“Yes, we can accept Sharon into our brand new rehabilitation program – and Medicare will foot the bill.” What a relief! Everything had been at a standstill when
Sharon completed her last outpatient therapy, but what do we do next? My 19-year-old-daughter had suffered a cardiac arrest and was in a coma for several weeks. She was doing very well, but it seemed obvious to me that while she was still making progress, she needed continued stimulation. But every program that I called had an extensive waiting list, and I was terrified that she would “plateau” and the progress would stop.

It was a stroke of luck that I noted the announcement of the opening of the Paoli Hospital’s new rehabilitation program. What made this even more exciting was that Sharon and I had just moved into a new apartment that was across the street from the Bala station of the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. My mind was racing. Sharon could get on the train here and in 10 minutes she could exit at the last stop – in Paoli, just across the street from the hospital. Wow! Maybe I could even get a part-time job and start to live my life again.

The next morning we went to Paoli to register, but were soon faced with another challenge. When I told the outpatient administrator of our plans, she said “We will not accept Sharon unless you bring her here every day and spend the day with her here. You must take her from one class to the next and you must go with her to the cafeteria to get her lunch.” My protests and pleading that Sharon could do this on her own fell on deaf ears. Nothing I said would change her mind. So, for two weeks I followed their rules and was bored to tears.

While driving home on that last Friday, we passed a Kmart, and I had an idea. We went in and I bought knitting needles and several skeins of navy blue wool. At home, I cast on stitches and knitted a few rows to start a wool scarf.

On Monday morning I drove Sharon to the hospital and I sat down in the lobby and started to knit. I worked on it all day, never leaving to be with Sharon. By Wednesday afternoon, I had about 14 feet of scarf lying on the floor. That afternoon the out-patient coordinator came over to me and asked what I was doing, and how long this scarf be when it’s finished. I asked her how Sharon was doing without my help – or hadn’t she noticed. “Oh, she’s doing fine. Now that I see that, I can see why you wanted her to take the train by herself. Yes, beginning tomorrow morning she can come in without you.” The blue scarf had served its purpose.

PATRIOTIC REALITY

"My country Tis of Thee..."
One brown eye
One gaping hole
One purple heart

"Sweet land of Liberty..."
One childless mother
One fatherless child
One purple heart

"Of Thee I sing..."
One television blurb
One newspaper line
One purple heart

"Land Where my Fathers Died..."
One knock on the door
One chaplain in black
One purple heart

"Land of the Pilgrims' Pride..."
One nameless face
One faceless man
One purple heart

"From Ev'ry Mountainside..."
One for you
One for me
One purple heart

"Let Freedom Ring."

Autobio.
Week 10
Definition

Carolyn C

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

My mother knew what she wanted and went after it. The only one of her siblings to receive a higher education, she went to college and became a teacher. A hard job in those days. In her one room country school, she arrived early each morning to carry buckets of water into the coat room from the old well in back of the school. She scrubbed the dusty wooden floors, and stoked the wood stove which gave warmth to the room during the cold Iowa winters. She was loved by her students because she never missed a recess. She joined in their games and could throw a mean overhand pitch when the older kids wanted to play softball.

I don’t believe that my mother wanted to remain a school teacher all of her life. She wanted to avoid the social stigma of being an old maid; definition: an unmarried female twenty-five years old or older. She most especially wanted to avoid being an old maid school teacher.

She began dating my dad when she was twenty-one years old. Dad was twenty.
A short time later, Mom must have decided that she wanted to hear wedding bells instead of school bells and the sooner the better. But the marriage was still seven years into their future.

If it is true that opposites attract, my mother found her true opposite in my dad.

He was quiet, she liked to chatter.
He liked routine, she loved variety.

He had a serious side, she was playful.
He liked to stay home, she loved adventure.

He liked to save money, she liked to spend it.
He was cautious and careful, she was a free spirit.

His humor was dry and witty; hers was an easy childlike laughter.

To add to the challenge of building their relationship toward a future together, the Great Depression added hardships of its own. That had a way of changing everyone’s plans and goals.



My dad, also, knew what he wanted and worked toward his goal. He was a young cashier in the most conservative bank in the county. His goal was to put off marriage until his careful calculations assured him that it was a wise and affordable venture. His secure future was being mapped out by the president of the bank and my dad chose to stay the course. (His determination paid off when he became Executive Vice President and major stock holder many years later).

