Exhaustion.

 

Her grandmother served as midwife when she was born in 1906.  Yesterday, she turned a hundred and one years old, so I baked up forty-eight cupcakes, loaded my daughter into the van and headed over for a celebratory Open House.  I left my boys at home with my husband because this has been a week full of mysterious illnesses and I didn’t want to take a chance of contaminating my grandmother with germs that might ultimately kill her. 

(Last year, I had to leave behind my two youngest children when I went to her 100th birthday party because they had the flu.  March 10th is apparently not a healthy day for my children.)

I intended to stop in with my daughter and leave after, oh, say fifteen minutes because I figured that would be all she could manage before the urge to redecorate Grandma’s house or pound on Grandma’s piano would hit.  As it turned out, a 5-year old boy was already there and the two of them headed off to the back yard to play (in the mud).  Hey, it was only raining a tiny bit and we’re not made of brown sugar!  We won’t melt!

A neighbor boy on the other side of the fence chatted to the two of them and they came in to ask if he could climb the fence and play.

My grandmother is a woman of obsessive order and inflexibility.  These traits have served her well and so the thought of a neighbor boy climbing her chain-link fence would mortify her.  I said, “No, just talk to him through the fence.”

A bit later, a knock at the door.  I rose to answer it and there stood a woman lingering on the sidewalk and a boy on the front step.  One of them said, “The children wanted him to come over and play.”  And I, being taken by surprise and yet being unable to be rude, said, “Oh.  Okay.”  I said to the mother, “What is his name?” and that’s about the time I realized she didn’t actually speak English.  I don’t speak Spanish, so we nodded and smiled at each other.  And I let him walk through my grandmother’s pristine house and onto her back deck.  He carried a little Rubbermaid-type container full of sticks, rocks and “potato bugs.”  (That’s what we call them.  To you, they might be roly-polies?)  “Oh,” I said, “Potato bugs!” and then I told them to have fun.

You should know that my grandmother is essentially blind, otherwise I would never have dared to sneak a stranger through her house.  She is private and guarded.  But what she couldn’t see couldn’t hurt her.  And Armando seemed like a very nice eight-year old.  

Awhile later (after digging in the muddy side yard, I think), they decided to come inside . . . they all took off their shoes, including Armando, and I said brightly, “Well, let’s wash our hands!” and that’s about the time my cousin said, “Um, I think Grandmother might be okay with him in the backyard, but, um, since we have no toys and we don’t really know him, probably not in the house.”  And I agreed and so I sent him off with a cupcake and a cheery “good-bye!”

A bit later, I found my daughter and her cousins (ages 5 and 3) jumping on my grandmother’s bed.  My grandmother never even sat on the edge of her bed because she believed that doing so would ruin the mattress.  My grandmother folded her underwear into tidy squares her whole life.  She keeps her folding table in its original box.  She has curtains in her garage, separating her storage items from the rest of the garage . . . which features a large square of carpet.  I’ve never in my lifetime seen my grandmother wearing anything but a dress with nylons and shoes.  (Oh wait, once when I spent the night, I saw her bare feet because she was wearing a nightgown.)

My grandmother is a little obsessive about her belongings, which is what you’d expect from someone her age who lived through the tumultuous century from 1906 until now.

We didn’t tell her that the children were jumping on her bed, but I somehow think she might know, even though she is blind and moves in ultra-slow motion as she inches across her house, clutching her walker.

My daughter and I ended up staying until all the other relatives left . . . after her first playmate disappeared, two other cousins (the bed-jumpers) arrived, so she stayed busy running through the house, hiding under Grandma’s desk, and licking cupcakes.  We had arrived at 12:30 p.m. and left at nearly 5 p.m.  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a variety of my cousins and uncles and an aunt (some of who are now aware of this blog:  “hello! Natalie and Dan!”) . . . but that was one long afternoon in my grandmother’s well-heated house.  (She is frail and has thin skin and no longer retains heat whatsoever, so she is always about twenty degrees colder than the rest of us, so we all sweat while we visit her.)

I had hoped to create a sweet, meaningful post that would make me cry, but instead, this is all I’ve got. 

