• About Me: Who I Am, and How I Got Here

CKSWarriorQueen

~ Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Days of Creativity~Advocacy~Well-Being

CKSWarriorQueen

Tag Archives: mother

From Missing Dad: John Is Born

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in birthday, Blessings, Children, Community, Delight, Family, Father, Giving Thanks, Gratitude, Happiness, Home, Joy, Life, Love, Marriage, Mother, Neighbor, Neighborhood, Night, Share, Small Town Life, Stories, Tenderness, Thanks, Wait

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

birth, birthday, blessings, brother, celebrate, Christine Marie, cigars, communities, Corona, family, family life, gratitude, heart, home, hope, John Steven, joy, love, mother, motherhood, my brother John, Newtown Field, patience, persistence, Playschool, responsibility, siblings, sister, sisters, Vacation Day Camp

Today is the anniversary of my brother John’s birth. This is a story I tell him about that day every year… and it’s also the story I told about my father at his post-funeral repast.


After four girls, we were all sure that John would be a girl, too. We decided that our new baby would be named Christine Marie. I drew a picture of my baby sister-to-be on the last day of third grade in Mrs. Gumpers’ class at Our Lady of Sorrows.
Every summer, we went to Playschool – the free vacation day camps that the New York City public school system ran in the neighborhood school buildings from early July through the end of August. At the end of the season, there would be a huge gathering of all the schools in the district at Newtown High School’s athletic field, and each school would put on a little musical show. We’d make costumes out of crepe paper, do the Charleston, sing Oklahoma!, things like that. It was great fun, and parents were encouraged to attend and cheer for their offspring.

It was in the high 90s and humid the day of our pageant. My parents attended anyway — my father brought folding beach chairs, and he and my enormously pregnant mother watched and cheered and sweated in the boiling sun as class after class did their song and dance routine. It was over by about half past four. We piled into the car, went home, had dinner.

Mom’s labor pains began, and Dad took her to the hospital at around half past six. Our Yaya (Mom’s mother) was already at our house (probably watching Barbara, who would have been too small to sit still and watch the pageant at Newtown Field).

We waited and waited and waited for the call that our new sister, Christine Marie, had arrived.

The phone rang, and Yaya picked up, listened for a minute, and made some uncharacteristically loud sounds. Somehow, Janet and I gathered that we had a brother. We jumped up and down, and ran down the three flights of stairs, yelling. “IT’S A BOY! IT’S A BOY!!”

We took it to the street, running up and down 42nd Avenue, from 99th Street to National Street, the full length of our block, yelling yelling YELLING “IT’S A BOY! IT’S A BOY!!”

The neighbors came out, everybody was out. If it hadn’t been August, it’d have been a Christmas miracle.

Everyone was so happy, so excited that we finally had a brother. When my dad came home, and handed out the first-ever blue cellophane wrapped cigars, the look on his face said everything. I had never before, and never since, seen such a look of pure and absolute joy on his face.

And that was how Christine Marie, now named John Steven, was welcomed to the world.

John1963


Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog?
Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

REBLOG: I Come from a Long Line of Warrior Queens

22 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Abundance, Acceptance, Accountability, Aging, Appreciation, Art, Artist, Believe, birthday, Children, Commitment, Confidence, Courage, Creativity, Desire, Do Your Best, Drawing, Dreams, Faith, Family, Filial Piety, Generosity, Gifts, Giving Thanks, Gratitude, Growth, Love, Memories, Mother, Opportunity, Patience, Persistence, Possible, Self-examination, Selflessness, Stories, Strength, Teach, Thanks, Trust, Warrior, Work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

art supplies, choice, diocesan, entrance exam, fearlessness, fork in the road, gifts, hang up on, Happy Birthday Mom, high school, High School of Art and Design, love, Mary Louis Academy, Miss Mary Biedermann, mother, ninetieth birthday, Our Lady of Sorrows, persistence, portfolio, principal, responsibility, Sister Mary Dorothy, The Mary Louis Academy, trust

Today would have been my mom’s 92nd birthday.
This is a repost of a blog I wrote 2 years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!


Mom & me, Early 1955

Mom & me, Early 1955

Today, Mom would have turned 90 years old. We lost her on July 18, 2005, after a brutal and harrowing couple of months that I covered here, here, here, and here. I am very fortunate that in her final years on this earth, I made my peace with her and she with me; her last words to me were “I love you, you’re my prize.” A person can live happily for a long time on a memory like that.

For me, winter and early summer are about my dad; he was a January baby, and we lost him (literally) in June of 2010.
Spring is always about my mother; when the snowdrops start to peek out of the cold ground, and crocuses begin to unfold, the forsythia blossoms bright yellow and the Bradford pears start their bridal march up Northern Boulevard, their white blooms wafting on the warming breezes, my mother is close by. She’s never too far– there are times when I imagine I see her face in the mirror overlaying my own– but she breaks out in the spring. It’s her birthday, Greek Easter, Mother’s Day, our first communions…spring is and always has been her season.

When I was a teenager and then a young adult, and thought I knew everything about everything, we rubbed each other the wrong way, often. As stubborn as my mother was (she was, after all, born on the cusp of Aries and Taurus), I could match her. We would yell and carry on; she’d forbid me to do one thing or another, and I would do it any way. I honed my passive-aggressive skills at her knee.
If she knew she was right, she would not cave; neither would I.
Those battles were great training for life. It wasn’t until I was older, and we made our peace with each other, that I recognized what a boon her fighting spirit was to me. When I was young, I felt thwarted by her restrictions and demands and opinions; in retrospect, I see that her fighting spirit was what made my life possible.

Here’s one story:
I decided sometime around the fifth or sixth grade that I wanted to go to the High School of Art and Design. The twin sisters of a grade school classmate had been accepted to A&D, and when I heard about it, I wanted nothing more than to go to a school where I could draw all the time. I told my folks, and I think they were hoping I would get over it, the way I got over wanting to be a nurse (when I was six) or a Maryknoll Missionary nun (when I was eight).
I didn’t get over it.
Fast forward to eighth grade, and taking the diocesan placement tests in mid-autumn (for the Catholic high schools); my choices were Mater Christi (where almost all my friends would go), The Mary Louis Academy (where my close friend Carol was trying to persuade me to go), and St. Agnes (where I REALLY did not want to go, but I needed to list three schools). I did very well on the test, and would have no problem going to the school of my choice. In January, I had the placement test and portfolio submission for the High School of Art & Design. I’d worked on my portfolio all during my Christmas vacation with Our Lady of Sorrows’ third grade-and-art teacher, Miss Mary Biedermann. She helped me matte all my artwork while listening to Leonard Cohen songs (a revelation!) and eating brie (ditto!!). It was a glimpse of what a student artist’s life might be like and I was hungry for it.