What I don’t think my mother fully realized was that by becoming a wife, she would give up much of her independence, where her determined free spirit would try to soar like a bird with a wounded wing. In the 1930s, our culture expected a housewife to work in the home, not outside the home. The big decisions were made by the man, the head of the household. After marriage, a wife climbed into a housedress, the uniform of wives during that era. I wonder if the dress might have felt like a strait jacket to some? In spite of the life changing adjustments that were required, most women made it their goal to gain the new title of Mrs. My mother was one of them.

My determined little mom made a choice, and never looked back. There were times when she was frustrated with dad, when she should have been consulted, but wasn’t. And when power struggles surfaced, it appeared that mom gave in, most of the time. She always told my sister and brother and me that her family was the most important thing in her life and she wouldn’t ever trade places with her girlfriends who remained old maid school teachers. That assured me that she was content with her decision to marry my dad.

My parents shared a deep respect and love for each other that lasted almost sixty-five years.

I don’t know if my mother had a predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease or if she began to feel invisible and useless. In her later years Mom’s symptoms were alarming. For two years my dad gave my mother loving 24 hour care at home. He took over her household duties, learned to cook, and patiently answered her repetitive questions. And in those two years he suffered four heart attacks.

When he had the last heart attack, he told my brother, who lived next door, that it would not be safe to leave our mother alone. She rebelled when my brother took her to our local nursing home. He told her it was temporary. That was probably the hardest thing my brother ever had to do.

Dad’s condition was more serious than anyone realized. His doctor gave him two decisions: have a triple by-pass surgery or live with the present situation, which was to continue to take the strongest medication available and wait for the next heart attack. My dad, at the age of 90, chose to have a triple by-pass heart surgery.

The night before Dad’s surgery I asked him how he made his decision.
“Honey,” he said, “I don’t have a choice. My job is to take care of Mom and I’ll do that just as soon as I can return home.”

While Dad was recovering from heart surgery, Mom’s doctor requested an evaluation of her condition in a hospital. The diagnosis was not a surprise to any of us: Alzheimer’s symptoms with depression. We found the best Alzheimer’s secured facility in the area for Mom, one that was close to my sister, who visited her every day.

I told Dad that I’d be there when he got home from the hospital. I left my teaching duties and classroom for a week and flew home. With tears in his eyes, my dad shared this, “Mom wasn’t here waiting for me this time. The first time she wasn’t here.”

Dad continued to live at home in the house that he and Mom had occupied for over sixty years. I flew home often, stayed with Dad, and when he felt strong enough I’d drive him to visit Mom. Mom kept her sweet spirit and childlike innocence in spite of the cruel disease. There were precious few moments when Mom seemed to recognize my dad. Those were painful times for him. He chose to remember their good years.

Mom lived another year and a half in the facility in my sister’s town. Two weeks before her death, our entire family observed her 93rd birthday together. Without anyone expressing it verbally, we all knew that those hours would be our last together on this earth. Pneumonia finally robbed Mom of life. In May of 1999, she quietly transferred from this life into the next.

My Dad lived four more years, staying in their home, determinedly riding his exercise bicycle five miles every day, and expressing gratitude to my brother for his daily presence. I never heard my Dad say a negative word or unkind remark about anyone.

During his last year, he had pneumonia and for an unknown timeless moment, his heart stopped beating. In a vision or a dream, he saw my mother waving to him as she stood on the other side of the river Jordan. Beginning to walk across an illusive bridge to the other side, a loving presence told him that there was one more assignment that he needed to complete on earth. He felt a heavy sadness as he returned to his earthly body. His recovery was slow.
He never knew exactly what that assignment was, but he knew that God would work out the details. There was apparently, someone, somewhere on earth, that needed to share some time with my Dad, listen to his wisdom, lighten up with his wit, and learn about his faith in God.

One time he told me that if given the chance to live his life over again, he wouldn’t change a thing. That sounds like he was contented with all of his life decisions. His strong faith played a huge part of that journey.

