Some might call it grief; others might call it
recovery. Really, it’s both.
It’s what the caregiver enters when the aging parent dies,
as my mother did on June 7. Her death
was sweet. My husband and I were with
her. The medical staff in the skilled nursing facility where she lived had made
her very comfortable, and she slipped away with no struggle and no pain. I had
glanced away when suddenly my husband stood up; I looked at my mother and knew
she was gone.
She had left her unhappiness behind and entered into the
joyous presence of her Savior. To be
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Our
hearts immediately were flooded with a mix of emotions: relief at her release
from the frailty and sadness that had defined her final years; hopeful joy at
the realization of what she now was experiencing; and sadness that the final
good-bye had come.
The first thing I did was call my brother. We cried on the
phone together, briefly. My husband and I stayed in her room for a while,
adjusting to the reality that she was not there. Once we got home, I called my nephew, my mother’s
100-year-old sister, and her four remaining friends in Texas. The first response from each of her friends
was, “Oh. I’m so sorry. But she was so unhappy, and now her unhappiness is
over.”
It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was so glad about
that. There was nothing really to be
done until the next day. The funeral home in Texas was handling everything
related to the memorial service and burial there. So we could just be quiet and
let it sink in. And we could follow our regular routine to attend the Sunday
evening worship service at church. What
better time to worship than this, when we were overflowing with gratitude for
the salvation that is my mother’s in Christ?
The next morning things kicked into high gear. “Achiever” and “Activator” are number 1 and 3
in my top five “StrengthsFinder 2.0” profile, and when those are in operation it’s
amazing what can be accomplished through God’s enabling grace. The first
priority was to pack the things in Mother’s room and arrange for the
movers. Yes, they could come and move on
Tuesday morning. (Hooray!) Next was planning the graveside and memorial
services in Texas; all the contacts were made, everything put in motion for
Thursday. Travels plans had to be made, and yes, there were enough seats on
timely flights for all of us to get there. Then all the financial institutions
and other necessary parties had to be notified. I was glad I had written her
obituary before she died, as my brain could not have done it as well afterward.
In two days her room was vacated with everything delivered
to our house or Ditto re-sale shop, all the plans for the services verified,
and we were packing for Texas. On Wednesday we arrived in Odessa, took care of
everything at the funeral home, and had a three-person wake with my brother, telling
stories and remembering my mother. On Thursday we attended the graveside and
memorial services; after that all I wanted to be was home. One more day to go. On
Friday we met with the financial advisor and headed to the airport. Some of our
dear friends picked us up in St. Louis and had us over so that we didn’t have
to ask ourselves, “What are we doing for dinner?”
The next morning I woke up and realized that, for the first
time in five years, I didn’t have to go anywhere. I didn’t have to put on my
make-up. (You Texas girls will understand that statement.) There was time to go
through all the boxes we had packed when Mother moved from her home in Texas,
then from her assisted living apartment and skilled nursing room here in St.
Louis. I could not believe the treasures
I found:
Here were all the contents of her recipe drawer from her
Texas kitchen including those for her homemade egg noodles, cabbage rolls, and
pecan pralines that she recorded by following her mother around the kitchen in
the 1940’s. There were clippings from magazines marked “Delicious!” or “Gene
(my dad) loves!”
There was the christening gown and cap she had worn as a
baby, photos of my young parents with my brother when he was little, Christmas
cards they had sent through the years…
And then, this: a scrapbook I did not know existed. Looking
back at me from the first page were my parents in a photo from their wedding
that I had never seen. On the following pages were more photos of that day in
1943 and of their early marriage. There were the newspaper clippings from when
the Phillips 66ers, the industrial league basketball team on which my dad
played forward, won the National AAU Championship. There were the papers from
his enlistment into the navy. He did his officer training near New York City,
and there were programs from Broadway shows and menus from Manhattan
restaurants (“Stuffed Flounder….75 cents”). There were mementos from their time in
training in Jacksonville, Florida.
Then a wedding anniversary card as Daddy was about to sail
for the South Pacific: “Darling, Am in my tent at Mira Loma and my heart is
breaking over the thought of leaving sweet you. When you find this I will
probably be far away—but my heart is always with you. I’m only living until I
can hold you once more. Do take good care of yourself and remember that I love
you all the worlds full. Gene.” And the long-awaited telegram at the war’s end:
“BETTER FILL THE ICE BOX WILL BE IN WEDNESDAY VIA KANSAS CITY DON’T KNOW EXACT
TIME LOVE = GENE”
My husband and I wept like children. Here on these pages
were the tall, beautiful, smiling, courageous people that we missed, the two
that had given us so much, and that we loved so deeply. God had given us the
gift of looking back, beyond the years of heart attacks and failing memories and
fear, to the years of faith and strength and industry and joy.
So now we grieve, but it is with hope and with sweet tears.
We adjust to the new schedule that does not include a visit to the nursing home
every day and all the other things that caregivers must do. We read and re-read
the mountain of thoughtful cards and notes that have come. There is an estate
to settle, but even in that there is opportunity to appreciate my father’s detailed, loving care for us. Ecclesiastes 3:4 says that there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and
a time to dance.” What I realize now is that all of these are simultaneous when
God relieves the aging parent from her suffering and the caregiver from her
post.