I wondered in later years if the nuns knew that Miss Biedermann had helped me; she did so outside of class and on her own time, in her own home. I travelled by myself on the subway with my art and supplies in hand; she picked me up in her car near Borough Hall on Queens Boulevard to take me to her place in Richmond Hill. I do not remember how or by whom the arrangements for all of this extracurricular activity were made. Miss Biedermann wasn’t even my teacher– my middle sister Nancy was in her third grade class– but, at some point, my parents had to be involved with the planning. I remember bringing home the day’s matted work and showing what I’d done to my mom and dad; I remember thinking they did not really understand what I was doing, but at least they were not fighting me. At that point, I don’t they thought I would get into A&D; they knew I loved to draw, but I don’t know how talented they thought I was, or –even if I was talented enough– whether this was a path from which I could be diverted. There were no artists in my family; there was no road map for them, or me, to follow. They were not sold on the idea of me being an artist…but time could change things, and anyway, maybe I wouldn’t get into A&D.

I got into Art and Design; my real life would begin that fall. All I had to do was tell Sister Mary Dorothy, the principal of Our Lady of Sorrows.
I told my teacher, Sister Regina de Lourdes, that I’d been accepted to A&D.
She, or someone, told me and told my parents that there would be a full scholarship for me to go to The Mary Louis Academy, an offer which was rarely made to anyone.
I told my parents about the scholarship, and that I didn’t want to go “Snob Hill” (what everyone called The Mary Louis Academy in those days).My mom asked me where I did want to go, and I said Art & Design. They asked me if I was sure, and I was, so that was that; there was no fighting.

I recognize now, as an adult, what an extraordinary leap of faith that was for my parents to make. Their firstborn thirteen-year-old daughter would be going to a high school that none of her classmates were attending, taking a subway into midtown every day, learning to be a professional artist.
She/I would be doing this instead of going to a Catholic high school that wanted me enough to pay the full freight, a high school that would put me on track to St. John’s, Fordham, or even an Ivy League school.Inexplicably, they let me do what I wanted to do.

It wasn’t over at OLS, though; Sister Mary Dorothy was incensed by my choice. She called my home while I was in school to speak to my mother. She yelled at my mother, carried on about how my mother was letting me ruin my life, that I wasn’t old enough to make such a choice, and on and on; she pulled every manipulative trick in the book to try to get my mother to change her mind, or better yet, change my mind for me.
My mother refused, and told Sister that it was my choice, and it was done. Sister persisted, and yelled some more.
My mother hung up on her. She fought for me, against every grain of her own doubt and fear about my choice, and she hung up the phone on the principal of my school.

I don’t know that I would have been so brave had I been in my mother’s place.
When I asked her, many years downstream, why she had let me go, she said “Because you wanted to– it meant so much to you.”
That is love, and courage, and faith, and hope, wrapped in the fighting spirit that my mom held on to until her last breath. She not only gave me life, but she gave me MY life, the life I was truly meant to have.

On this ninetieth anniversary of her birth, I say THANK YOU, Mom, for all your many gifts, but especially for that one. It was the fork in the road that made all the difference.Geranium Blossoms

______________________________________________

Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog? Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Happy Birthday, Dad

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Abundance, Acceptance, Aging, bereavement, birthday, Blessings, Caregiving, Empathy, Faithfulness, Family, Father, Filial Piety, Gratitude, Grief, Heart, Help, Life, Loss, Love, Loving-kindness, Memories, Mother, Stories, Strength, Sympathy, Tenderness, Thanks, Time, Trust, Understanding, Values, Wherever I Go

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

blessings, caregiving, communities, elderly parents, faith, family, father, gifts, God, gratitude, grief, joy, loss, love, missing persons, mother, patience, peace, responsibility, siblings, strength, trust

Today would have been my dad’s 93rd birthday.
Here’s a bit of his story, in pictures.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.


Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog?
Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

July 18th ~ A Fullness of Love

18 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Acceptance, Accountability, Aging, Anxiety, bereavement, Caregiving, Children, Compassion, Death, Do Your Best, Eternity, Faithfulness, Father, Filial Piety, God, Grace, Gratitude, Grief, Love, Memories, Mercy, Mother, Mourning, Patience, Peace, Regret, Sleep, Sorrow, Strength, Suffering

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

caregiving, daily devotional, Daily Strength for Daily Needs, death, elderly parents, faith, family, father, fearlessness, friends, grief, health, Illuminations, Kessler East Orange, loss, love, mother, patience, peace, post-surgical rehabilitation, responsibility, sepsis, stubbornness, surgical wound, trust

071814PQA fullness of love….
doesn’t that perfectly describe the ideal of a mother’s love for her child?
Today is nine years since I lost my mother, and today, my heart is full of her.

Here’s my description of her last day on earth.
What you need to know is that this day was preceded by four weeks in the hospital, which included spinal surgery, undiagnosed diabetes (!), post-surgical infection, and sepsis, which was her primary cause of death.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have dissuaded her from surgery and just tried to make her comfortable and keep her safe.
I will always carry the burden of the decision I made to transfer her from the hospital to the rehabilitation center on a Friday in July.
If you don’t get anything else from this blog, please get this:

NEVER ALLOW SOMEONE YOU LOVE TO UNDERGO SURGERY
(except in a life-threatening emergency)
OR A TRANSFER FROM ONE FACILITY TO ANOTHER ON A FRIDAY IN JULY.

Nothing good will come of it.

__________________________________________________________

(The following is excerpted from my memoir-in-progress, Missing Dad.
All conversations recounted here are accurate transcriptions,
made at the time they occurred.
All incidents described here are accurately reconstructed
from contemporaneous notes and emails.
No names were changed. There are no innocent people to protect.)

I get up at 5AM to get into the shower and be ready to go with Jannie and Wally by 7. Before I get into the shower, I check the answering machine—no messages. Good.
When I get out of the shower, there are three calls on the answering machine. Not good.
The first is a doctor from East Orange General, telling me that my mother has had a major stroke during the night. He is sorry to say that there is no brain activity and that her body probably won’t live through the day. The second is Wally who has heard the news and is asking me when we should tell Dad. The third is George who has also heard and wants to know what to do.

