Category Archives: Caregiving

Side Dishes

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Mom flew off to “infinity and beyond” six years ago this month. Truth be told, it was rather a rude time for her to leave because it was just after Thanksgiving and her birthday and just before Christmas.

I mean, come on. Aren’t anniversaries of a profound loss bad enough without all the side dishes?

I meant that figuratively, of course. But there’s also a real side dish story mixed in here.

Every year since I was a child, Mom made this incredible Jell-O mold for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It’s a three-tier, tangy delight made with strawberry gelatin, frozen strawberries, crushed pineapple, mashed bananas, and a center layer of sour cream. When I started hosting holiday dinners, she passed the mantle to me.

It’s a simple recipe. So simple that there are no “Notes from My Mother” to reference. Neither she nor I ever bothered to write it down.

From time to time after the dish became my responsibility, I stumbled with the amount of water to add. But, inevitably, Mom came to the rescue in person or on the phone. Our exchange actually became a sort of comedic tradition during the last 12 years of her life when she lived with me. I never failed to ask her even when I didn’t truly need a reminder.

Then she died, and I was left without a written recipe and without Mom to ask when the water measurement eludes me. Most years I still get it right. A couple of times I’ve misjudged, and the gelatin hasn’t set. This Thanksgiving was one of those times.

To be fair, I could ask my sister in another state. She does have the thing written down. Yet, I have stubbornly refused to call her. I’ve finally figured out why.

Mom had a fear that, when she died, it would be like she was never here – like her life didn’t matter. Of course, that is so far from the truth that it’s laughable. She gave birth to me, raised me and my siblings while struggling with challenges I was oblivious to, and was always my biggest fan and supporter.

Still, I can’t shake the memory of her fear. I constantly find myself doing things to prove her wrong. The Jell-O mold is one of those things. It’s symbolic. If I ask my sister and write down the recipe, then it doesn’t matter that Mom isn’t here to remind me. But it does matter. So I don’t ask. And I never will.

Guessing has become a new comedic tradition. Will I get it right this year? Or will it slide out of the mold into a soupy, yet delicious, treat? I’m happy either way because it’s really not about the Jello-O. Rather, I like to think that Mom is around, watching me, and knowing how much she mattered – not just in the big picture but in the little side dishes that make up an incredible life.

Quiet Sleep and A Sweet Dream – Revisited

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Five years ago this month, in September 2013, I took my mother on her last outing. It was nothing extraordinary. We went to a doctor appointment, ran a few errands, and ate lunch at her favorite Mexican restaurant. Perhaps if we had known it was the last time we would be out together, we would have done something more purposeful, more memorable. Nevertheless, it was. That day, out of the blue, she told me that soon she would be leaving. Despite the fact that she was elderly, in poor health and wheelchair-bound, she remarked matter-of-factly that she would walk out the front door of our shared home and head down the sidewalk, carrying everything she needed in a small bag. A few months later she did leave. Just not on foot. She left on the wings of a dream and, in her memory, I am republishing the blog I wrote about her departure. Herewith is “Quiet Sleep and a Sweet Dream.”Dream (3)

Throughout her adult life, Mom experienced a recurring dream that was poignantly revealing. In the dream she roamed the halls of a school, unable to find her locker or her classroom. She was always lost, always searching, never finding. One hardly needs to consult a dream interpreter to understand the obvious meaning behind her unresolved quest. To think that she was perpetually adrift, unable to find her heart’s desire, was reminiscent of an ancient Greek tragedy.

Toward the end of her life, Mom also suffered from vivid nightmares. Many times I would hear her during the night or during an afternoon nap fighting against someone or something that posed a threat. She could rarely recount the experiences when I woke her, but judging by the flailing and yelling, the danger must have seemed very real. Sometimes she was so enmeshed in these dreams that it was difficult to break the spell. When gently touching her shoulder or softly calling out “Mom” didn’t work, I resorted to shouting her name, “Joy!”

