Listening to the Melody of Living

It was two years ago today that I received the phone call from my sister's husband, Bob. I don't recall his precise words, but I know that when I understood what he was telling me that my world stopped and all I could hear was silence. It seems so contrary, how can silence have a sound? But it does, it's as if all the air has been sucked out of a room and the silence echoes loudly and then you realize that people are trying to ask you what's wrong. You hear an unfamiliar voice and vaguely recognize it as your own and it's saying, "My mother died this morning."

On this second anniversary of the death of my mother, Evelyn, I went back and re-read a piece that I wrote three weeks after her death in 2008. I was struck by the following paragraph.

I confess that I've never known this kind of emotional loss and I don't feel like me. I go to work and I go through the motions of what I should do; I smile, I talk, I try to be "fine." When people ask how I am, I always say, "I'm doing okay. I'm fine." But I'm not. Everything seems so overwhelming. I come home and watch hours of mindless television. I rarely turn on my home computer; I tell myself that I'll catch up on things tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. All that I know to do is to keep moving forward one day at a time until I find my rhythm again. I realize that this loss is personal but it is also universal. I am not the first person to lose a mother and people do survive the loss; I just have to get back in sync with living again.

I still miss my mother. I miss her 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning call and her cheery inquiry, "Were you asleep?" I miss her stories about her older sister, my Aunt Nellie Ruth, who is always terribly concerned with two topics: Jesus and other people's sex lives. I miss her rearranging all the items in my pantry so that after she departed from a visit I couldn't find anything without calling her on the phone. Most of all I miss having her always in my corner, telling me that she loved me and that whatever was troubling me was going to be okay. However, in spite of the ache that I still have for her presence, somehow I've gotten back in sync with living again.

My sister, Rhonda, and her husband Bob live only a few blocks from me. I love their home; it's so warm and inviting. They are both very funny people and spending time with them always leaves me relaxed and happy. I feel so blessed to have them nearby. My brother, James, his wife, Lou and my adult nephew, JD live in Charlotte. We keep in contact via telephone and visit on holidays. My dad visits us and I call him every Thursday night for a marathon conversation about world affairs. Mama's youngest brother, my Uncle David calls me regularly just to chat, just as he used to do with my mother. I've renewed connections with some of my cousins with whom I had lost touch over the years. I think that we've all grown to appreciate the meaning of family more.

Then there's Little D, Bob and Rhonda's grandson. His father is Bob's son and Rhonda's stepson. Little D entered this world the December after my mother died; she never met him, but I know that she would have adored him.

This past Saturday evening, I was the babysitter. Little D and I had a marvelous time. We danced, sang songs (his favorite is Itsy Bitsy Spider), and identified all animals as "cow." I corrected him but he just grinned at me and pointed to the horse, dog, rooster, and duck and firmly announced, "cow." Fortunately, he does also call the cow a cow. For some reason, the cat is a cat and not a cow.

My favorite part of the evening was when he had worn himself out and decided to climb on my lap and rest his head on my shoulder. I read him a few nursery rhymes and then sang him a lullaby as he fell asleep.

I've learned that time does have healing powers. There is still an ache in my heart and I have my moments when I miss mama so bad that I want to scream, but the ache is manageable and I no longer feel adrift. I find that I am more patient with others and with myself. I try to pay attention to the small joys of living. There is a rhythm to life; we just to have to take the time to listen to the melody.

Incontinence? It All Depends...

I was walking with my Mother down an aisle of our supermarket today on our way to the checkout stand. She’ll be 91 next month and no longer drives. (Thank you, Lord.) Still, she’s pretty independent and lives quite comfortably by herself in her own home, so more power to her.


We just happened to be in what is euphemistically known as the “feminine hygiene” aisle. What that really means is, if you’ve just gotten a visit from “Aunt Flo”, or it stings when you pee, or your lady parts are itching like you sat on a hill of Fire Ants, then this is the aisle for you.

My Mother knows (at least I think she remembers) that I’ve had a hysterectomy, so when she gestured with a smile toward all the pads on the shelves and asked “Need some Kotex?” I replied with a chuckle and said “No, thanks. Don’t have the equipment anymore.”


What I didn’t say was that I’ve merely traded one curse for another. Monthly periods for stress incontinence. I don’t know why they say “stress” because it usually happens when you’re enjoying yourself (like having a good laugh) or it sneaks up on you without any advanced warning at all.


The only stress involved is when you know you’ve just peed your pants.


Why is life like that? You suffer through adolescent acne and about the time that clears up, you discover the crows have been walking all over you at night and left their prints embedded in that “delicate skin around the eyes”, like that frickin’ Andi McDowell tells us in those annoying commercials.


You endure 35 or 40 years of having a period every month, complete with cramps, bloating and the desire to rip the heart out of the next person who says you’re being too emotional, and then, oh happy day, it stops.


