These have been hard times for the Haeck family and hardest of all on Phil and his family who stepped up to the plate and cared for the parents as their mother’s health failed.  They had looked forward to spending some time with their father, but it seemed that, as so often happens, he could not long stand being separated from his wife.  Now Phil will perform this last act of love in bringing his father home to the Puget Sound area where the couple raised seven wonderful sons to be buried with his beloved wife at Tahoma National Cemetery.  Steve, the oldest of the boys, will be journeying with them and Dave, who will be returning from his year and a half as a commuter husband in Arizona, plans to meet them along the road as he journeys home himself.

“We are having a sign printed,” wrote Phil, “to hang on the back of the RV. ‘This RV is carrying Lt. Walter E Haeck home to rest at Tahoma National Cemetery. 1919-2013.’ Anyone who wants to come along or join the caravan at any point along the way is very welcome.”  Walter Haeck and Dorothy Haeck will be interned at Tahoma (if the shutdown ends) at 2 PM on October 18^th.  A celebration of Walt’s life will be at Lake Sammamish State Park at 2 PM the following day.  Family and friends are invited to honor Walt’s love of the out-of-doors.

Taking Care of Business Every Day

If you are a Baby Boomer and are lucky enough to still have living parents, chances are their health and welfare is becoming more and more your responsibility. I am a 62-year-old only child of a mother who will be 91 a less than a week and I live 150 miles from her.  Hopefully within the next year my husband, daughter and I will be moving nearer, but in the meantime we are dealing with the issues that come up with having a parent age.  From this distance it’s a little like juggling cats against the backdrop of working as Special Education Para educator, having an adult child with Special , and having a husband living and working 1,500 miles away for the last year and a half.  I have what is known as a "commuter marriage."  Every day requires the planning of a general.  Fortunately I have some officers in the form of a son and daughter-in-law who live with us and another son and daughter-in-law twenty minutes away.  Many family caregivers are not so fortunate.

So far my mother has remained relatively independent, living alone in her own subsidized apartment with a minimum of help.  She does not desire to go into an assisted living arrangement and we are doing whatever we can to keep her where she is for as long as possible.  “Other people die in this building.  Why can’t I,” she has asked.  Keeping track of her deductible expenses to keep her qualified for her low rent has fallen to me as well as bill paying, although we've managed to make most of that automatic.

In 1985 my mother had a serious bout of cellulitis fueled by MRSA.  To this day we don’t know how she contracted it, but it rears its ugly head from time to time and I have to be prepared to get her seen by a doctor when it happens and monitor her recovery.  If the doctor doesn’t order home health and a visiting nurse, I ask.  My mother is not a good reporter and will sugar coat things on the phone so I want trained eyes to see her blisters and whether or not they are getting better.  That’s the fun we’ve been having right now—organizing a visiting nurse.

The health is a big issue and in addition to home health I pay for a medic alert device and it’s been worth every penny.  After doing some research on the Internet I chose Get Help Now because they didn’t require a long term contract.  With an elderly person you could sign up for three years and be stuck with a couple of years contract when they pass.  We are on a six month contract which seems far more reasonable.

When my mother began to take multiple medications at first I counted pills.  This was nerve wracking especially when she attempted to do it and I found mistakes that either of us had made.  Then I discovered that for very little extra the pharmacy will blister pack her medications.  She gets two cards each month, one for the morning and one for the evening.  That was a good sized stone lifted off of me!

Some things as small and yet as huge as garbage can be daunting.  My mother, with some effort, can get her garbage out of the kitchen can and on a good day onto her walker to take down in the apartment building elevator, but lifting the lid of the big green dumpster is a no-go.  It’s not all that easy for me!  She asked a neighbor if we could pay her to take out the garbage and so for a pittance she puts the bag in the hall and it disappears.  The neighbor needs the money and my mother definitely needs the help.  Without this arrangement Mother could not remain in her own place.

Laundry is another problem.  My mother has toppled over in the laundry room.  Through a local agency that assists the old and infirm we hire someone to spend 1.5 hrs. per week at my mom’s, mostly doing laundry.  If need by we’ve stretched her fixed income to cover 2 hrs. but it is a stretch.  This week the chore person is taking my mother to the doctor so the laundry will be waiting for me when I make my bi-weekly run to the coast to shop and do whatever else she needs.  I don’t mind.  I’m glad that my mother doesn’t have to take dial-a-ride to the doctor because sometimes she has to wait as long as an hour to get a ride home which is tiring.

