Dignity?

My mom was a great storyteller when I was a kid. She would tell me all about her childhood, the years she spent working in Sydney before she came to America, and the stories of early married life. My favorite thing was when the story involved me, the me too young to remember what had happened for myself. One such story was the day that I was born. I listened to this one with a quiet anticipation, hanging on her every word until she reached the trip home from the hospital, my favorite part. She was waiting for a ride home, but could not get a hold of my father. She decided to call a friend, a woman who had befriended her three years earlier. This lady’s name was Heather, and she came for us as soon as my mother called her. Upon entering the maternity ward, she was told that only immediate families were allowed to visit. Brushing past the nurse, she declared, “I am that baby girl’s grandmother!” She wasn’t of course, but after hearing this story, she was Gramma to me.

When we moved to Washington and then on to Portland, my mother and Heather remained in touch. My father was very vocal in his dislike of her. She had divorced her husband, raised her children alone, worked outside of the house, refused to go to church, and to top it all off, she had a son who went to fight the war in Vietnam, a war that my father was opposed to.

My father forbid my mom to visit her, unless he was going along, which was rare. My mom ignored this, and sometimes she would keep us all home from school, unbeknownst to him, and we would make the trip to Salem and back before he came home from work. These were wonderful trips for us. I remember cruising down the freeway in my mom’s old Ford, the radio blaring, the windows down, my hair flying in the wind as I raised an orange crush to my lips and grinned from ear to ear. These were my first experiences with feeling “free” and I relished them. When we pulled into the driveway, Heather would already be out the front door to greet us. As we entered the house she would say, “I’ve made a pot of my special chili.” For my mom there was a bloody mary and a recliner with a footrest. Seeing my mom sit down and relax, no look of fear or worry on her face was new to me, and I loved the way my mom opened up and smiled and laughed.

Entering the house was a magical experience for me. She had gold shag carpet, beautiful pieces of art everywhere, mirrors framed in gold and my favorite, a portrait of a young Heather painted by someone years before. I would sit and stare at that painting, in awe of her beautiful auburn hair swept up just so, her smooth skin, her burgundy dress and full red lips. I asked her about that painting, and she would dismiss it with a roll of her eyes and a wave of her hand.

Add the facts that she had a bird that talked in a thick Australian accent, just like Heather, two long haired Persian cats who were so soft and a half acre yard complete with fruit trees and a tire swing and you’re talking heaven to a little girl like me.

Sometimes, when my dad would get even more violent than was usual, my mom would grab her four children and take us to Heather’s house for a few days. She was the only friend we had that didn’t cower in the face of my father. Whether it was on the phone or in person she never backed down; met his gaze with steady eyes and never flinched no matter how hard he yelled. I had seen grown men cower to the wrath of my dad, so to me she was an amazing combination of strength and beauty.

She never tired of snuggling me, and I would climb into her lap and sit for hours. I used to love to hold her hands in mine, amazed by the right hand with four stubs where fingers once were. She told me the story of the lawnmower accident that had taken off the tops of her fingers. I loved the beautiful rings that she wore, even on her finger stubs, and she would slip them off of her fingers and onto mine, letting me wear them. I would move my hand by the light of the lamp, watching the jewels and gold shimmer.

My hair was brushed and braided by her, and she would tie beautiful silky ribbons on my pigtails. When bedtime came she would arrange each child somewhere in her house, and with me being the smallest, she would let me sleep with her. She would joke at breakfast that I wiggled around and kicked her while I slept, but she never banned me from her bed with the softest sheets and the sweetest smell I had ever encountered. When it was time to leave, she would give us big bear hugs and let us know that her home was always open to us. She never chastised my mom for returning to my dad time and time again.

As the years flew by, and I started my own family, I saw her less and less. We managed to get down there once or twice a year, and I tried to write letters and send her pictures of my children when I could. A week ago my mom called with the news. Heather had pancreatic cancer. It had spread throughout her body, was untreatable and inoperable. The doctors gave her very little time, saying that it could be two days or two months. My mom went down immediately to care for her in her home. By Monday it was apparent that it was very, very bad and my mom made the decision to put her in a nursing home so that she could have 24 hour care. My mom began driving back and forth working in Portland during the days, and returning to Salem to be with Heather in the evenings. My brother and my two sisters made it down to see her, bringing their children along. Finally, on Wednesday, it was my turn. I picked up my son from school and my mom picked us up after she got off of work. I wanted to go to a florist to buy her flowers, but remembering her daughter’s wedding, and how she had cut all of the flowers for it from her own garden, I decided to create a bouquet of lilies and roses from my own garden. On the drive down, I didn’t know what to think. I knew that there were so many things that I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her how she had been a mentor to me, how much the times that we had spent together had meant to me. I wanted to express my love for her and my appreciation for all that she had done for four scared children and one tired mother over the years.