Just short of his 96th birthday, in May of 2003, his new heart gave out. He received his transfer to his new life; his last assignment completed.

by
Reiss

He is a man of music, not noise. He is not driven by need, but molded by choice.
********
Little man you’re crying,
I know why you’re blue,
Someone took your kiddy-cart away.
Better go to sleep now,
Little man you’ve had a busy day.”

I could not hear or understand the words. I was too young to understand a lyric and was not hearing the sounds from her mouth or vocal chords, the sound was from deep inside her chest. The hypnotic motion of the old oak rocking chair and the sound that came from Mama’s chest, as my head was pressed to her breast, were part of babyhood and early childhood. It was the most comforting place a baby could be. It is my earliest memory of Mama and her singing that song.

Mama sang when she was happy, sad, distressed, worried or holding a baby, hers or any baby lucky enough to enjoy her warmth and boundless love for children.

That song was as much a part of my life as eating, sleeping and any of the other things babies do. As I grew older, Mama sang the lullaby and she stroked my fingers. She would whisper to me, “Finally, I will have my pianist. You will play and you will play beautifully for me.” For her, the die was cast.

She had managed, somehow, even when “times were hard,” to provide lessons for my older siblings but none of the lessons, as she put it, “took.” It was up to me. She began the campaign very early, and just assumed I would share her enthusiasm for the piano and become what she wanted most in life, a child who played the piano and who might someday become a concert pianist.

Hiding in the shadows, but soon to emerge, was the child Mama should have had, my cousin, Jobert. He, at the age of three, simply sat at the piano and played. He was what Mama dreamed of, a child prodigy. He, before he could enter kindergarten, was playing Mozart, quite creditably. I was encouraged to sit and watch Jobert play. Dutifully, I did. I watched. I listened. I was awed. I was intimidated and decided, without verbalizing it to anyone, that I could never match Jobert’s skill and talent. The Self Fulfilling Prophecy was in place.

One day, the nuns finally agreed I was old enough for lessons at the prestigious University Junior School of Music. Without missing a session, I rode the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar to lessons every Tuesday and Thursday evening and to student recitals every Saturday morning . In May, each year, we were dressed in white linen suits, stiffly starched white shirts and pink neck ties, paraded before our parents and friends in the spring recital. When I finally played one of her favorite Chopin etudes in the spring recital, Mama cried, audibly, as she sat in the front row of the cavernous auditorium. Her child was playing the piano, on a large stage, before a large audience. Life was good. God was good.... Daddy was not.

Days later, for the first time, I heard the word “separated.” Daddy left and Mama found herself alone with her children, and this beautiful woman who was born to be a princess, decided it was time to go to work. Her pride would not allow her to accept assistance from anyone, so off she went, by bus, every day, to work in a factory making canvas awnings. She had five kids who were all doing well in private schools and one who was studying the piano. Life was acceptable.

Sister Letitia, the nun who sang her words, chirped merrily, “You are a good boy and you have a God- given talent.” I, on the other hand, was acutely aware of Jobert and his god-like talent. God may have grinned on me, but he smiled broadly on Jobert. How could I ever play as well as he? For him, the piano was an extension of his arms. His fingers seemed somehow attached by a flexible fixative to the keys and the sounds that came from his piano were miraculous. The sounds that came from mine were made by a nicely talented kid. He was especially adept at Mozart and the comparisons were regularly noted. He was another Mozart. He was a genius. He was a prodigy. He was as nutty as a fruitcake! I decided the one thing I could do better than he was to be gentlemanly. When he ranted and raved, made his mother’s life a living, musically accompanied, hell, I was always quiet, obedient and gentlemanly. Jobert, in one of his fits of genius, was known to have bitten a black key from his teacher’s piano. The more his reputation grew as a mad genius, the harder I worked at being a “nice child.” Unfortunately, niceness, alone, does not a concert pianist make.

Still, I worked and eventually was fairly good at the piano. I was made to accompany the children who sang in school pageants, allowed an occasional solo, and was, “the nice kid who played the piano.” I was not Jobert. This was not what Mama wanted or deserved. Faithfully though, she was always in the first row, handkerchief at the ready for the tears that flowed with the first note I played in a recital, school pageant or concert.

Mama worked. Mama scrimped, but there was never enough money, Eventually, she had to watch the pennies very carefully. Food, clothing, school and piano lessons were the most important things. It was never considered we give up private school and go to the public school that was less than a block away from the house. We had to stay in Catholic school. She had to pay the tuition, buy the uniforms, pay the fees for every breath we took at that school. It was not easy.