Frank awakens, and comes out of the bedroom as I am getting ready to leave. I tell him what is happening. I have to go, now, to get to the hospital with Janet and Walter. They will be here in a few minutes. I take the phone number of the client Frank will be working with today, at Cryder House, in Whitestone. There is nothing he can do, so I think he should carry on with his day. I will let him know what is happening. I take my overnight bag with a change of clothes, just in case I need to stay in Jersey.
“I love you.”
“Love you too. Take care of yourself, please.” He holds me and kisses me.
I leave. I am already exhausted going into this day, the last day of my mother’s life.

My brother is coming back from Ohio. Nancy, Chris, and Grant are back on the road north to New Jersey, having arrived in Maryland a scant few hours earlier. I am on the road with Walter (driving) and Janet (riding shotgun).
Walter, Janet and I are trying to figure out how to tell Dad that Mom is going to die today.
“I think I should be the one to tell him,” I say.
There is very little traffic on the way.

We pull into the parking lot at East Orange General. I don’t know how, but John is already here. Janet, Walter and I meet him in the hallway. We all hug and kiss hello, and make our way to the ICU. John is crying. We are numb. Barb, George, Alyssa and Dad are already there. Dad is distraught.
“What happened? What HAPPENED??”
We go into Mom’s room.
Our mother is hooked up to a million tubes and beeping things. Gauges are everywhere. Numbers flit by, without context.
The neurologist enters, introduces herself to all of us, looks for the person she should talk to. She takes me aside. I tell her I have Mom’s health care proxy, and I know her wishes, which are “no extraordinary measures”. She asks me if my father grasps the seriousness of what happened, that my mother/his wife is being kept alive only by the machines. I tell her he might comprehend it if she tells him, but that he is unlikely to accept it from me without her saying it first. Dad has a real respect for medical authority (we will use this later on to help him).

All of us are in a knot around the doctor. I hold Dad’s hand as she tells him. He looks at me, questioning what he has heard. I tell him Mom is gone, only her body is still here.
“Is there any chance?”
“No, Daddy, no.”
We embrace him, I kiss his face, and start to cry.
He doesn’t know what to do next. We speak about what Mom said she wanted, if this situation ever occurred. Mom wanted us to just let go.
“Let’s wait,” he says. He doesn’t want to turn anything off; he wants to give her a chance. Nothing needs to be done right now, so we will wait.

There are tears, lots of them, a priest named Father Mitch, wooden rosary beads, a wonderful nurse named Beth. My two best friends in the world are named Mitch and Beth. I feel that this is a sign, that the priest and the nurse are God’s own angels sent to help ease my way into this new and awful motherless world that I am about to enter.
We have Father Mitch give Mom last rites, even though she is Greek Orthodox, and he is a Catholic priest. This comforts us all. I keep the rosary beads in my hand. (To this day, I carry them in my purse, everywhere I go.)

Mom hangs on for Nancy, Chris and Grant, who arrive around noon.

The hours pass.

Kids, grandkids, kids-in-law, Dad weave in and out of the room in a haze of prayer and silent pleading and endless, endless beeping.
My dad sees me crying at my mother’s bedside and tells me to stop.
“She might hear you,” he says. “I don’t want her to think there’s no hope.”

Despite my earlier reservations about East Orange General, the ICU staff is as good as any hospital staff I have ever seen, in real life or on television. They are sensitive, they are caring. They do their best to make Mom comfortable, and to comfort us. I wish these had been the people taking care of her at Kessler next door.

My mother’s face is gray. Her skin is totally relaxed, softly sagging from her cheekbones. She has a thin stream of black fluid trickling from the right side of her mouth. There is a tube in the left side of her mouth. She is no longer in any pain. I take a white cloth and gently pat away the black fluid, but it keeps trickling. I am on the window side of the bed. Alyssa is on a chair at Mom’s left side. I ask her if she’s scared. She’s only twelve and a half years old; I think she’s a bit young to sit through this. Even my sisters, her aunts, have a hard time looking at our mother like this.
“Oh no, I’m okay. I’ve seen things like this on Days of Our Lives. I’m not scared at all.”
We sit in the room, the wooden rosary beads from Father Mitch in my hand. I haven’t said a rosary in years, but the nuns at Our Lady of Sorrows taught me well. I only leave my mother’s bedside to use the bathroom, or if Nurse Beth asks me to leave for a moment so she can tend to one thing or another in the room.
I will keep vigil until it is no longer necessary. I have my change of clothes in case she lasts until tomorrow.
I look out the window, down to the street. There is a truck out there with the name “Angelica” on its side. My mother’s mother’s name was Angelina. I see this as a sign that she is close by, waiting for her daughter.

The grandkids are hungry and Dad is exhausted—they are going to grab a bite at the Wendy’s across the street and ask me if I want anything.
I want this never to have happened.
They leave to get some food, come back to the waiting room, and then decide to leave again for home and let Dad get some rest.
Jannie and I stay, Alyssa too.

At one point—I’m not sure how long after the others left with Dad—I am alone in the room with Mom and the endless beeping. I am holding her hand. I bring my face close to hers and whisper.
“It’s okay. You can go now, if you want. Dad will be fine, we will be fine. I love you. You can leave. Don’t worry.”

Nurse Beth comes into the room and says she has to tend to a few things.
I leave for a moment to use the restroom.
In a moment, Janet is outside, knocking on the restroom door.
“Come on!  Something is happening to Mom!”
Nurse Beth is there.
There is no beeping.
No moving numbers.

Our mother dies at ten to four in the afternoon.

We call the others. They pull off to the side of the Garden State Parkway. We tell John, Barb, Chris, Walter, George. We don’t tell Dad. We will tell him when he gets here.
They come back, it seems like only a minute later.
Dad is stricken, he cannot believe she is gone.
He weeps.

Dad takes me aside. It’s just him and me; the others are gathered on the other side of the waiting area.
He holds his forehead, shock and grief etched on his face. His eyes, wild and full of tears; he says “Claud, you kids…please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone.”
At first, I thought he meant he didn’t want to sleep alone in the house that night. He had a houseful of family; he wouldn’t be alone. I realize later what he really meant; he is afraid that he will be alone now that Mom is gone, that we kids will leave him to his own devices, that it was our mother who was the center of all things and that now he will lose us, as he had lost her.


You will never lose me.


Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

February 7th ~ I Learn by Going Where I Have to Go

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Aging, Community, Conscience, Duty, Goodness, Grace, Gratitude, Grief, Help, Hope, Kindness, Love, Mother, Patience, Persistence, Prayer, Protection, Safety, Trust, Values

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

aging, caregiving, CAT scan, daily devotional, Daily Strength for Daily Needs, doctor, elderly, elderly parents, emergency room, faith, family, Flushing Hospital, friends, health, health care facilities, hope, hospital food, hospitals, Illuminations, love, mother, nurses, nurses' aides, persistence, physician, residents, responsibility, store manager, tests

020714

It’s Sunday, February 9th, at just half past nine at night as I write this two-day late post.
My plan for Friday after work was to walk down to the Halal cart by the Q13/28 terminal stop at Main Street and pick up our usual Friday dinner (lamb over rice with salad). If I time it just right, I trade my money for the steaming food and walk right on to a bus, ride up Northern, and walk through my apartment door before the food even begins to lose its heat.
Instead, on Friday, when I got out of our staff meeting, I picked up my cell phone (which I’d left on my desk), and saw I had a voice mail from my mother-in-law’s best friend. There was no good reason for that voice mail to be there– if Tom had wanted to say hi, he’d call our house, not my cell– so I called him back immediately. He told me that Mom had passed out while on line at CVS and the store manager had called an ambulance. Mom had wanted him to pick her up at the store and take her home, but Tom’s car was still iced in from the Wednesday storm. He wasn’t sure where Mom was, but thought I should know about it.
I looked up the number for the CVS and spoke to the manager who had called the ambulance, and she said the last time she looked, Mom was getting an EKG from the EMTs and refusing to go the hospital. She put me on hold so she could check to see if the ambulance was still there– it wasn’t, so Mom had probably been taken to the hospital.
“Flushing Hospital?” I asked.
“Most likely, it’s the closest,” she said.
So I called Flushing Hospital, and within 3 minutes, confirmed that my mother-in-law had been admitted to the ER eighteen minutes earlier.
I left a message for Frank (who was working in Manhattan, and probably in transit at that very moment), then another, and was about to call a cab to take me to the hospital when my boss called me. I told him what was going on, and he offered to drive me to the hospital.
Ten minutes later, Donal and Farrah dropped me off at the main entrance of Flushing Hospital, and less than two minutes after that I was kissing Mom hello.

This is the fourth time in two years she has fainted in a local store and been helped by the people around her. The first time, she cracked her scalp open when she fell and was in the hospital for five days. The next two times, kind people put her in a cab home. This time, the store manager called an ambulance.
Each one of the four times, she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day and was dehydrated with low blood sugar, and that’s what caused her to pass out.

We spent four hours in the ER on Friday night waiting for the doctor to see her. Every time she asked me when she could go home, or how long this was going to take, or why she had to get a CAT scan or an EKG or whatever other test they wanted to administer, I said I didn’t know… but if she wanted to avoid this, she could, just by eating breakfast before she left the house, and keeping a bottle of water with her (AND DRINKING FROM IT) while she’s out and about.

She was grateful not to be alone in the ER. She might very well have been alone and we might very well have never known she was there, because she left the house without any ID on her. She happened to have Tom’s number on a card in her coin purse, but no insurance cards, no ID, nothing at all tell anyone who she was.

Obviously, things are going to change a bit going forward. We are going to be much more vigilant about her eating and hydration habits. We are making signs to hang on the inside of her apartment door that say: “Did you eat something today?” and “Do you have your ID and insurance cards?”

Thank God she is doing well.

When she landed in Flushing Hospital, she landed in a place where the nurses and aides are angels. While sitting with Mom and holding her hand and speaking quietly together, I looked around at what was going on in that emergency room. So many middle-aged and older people, people like me, with parents much worse off than Mom. One strikingly beautiful black woman in her forties, holding her mother’s hand while her mom rocked back and forth in pain or spasticity or both, the younger woman’s eyes filling with tears, her face full of sadness and loss; she had been through this before. An elderly couple; the wife was the patient, the husband tending to her, his four-footed walking cane leaning on the foot of the bed. He left to use the rest room, and then the doctors came to run some tests; the wife, in his absence, refusing to cooperate with anything until her husband returned.
“I WON’T!! Just wait until my husband comes back! I’m not doing anything, I’m not going anywhere until he comes back!”
I think, that could be Frank and me in twenty years; we have no kids, but we have each other.
A tiny, ancient Chinese woman, crouched over and bent with either pain or osteoporosis, shuffling to the bathroom, accompanied by a nurse, followed by her son who looks to be almost seventy himself. The tiny, ancient woman refuses to use a bedpan, so to the bathroom she shuffles.
THESE NURSES ARE SAINTS and MINISTERING ANGELS.

At about a quarter to nine, the resident on call finally saw Mom; once it became clear that she wasn’t going home that night, and after I scored her a hospital meal, I kissed her good night and promised to be back in the morning.

I know that is likely there will be more days and nights like this. Aging is not for the weak or frightened, but it comes to us all if we only keep breathing.
I so appreciate everything the nurses and aides do to keep the experience human and humane for patients and families. There are millions of acts of love and duty every day in every hospital emergency room in every place in the world.
There simply aren’t enough words to thank the nurses and aides for their acts of kindness.
There is a plenitude of beauty and grace to be seen in an emergency room on a Friday night in February, just after an ice storm.

_______________________________________________________________________________________
Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog? Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

I Come from a Long Line of Warrior Queens

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Advocacy, Art, birthday, Children, Conscience, Creativity, Decorative Art, Drawing, Dreams, Family, Gifts, Gratitude, Love, Memories, Mother, Painting, Spring, Stories, Story

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

art supplies, choice, diocesan, entrance exam, fearlessness, fork in the road, gifts, hang up on, Happy Birthday Mom, high school, High School of Art and Design, love, Miss Mary Biedermann, mother, ninetieth birthday, Our Lady of Sorrows, persistence, portfolio, principal, responsibility, The Mary Louis Academy, trust

Mom & me, Early 1955

Mom & me, Early 1955

Today, Mom would have turned 90 years old. We lost her on July 18, 2005, after a brutal and harrowing couple of months that I covered here, here, here, and here. I am very fortunate that in her final years on this earth, I made my peace with her and she with me; her last words to me were “I love you, you’re my prize.” A person can live happily for a long time on a memory like that.

For me, winter and early summer are about my dad; he was a January baby, and we lost him (literally) in June of 2010.
Spring is always about my mother; when the snowdrops start to peek out of the cold ground, and crocuses begin to unfold, the forsythia blossoms bright yellow and the Bradford pears start their bridal march up Northern Boulevard, their white blooms wafting on the warming breezes, my mother is close by. She’s never too far– there are times when I imagine I see her face in the mirror overlaying my own– but she breaks out in the spring. It’s her birthday, Greek Easter, Mother’s Day, our first communions…spring is and always has been her season.