With both my mother and my daughter letting them make decisions is crucial so that they maintain a sense of autonomy.  In other words I pick my battles to build political capital for times when I have to insist. “Are you going to have a shower this morning or wait until tonight?” vs. “No, is not an option.”  In my job I have seen what not letting an individual feel that they have any control over their life can do.  You end up with behaviors you don’t want and contention that makes life unpleasant for everyone concerned.  It’s all part of my juggling act.  I will be so grateful when my husband’s time away from home is done and I have him as a helpmate.  Both my mother and daughter react differently to him which makes me laugh, but whatever gets the job done.

Recently my husband’s parents became in need of 24 hour care.  Instead of seeing his parents go into an institution or adult family home, which they most definitely did not want, one of my brothers-in-law and his wife stepped up to the plate and left their lives on hold to care for my in-laws.  Their care has been nothing short of extraordinary.  They kept them first in the parents’ own apartment and then took them into their own home where they could be assisted by their own adult son.  With a dying mother and a father suffering from short term memory loss they have had their hands full, but they have cared for them with patience and love they would not receive from strangers in an institution.  I stand in awe of them and wonder if I could do the same.

Many nights I lose sleep wondering about those I love.  Tonight I will sleep well as my mother has organized her own ride to the doctor tomorrow to get wound care.

Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

 

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life--trite, but true.  Tomorrow is the first day of my last school year working as a Special Education para educator.  I have mixed emotions as I like my job.  Actually, I have the best job in school district because I work with the best student in the best high school.  I have amiable workmates who are the cherries on my work sundae.  So why not keep working?  The reasons are multiple.

Unfortunately, retiring and collecting both my Social Security and my retirement will actually give me a raise.  I have always joked and said that if I kept working much longer the district would expect me to pay them.  I wasn’t far off the mark.  I will be 63 in February so am already eligible to collect SS.  When I first began working with my student when he was a freshman I told him that I wouldn’t retire on him, that we’d graduate together.  He has come to be very dear to me and makes each day a joy.  He says that between the two of us we make one good brain.  That makes me laugh.  I am his hands; he is the brains in our outfit and very forbearing to tolerate spending the better part of 6.5 hours of his days with an old lady.  In some other life he could have been my grandson.  Tomorrow he begins his senior year which means nine more months to help him prepare to make his way in the world.  He will always need and have help, but it’s time for him to spread his wings and find his path, even if it is in a wheelchair.

For over a year I have been living in a commuter marriage.  In June 2012 my husband Dave and I determined that it was necessary for him to return to work for Lockheed Martin to help pay some debts.  He had retired when Lockheed closed their Seattle Flight Service, but had offered him jobs in other facilities over the years.  Finally it seemed an offer that couldn’t be refused, especially when we discovered that he could rent a room from an old friend from his FAA Bakersfield days who happened to be working at the Prescott, AZ facility that offered Dave the job.  The year plus of having a commuter marriage, which I discovered is not all that uncommon (not a good commentary on American life), has been a year of learning for both of us.  Dave admits that in the beginning there was a certain amount of excitement with regards to living somewhere new for a while.  That wore off somewhat rapidly when he realized that life was going on at home without him where grandchildren were growing and changing and I was learning to do without him.  That has not always been easy.  He is home for a few days to attend his mother’s funeral and admitted that he doesn’t want me to get along too well without him.  Anxious to feel needed he had not even unpacked before he started doing chores around the house as if he’d never left.  We get by without him, but I am the first to admit that life is much smoother with him.  Originally Dave’s move to Prescott had an end date of his 62^nd birthday (SS) this month, but a little raise has enticed him to stay into October to sell back his annual leave at the higher rate and get two more pay checks so it’s home before Halloween now with the plan for him to do some projects on our Gig Harbor house with an eye for selling it. Then we can move to our other house in Ilwaco, WA which will presumably be cheaper to live in.

The move to Ilwaco will also put me within six blocks of my nearly 92 year old mother who so far is remaining in her own apartment.  Every time I have to come away from Ilwaco I worry about her despite the fact that we pay for a chore person once a week, one of the neighbors to take out the garbage and for a medic alert system.  This week we are burying Dave’s mother whose birthday would have been Friday, just 11 days before my mother’s.  I don’t think I will ever regret spending more time with mine.