So, happy birthday, Grandma!  Sorry I let a stranger track mud through your house and that I only laughed when I saw the little kids jumping on your blue-flowered bedspread.  But thanks for answering my questions–how did I only now realize that your mother arrived here directly from Ireland?  (I say all this as if my grandmother will read this, but if she were to read this, I would never have admitted the whole bed-jumping fiasco.)

When I was ten years old, my mother took me to a jewelery store on Colby Avenue in Everett to have my ears pierced.  Ever since all the cool girls in fourth grade had their ears pierced, I dreamed of wearing dangling earrings.  Who wouldn’t after seeing Ginger Herring wearing that pair of earrings that were tiny bottles containing little dried flowers?

I can’t remember the sting of the actual piercing, nor can I tell you much about the earrings I wore until college when I seemed to have a colorful pair of earrings to match each pair of socks which matched each shirt I owned.  (What?  You didn’t match your socks to every shirt you owned in the 80s?) 

As time went on, I realized I was not much good at accessorizing.  When I was newly married, I met a young woman at church named Anne who was the Queen of Accessories.  She had beautiful necklaces, carefully chosen earrings, pretty bracelets.  I admired her style, but always felt like a child playing with her mother’s jewelry box whenever I added a necklace to my outfit.  I generally wore only my wedding band and my engagement ring. 

The last four months of my dad’s life, my husband and I lived with him.  We’d intended to share housing, never dreaming that my dad would be diagnosed with fatal cancer right before we moved in.  Sometimes my dad would receive phone calls at 10:00 p.m. and leave quietly, returning after midnight.  I never knew who called or where he went, but he had no curfew and he was an adult, so I pretended not to notice.  I always wondered, though.  

One of his friends was a gray-haired woman named Helen.  I’m not sure how they became friends, but I think he was like a son to her.  He told me about the hot-fudge sundaes Helen served him and sometimes, he brought home leftovers.  I met her a time or two, but knew virtually nothing about her or about any of my dad’s friends.  

He died a few weeks after he turned 47.  Soon after his death, a card arrived for me from Helen.  In it, she enclosed a hundred dollar bill with instructions that I spend it on myself in memory of my dad.

I kept that money for a long time, pondering what a hundred dollars would buy, should buy.  I thought that clothes would fade.  I didn’t want to buy something mundane.  Flowers die.  Plants wither.  What should I buy?

I was at a department store when I saw that gold jewelry was fifty percent off. 

I spent my hundred dollars on a pair of gold hoop earrings.  They are almost an inch in diameter and they’ve been in my earlobes ever since, minus a fancy occasion from time to time when I’d match earrings to an outfit.

When I take the earrings off, I notice how often I reach up and finger those gold hoops.  That habitual gesture–touching the earrings, feeling the earrings, twisting them back into place–reminds me of my dad and his friend.  I wear them in memory of him.  My fingers reach for them without permission or knowledge of my brain. 

Fashion trends come and go, but I wear my gold earrings much as I wear my wedding rings.  They are a symbol to me of love and honor and remembrance.  Even when I don’t consciously think of what they mean to me–the rings or the earrings–they are a physical reminder of commitment and memory.

When I put on a necklace, I usually say “Oh, too much,” and then take it right back off.  But the gold hoop earrings?  They’re here to stay.    

Today, amidst the normal routines of my life and the demands of my children, I thought of an old high school classmate, a boy who was a year behind me in school.  We grew up in the same church and attended the same youth group.  For awhile, this boy had two friends named “Dean” . . . and since his name was also “Dean,” this was noteworthy.

The three Deans and my friend, Shelly, and I spent a lot of time together.  I remember playing pool at Shelly’s house while the soundtrack to “Grease” played in the background.  We had innocent fun together, unless you count the time the three Deans invited Shelly and I to a movie.  My parents were strict but they trusted me.  So, when I returned home from the movie and my stepmom asked, “What movie did you see?” I said, “Oh, the Pirates of Penzance.” 

That’s the only lie I remember telling as a teenager.  The three Deans actually took us to see Friday the 13th in 3D.  My parents would not have approved and honestly, I would have agreed with them–who needs to see an eyeball flying towards them while wearing 3D glasses?

Anyway, so I was thinking about the three Deans today.  I graduated from high school a year before they did and lost track of them.  I didn’t come home from college during the summers at all.  Even my closest friends fell away when I moved two thousand miles from home.  