One day, as we sat around the kitchen table discussing the money problems, I uttered the unthinkable. I could give up the very expensive piano lessons. Silence. When everyone’s composure was intact, the subject was very conveniently changed.

The months went by. The money got tighter. Entertainment was limited to in-home events. We ate less fancy desserts. We went to the Rivoli theater less often. The amount of money dropped in the collection basket at Sunday Mass was reduced. The piano lessons went uninterrupted. I could never tell anyone, especially Mama, that I’d be perfectly happy without the trips to and from the Junior School of Music. I was growing tired of the regimen, the streetcar ride and, especially, Singing Sister Letitia.

Television was a greater draw than Bach. A swim in the lake was more refreshing than Schubert. Popular music was more fun than Liszt. When I voluntarily sat at the piano, it was to play the popular songs and ditties from sheet music I bought at Werline’s music store on Canal Street. Slowly, ever so slowly, I withdrew from classical piano music. Openly, I began to admit I preferred to listen to music than make it. Jobert was no longer my Mozart. I was no longer his Salieri. I could be happy. I could listen to and love the sound of music.

The years went by, I finally convinced Mama there was more to life, for me, than the piano. She surprised me and accepted it with a smile and just asked that I just play a Chopin etude for her once in a while. We were all happy.

Today, I am a retiree with a piano rusting away in the living room. I promise myself, and it, that I will, one day, have it tuned and stroke its keys. The only time I played, seriously, in the years before before Mama died, was the occasional etude I struggled through for her enjoyment. She did not care that I played poorly. To her, it was Chopin at his best.

Oh, Jobert had a wonderful career.... as a postal clerk.

III
‘Til Death Do Us Part

Every Sunday I phone my sister Gail in Toronto just to let her know I care. Today Fred answers, says Gail doesn’t want to talk, she is very upset. She has been diagnosed with colon cancer and will have surgery in a few days. Other than that, he says, everything is fine.

I talk to her in the hospital after the surgery. She says she’s surprised that she’s still alive.
Then she complains about not getting enough pain medication or attention from the nurses. Two week later Fred takes her home. A visiting nurse is schedules for daily visits to help with the colostomy bag and to help Gail take care of herself. I don’t know why, but Gail absolutely refuses the nurse. She wants only Freddy to touch her. I don’t know how Fred feels about dealing with the bag but he is doing it. Good old Fred! But then she is moved to a nursing home because she needs more care, she says. I’m not surprised that Fred can’t do it all. He says he visits her twice a day to cheer her up.

Last Wednesday he didn’t go for the afternoon visit because he wasn’t feeling well and went to the doctor. His diagnosis is advanced colon cancer. He has had no symptoms; at least he never mentioned any. A week later Fred is dead on the operating table.

Freddy was Gail’s anchor in the storm that is her life. She is completely distraught and angry. My wife is on a trip so I have to fly to Toronto alone to help my helpless sister. She can’t remember where they buried Fred’s father and I find no clue in the paper chaos of the apartment. That information probably got shoveled out during the big house clean up. The hospital social worker helps me find a double plot at a near-by cemetery. Gail has given herself over to an all-consuming anger and curses God non-stop. If he were any good, why would God take Freddy away from her, she demands. Only Gail, the rabbi and I are at the funeral. I warn the rabbi to mention God as little as possible in his graveside address. Only the ride in the limousine distracts Gail and she looks happy during the ride to and from the cemetary. Then despair reclaims her.

Gail cannot live by herself and I look for a refuge for her. The Jewish Home for the Aged has a large, pleasant room for her and she hates it. She hates it and she hates everything, everywhere. Before I fly home I take her to a fancy restaurant. It’s the only thing I can think of that might please her and she does make an effort to be pleasant. Before I leave she insists on putting the pearl necklace I gave her into the safe instead of wearing it.

Three weeks later Gail is dead at 59. This time only the rabbi and I stand at the grave. Each shovelful of earth makes a dull thud on the coffin. Rhoda Gail and Freddy rest side by side, in death as in life. At the old age home I am handed Gail’s suitcase. Her pearls have disappeared from the safe. Everything is too bizarre to understand.