The final eleven days

We celebrated Dad's 95th birthday at the care center on March 10 with cake and ice cream.  He loved it!  Loved having everyone there, especially loved all the great-grandies who climbed on him and hugged and kissed him.  For that brief moment, we had him back--just as he'd been a few months before.  

Dad's 95th Birthday

Monday, March 19--We took Mom to visit Dad at the Care Center.  It was a tough visit.  Dad's eyes were infected, his breathing didn't sound right, and he seemed to be running a fever.  We snuggled him on the couch with Mom in the activity room, started a movie for them to watch, and left them alone for a couple of hours. When I returned with Andrew, Dad was in bed, calling for Mom, even though she was sitting beside him on the bed.  Over and over again, "Norma, come to bed."  

Tuesday, March 20--The hospice nurse called.  Dad had a respiratory infection and we needed to make a decision--to treat, or to let it run its course.  I called my brothers, then we went over to Mom's.  "You know what the answer has to be," she said. "Let him go."   I called the nurse and gave her our decision.  

Wednesday, March 21--I went straight to the care center from work.  Dad was sitting in the dining room, eating a piece of pizza.  He was short of breath, but otherwise, seemed okay.  His nurse came in and told me that the doctor was there.  We moved him to his room so they could examine him and change his bandages.  His oxygen level was low, but the nurse thought his chest sounded better than it had the day before.  The doctor disagreed and diagnosed pneumonia.  We talked about the uncertainty of what lay ahead.  The nurse explained the medications she had given the nursing home staff, and reassured me that they would know how to keep him comfortable.  After they left, I took him back to the dining room and fed him another piece of pizza.  Mom had brought a box of drumsticks for him on Monday, so I got one of those and fed it to him.  He told me he wanted a blanket, so I found the fur quilt they'd made in better days, and wrapped him in it.  It had been two hours, and I needed to get home, so I kissed him and told him goodbye.  On the way out, one of the aids told me that he'd called out earlier, "Norma, come to bed; I need some lovin'."

Five and a half hours later, he was gone.  

After my phone call from the night before, Terry and Angela decided to come.  They arrived in Springville and stopped to get something to eat before going to see Dad.  When they finished, they called Mom, and offered to take her with them.  The three of them arrived at the care center about 8:15.  They could hear him calling for Mom when they opened the door.  They found him sitting in a recliner in the Day Room.  A movie was on the TV and one other resident was in the room.  They greeted Dad, then Mom briefly turned her back, and the others saw Dad grimace.  Terry leaned down and whispered, "You can go, Dad."  When Mom turned back, his face was peaceful.  

I was in the middle of a presidency meeting when my phone rang, and I saw that it was Terry calling.  I assumed that he was calling to tell me they'd arrived, and share his plans.  I debated answering the phone, but finally did.  Dad had just died; it was 8:30 p.m.  

We rushed back to the care center.  Two aid's stood outside the Day Room.  "He was just waiting for her to come," they said.  For two hours, we cried and laughed and made phone calls.  Finally we invited the funeral directors to come, and watched as they reverently wrapped his body and wheeled him from the room.  

I love you, Dad. Thank you for everything. I'm grateful that your battle on earth is finished.  

The long goodbye

My dad turned ninety-five years old today.  Nearly a century of living.  His life has come full circle, from a needy, helpless infant in Nebraska to a needy, helpless infant in Utah.

A few days ago, on my way home from work, I impulsively stopped to visit Dad.  I found him in the dining room of the nursing home, seated in his wheelchair, navy bib in place, gingerly mouthing his banana bread.  I fed him mashed potatoes and chunks of cooked tomato, held a cup of milk to his lips, wiped his nose.  I stroked his cold hands, kissed his head, hugged his bony shoulders, and I wondered--as I always do--what he was thinking.  I wondered if he knew who I was, and I wept when he said my name.

I remember vividly the first time I wept for Dad, and for myself.  It was six or seven years ago; he would shortly be diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.  My mom told me about a conversation she'd had with him.  She had mentioned buying silverware as gifts for my daughters.  Dad had interrupted, "Who are Jenny and Christy and Amy?"

There were more tears when first macular degeneration, and then a sudden hemmorage, robbed him of his eyesight.

I was reminiscing on the playground a few days ago.  Maybe it was the time I've spent backstage at Andrew's play lately that got me thinking about my own moment in the spotlight.  I was seventeen and playing the lead role of Alice in our high school production, Flowers For Algernon.  In the play, an experimental surgery is performed on a mentally challenged young man, Charlie.  Initially the surgery is successful, but as the play progresses, the flaws in the experiment are uncovered, and both Alice--his teacher turned sweetheart--and Charlie, realize that he will lose all that he has gained and more.  They know that the time will come when he will be unable to care for himself, that he will be placed in a facility.  They  decide to cherish the short time they have left together.  It was a poignant experience for me, as I vicariously experienced the devastation of their loss.  That day, on the playground, Charlie's words came back to me as I thought of Dad.  "Please, God, don't take it all away."    

Monday night I went to see Dad again.  He was agitated and kept calling for Mom.  He said he needed to go somewhere, but he couldn't tell me where.  Andrew and I put him in a wheelchair and pushed him up and down the hall for over an hour.  It seemed to help him relax.  

Mom tells me that Dad always walked the floor with me when I was an infant.  She says he was the best at getting me to go to sleep.  