Today, I did a Google search on “Dean Ullestad,” the tall, lanky, blond Dean from my childhood and adolescence.  That’s how I found out that he’s dead.

I found a Memoriam page on the 1994 high school reunion site.  Dean’s picture is posted, alongside three other deceased classmates.

I could not be more shocked.  I want to call someone, to email someone, to Google something to find answers, but I don’t know where to begin to uncover this news which is at least a decade old.

Other than that, my day was completely unremarkable.  Stumble upon tragedy.  Cook dinner.  Life interspersed with death.  I will never get used to it.

My first diary was a five-year diary, complete with lock and little ineffective key.  I lived in Whispering Firs with my mother, father, sister and brother.  I wrote it in infrequently and covered just the boring details of an elementary school life.

The only memorable entry was where I inked the word “cancere” . . . a misspelling of a word that had been foreign to me before that moment.  My dad had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease after he found a lump in his neck during a shower.  I learned most of the information I had through eavesdropping and observing quietly when no one noticed me in the room.

He was treated by chemotherapy and nearly died from the cure.  One night, we came home from church and he totally freaked me out by appearing in my bedroom doorway with a hand towel on his head.  He grinned in a Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” sort of deranged way (though, of course, I wouldn’t think that until much later).  Then, he plucked the hand towel off of his newly bald head.  He’d shaved it while we were gone.

I wanted to cry from shock and fear, but he guffawed with hilarity.

When his hair grew in a bit, he came down with shingles on his scalp.  I can still remember my baby sister reaching a chubby hand toward his head while he laid flat in the green recliner.  A flurry of activity, his moaning and quick movement by my mother prevented her from touching his scabby, painful, stubbly head.  I can still see the yellow ooze covering his angry scalp.

I wrote none of this in the 5-year diary, though.

I abandoned its mostly empty pages.

Some years later, as a teenager, I resumed writing in spiral-bound notebooks.  I remember virtually nothing of what I wrote, mostly because I destroyed all my words before I went to college.  I had a stack of journals, but I didn’t trust my sister to respect my privacy.  So, when I packed up my belongings into boxes, I destroyed the journals.  In my memory, I see flames, but I can’t imagine how I might have burned them without being noticed.  I may have shredded them instead.  I don’t know.

And so, my recorded life in journals begins in college.  I have a thick stack of spiral bound notebooks in my bedroom closet.  Within those pages is embarrassing proof of my self-centeredness, my struggle with God, my obsession with the losses in my life, and too much self-pity.  I haven’t read those journals in years.

I wrote less and less after college, but after my father died (from another form of cancer, years later) I began to etch my pain in the spiral bound pages.  I traced my journey from dreaming of motherhood, through infertility, disappointment, an epic struggle with belief, adoption, cross-country moves, motherhood, pregnancy and more.

I haven’t read them in years.

I stopped writing in a spiral-bound journal when I started blogging.  In some ways, I’m a better blogger than I was a diarist–my diaries tended to disintegrate into a mess of self-hate and despair, while I am more aware of the lasting nature of my words in a blog.  I can see more than just my tarnished soul when I blog in public.

But sometimes, I think writing a diary was more honest, more cathartic.  I wonder if I should write privately again, if I’m missing something raw when I censor myself here, so aware of other eyes peering at my words.  Plus, when I sit here, I an loathe to record the “boring” details, the stuff that make each day different . . . the mundane.  (The challenge, of course, is to make the regular stuff memorable.)

I prize my spiral-bound journals, even though I can’t bear to read them.  One day, I’ll get lost in the pages, reviewing years and decades and blushing at how seriously I took myself when I was young and I thought the moon would never again glow like a magic golden ball in that October sky. 

Meanwhile, my fingers fly over the keyboard, keeping track of a life lived in a new October with its shiny moon still suspended in the inky sky.

I whispered to my great-aunt, “How’d he do last night?”

And she whispered back, “He was a little restless, but he settled down.”

We both gazed at my father, his six-foot-two-inch frame stretched out in the hospital bed.  The bed looked out of place in the lavender room where I’d spent my adolescence–we’d moved it in the day before, right before he was discharged from the hospital.