One day just before she was admitted to the home hospice program, she was able to recall a particularly powerful vision. It began harmlessly but ended in disturbing cries that drew me to her bedside. Her story is still clear in my mind.

I was with a bunch of other people by the water. I’m not sure whether it was the ocean or a lake, but there was a pier. I’m pretty sure the people around me were my brothers and sisters. Sam (her late husband, my father) was in the water and he wanted me to get in. He kept laughing and trying to coax me, but I didn’t want to go. Finally, he grabbed me and pulled me in. Everyone was laughing, but I was really mad.

Dream (2)

As with her recurring dream, this one did not require hours of thoughtful analysis. She simply was not ready for the end of this life … or on the flip side … the beginning of a new one. The hospice social worker she shared the story with concurred without hesitation. I was quietly concerned because I knew Mom did not have much time left to prepare. The ethereal boat was going to leave the pier with her aboard regardless of whether she wanted to go. I shuddered to think that she might die flailing and shouting – figuratively if not literally – as though she were in the middle of another bad dream.

The day inevitably came, of course, when she traded her hospital bed for a seat on that ghostly vessel bound for the Other Side. By that time, though, I was no longer worried that she wasn’t ready. Long after she stopped talking to us, my sister and I heard her pose two important questions to no one that we could see. I was alone with Mom for the first question. My sister was alone with her for the second.

Where are we? Where are we going?

Although she displayed some typical signs of near-death anxiety in the days leading up to her departure, Mom was entirely calm and peaceful when she asked these two questions. Her eyes were closed to the mortal world. There was no trepidation in her voice whatsoever.

I can’t think of anything she could have said in her last hours that would have given me more comfort. The answers would be interesting, but the questions are solace enough. Evidently, she went somewhere with someone.

Dream (6)The idea that our loved ones depart on a journey of mystical proportions is not without basis. Religious beliefs aside, it is a fact that the dying use travel as a way of expressing their impending departure without even realizing it. In their 1992 book Final Gifts, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley documented multiple examples of patients who exhibited near-death awareness in this way. Mom could have been one of their case studies. Out of the blue, about three months before she died, she told me that one day I would come home from work and she would be gone – out the front door, walking and carrying everything she needed in a small bag. I thought she was joking as she so often did, but her voice was somehow different. Faraway. When I questioned her scenario, she was indignant. I let it go, and we didn’t talk about it again.

Today, with about 17 months of bereavement under my belt, I still miss my mother terribly. However, I don’t worry about where she is. I don’t picture her splashing around with my father in a lake or the sea near a pier, nor do I imagine her walking down the sidewalk of our neighborhood with a hobo sack slung over her shoulder. I don’t think of her futilely roaming the halls of a school because I think that, in the end, she finally located the elusive door of her locker or classroom and found paradise inside. No, I have embraced another vision – one that she shared with me on a sunny morning after she awoke from a quiet sleep accompanied by a sweet dream.

I was riding a motorcycle down a winding road with tall trees on both sides. It was getting dark and all I could see clearly was the headlight of the motorcycle on the road as I went around the curves. I don’t know where I was going, but I could feel the wind in my face and I felt free.

Dream (1)That is how I like to think of Mom – on an endless sojourn with no particular destination. I can imagine her long, dark hair blowing in the wind and a beautiful smile on her youthful face. She leans right into one curve, straightens out her bike, and leans left into the next turn. She is free.

And maybe freedom is the real point after all. Not where you are going or how you get there.