Dad was forty when I was born, and so I don't remember him taking my brothers on fishing trips or with a full head of black wavy hair.  I don't remember him serving on the school board or organizing the men to build the golf course (although I do remember plenty of golf games!).  By the time I was old enough to remember, Dad had already begun to lose his hearing, which made conversation with him difficult.  In fact, I don't remember a single real conversation with him.

What I do remember, is carrots.

Gardening in Wyoming was difficult.  But every year, Dad planted peas and carrots.  I scavenged the peas as soon as they showed the slightest degree of plumpness, but the carrots were left in the ground to be harvested as they were needed.   And needed, they were, anytime I left on a school bus for a speech meet or journalism weekend or choir festival.  Dad thought there'd be enough candy on the bus, and he figured his little rabbit daughter would appreciate some carrots.  So, early in the morning, he'd dig them up and scrape them clean.  More than once, he arrived at the school and waved me off the bus to give me a bag of carrots to eat and share.  

Dad was constant, stable, and I took him for granted.  I can still see him washing the dinner dishes while I chattered to Mom, scrubbing the floor of my shower, patiently waiting to take me to school on those bitter cold Wyoming mornings.  "You don't have to wait; I can walk," I would insist if he mentioned the time.  But he never left me, and he never complained.  

It's ironic that I feel closer to him now than I ever did then.  

Always content to be in the background, Mom said that he was the string on her kite, keeping her grounded, making it possible for her to soar.  Mom sang at weddings and funerals and parties--and Dad listened and supported and cheered.  The only time I ever heard Dad sing was on car trips, when he'd finally join Mom in singing the University of Wyoming fight song and the slightly shocking "Minnie the Mermaid."  

After lunch, I took Dad to the Day Room where he was maneuvered into a specific recliner--one that he can't get out of.   He hates it.  I understand their reasoning.  More than once, the nursing home staff has found him on the floor, crawling, searching for Mom.  They don't want to chance a real fall.  

"Liz, what do we do now?" he asked in a rare moment of clarity.  Repeatedly, he called for Mom.  Then he started to sing, "Show me the way to go home."

Oh Dad, I wish I could.  

Merry Christmas!

Welcome to our family

Oliver William

Born October 7, 2011

at 5:33 p.m.

9#1oz.--21 1/2 inches long

We love you, Sweet baby boy!

While We're Waiting

for Oliver to arrive

Seventy Years!

Tuesday Mom and Dad celebrated seventy years of marriage! We had a wonderful evening of celebration with friends, neighbors, and family.

I Should Be Eating Cake!

This whole week just feels wrong. Like Halloween without a pumpkin. Easter without colored eggs. The Fourth of July without a flag. It's like those dreams I've had when I wake up in the middle of the night and realize that it's Christmas the next morning, and I've done nothing--absolutely nothing--to prepare. No tree, no presents, no stockings, no ham or pies or candy canes. In my dream, I leap out of bed and frantically try to find a store open in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve--some way to fix what is wrong. And then, of course, I wake up.

But this is no dream. This is reality.

Saturday, my baby girl turned thirty. Today, another baby girl turns twenty-seven. And tomorrow, my first baby girl turns thirty-two. And, if that isn't enough, my newest daughter (2 1/2 years to me), is also blowing out candles tomorrow. In Georgia.

And the closest thing to a cake in my house was the pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies I made yesterday, and they're gone.

In years past there were always cakes. Lots of them. I confess, they weren't particularly fancy, like the ones my girls now create for their own little ones. Usually chocolate, whipped up from a cake mix, baked in a 9 x 13 pan, and decorated with chocolate frosting, sprinkles and candles. It wasn't that they were unique in any way--except in quantity. In September, I bought cake mixes in bulk!

Each of the girls needed her own cake with candles to blow out with the family. Then, of course, we needed cupcakes for the party with friends. And finally, back before schools insisted that treats be properly and professionally packaged, there were cupcakes for all the classmates delivered during the day. That's potentially three cakes.

Times three girls.

In four days.

So don't give me a hard time for not making fancy three-dimensional unicorn cakes. By the ninth cake, we were forcing it down.

But the cakes were only the beginning.

Every year, there were parties. Some years, we had three separate parties. And some years the birthday girls shared the holiday. I remember one year when all three had a slumber party--the same night--and I'm quite sure that we violated whatever fire code our little town had, with twenty-six girls plus our own family stuffed in a three-bedroom apartment! We had treasure hunts and scavenger hunts, played duck, duck, goose and the candy bar game. We had balloon relays and water balloon volleyball. We sang and laughed and chanted "heavy, heavy hang over my poor head, what do you wish with a bump on the head?"

Sweet memories.

Of course, all the birthday memories weren't wonderful. There was the time Amy and her friends were convinced that someone was chasing them and called the police. And the years when the birthday girl was inevitably found in her bedroom sobbing for some unknown reason. And the years when I resolved that next year, I would skip the party.

But today, as I sit in my quiet house, I find that I miss it all. I miss the cake, the off-key singing ("and many more, on channel four"), the wrapping paper and popped balloons strewn around the living room, the sleepless nights. Mostly, I miss my girls.

Happy Birthday Jenny, Christy, Amy & Kristi!

Jenny with Grandma Hastings, on her 2nd birthday

Christy at her 14th birthday party

Amy turns 11

Christy's 9th birthday party; Amy--6, Jenny--11

Amy's 12th birthday

Christy's 15th birthday

Jenny's 16th birthday party

Christy turned 18; Amy turned 15

Eating their cake--differently

Christy's 19th birthday

Jenny's 21st birthday

Christy--20, Jenny--22, and Amy--17