He hadn’t wanted to die in the hospital.  So, eleven days after I left him in the emergency room for pain management, an ambulance brought him home.  In prior days, my aunt had cautioned me, “What will you do?  You’ll have to go back to work sometime.”  But that night, I had wept in the dark and when my husband had reached for me, asking what was wrong, I sobbed out the words, “I want to bring him home!  He doesn’t want to die in the hospital.”

And my husband had said, “Then bring him home.  We’ll figure it out from there.”  So we did.

We drove in a makeshift caravan home from the hospital.  My stepmother brought a thick foam pad for the bed in her truck.  My husband and I followed the ambulance.  A friend of my dad’s brought the aunts with her.

The stretcher couldn’t reach the last bedroom on the right, so the ambulance driver yelled, “MR. MARTIN!  MR. MARTIN!  YOU HAVE TO WALK!” right in his face.  My dad, ravaged by cancer, finally said with annoyance, “I KNOW!” 

And he teetered one baby-step after another into the lavender room while I stood in his old room, the master bedroom, watching with tears in my eyes and a pillow clutched in my twenty-four year old hands.

We settled him into his bed.  The catheter bag hung on the side, dark urine collecting in a small puddle.  I could see his pulse beating fast near his collarbone.  His mouth parted, just a little, as he slept.  His face looked unfamiliar without his wire-rimmed glasses. 

His three aunts had flown out from Wisconsin to be with us.  We took turns sitting in the green recliner we’d moved next to his bed.  His friend stopped by to simply sit with him.  

In the evening, around dinner-time, I went in to the room with the list of medications he needed to take.  I pushed the buttons to move the head of the bed so he was sort of sitting.  I tried to wake him, but he responded with nonsense. 

“Dad!  You need to take these pills.”  And I placed a pill in his mouth.  “No, no!  Don’t chew . . . swallow.”  I stuck the tip of the straw into his mouth, but he chewed it, reminding me of a goat.  I laughed.  He chewed up his pills and I reclined the bed flat again.

When the night came, I went to bed, leaving my aunt, a nurse, to sit with him.  The next morning, when she reported that he’d had a good night, I said, “Do you think I should go to work?”  She nodded, so I showered and off to work I went.

I called around noon to see how he was.  He’s had a quiet day, she assured me, so I told her I’d stay until 4 p.m. 

I drove into my driveway at 4:30 p.m. and my aunt met me on the sidewalk.  “Go get your sister.  He doesn’t have much time.”  He’d taken a sudden turn for the worse.

My 17-year old sister worked at KFC a mile away.  She had worried aloud about who would get her or tell her or pick her up.  I told her I would.  I turned and drove straight to the fast-food restaurant.  I parked.  I walked in, asked for her.  When she pushed through the swinging doors, I couldn’t speak.  I just stared at her and she knew.  I choked out, “It’s time.”

And I held her in my arms and we cried a little by the case of fast-food delicacies.

We drove home.  Before we could enter the house, my aunt said, “He’s having seizures.  Don’t go back there.”  I pushed past and went straight to my old bedroom.  His body was rigid and shaking and his blue bloodshot eyes were opened. 

I turned and rushed my sister away, back down the hallway to the living room.  A few moments later, an aunt walked in and quietly said, “He’s gone.”

From the doorway, I saw my mother on the other side of him, crying and saying, “In Your hands, we commit his spirit.”  My aunts were hugging, crying.  I touched his bearded cheek and said, “Poor daddy.”  And then I went back through the house to tell my husband and my stepmother and his best friend that he was gone. 

I hadn’t even met the hospice nurse, but she soon arrived and began to make arrangements.  We called the funeral director.  My other sister arrived and began to wail when she heard he was dead already.

People filled our house.  Aunts, friends, family . . . we sat by the dining room table, uneasily making quiet conversation while the funeral director and his assistant tried to maneuver my dad’s hulking frame back out of the room, down the hallway and away from us. 

I imagined him zipped into a black bag, like a suit in a garment bag, but I never saw his body again, so I don’t know if this is imagined or true.  My husband helped them carried the body out while our conversation around the table grew more desperate and surreal with grim laughter.

And that’s what I was doing seventeen years ago today, when my 47-year old dad’s body fell victim to malignant melanoma and his spirit flew away, free.