When I was a teenager and then a young adult, and thought I knew everything about everything, we rubbed each other the wrong way, often. As stubborn as my mother was (she was, after all,  born on the cusp of Aries and Taurus), I could match her. We would yell and carry on; she’d forbid me to do one thing or another, and I would do it any way. I honed my passive-aggressive skills at her knee.
If she knew she was right, she would not cave; neither would I.
Those battles were great training for life. It wasn’t until I was older, and we made our peace with each other, that I recognized what a boon her fighting spirit was to me. When I was young, I felt thwarted by her restrictions and demands and opinions; in retrospect, I see that her fighting spirit was what made my life possible.

Here’s one story:
I decided sometime around the fifth or sixth grade that I wanted to go to the High School of Art and Design. The twin sisters of a grade school classmate had been accepted to A&D, and when I heard about it, I wanted nothing more than to go to a school where I could draw all the time. I told my folks, and I think they were hoping I would get over it, the way I got over wanting to be a nurse (when I was six) or a Maryknoll Missionary nun (when I was eight).
I didn’t get over it.
Fast forward to eighth grade, and taking the diocesan placement tests in mid-autumn (for the Catholic high schools); my choices were Mater Christi (where almost all my friends would go), The Mary Louis Academy (where my close friend Carol was trying to persuade me to go), and St. Agnes (where I REALLY did not want to go, but I needed to list three schools). I did very well on the test, and would have no problem going to the school of my choice. In January, I had the placement test and portfolio submission for the High School of Art & Design. I’d worked on my portfolio all during my Christmas vacation with Our Lady of Sorrows’ third grade-and-art teacher, Miss Mary Biedermann. She helped me matte all my artwork while listening to Leonard Cohen songs (a revelation!) and eating brie (ditto!!). It was a glimpse of what a student artist’s life might be like and I was hungry for it.

I wondered in later years if the nuns knew that Miss Biedermann had helped me; she did so outside of class and on her own time, in her own home. I travelled by myself on the subway with my art and supplies in hand; she picked me up in her car near Borough Hall on Queens Boulevard to take me to her place in Richmond Hill. I do not remember how or by whom the arrangements for all of this extracurricular activity were made. Miss Biedermann wasn’t even my teacher– my middle sister Nancy was in her third grade class– but, at some point, my parents had to be involved with the planning. I remember bringing home the day’s matted work and showing what I’d done to my mom and dad; I remember thinking they did not really understand what I was doing, but at least they were not fighting me. At that point, I don’t they thought I would get into A&D; they knew I loved to draw, but I don’t know how talented they thought I was, or –even if I was talented enough– whether this was a path from which I could be diverted. There were no artists in my family; there was no road map for them, or me, to follow. They were not sold on the idea of me being an artist…but time could change things, and anyway, maybe I wouldn’t get into A&D.

I got into Art and Design; my real life would begin that fall. All I had to do was tell Sister Mary Dorothy, the principal of Our Lady of Sorrows.
I told my teacher, Sister Regina de Lourdes, that I’d been accepted to A&D.
She, or someone, told me and told my parents that there would be a full scholarship for me to go to The Mary Louis Academy, an offer which was rarely made to anyone.
I told my parents about the scholarship, and that I didn’t want to go “Snob Hill” (what everyone called The Mary Louis Academy in those days).My mom asked me where I did want to go, and I said Art & Design. They asked me if I was sure, and I was, so that was that; there was no fighting.

I recognize now, as an adult, what an extraordinary leap of faith that was for my parents to make. Their firstborn thirteen-year-old daughter would be going to a high school that none of her classmates were attending, taking a subway into midtown every day, learning to be a professional artist.
She/I would be doing this instead of going to a Catholic high school that wanted me enough to pay the full freight, a high school that would put me on track to St. John’s, Fordham, or even an Ivy League school.Inexplicably, they let me do what I wanted to do.

It wasn’t over at OLS, though; Sister Mary Dorothy was incensed by my choice. She called my home while I was in school to speak to my mother. She yelled at my mother, carried on about how my mother was letting me ruin my life, that I wasn’t old enough to make such a choice, and on and on; she pulled every manipulative trick in the book to try to get my mother to change her mind, or better yet, change my mind for me.
My mother refused, and told Sister that it was my choice, and it was done. Sister persisted, and yelled some more.
My mother hung up on her. She fought for me, against every grain of her own doubt and fear about my choice, and she hung up the phone on the principal of my school.

I don’t know that I would have been so brave had I been in my mother’s place.
When I asked her, many years downstream, why she had let me go, she said “Because you wanted to– it meant so much to you.”
That is love, and courage, and faith, and hope, wrapped in the fighting spirit that my mom held on to until her last breath. She not only gave me life, but she gave me MY life, the life I was truly meant to have.

On this ninetieth anniversary of her birth,  I say THANK YOU, Mom, for all your many gifts, but especially for that one. It was the fork in the road that made all the difference.Geranium Blossoms

______________________________________________

Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog? Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Envision this:

04 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Aggression, Appropriate Behavior, Children, Family, Father, Mother, Will

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

appeasement, brat, calm, communities, crying, disobedient, drama, dramatic exit, family, father, inner child, misbehave, mother, motherhood, Neville Chamberlain, parents, peace, persistence, quiet, screaming, stubbornness, tantrum, weeping

You know when you go shopping somewhere, and you hear that screaming child mid-tantrum about ninety seconds before you actually lay eyes on her? There she is, face down amidst a flurry of her own flailing limbs (and perhaps amidst piles of rumpled and scattered merchandise that she’s been pulling down and around, trying to get her parent’s attention). She’s pounding the floor with the toe-caps of her Kids Keds, hollering like she’s being burned at the stake.
Maybe her mom (or more rarely, her dad) is gently try to coax some some calm and quiet out of her, doing her/his best Neville Chamberlain imitation, trying to appease the unappeasable (if you give her more, she’ll only want even MORE more). Maybe her mom or dad is steps away, pretending s/he doesn’t know the child (Note to this parent: This tactic NEVER works. We all know that’s YOUR kid.). Maybe the parent is getting rough with the child, trying to physically subdue her (Should we call ACS? 911? Is it abuse or discipline?).
You try to walk away, but it’s like a really bad soap opera, or potato chips, or a train wreck: YOU JUST CAN’T STOP, in this case, WATCHING.
Eventually the child will wear herself out, dissolving into sobs that turn into hiccups that turn into gasps that eventually subside into sweet silence. This may not happen until long after she has left your corner of the world, parent in tow, or being towed by said parent.
Depending on how the exit is executed, it could be dramatic (BLOODCURDLING SCREAMS! THREATS!), melodramatic (tearful apologies and copious weeping, sometimes by both child and parent), or post-dramatic (everyone is too spent to craft a proper exit).