You no longer have to wear the “back-up” pads that are necessary because the tampon industry, in their desire to protect us from Toxic Shock Syndrome, retooled all the tampons so now they’re about as absorbent as a chiffon scarf.


All of the joy of finally being free lasts but a nanosecond in time, because it is soon replaced by the need to wear Poise pads EVERY DAY to prevent those “little accidents” caused by a weak sphincter which, up to now, hasn’t given you any problems since the day you were successfully potty trained.


Sheesh.


Apparently, my Mother doesn’t share this condition with me. I have never seen her put any of these products in her shopping cart. Plenty of wine, bacon and Snickers bars, but no incontinence pads.


It seems that stress incontinence can be caused by injury to the pelvic floor during childbirth. My Mother has always said that giving birth to me and my older brother was “like falling off a log” because we were only 6 lbs. 6 oz. and 5 lbs. 11 oz., respectively.


When I had my kids, it was like giving birth to a log—twice. And both of those logs weighed nearly 9 lbs. and one was in bass-ackwards to boot.


I’m surprised I still have a bladder.


So I dedicate this ATC in honor of Andi McDowell and all of the ladies who wish to regain their youthful looks (and sphincters.)

Speak Up, You're Mumbling!

Conversation with my 90 year-old mother in the dermatologist’s waiting room:


Mother: “It sure would be nice if they had some music playing here while we wait.”


Me: “They do.”


Mother: “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.”


Me: “That’s because you’re deaf. If they had the music cranked up loud enough for you to hear it, everyone else would be driven out of the room.”


Mother: “I’ve told you, I’m not getting hearing aids! They don’t work and they’re expensive! I keep getting ads in the mail all the time for them. Did you have the company send them to me?”


Me:  (Sighly deeply) "No, I didn’t have them sent to you. I get them too—they send them to everybody who’s over a certain age.”

Mother: “Well, I don’t need them.”

Me: “Fine.”

[Pause]

Mother: “What are they playing?”                    

Have a "Shee-itty" Day

The other day I was, once again, in a store fitting room confronting my image in the mirror. This time was a bit more pleasant than the last foray into shopping hell because I actually was successful (!) in my quest to find something I liked that seemed to fit and didn’t cause me too much anguish in the process.

However, the lady in the room next to me had to have been experiencing a more trying situation.


(They don’t call it the try-on room for nothing. You try and try and if you get lucky, something might fit.)


Time and again I heard the clack of a hanger being put back on one of those metal hooks, accompanied by a defeated sigh that sounded like a combination of frustration and despair. The first time I heard it, I just attributed it to possibly fatigue on the part of the lady. But it continued with one article of clothing after another.


I certainly felt sympathy toward whomever was in the cramped room next to me, but I also had to smile because it reminded me of a shopping excursion with my mother when I was probably around twelve or thirteen in the late 1950's.


I don’t remember which store we were in, but memory (such as it is) seems to indicate it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a “high end” department store.


I think we were in one of the “cheapo” stores like Woolworth’s, but I can’t imagine why we would be in the dressing room there unless they were having a real good bargain on training bras or something. At that age, I hardly needed one, with a bra size of 28AAA—which translates to “barely discernible to the naked eye.”


But, in the tween-ager, hope—and hopefully, breast buds—spring eternal.


At any rate, we were crammed together in a little dressing room which was quite warm and littered with straight pins and cardboard collar inserts. A woman and at least two little kids were in the room next to us. Apparently the adorable tykes were acting up that day and most likely had just had a head-banging fit in Ladies’ Foundations. The poor woman was attempting to try on some clothes, but the combination of unruly kids and ill-fitting garments just got the better of her.


The kids were wailing and fighting, and in between the tussling we would hear their mother’s running dialogue, mainly consisting of these words in a kind of whine: “Weell, shee-it-uh!”


My mother and I marveled at the way she could draw out that one syllable word into three distinct parts.  Her voice had a twang so the “Weell” started out in a higher register than rest of the epithet, and the final “uh” sort of dropped off a breathy precipice.


She continued to talk over the din of the kiddies.


“Here ah jest wonted tuh trah on sum clothes, and you jest…”


....and then she would be overcome with frustration and interject “Weell, shee-it-uh!” when words failed her.


This went on the whole time we were in our dressing room until we finally decided to leave before we all came out of our rooms at the same time. A situation my mother thought might be embarrassing for our embattled neighbor.


But then, maybe not.


It’s not that we didn’t feel sorry for her and her plight, but it all seemed so funny at the time.


When I became a mother, I ruefully came to appreciate her suffering.


Karmic payback can be ironic that way.


Anyway, the lady’s lament went on to become a catch-phrase between my mother and me. Whenever things were going wrong or something got out of hand, we would say...


“Weell, shee-it-uh!”


... and there would be instant understanding between us.