When our family gathered to scatter Mom’s ashes at her beloved Oregon Coast, we took some time to play and sing the songs she had requested – Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan, Tender Years by John Cafferty, Around and Around by John Denver, Always by Irving Berlin. I read a little poem she wrote when she was a child about wanting to be a cowboy. We wrapped the tribute up with a piece by the late British poet laureate John Masefield; a poem Mom had loved since she was old enough to read and appreciate classic prose. I could never deliver it in the resounding, dramatic way she always did, but it was the perfect farewell nevertheless.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, and the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, and a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied. And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, and the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, to the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife. And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

On this Mother’s Day 2015, my long trick writing Notes From My Mother has come to a natural end. I have shared all of the posthumous notes Mom left me and have posted some additional stories that fit in nicely with the theme. As of today, I am going to suspend my weekly entries in order to follow my maternal muse down a different path of remembrance. If you look back at my October 2014 column titled “Don’t Forget Our Secret Handshake,” you’ll get a clue about what is to come. I expect to check in periodically while my sister and I work our way through this other exciting project. For now, I thank you for reading these stories about my beautiful, funny, sometimes weird, always wonderful mother. And I wish you all – wherever you are – quiet sleep and a sweet dream.

Dream (8)

A Few Less Columns on My Spreadsheets, Revisited

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Last September when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I posted an essay in this space about a vivid dream with an important message from my mother. I condensed her rather eloquent advice into something akin to a pop culture metaphor.

“I should have a few less columns on my spreadsheets.”

For those not schooled in the addictive powers of Microsoft Excel, the basic translation is that I should dial down my natural tendency to over-analyze everything. Appropriately, the software reference is also reminiscent of my mother’s characterization of me as “queen of the spreadsheet.” It’s a moniker earned by my penchant for using Excel as a tool to create order out of the inevitable chaos that is life. I had to laugh when, looking

Spreadsheet Queen

The Spreadsheet Queen

through pictures for something to post with this column, I ran across a 2008 photo in my mother’s files of … you guessed it … me working on a spreadsheet. That one was a budget for a family wedding.

In the first few weeks following my cancer diagnosis, I clung to my mother’s posthumous wisdom like a mantra. I didn’t want to research traditional treatments vs. alternate treatments or weigh my options against prognosis charts. I didn’t want to write pro and con lists or forecast outcomes using elaborate software formulas that resemble physics equations. I just wanted to do what my doctors recommended and pray for strength and grace. And I did.

I’m not sorry I took that stance. It was a good approach for someone whose emotions were raw and whose brain was on overload. It got me through the initial shock and the surgery.

However, once I felt more like myself again, I couldn’t suppress my own nature. In fact, I came close to being a complete failure at that resolution. It doesn’t really surprise me. I spent most of my public service career planning, developing, implementing and evaluating programs, and I’ve spent my most satisfying personal hours digging into topics that interest me and writing stories. Why should this experience generate a lesser response?

My first project was to research traditional treatment for Stage 1 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. What I learned led to a couple of tough decisions. With my family’s blessing, I was prepared to reject chemotherapy if recommended. It was not. I was also prepared to reject radiation, which was pushed in a rather uncompromising fashion by a stern cancer radiologist who I’ve come to remember as Dr. Humorless. She wasn’t the reason I rejected radiation, but her demeanor certainly didn’t help sell me on her service. The one traditional treatment my research did convince me to accept is a hormone suppressant since my brand of cancer thrives on estrogen. I may not want to try to kill the beast by radiating every good cell around a few bad ones, but I don’t want to feed it either.

With those decisions made, but still no spreadsheets on my laptop, I turned my attention to reducing the risk of recurrence through nutrition. In the seven weeks since my retirement, I’ve read dozens of articles, watched multiple videos, and referenced some highly rated books on this broad subject. The volume of information is staggering. Unfortunately, some of it is also contradictory or suspect.

Take sugar for example. One claim, backed up by legitimate scientific studies, says sugar encourages cancer cells to grow. When I read that a few weeks ago, I was so shocked that my first impulse was to try to cut sugar out of my diet and write about it in this column. Since then, I’ve found reliable sources – like the Mayo Clinic and the MD Cancer Center – that don’t consider sugar consumption a bonafide risk.