Can you see her and hear her in your mind’s eye and ear?

That child was my “inner child” today.
“Not my will, but Thine, be done” is NOT for sissies.
GG-Toys2-web

_____________________________________________________

Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog? Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Well, It’s No Day at the Beach!

10 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Beach, Body Image, Family, Father, Fun, Gratitude, Happiness, Health, Joy, Light, Love, Memories, Mother, Senses, Swimming

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Atlantic Ocean, brother, confidence, father, Floating, Growing Up, healthy-living, Jersey Shore, Jones Beach, Long Island, love, mother, Ocean, overcoming oneself, Point Pleasant, self-confidence, siblings, sisters, Summer, Summer Pleasures, Summertime, Toes Pointing to Portugal

This slideshow requires JavaScript.


….Oh, yes it was!

A week ago this past Friday, my sister Barbara and I went to Point Pleasant, New Jersey and swam in the Atlantic Ocean.

How Does This Work?

Me, trying to take a picture with my phone for the very first time.

It was my first time at a beach, my first time in the ocean, in thirty-six years.
The reason I avoided the beach for all that time is the same reason I avoided swimming altogether for all those years — shyness, embarrassment, not wanting to expose my (now less) ample flesh to the eyes of strangers.
Spending this year learning to swim, and swimming laps four days a week now, and losing twenty-two pounds so far, have all disabused me of the notion that how I look in a swimsuit is or should be important to anyone but me. (And anyway, now I can outswim a lot of the people who might cast a critical eye my way…)

Oh, That's How.

Oh, that’s how.
That little thingie goes CLICK.

How can I ever even begin to describe the pure sensory pleasure of floating on salty swells of ocean, my red-painted toes pointed toward Portugal, the hot sun warming the anterior surface of my body, the cool water supporting my back, legs, thighs, arms?

The way one floats on salt water is so different from fresh; the buoyancy is not just physical, but spiritual.

My sister and I floated side-by-side, talking, laughing, riding the perfect swells.

We recollected the many family beach trips over many years when we were children; she reminded me that our dad woke us all up VERY early on beach days by shouting “REVEILLE!” in his un-gentle clarion tones, repeatedly, until all five of us were awake and moving around.

Because my bedroom was next to the kitchen, it was usually the aromas of frying Italian sweet sausage and chicken wings that woke me before his voice did — that was the beach fare my parents cooked and packed every weekend, along with a jug of ice cold lemon or root beer Fizzies (never Kool-Aid!).

My job as the eldest was to help Dad pack the beach chairs, the umbrellas, the beach blankets and the towels, the totes of extra clothes, and Grandpa’s old suitcase (which held the food for the seven of us).

When Janet was old enough, she would help, too; by the time I aged out of the beach trips (because I thought I was way too cool at 19 or 20 to go the beach with my parents and little sisters and baby brother), even John was helping carry all of our equipment and supplies back and forth to the car.

“Barb, I think Mom and Dad are smiling down on Daughters #1 and 4 today,” I said to my sister, as we floated and swam and made the oceanic equivalent of snow angels.

My parents loved Jones Beach; they were beach missionaries, too. They converted my brother-in-law Wally’s parents to their beachy faith, meeting up with them at Field #2 or 4, or at the West End beach.

They took fewer supplies in those latter days– their chairs, their umbrella, some food; it was just the two of them in the car on the LIE and then the Meadowbrook, not the epic beach trips of our childhood.

Those beach trips–every Saturday and Sunday, and almost every weekday of Dad’s two-week summer vacation, if the weather was good– are such sweet, rich memories… the long, long summers of my childhood, adolescence, early adulthood…all the books I read, all the sketchbooks I filled at Jones Beach.. all the photos my parents took, documenting their growing and then grown family.

How I treasure them…

DadMomMe1
One of my very first times at the beach. Summer 1954
1955-DaddysGirlAtTheBeach
Me and Dad at the beach. Summer, 1955

1963-4Girls
At the beach Winter 1963
1966-Beach-detail
Me at the beach. Summer 1966

How Does This Work?
Me, figuring out for the first time how to take a picture with my phone.
Oh, That's How.
Oh, that’s how. That little thingie goes CLICK.

#1 Daughter
Barb at the Beach
#4 Daughter

Thank you, Barbara, for continuing the Karabaic family beach tradition,
and for including me in them.

I can’t wait to go back.

___________________________________________________________

Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog? Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

From Missing Dad ~ Mom and The July Effect, Part 4; The End.

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Accountability, Advocacy, birthday, Caregiving, Death, Father, Grief, Health, Justice, Loss, Love, Mother, Mourning, Regret

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

accurate transcriptions, brother, caregiving, elderly parents, family, father, health, health care facilities, home, hospital infections, hospitals, Kessler East Orange, Kessler West Orange, love, mother, physical therapy, post-surgical rehabilitation, responsibility, Rory Staunton, sepsis, siblings, sisters, surgical rehabilitation, The July Effect, twenty four hours

(The following is excerpted from my memoir-in-progress, Missing Dad. All conversations recounted here are accurate transcriptions, made at the time they occurred. All incidents described here are accurately reconstructed from contemporaneous notes and emails. No names were changed. There are no innocent people to protect.)

__________________________________________________________

I get up at 5AM to get into the shower and be ready to go with Jannie and Wally by 7. Before I get into the shower, I check the answering machine—no messages. Good.
When I get out of the shower, there are three calls on the answering machine. Not good.
The first is a doctor from East Orange General, telling me that my mother has had a major stroke during the night. He is sorry to say that there is no brain activity and that her body probably won’t live through the day. The second is Wally who has heard the news and is asking me when we should tell Dad. The third is George who has also heard and wants to know what to do.

Frank awakens, and comes out of the bedroom as I am getting ready to leave. I tell him what is happening. I have to go, now, to get to the hospital with Janet and Walter. They will be here in a few minutes. I take the phone number of the client Frank will be working with today, at Cryder House, in Whitestone. There is nothing he can do, so I think he should carry on with his day. I will let him know what is happening. I take my overnight bag with a change of clothes, just in case I need to stay in Jersey.
“I love you.”
“Love you too. Take care of yourself, please.” He holds me and kisses me.
I leave. I am already exhausted going into this day, the last day of my mother’s life.