The last, but most important, reason for me to want to quit my job is my own Special Needs daughter.  Amy is 42.5 years old and has Down’s Syndrome.  The average life expectancy for people with an extra 21^st chromosome is 50.  I feel the clock ticking.  She can be frustrating and stubborn and loves me more than anyone ever will.  She is a gift with whom I want to spend as much time as possible.  There have been times during Dave’s absence that she’s been alone for 7 hours a day at home, although for the most part my daughter-in-law has been at home with her.  While she’s happiest with her own company and knows she can reach me at any time by calling my cell phone and I am only ten minutes away, those have been anxiety ridden hours.  Dave is not Amy’s biological father, but she has him wrapped around her tiny pinkie and one of the things that made me fall in love with Dave was a remark he made when we were first “keeping company.”  He said, “It’s nice.  You’ll always have Amy.”  Who could not love a man that thinks it’s not only okay to have my child always with me, but desirable and then was willing to take on a ready-made family that included her three brothers and grandmother.  Perhaps I’m lucky that he didn’t run away and join the circus before 21 years had passed!

So tomorrow begins the first day of the rest of my life and my last first day of school.  How exciting is that?

 

The Commuter Marriage Continues

 

 

 

Once again my husband, Dave, is heading back to his “other life” in Arizona.  He was home for seventeen days.  Now I feel as though I am in suspended animation without him.  His next scheduled return is in August, three and a half months hence and promises to be our longest separation yet since we began this “commuter” portion of our marriage.

 

When we made the decision for Dave to go to AZ to work it was devastating.  I saw a story on our local news about “commuter marriages” just days before his departure and heard a wife say that over time it becomes easier.  I didn’t believe it.  I did not want it to be so because I did not want this drastic change in our lives to become “normal.”  It has become easier and it is not normal, only tolerable.  It is a sensitive tooth that flares into full-blown pain from time to time, but mostly sits there aching.

 

The seventeen days of Dave being home were a whirlwind with us spending the first portion at our house on the Long Beach Peninsula getting things crossed off Dave’s honey-do list down there and then returning to Gig Harbor to work on that honey-do list.  As he heads back there are still things undone, but everywhere I see his hand in making our lives better.  You know, I don’t mind the fir needles and cones on the driveway, but I find a clean driveway comforting because it means Dave is around.

 

 

Dave leaves knowing that he may be returning at any point due to the advanced age and health of his parents and my mother.  That is something we talked about nearly a year ago when we began this adventure.  It is why my taking my Special Needs daughter and going to Arizona with him was never part of the discussion.  I am an only child and so my mother has no one else to rely on.  Dave has six brothers, five of whom live near to their parents—relatively speaking.  While he was home his mother’s health declined.  On our last visit Sunday she seemed to have improved a tiny amount.  I am grateful that he can leave, holding onto this tiniest thread of hope that she will be better still when he returns in August.  I hang onto that thread as well as I do not want him to be alone at the time of such a loss.

 

 

 

Dave's intention is to quit working the end of September.  That is not cast in concrete.  We were unable to meet with our financial advisor while Dave was home, but after a phone conversation with him we have some homework to do and an appointment in August when we can map out what is next in this adventure.  Stay tuned.

Runnin' Down the Road

I am an only child. My parents divorced when I was eighteen. Now my mother is 87 and I alone am left to make sure she is safe, takes her medications appropriately and manages to live independently in an apartment in a retirement building. My husband Dave is the second of seven boys who have committees of siblings in charge of various aspects of their elderly parents’ lives. I am the committee for my mother—from 150 miles away. My cell phone allows me to speak with my mother every evening and the medical alert system I pay for to sleep at night except when she falls at 2 AM and they call me. And then there are the bimonthly trips to take her shopping. Sometimes she doesn’t have the energy to actually do the shopping and will sit in the car or maybe even stays home. The trip from our home in Gig Harbor, Washington to Ilwaco where she lives in an apartment six blocks from the little old Victorian house we hope to retire to one day is a mixture of blessing and curse. I love the Long Beach Peninsula and have my whole life, but the frequent trips are hard on my budget, family and car.

I know I am not alone. As we Baby Boomers are aging our parents, those stalwarts of the Greatest Generation who saved the world when it sorely needed it, are growing frail and dying. Many of the people I grew up with have already lost both of their parents. Many of us now care for those who once cared for us. We watch their steps as anxiously as they once watched us take our first tentative steps. One friend gave up her live in Hawaii where the weather suited her health problems to move back to Oregon to care for her father when he no longer could care for himself. Her mother and three brothers gone and her sister battling her own demons, there was no one else. The situation has created resentments on both sides. Most of the time I do not resent my trips to the coast, but sometimes when I am very tired or my mother is very cranky, I long for a sibling on whom to lean. Sometimes I resent being a committee of one.