In the end, I decided to trust my oncologist. She says, yes, if you inject pure sugar into the tumor of a lab mouse, the tumor will grow significantly. In real life, for humans, you would have to eat massive amounts of sugar to create the same effect. Instead, she regards sugar as a contributor to obesity, which is a known cancer risk. It’s not necessary to give it up entirely, she says, but Americans in general should eat much, much less. Naturally occurring sugar is not harmful; it’s the added sugars in processed foods that are ubiquitous and risky.

I’ve also read with interest about so-called super foods that combat cancer. There is truth to claims that apples, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables contain nutrients that help prevent or inhibit cancer growth. There is also truth to studies that show the primary benefit of consuming these foods is not to fight cancer, per se, but to promote overall wellness. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and many other maladies have a tougher time taking control of a healthy body.

Some experts point out that, like sugar, we would have to eat massive quantities of a particular super food to truly make it singly effective against cancer. That’s not to say we shouldn’t consume them. Quite the opposite, in fact. I added pomegranate seeds and Brazil nuts to my shopping list after reading about their potential cancer benefits, but not to the exclusion of many other healthy foods that will help me trim down, bolster my immune system, lower my blood pressure, and generally feel good.

As I’ve educated myself about sugar, super foods and other nutrition strategies, I’ve simultaneously become very wary of the plethora of videos and articles posted on the Internet by people who introduce themselves as doctors but are actually clever entrepreneurs. All I will recommend, if you are inclined to click on something like “the five foods you should never eat,” is to further research any claims these people make. Almost without exception, they want to sell you something. The Internet is littered with predators out to make a buck.

Inevitably, I suppose, a couple of weeks ago I began to toy with the notion of entering all of my most reliable findings into a spreadsheet to try to isolate the best ways to approach nutrition as a cancer survivor. I could almost hear the sound of a needle scratching across a vinyl record when that idea came to an abrupt halt. It was the moment I noticed that two resources I trusted had completely opposite viewpoints on coffee and caffeine consumption. One recommended restricting caffeine to no more than 50 milligrams per day from coffee or any other source. The other said that caffeinated coffee consumption in normal amounts for Americans (e.g., up to 400 milligrams or four cups per day) is not a concern as long as every cup isn’t loaded with creamer. In fact, the latter resource said, some research indicates coffee consumption might actually be beneficial for cancer patients.

As soon as I saw those completely different schools of thought from two trusted resources, I knew I was done. I suddenly and vividly remembered my dear mother nodding when I said in my dream,

“You mean I should have a few less columns on my spreadsheets?”

This doesn’t mean I will never read another word about nutrition and cancer. What it means is that I’m going to implement the big takeaways from the research I’ve done and otherwise go on with my life. Quite honestly, I have better things to do with whatever time God grants me than obsess about everything I eat. It’s become a source of stress and, guess what, that is also a known cancer risk.

The big takeaways, if you are interested, are what we’ve been told by many respected nutritionists for many years. I don’t claim to be a subject matter expert myself, but it’s hard to argue these points.

  • Eat a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, legumes, nuts and fish. Go heavy on the fruits and vegetables and light on everything else.
  • Use healthy fats like olive oil and coconut oil in your recipes.
  • Stop eating food that isn’t real food. At the top of my personal list are margarine and artificial sweeteners. By definition, margarine is “imitation butter” and an artificial sweetener is a “synthetic sugar substitute.” Imitation and synthetic have no place in a healthy diet. Based on my research, I’m striving to stick with organic butter and sweeteners like raw honey, raw stevia leaves and dark amber maple syrup (formerly known as Grade B). The closer a food is to the way nature produced it, the better.
  • Don’t try to lower your caloric intake by choosing reduced fat foods. What the manufacturers do to these foods to make them taste good with less fat is simply not healthy. Look it up or take my word for it; it’s better to just eat less of the real thing.
  • Limit processed foods, which typically contain large amounts of sodium and added sugar. Your sodium and sugar intake should mostly be from the naturally occurring nutrients in the original food.
  • Avoid foods that include preservatives and chemicals you can’t pronounce. The only things on the ingredient list should be real foods whose names you recognize.
  • Buy certified organic foods. Stop eating pesticides, antibiotics and any food that has been genetically modified.
  • If you need to lose weight, exercise portion control and get your body moving. Don’t rely on diet foods or diet aids.
1 - Mom and Me 19540001

Mom and me shortly after my birth in March 1954.