My brother is coming back from Ohio. Nancy, Chris, and Grant are back on the road north to New Jersey, having arrived in Maryland a scant few hours earlier. I am on the road with Walter (driving) and Janet (riding shotgun).
Walter, Janet and I are trying to figure out how to tell Dad that Mom is going to die today.
“I think I should be the one to tell him,” I say.
There is very little traffic on the way.

We pull into the parking lot at East Orange General. I don’t know how, but John is already here. Janet, Walter and I meet him in the hallway. We all hug and kiss hello, and make our way to the ICU. John is crying. We are numb. Barb, George, Alyssa and Dad are already there. Dad is distraught.
“What happened? What HAPPENED??”
We go into Mom’s room.
Our mother is hooked up to a million tubes and beeping things. Gauges are everywhere. Numbers flit by, without context.
The neurologist enters, introduces herself to all of us, looks for the person she should talk to. She takes me aside. I tell her I have Mom’s health care proxy, and I know her wishes, which are “no extraordinary measures”. She asks me if my father grasps the seriousness of what happened, that my mother/his wife is being kept alive only by the machines. I tell her he might comprehend it if she tells him, but that he is unlikely to accept it from me without her saying it first. Dad has a real respect for medical authority (we will use this later on to help him).

All of us are in a knot around the doctor. I hold Dad’s hand as she tells him. He looks at me, questioning what he has heard. I tell him Mom is gone, only her body is still here.
“Is there any chance?”
“No, Daddy, no.”
We embrace him, I kiss his face, and start to cry.
He doesn’t know what to do next. We speak about what Mom said she wanted, if this situation ever occurred. Mom wanted us to just let go.
“Let’s wait,” he says. He doesn’t want to turn anything off; he wants to give her a chance. Nothing needs to be done right now, so we will wait.

There are tears, lots of them, a priest named Father Mitch, wooden rosary beads, a wonderful nurse named Beth. My two best friends in the world are named Mitch and Beth. I feel that this is a sign, that the priest and the nurse are God’s own angels sent to help ease my way into this new and awful motherless world that I am about to enter.
We have Father Mitch give Mom last rites, even though she is Greek Orthodox, and he is a Catholic priest. This comforts us all. I keep the rosary beads in my hand. (To this day, I carry them in my purse, everywhere I go.)

Mom hangs on for Nancy, Chris and Grant, who arrive around noon.

The hours pass.

Kids, grandkids, kids-in-law, Dad weave in and out of the room in a haze of prayer and silent pleading and endless, endless beeping.
My dad sees me crying at my mother’s bedside and tells me to stop.
“She might hear you,” he says. “I don’t want her to think there’s no hope.”

Despite my earlier reservations about East Orange General, the ICU staff is as good as any hospital staff I have ever seen, in real life or on television. They are sensitive, they are caring. They do their best to make Mom comfortable, and to comfort us. I wish these had been the people taking care of her at Kessler next door.

My mother’s face is gray. Her skin is totally relaxed, softly sagging from her cheekbones. She has a thin stream of black fluid trickling from the right side of her mouth. There is a tube in the left side of her mouth. She is no longer in any pain. I take a white cloth and gently pat away the black fluid, but it keeps trickling. I am on the window side of the bed. Alyssa is on a chair at Mom’s left side. I ask her if she’s scared. She’s only twelve and a half years old; I think she’s a bit young to sit through this. Even my sisters, her aunts, have a hard time looking at our mother like this.
“Oh no, I’m okay. I’ve seen things like this on Days of Our Lives. I’m not scared at all.”
We sit in the room, the wooden rosary beads from Father Mitch in my hand. I haven’t said a rosary in years, but the nuns at Our Lady of Sorrows taught me well. I only leave my mother’s bedside to use the bathroom, or if Nurse Beth asks me to leave for a moment so she can tend to one thing or another in the room.
I will keep vigil until it is no longer necessary. I have my change of clothes in case she lasts until tomorrow.
I look out the window, down to the street. There is a truck out there with the name “Angelica” on its side. My mother’s mother’s name was Angelina. I see this as a sign that she is close by, waiting for her daughter.

The grandkids are hungry and Dad is exhausted—they are going to grab a bite at the Wendy’s across the street and ask me if I want anything.
I want this never to have happened.
They leave to get some food, come back to the waiting room, and then decide to leave again for home and let Dad get some rest.
Jannie and I stay, Alyssa too.

At one point—I’m not sure how long after the others left with Dad—I am alone in the room with Mom and the endless beeping. I am holding her hand. I bring my face close to hers and whisper.
“It’s okay. You can go now, if you want. Dad will be fine, we will be fine. I love you. You can leave. Don’t worry.”

Nurse Beth comes into the room and says she has to tend to a few things.
I leave for a moment to use the restroom.
In a moment, Janet is outside, knocking on the restroom door.
“Come on!  Something is happening to Mom!”
Nurse Beth is there.
There is no beeping.
No moving numbers.

Our mother dies at ten to four in the afternoon.

We call the others. They pull off to the side of the Garden State Parkway. We tell John, Barb, Chris, Walter, George. We don’t tell Dad. We will tell him when he gets here.
They come back, it seems like only a minute later.
Dad is stricken, he cannot believe she is gone.
He weeps.

Dad takes me aside. It’s just him and me; the others are gathered on the other side of the waiting area.
He holds his forehead, shock and grief etched on his face. His eyes, wild and full of tears; he says “Claud, you kids…please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone.”
At first, I thought he meant he didn’t want to sleep alone in the house that night. He had a houseful of family; he wouldn’t be alone. I realize later what he really meant; he is afraid that he will be alone now that Mom is gone, that we kids will leave him to his own devices, that it was our mother who was the center of all things and that now he will lose us, as he had lost her.


You will never lose me.

___________________________________________________________

Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog?
Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

From Missing Dad ~ Mom and The July Effect, Part 3

17 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by ckswarriorqueen in Accountability, Advocacy, birthday, Caregiving, Death, Grief, Health, Justice, Loss, Love, Mother, Mourning, Regret

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

accurate transcriptions, brother, caregiving, elderly parents, family, father, health, health care facilities, home, hospital infections, hospitals, Kessler East Orange, Kessler West Orange, love, mother, physical therapy, post-surgical rehabilitation, responsibility, Rory Staunton, sepsis, siblings, sisters, surgical rehabilitation, The July Effect, twenty four hours

(The following is excerpted from my memoir-in-progress, Missing Dad. All conversations recounted here are accurate transcriptions, made at the time they occurred. All incidents described here are accurately reconstructed from contemporaneous notes and emails. No names were changed. There are no innocent people to protect.)