I was worried that my kids would be exhausting for her to see, but she was insistent upon them coming.

When we arrived at the home, me with flowers in hand, my children clutching pictures that they had colored for her, I wasn’t certain that I could handle it. I was supposed to be the strong one now, and I didn’t feel strong at all. My mom led the way, and we followed. My mom knocked on her door and announced that we were there. I peeked in the room, saw the empty bed, and a sick feeling came over me. My mom found her on the bathroom floor, she had fallen, and I went with my kids to get a nurse. I stayed with the kids in the hall while they helped her. My mom told me later that she had wanted to put on a pretty nightgown and robe and have her hair brushed before I saw her. When we walked into the room she reached her arms out to me. I lowered myself into them and she held me tightly. The kids were quiet and when I reintroduced them to her she asked them their birthdays. They slowly handed over the pictures that they had colored and she looked at them carefully, declared them lovely, and asked me to put them right on the wall were she could see them, which I did. I arranged the flowers in a glass on a little shelf on the wall.

She patted the bed, asking me to sit down. I did and she apologized for not being able to get up and take a little walk. “I’m too sick,” she said. I sat with her holding her hand as she looked into my eyes and tried to smile. The pain in her stomach left her writhing in agony and she rearranged herself on the bed trying to get comfortable. I tried to help her with the pillows and her bed, but it was futile. And so she lay there in silence. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence; it was a necessary one. My mom turned on the TV and my kids happily climbed in the recliner in the room and watched Arthur.

I watched my mom, so calm and pleasant, chat with Heather a little. I wondered if it was her age, or her experiences at the bedsides of her brother and her father as they lay dying from cancer that made her so much better at this. There I was, with a lump in my throat and an ache in my heart as I blinked back tears and tried to remember to breathe. I finally excused myself from the room and went through the halls and out the back door. I sat in a chair and sobbed into a napkin that I had found on the table. When I opened my eyes and wiped my face, I saw Heather’s nurse sitting next to me. She smiled and said; “You’ve known her for a long time, haven’t you?” “My whole life,” I replied. And then I became the storyteller, telling a stranger of my trip home from the hospital. “She’s a feisty woman”, she told me. I told her about the pain that Heather was in and she told me that she had refused her pain pills, wanting to be alert for my visit. She also explained to me that Heather had stopped eating and drinking days ago, and had made it clear that she wanted no IV and no efforts for resuscitation made when the time came for her to die.

I went back into the room, and my mom took my kids out for a walk. I comforted her the only way that I knew how. I helped her to the bathroom, held her over the garbage when she began to vomit, and gave her little sips of water here and there. I held her hands, with no rings now, and rubbed her back softly. She apologized to me again, telling me she was sorry that I had to see her like that. She said that she didn’t believe that she would make it to see the weekend, and she didn’t want to. I understood. As much as I love her, I don’t want her to suffer like that for any longer.

When my mom came back in with my kids, we sat again, this time Heather and I telling stories about our times together to the kids. I would start a story and she would add to it her memories. It was a beautiful time. I encouraged her to take her pain medicine, and finally she did. As she became sleepy and the sun started going down, we got up to say our good-byes. She hugged the kids several times, and when it was my turn I hugged her and said, “I want you to know how much you mean to me and how much I love you.” She whispered back to me, “I know. I love you too.” She told my mom to drive by her house. “The apples and the plums are ready to pick, and there’s blackberries too. No sense in letting them go to waste.” She smiled at the kids and when I hugged her one last time, her eyes filled with tears and she said to me, “It’s the children that I will miss the most.”

When we were driving to her house I asked my mom where her strength came from. She turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, “No matter how many times I go through this, it never gets any easier.” When we entered her house the same old magic was there, although the cats and the bird have long since died. I saw the look of awe on my children’s faces as they looked around and around at all of the beautiful things. We watered the plants, brought in the mail, and then headed outside. As I watched my children picking apples, plums and blackberries, running in the grass, climbing the trees that I once climbed and swinging away on the tire swing I was filled with joy. I thought of all of the memories that house held for me and I thought of Heather. She reminded me of the children’s book, “ The Giving Tree”. Even as she lay dying, she offered us her house and her yard once again. It has been a great pleasure to know such a person.