This is my weekend to see about my mother. When I leave of a weekend depends on the time of year, the weather, and who may be coming with me. If it gets dark by 4 PM and is likely to rain I wait until Saturday morning. I’d rather get up at 5 AM and hit the road than drive in the dark and the rain. Sometimes, if his rotating days off land on the weekend, Dave comes with me. Sometimes my daughter Amy comes which was the case today. The route I take depends on the things listed above and to a great extent my mood. Today, because the days are getting shorter and I wanted to get as far as possible in the daylight, I spent a bit more time on freeways than I would normally. I hate freeways and will go out of my way to avoid them if reasonably possible. Unless there is snow on the ground in Mason County I never go down I-5; instead I head up highway 16 to Purdy and then take highway 3 to Shelton. From Shelton I have a number of routes.

Where and when we stop in route is determined by when we leave and how hungry we become. Today I had proposed to Amy that we go to Montesano at Gepetto’s Pizza. Friday is pizza day as far as Amy is concerned and having Down’s Syndrome she can be routine bound, but today she chose stopping in Shelton at Vern’s Restaurant for the best clam chowder in the State of Washington. Well, maybe we haven’t sampled all the chowder in the state, but I figure we’ve come pretty close and Vern’s has won awards so we aren’t alone in our opinion.

From Shelton we hopped on 101 to the McCleary exit, but before getting to McCleary we turned off onto the Elma Hicklin Road that bypasses McCleary and its 30 mph speed limit. I love tooling down these back country roads, passing by houses who after hundreds of trips have become old friends. I don’t know a soul along the way, but I notice when a house has fresh paint or new roof, when it goes up for sale and when the Christmas lights go up. There’s a house about 2 miles outside of Raymond and near Elkhorn Creek that decorates the outside for every season and holiday that comes along. Had there been lighter and had they gotten more fall decorations up I would have stopped and taken a picture. I may on my return flight.

We observe all speed limits in and around South Bend, which is the county seat for Pacific County. They like nothing better than stopping tourists. A new scheme they have is that if you pay your speeding ticket immediately and don’t get any more in Pacific County for six months they will take the ticket off your record. If you chose to fight the ticket and lose all bets are off and it will stay on your record for years. I sent them the money the last time I got one for going 46 into Raymond. I was slowing down, coasting down the hill actually, but by the time I passed the cruiser the speed limit had dropped to 35. I would have, too, eventually, but the officer wouldn’t budge. The ticket has since dropped off.

When I make these trips I am never alone, even if no one is with me. One of the delightful features of my yellow Dodge Neon, affectionately known as the Zonker for Screaming Yellow Zonkers which you have to be of a certain age to remember, is that it has a four disk CD changer. I can load a book on tape or music and be set for the trip. Today I chose a mixture of old radio programs and WWII big band music. I collect old radio shows and love big band so we made the trip with the likes of Fibber McGee and Molly, Glenn Miller and the Dorseys, Marlena Dietrich and Doris Day.

Because I don’t care for driving in the dark or the rain and if both are present I won’t leave the garage at least not for a 150 trip. I have deer whistles mounted on the front bumper, but deer frighten me anyway and we are getting into that part of the year. Actually, on the route to the coast deer are likely to appear in the middle of the highway any time of year. Today sunset was late enough and it was sunny enough for me to feel like making the run into the setting sun. By the time we made the turn off 101S onto the Bay Road just enough pinky orange hung on the horizon to back light the Douglas fir trees against the darkening sky. We crossed Bear River, my personal exhale spot, as the last of the glow slid into the sea.

Amy wanted to rent videos. We don’t have cable at the house and movies are the other form of entertainment, sitting on the porch being one as well. So after a stop at Sid’s, the local grocer, to get supplies like milk and snacks, we drove through Long Beach to the video store. Downtown looked like they’d rolled up the sidewalks. I know summer is officially over, but the weather is still nice, but for a warm Friday evening it seemed deserted. On the way home we figured out why. As we made the bend in highway 103 toward Ilwaco we saw the lights from Ilwaco High School’s football field. I asked Amy if she wanted to drive by the school and she grinned. She attended school there for three years when we lived on the Long Beach Peninsula and even though she spent as long at Peninsula High School in Gig Harbor (Special Education students can stay in school until they are 21) she still considers Ilwaco her school. When we made the turn into the drive at the school we realized where everyone was. High school football and basketball are the end all and be all for this community. Our house is near enough to the school that some Fridays we can hear the band from our yard.

Making this run every two weeks affords me the opportunity to watch the landscape change with the seasons. As we drove onto the Peninsula tonight Amy said, "It's a lovely evening" and it is. Were it freeway driving I probably would have found some other solve before now, but one more trip down the road is notched on my belt. Tomorrow the shopping in Astoria. For now I am going to wander off to bed with Loki the dog. He’s been standing at the doorway as much as to say, “Why are we still up?”