__________________________________________________________

Dad, Walter, Janet, Chris, Nancy, and Grant, accompanied by Barbara, George and Alyssa, return to Kessler East Orange on Sunday at around 11AM.
They find that Mom is still asleep in her hospital bed, still wearing the same clothes she had been in the day before and the day before that.
(What do the nurses and aides actually DO in this place? Can’t they even keep a post-surgical patient clean? Where are the standards of care? This is the #4 facility of its kind in the whole country?)  
Mom’s breakfast is untouched. (Hospital breakfasts are usually delivered by 8AM. Where IS everybody is this place?)  
Mom has an IV in her arm. (For what? Meds? Nutrition? Hydration? For what?)
Nancy tries to wake Mom, without success.
Nancy gets the charge nurse to check Mom. Mom has a fever. The nurse decides to have Mom immediately transferred to the ER of the hospital next door.

The ER at East Orange General Hospital is very different from the ER at Union Hospital. There are gunshot victims and overdoses here. There were gardening and golfing mishaps there.

Nancy accompanies Mom to the ER, where the doctor on duty observes that Mom’s surgical wound looks infected. Mom is hooked up to another IV, and after awhile, she wakens and becomes somewhat lucid.

Plans are made to transfer Mom back to Union Hospital on Monday.

The sibs call me from the hospital throughout that afternoon to give me updates. It’s a busy, rain-soaked Sunday at Crate&Barrel in Manhasset.  I can’t leave the store because we are short-staffed due to call-outs. It would take me about three hours to make the trip to East Orange on public transportation. By the time I got there, it would be too late to see her, and time to turn around and come back home anyway.

The sibs say that at this point, it doesn’t seem to be too serious. Mom was able to converse, even make a joke.

Nancy, Chris and Grant leave the hospital late in the afternoon to go back home to Maryland. Before they leave, they hire a private nurse to watch over Mom, just to make sure that she is properly tended to. We do not want a repeat of the treatment she received at the collective hands of Kessler East.
Janet and Walter and I speak on the phone before they leave the hospital. We make plans for them to pick me up early Monday morning on the way into Jersey from their home in Long Island. We will go the hospital together.
Dad, Barb, George and Alyssa go back to Dad’s.

I get home from work at about 7PM. My part-timer, Cherie, gives me a lift home so I don’t have to wait for the N20/1 bus that runs only once an hour on Sundays. I open the door to our apartment.
 “Oh God, what a day this has been. My mother was admitted to the ER, she has an infec…”
At the same time, Frank is saying: “Are you okay? There are a lot of calls on the answering machine. The kids…”
I listen to the messages.
There’s a garbled one from the private nurse, saying “I’m leaving. Your mother was already brain-dead when I got here.”
I moan/shriek/cry out loud and Frank comes running to me.
“Wha…”
“My mom, my mom…”
Another call comes in.
It’s George. It’s not true, Mom’s not brain-dead, but she has been put on a ventilator. The nurse has in fact left.
Maybe she was just prescient.

Mom is in the ICU of East Orange General Hospital now. It is late Sunday night.
Sometime in the middle of the night, she has a heart attack, and then a massive stroke, caused by sepsis.
We won’t find out that Mom is in a life-and-death struggle for several hours.

(Concluded tomorrow, with the events of Monday, July 18th 2005,
the last day of my mother’s life)

___________________________________________________________

Do you like what you’re reading here at my blog?
Do you want to follow me?
Click on the Follow Blog Via Email link in the left margin and subscribe.
You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or LinkedIn.
THANKS!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Claudia Karabaic Sargent (CKSWarriorQueen)

I voted, and, again, it was for naught.

I Voted

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 927 other followers

Share this blog!

Bookmark and Share
Liebster Blogger Award

Liebster Blogger Award ~ A Writer Worth Watching

Pages

  • About Me: Who I Am, and How I Got Here

Recent Posts

  • Eight Years, Today
  • Fighting Back
  • Six Years Ago Today…
  • From Missing Dad: John Is Born
  • Five Years On ~ Missing Dad: Day 5 ~ FOUND

Archives ~ My Back Pages

What We're Talking About

Acceptance Accountability Believe Blessings Conscience Courage Do Your Best Faith Faithfulness Gifts God Grace Gratitude Help Illumination Joy Light Love Loving-kindness Mercy Mindfulness Patience Prayer Spirituality Strength Sustenance Trust Truth Values Worthy

WarriorQueen Tweets:

  • @th3j35t3r @roqueandrolle Yes.............. 7 hours ago
  • @thehill If that Democrat president does even 1% of the provable shit YOU'VE done, I'll be the first to say to the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…............. 1 day ago
  • @thehill Dear @POTUS: Fuck you, you traitorous piece of shit.............. 1 day ago
Follow @CKSWarriorQueen

CKSWarriorQueenArt

CKSWarriorQueenArt

Blogroll

  • April Rose's Blog
  • Becca's Photo Blog
  • Beth JP Ritter's Blog
  • Bucket List Publications ~ Leslie Carter
  • Caring for Mom
  • Catching Days
  • Chronicles ~ JoAnn JA Jordan's Creativity Blog
  • Create With Joy
  • Embracing Homelessness
  • Esther Bradley-de Tally's Blog
  • Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project Toolbox
  • Happiness Project Quotes ~ Email Signups
  • Help! Aging Parents!
  • Hue Bliss
  • Janice Fried Illustration
  • Jeff Goins ~ Writer
  • Jennifer Chow
  • keynoncoaching
  • Kristen Lamb's Blog
  • Leslie Ann Clark (Peepsqueak's Mom)
  • Mel's Madness
  • Muddy Kinzer
  • Sabra Bowers' Blog
  • The Artist's Road ~ Patrick Ross
  • The Writerly Life
  • Under the Honeysuckle Vine ~ Candice Ransom
  • Writing Space ~ Lara Britt

My Other Sites

  • My Facebook Fan Page
  • My Website
  • My Zazzle Shop

What are you looking for?

Maybe it’s here?

backstroke beauty blessings body image breaststroke brother caregiving comfort communities courage daily devotional Daily Strength for Daily Needs darkness doggedness Duty elderly parents exercise faith family father fearlessness freestyle friends gifts God God's love God is Love grace gratitude grief happiness health healthy-living heart help home hope Illuminations illustration joy light loss love mercy missing Missing Dad missing persons mother patience peace peg streep persistence personalized physical therapy praise prayer Psalm Psalms quiet responsibility search search dogs siblings sisters strength stubbornness Thy Will Be Done trust Universe Wait weight loss will work YMCA YouthBuild

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: