The Challenge of Mothers' Day

SUMMARY: My mom. Missing her.

I discovered recently that there are different Mothers Days depending on where you live. In the U.S., it was two weeks ago. In the UK, it's today.

Interestingly, a friend just posted on her blog some Mom Musings. Much of what she muses about matches my Mom's situation. 

My family contained 5 kids and Mom and Dad. And the dog. Dad worked "at work" (not at home); Mom stayed home. It was a full-time job. Probably more than full-time. At some point in my teens, I had to start doing my own laundry, sometimes. It was a mystery to me at first, but really it was one of the simplest chores I probably had to do then. I'm sure I resented it.

Mom in her 50s, peeling apples and prepping them for apple pie or some other apple dish.
On the back deck. (note the sugar/flour/spices mixture in the measuring cup.)

So she did all that Laundry. Making sure we had meals 3 times a day (if it were a school day and we didn't like the cafeteria offerings, she might make us sandwiches; my favorite was cream cheese and jelly), vacuuming, dusting, more laundry, always in Mom mode for her kids--

My dad's photo of her. Probably in her 40s. 

Even when we camped, Mom cooked. Yosemite, early 1960s.
(Dad would do the tent, carry things, find firewood and chop it up--like that.
At least, that's how I remember it. Reality says that they probably 
helped each other.) (Dad's photo)

Oh. Plus cranking out all those babies. Plus Diapers. Sleepless nights. Breast feeding.
Starting in her 20s.

Nine years later...#5.

So I don't know how she managed to have time for gardening. But she made that time for herself.  Earliest I remember was at the place we lived when I was in 1st/2nd grade, the first house that my parents actually owned. She let me plant some seeds, too, and they grew. I was hooked. At the next couple of houses, she grew food, too.  This is how we learned that dogs figured out that cornstalks held ears of corn--and how to get at them.

Mom in her 30s, at that first house with part of her garden! (Dad's photo)
The house was new, so bare dirt ruled when we arrived.

(Oh--and she always had other activities, too! A Girl Scout almost her entire life,
she served as troop leader for two or three years, as well. And Environmental Volunteers.
And League of Women Voters. And more.)

I have no photos of her doing any of those things except I think one photo of her standing at the kitchen sink (*found some others in Dad's photos just now* ... and a few more of mine*). All those everyday things that it never occurred to me to photograph until much later in life. OK, film and processing were expensive, but if I had had any tiny thought about reminiscing about NORMAL life, not just vacations and activities, I'd have taken so many more.

Mom in her 70s. She never wanted to lick the beaters herself, 
so would offer to anyone around, particularly her kids.
She didn't have much of a sweet tooth. Dad did.

I gradually started taking more, the older I got. But by the time I was really into it, Dad had retired, she was mostly arthritis-ridden, and Dad had started doing most of the household tasks (cooking (as little as he could get away with, not always the healthiest, which Mom had made a priority), cleaning, laundry). He mowed the lawn and trimmed the shrubs and trees and really took good care of the yard until we finally convinced him to hire a mow-and-blow team in his 80s.

Mom was the reason we had flowers to stand in front of
for all the important school photos.

[Poor Dad, I just thought about this now: Thought he was retired, but nooooo--took over Mom's full-time job. At least there were no kids living at home any more.]

Dad at 70. 

But yard wasn't the same thing as garden.  Mom still tried to keep up in one small plot out front, probably with Dad's help, or some of us kids. She loved flowers and birds. I learned so much about all those things from her. Someone hung a hummingbird feeder in front of their living room window, where she could see it from her favorite chair. And the hummers gladly came.

I miss all of that. I miss her. And Dad.

Dad in the kitchen

Mom in the kitchen

Goodbye, Mom, Four Years Later

SUMMARY: My story, or Mom's.

Backfill: Remembering Dec 27, 2016.  [posted on Facebook , then added and edited here, Dec 27, 2020 ]

Four years ago--

Today minus 3 or 4 days [or it might actually have been Christmas morning, but I think it was earlier]: Mom had been bedridden in the den for some time,  a month? two? Less? More? Weaker physically and mentally all the time. She missed Dad so much. 

I and other people were in the house. I wandered into the den, and Mom already displayed a big smile. 

"You look happy," I said.

"I am!"

"Care to share your happiness?"

"I'm waiting for my ride!"

Me--puzzled--"What ride?"

"Grandpa is coming with the sleigh to pick me up!"

Me -- "Okayyyy..."

We said other vague pleasantries--she wasn't talking much now. I wandered back into the other room and mentioned this to someone. 

Or it was an uncle rather than her grandfather, I don't remember now. 

She had old sleighbells that had belonged to that sleigh when she was a girl, and she loved those memories. She'd hang the bells on the door each Christmas season, so every arrival jingled a joyous welcome.   I wondered whether she was thinking of that.

She was so weak.  I went home and spent hours working on a slideshow of her and dad, realizing that no physical gift would matter to her at all now, but that she would like this.

Four years ago minus two days: Christmas morning. It became clear when I walked in that she wasn't going to be watching a slideshow or doing anything else. I think that she was just awake enough to say I love you when "I love you" is first offered, but not much more than that. I wish that I remembered more details.

Because, four years ago today, I was still surprised--were we all surprised?-- when she slipped away after my sister called us but before any of us arrived.

Did her grandfather arrive with his sleigh? I've often wondered. It must've been a glorious ride through gleaming unsullied upstate New York snow.

As I stood on her front lawn, watching her being driven away,  the skies saluted in the only way they could.

Memories and Grief and Joy

SUMMARY: Dad. And Mark Lynch.

Yesterday, Dad died 5 years before.  The day sits so clearly in my mind, lurking with the things about it that I would absolutely have done differently, but also with relief about a couple of crucial things that I had been afraid that I wouldn't have been able to do for him that I did. So--a wildly emotional day. Plus, he died. So, yes, laser burned into my mental memory book.

And that's all on that for now. But it brings up this:

My Archaelogy/Anthropology prof at Santa Clara University, Mark Lynch, was killed by a drunk driver after he graded my final but before I picked it up.  Yes, relevant--

holding this space hoping for ok to post painting of Mark lynch

I "dropped out" of college after my junior year, struggling with what I really wanted to major in. Then I got a dog, bought a house, got married--and a few years after I left college, I went back. Santa Clara accepted me, thank goodness. [that might be another story]. As a Senior, which was also Thank Goodness, because SCU has specific breadth requirements for each year (frosh, soph, jr, sr) to earn your degree, so that, as a Senior, I needed only one of each category and could concentrate on my major classes.

I don't recall which breadth category Anthropology fit into, but that's where I headed. The first class I picked sounded interesting but after one day of the prof's dull, dull, droning delivery, I knew that I couldn't handle it for a full quarter. That he had only maybe 10 students in his class said something, too.  

That left me stuck: My other classes were already set, so I had to find something in essentially the same time slot, and I believe that left only one choice, and of course now I had missed the first class session.

I went anyway, to ask whether he'd add me (the class was listed as full so I couldn't join without that).  And his classroom overflowed with more folks than there were places to sit, lining all the walls. Many more than what he was allowed, but he added everyone, even late me. AND he remembered everyone’s names right away. I don’t know how he did it--must’ve been 50 people in that class. An amazing man.

So, I know that he graded my final because grades were posted (yes, an A).  He put all graded papers and tests into a cube outside his door, but I never did get my final--everyone else’s were in the bin--and I’ve often wondered whether he had kept it on his desk or wherever he was working because I knew all the material well and it was essay(s), and so I had a lot of fun writing it while still delivering the goods. I felt that he'd be OK with that and maybe even enjoy it and maybe he had held onto it a bit for that or had thought that he might see me again to say something.

He was so young.

I had mostly not bothered my profs through all the years of college except occasionally for a specific class-related question, but I had gone in to talk to him a couple of times about some fiction I was trying to break through on (Anasazi-related). Because, in class, not only could he be funny, but could elicit deep emotions with his fabulous descriptions of life and death and the effects of European colonization here in the western states. So I was quite comfortable chatting with him about fiction and about Anasazi and related topics and whatever unrelated topics we went into. Not that we were likely to become real friends, but he wasn’t that much older than I was at that point --I don’t recall exactly--or the same age (I was 27ish). But, still. 

I learned about his death while listening to the car radio--and then I was driving on US-101 bawling my eyes out.

I cried over several days, couldn’t stop thinking about it at night when all those thoughts you don’t want come calling. Then, one night, I dreamed that i was sitting on the outside steps of the building where his class was, head down on my knees, crying again. Suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up, and there he was. He said, you’re crying? And I was stunned, just staring at him being there. And then he said, “About me? Oh, there’s no need for that” followed by words that I don’t remember exactly any more but something along the lines that he had had a happy life and he’d be honored if people would remember the fun that he had and the education that he gave and be happy about all of that for him. And I nodded and he smiled his familiar smile and trotted on down the steps and away.

It helped me so much when I woke, even though I know that it was my brain inventing things--I think it was inventing a story for myself that I could grasp to not wallow in grief and to, indeed, remember him cheerfully.

So, yay, brain.

(See end of post for links related to Mark Lynch.)

I haven't had dreams like that about either of my parents.  I try to remember the same things for them, though.  But these anniversaries are hard.

Photos from family Thanksgiving 6 and 7 years before they died --
because they were always a couple

And a final note: Links related to Mark Lynch

• The Alameda -- see "A campus divided"
• Obituary
  
• Wow! This page has a painting of him done by another of his students
• Article with 3 mentions of excavations he did at Mission Santa Clara
  
• "Site Artifact Density and the Effectiveness of Shovel Probes"
  
• Articles he published -- he did work in Africa, too
  
• "Ph.D. in anthropology in 1978. Mark Lynch was an outstanding young scholar who was greatly interested in the method and theory of archaeology especially as ..." ...  I can't get at this text without buying or renting it, but I wish I could.

Levy Rays

SUMMARY: When someone just needs to be reminded whose opinion matters around here.

I don't recall who coined the phrase. Levy rays. Shooting out of the eyes of any of the women in the Levy family, which is a small, finite set. Mom. All of us sisters.  I suppose, possibly, next generation, my nieces. But this hasn't yet been confirmed.

Occasions for their use (only in generally good humor, not in true anger) by someone towards you:

• Particularly bad pun
• You've been told to stop taking so many photos, and yet you keep taking them
• You admit to maybe having done something illegal or at least naughty at some time in the past
• You make a suggestion that you will do something illegal or at least naughty at some time in the future (e.g., "I think that, the next time my wife is gone for the day, I'm just going to load up everything from the garage into the truck and take it to the dump."   >>  Levy rays from  wife.

Mom was the originator. For all the years that she done did 'em, I never labeled any photo with that phrase, and yet I'm sure I *must* have taken some at some point (see item #2 above).  I hunted and hunted and found one where she's exaggerating a bit for the camera, but you get the idea. 

Note to self: They have no impact on the dogs whatsoever. Although sometimes I think they use them on me.

Missing Mom's Levy Rays.

The morning that wasn't

SUMMARY: Pain meds for new hip, or dreamy state, or wish fulfillment, or...

This is what led me into accidentally coming across parents' obits yesterday. Posted on Facebook 2/18/19.

I awoke this morning, tucked into my comfy and warm recovery bed between my new flannel sheets, hearing a sound at my bedroom door. I opened my eyes, and the room flooded with brilliant morning sunshine and a feeling of well-being came over me. Dogs were quiet in their crates, not disturbing me. Mom was standing in the doorway, hand on the doorknob, tall and slender, in an apron as always, her hair pulled back into a short pony tail, just checking up on me, saying something about letting my hip heal and breakfast would be ready when I was ready. I could smell breakfast and I could hear my little sisters downstairs playing. All was right with the world. Then I awoke, tucked into my comfy and warm recovery bed between my new flannel sheets. I opened my eyes, and the room flooded with brilliant morning sunshine. Dogs were quiet in their crates, not disturbing me. My bedroom door was closed. No one else was in the house. I lay there in my delicious bed, loving the sunshine, floating between contentment and grief and contentment again.

Mother's Day 2006

SUMMARY: The many expressions of mom--

-- She could express herself so well with just her face. Wish I had more photos of all the variations, but, well, I've got what I've got.


Never posted these photos. Remembering Mom and Dad.

Dear Taj MuttHall, Where Have You Gone?

SUMMARY: A letter to myself

Dear Taj MuttHall:

I am sad that you haven't been posting. One post in each of January, February, and March (so far)? Truly that's all?

And nothing about life with dogs--or life at all, just some nice photos. Which are nice, of course, but I was hoping for substance. And dogs.

You intended this as a journal for yourself, to look back at from your Future Life and marvel at the progress that you made with each canine beasties and all of the things that you did together. But words seem to have failed you.

I understand that your Mom died two days after Christmas, and then you went to work clearing out the family home of 48 years and putting it on the market. And that you've been wrung dry of things to say or energy to say it.

I miss you, Taj MuttHall. I read some of your older posts from way back, and they make me laugh, or think, or sing. Please find yourself/myself again.

Sincerely,

Taj MuttHall

Memories of Lean-tos

SUMMARY: Not really Wordless Wednesday

My father is gone. We've been going through everything in the house with my mom's help.

Ah, the Adirondacks, where they met and spent their honeymoon and managed two lodges and took us kids hiking and camping. Lean-tos are a big part of that memory.

If you ever read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, these are the huts he refers to.

Found this watercolor of a lean-to that my mom used to display. Source unknown.

Here's mom camping at a lean-to when she and dad were dating, Dad behind camera.

All of us out for a day hike (plus at right a lanky neighbor teenager sometime-babysitter), Dad behind camera again and his usual giant pack among us.

Dad before we all arrived, not in a lean-to, but undoubtedly near one.