Do You Know What's in Your Parents' Safety Deposit Box?

Recently, Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life” aired an act about a woman whose job it is to dispose of the “estates” of Chicago citizens who die alone with no family to even claim the body. What would it be like to spend your days going through the possession of strangers, people who lived and died alone, and dispose of their things? The program examined what we leave behind for others to deal with. If we are lucky we have loved ones to whom we will things.
Recently I had cause to go through my 86 year old mother’s papers. I didn’t find any million dollar life insurance policies or stocks or bonds, but I did find things that in their own way were amazing. Good thing she was still around to ask questions, but even she was baffled by some of it.

We found letters from insurance companies about policies that had been purchased years ago. Most of them she couldn’t remember; didn’t even know what I was talking about when I asked her. Mutual of Oregon? CNA? Academy Life? Safeco? There was only one actual policy and it was for $700, not $200.

I found an ad for an opthamologist who Mother can't remember and the pin number for Mother's ATM card, just in case she forgot the number.

“Mother,” I said as I was going through the huge stack, “do you do your monthly breast exam at the bank?”

She frowned. “No, why?”

“Well,” I said, beginning to titter. “Care to venture a guess about how this got into the safety deposit box.” I held up my finger from which dangled a card similar to the cards with the keyhole one hangs on a motel door requesting privacy or cleaning only this one contained a diagram for doing a self breast exams. Jo and my mother began to laugh, too, and we laughed until tears ran down our faces.

Nearly the last item I came across was an agreement with the University of Oregon for my mother’s body to go to their medical school. “They will give you ashes when they’re done,” my mother said. “All you have to do is get me to Portland.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” I asked.

“Just throw me in the back of a van and drive me.”

“If they want you, they can come get you. I’m not driving you around when you're dead.”

“I don’t think you can drive a body around without some sort of special license,” Jo said.

“Oh, pooh,” said Mother. “Just throw me in a van.”

“I don’t have a van. I’d have to rent one. Do you think Hertz would approve? Besides, wouldn’t it involve taking a body across state lines?” I asked laughing again.

My mother still insists that we can just prop her in the backseat. After I had taken my mother home for the night with her honey-do list of phone calls to make regarding insurance policies and Jo & I were getting ready for bed I said, “You’d do it with me, wouldn’t you?” I said.

“Yes, I would,” she smiled.

“Well, it’s nice to know someone who’d help you move a body,” I said and we laughed.

So, when’s the last time you looked in your parents safety deposit box or talked about what’s going to happen when they pass on? I don’t suggest it for a Thanksgiving celebration, but better to get surprised now than wait until it’s too late for clarification.

I had much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The one that surprised me is that I’m thankful to have a friend who would help me drive a body 120 miles. Everyone should have at least one friend who would do that.

Sewing Labels and Smuggling Pie

This morning I sat in my mother’s hospital room sewing name tags on a bag of her socks. “You sewed?” my husband asked incredulously. “I never told you I couldn’t sew, just that I don’t like it and used to smuggle my home ec projects home for my mother to finish,” I told him. “Besides, a few little hand stitches on the ends of name tags hardly constitutes sewing.”

My mother’s bags are packed and in the car, ready to head for Gig Harbor and Manor Care tomorrow. As Lorraine has observed it’s all rather surreal despite the fact that as an only child I’ve had to do more for my mother than those lucky Baby Boomers who have siblings. My husband will tell you that I’m not a particularly organized person so the pressure’s been on to think of everything I needed to choose, mark and pack for her and everyone I needed to touch base with before the ambulance comes to get her tomorrow.

I was hoping that they could be off right after breakfast tomorrow so as to arrive in Gig Harbor in time for lunch. It isn’t looking like that will happen. The doctor has yet to sign the orders for my mother to be transferred for rehabilitation at Manor Care and since his schedule for doing rounds is somewhat…well, random…they are likely to be on the road at lunch time. At least I won’t have to listen to the “I’m hungry.” Knowing my mother, she will suggest that they go through the drive-through at Dairy Queen in Raymond. In the movie version of this episode, not only will she suggest it, they will actually drive the ambulance through the drive-through and get Classic Grillburgers and milkshakes for all of them.

In the movie version they will also get lost. It is very possible that they will in real life. When my cousin was sent from Ocean Beach hospital to Vancouver Hospital in an ambulance that is exactly what happened. She had to sit up and tell them how to get to the hospital.

My last task before I can turn my thoughts to Amy’s and my things is to smuggle one more piece of pumpkin pie into the hospital. Fortunately she’s only a borderline diabetic and she said that she needed pumpkin pie.