Some memories of Mom
While driving down I-95 to Sarasota April 8, 2008 it was a gray day and I was feeling sad. I thought about growing up and memories of Mom and decided that I would write some of them down when I get back. I was able to access Traviata and pull up my 60th birthday card from her - the last birthday card I ever received from my mom. This is too much reflecting on the past but it really is a sad moment.
Growing up with Mom was not easy. She wished us to do well and was proud of our accomlishments but she was also self centered, comparing herself to our lives. Things that stuck with me are recounted here. Once traveling in Owego in our new but used Volare station wagon. She commented about our FM radio in the car and how she didn't have anything like that. Reality is that Mom didn't listen to music very much and would never listen to an FM radio in the car but she made me feel guilty for having this radio.
Seeing me off to Owego was a sad day for her. When the Moving van came to pick up my boxes, Dad said she cried.
She rode with me to her 50th anniversary party. We had a minivan and that's when I realized how handicapped she was. She couldn't get into either the front seat or the back seat. It was sad for me to see her crawl onto the floor in the backseat so she could try to lift herself up onto the bench seat.
When the family was gathered in her living room just after Dad's death, we found the page with Dad's obituary. Mom broke down crying when she started reading it out loud and had to leave the room.
She always did a lot of complaining. I think part of this was because she didn't have anything better to do. One of her favorites was the puddle in the driveway. Water would accumulate there - she had the driveway repaved but the water still accumulated. She used to call it the lake and boy did it ever upset her.
We picked her up once in the hospital in Somerville. She was in for some kind of Potassium deficiency due to a change of blood pressure medication. The ocassion that week was Aunt Helens 90th birthday party at Arlenes. She was very agitated in the hospital when we got there and she was crying and wanted to get out. We stopped in Arbor Glen on the way home to look at an assisted living facility. She seemed to be in good spirits over this.
She spent her whole life battling weight issues and blood pressure. She used to call the blood pressure pills water pills. We think they swelled her legs beyond belief. The excess weight took a toll on her knees. They no longer supported her. She didn't do any physical exercise to help strengthen her knees. She used to complain tha exercise would give her a headache.
Her house was spotless. You could eat off the floor it was so clean. This was one thing I noticed especially when I got my own place. When I returned home for a weekend I noticed how clean and spotless everything was.
When I had an apartment in Owego, more than once she and dad would arrive outside my place at 7:30 in the morning. I hardly had gotten up and they were downstairs banging on the door.
She got upset at the littlest thing. Doing anything she didn't like resulted in a verbal tirade bordering on anger. In later years Aunt helen was the target of her tirades. Neither one could hear well so a lot of shouting went out up and down the stairs.
It was nice visiting her at Robert Woods in her last few months but that didn't turn out as well as it could have. She was angry that I had not visited her since she was in the hospital for 2 months. When I did visit her it was remarkable how frail she had become. We were just there in July for Arlenes anniversary and she was stout and strong at that time. At the anniversary, I had charge of driving her to the church then wheeling her into the chapel downstairs. With some help from the boys we carried the wheelchair down the steps and also back out when it was over. Later in the day we wheeled her into Arlene's downstairs through the garage. She seemed to be doing well sitting near the buffet and talking to everyone as they got food. She still was insisting that Dr Fine said she should be in assisted living. That day I used Arlene's computer to construct a spreadsheet with the value of her house and how much we could draw it down to afford an assisted living. I also researched some addresses in a book the therapist had given her.
Mom had an incredible memory when it came to family birth dates, anniversaries, and family events. She had an incredible in depth memory of all these events up to the end. It was amazing. She could recount who was related to who on all sides of the family, whether it was her father or her mothers side or dads father or mothers side. We're talking about large families here! Two days before she died, Mom woke up completely lucid and talkative. She looked at me and said “what are you doing here?”. I tested her asking her how you spell grandpa' sister's name, Kecmer. Surprisingly I earlier had discovered that Kecmer was at our wedding. She spelled Kecmer's name but in the past few days she had gotten into this repetition pattern somewhat like a CD that kept repeating a track. She spellled it over and over several times before we diverted her attention to something else. When I needed to go to the store she suddenly started crying, “Adolph, don't leave”. I was mistaken for dad.
Fruits were always a big part of Mom and Dad's activities. This is a good thing. I remember when I was young we used to go for a ride up in the Watchung mountains or to Skillman and they would buy baskets of peaches, strawberries or apples from roadside stands. When we lived in Owego, New York we went to some apple orchards North of Binghamton and picked pounds and pounds of apples. Another time we went down to a Blueberry farm in Pennsylvania and picked bushels of Blueberries.
I'm trying to recall them seeing me off to college. I know Dad used to come home with train tickets for when I would go to Florida or return home. Dad got reserved coach tickets for free. They used to drive me to Newark to catch the Florida train. I remember the train and the train platform but I don't remember where they parked or don't even remember the trip to the train station. The train tickets were free but it would cost more to take the train and would be inconvenient than driving. Part of the problem was I had to take a bus from Jacksonville to Melbourne then a taxi to the college. This cost more than sharing gas for the car. In addition, the car was quicker and more convenient. I remember that gas costs for 4 people were $4 each. We didn't stop anywhere on the trip except for gas but it was a long 24 hour drive.
Besides graduation, they visited me once in college when they took a vacation to Miami. Mom and Dad stayed in the Tradewinds hotel on the beach but Mom wasn't thrilled with the beach. They came down by train one other time when I graduated. I do remember having dinner with them in the Holiday Inn restaurant.
Speaking of restaurants, I took them out once to an Italian restaurant in Plainfield which was pretty popular. When Libbie and I were engaged, Mom and Dad took us out to celebrate to Howard Johnsons restaurant on Rte 22. Dad once took us to a terrible movie in New Brunswick about a hospital. I've never been much of a movie fan anyway.
Her last week was very sad. Her mind was going - it was very visible that she could no longer distinguish reality from dreams. This seemed to get a lot worse after Barbaras funeral in January. A month later she told everyone she was waiting for Tom to come out of the bedroom so he could go to the funeral. This was remarkable confusion on her part, not knowing the funeral was a month ago and I had come and gone.
She woke up on Monday March 10th after being semi comatose all day Sunday. She was lucid and when she saw me, she said “What are you doing here?” She asked for a kiss. After a few hours she started hallucinating and calling for Adolph to not leave as Arlene and I were leaving for the grocery store. Tuesday night she was crying long loud moans from the pain. Libbie learned to give her the evedropper of Morphine every 4 hours. In the end, Libbie said she started panting like a marathon runner. Libbie tried saying Hail Mary but didn't know the words so she sang “I've been Working on the Railroad” and also said the Lords Prayer when she took her last breath. I woke when I heard Libbie singing. She then came down to the bedroom and said Mom had passed away. I got dressed and checked her, then called Vicki and Arlene and also Hospice. Rich called Maggie who called Sheenans Funeral Home. Surprisingly at 3 AM, two guys in black suits showed up on Ninth St to pick up the body.