These are my big takeaways. And I don’t need a spreadsheet to convince me that they are sensible takeaways. If I happen to run across anything else that seems equally sensible, I’ll share it. Otherwise, I’m satisfied with my analysis. I’m not going to over-think this.

If I’ve learned anything from my brush with cancer, it’s that our days are not promised. Time is too precious to spend it doing anything that doesn’t give you joy. It’s not lost on me that my mother gave me her first name as my middle name. It’s a daily reminder of what she always wanted for me. JOY. Thank you, Mom. Message received.

 

Fat, Fat, the Water Rat

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My mother was fond of catch phrases, song lyrics, movie quotes and other familiar axioms from popular culture. Repeating these at apropos moments not only helped define those moments but also cemented memories of similar ones.

In her posthumous notes to me, delivered on fitting occasions by family co-conspirators, she documented dozens of her favorites. I have used each and every one of them in this column as a means of preserving stories about her and our nine-year relationship as caregiver and care receiver. Just this morning I noticed that one was missing.

Fat, Fat, the Water Rat

I remember Mom reciting this when she was in a self-deprecating mood about her weight, when I was about to indulge in some ill-advised sugary treat, or when one of our pets grew a little too rotund for his or her own good. She wasn’t using it to bully anyone as kids apparently did on the playground once upon a time. It was just the first line to an old song she remembered from her youth; one that she quoted when the circumstances seemed to call for it.

At any rate, the phrase came to mind this morning when thinking about my health. Next week I have to go in for my first routine blood draw to determine if there is any cancerous activity brewing anywhere in my body. I have to admit, it’s nerve-wracking even though the tumor they removed from my breast last fall was very small, and I’ve been on a cancer suppressing drug for the last few months. I keep thinking about the random microscopic cancer cells they found in one of my lymph nodes and try to silence the “what ifs.” It’s much more productive to think about the things I’m doing outside the medical arena to discourage a recurrence.

Which brings me back to Fat, Fat, the Water Rat.

The entire time I was taking care of Mom in our shared home in the Nevada desert, I told myself that I needed to work on weight loss and physical fitness to avoid the many maladies that plagued her. Diabetes runs in our family and is fueled by obesity. Mom was an insulin-dependent diabetic. Heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney disease and osteoarthritis are also caused by or exacerbated by excess weight. Mom was under a doctor’s care for all of these issues.

So, of course, I was keenly aware of the chance I was taking by carrying around much more weight than I should. But there was one risk that escaped me.

Breast cancer.

Did you know that?

I didn’t. Not until I was diagnosed with it.

Mom and Laurie - October 2013

Mom and me in October 2013, about two months before she passed away.

When Mom was alive, I did try to lose weight a few times and a couple of times I was successful. Invariably, though, something always happened to derail my progress. Stress, an injury or an illness (mine or hers) would pop up, and the pounds started coming back. I finally gave up when she was in her last year of life. She was my priority. Period. Then, for the first couple of years after she died, I was too grief-stricken and, coincidentally, under too much pressure at work to even think about self-improvement.

Finally, in January 2017, I took the plunge. I joined a well-respected diet program online, started walking regularly, and by the end of August had lost 44 pounds. That’s when I scheduled my first mammogram in six years, and my life forever changed. At first, it was a whirlwind of tests, surgery, consultations, decisions and overwhelming worry. Worry about my future, our finances, our kids, our grandsons, and how my husband would cope if things got ugly. Eventually, after the initial shock passed, I took matters into my own hands and read everything I could find about traditional treatment and alternatives. That’s when I learned about obesity and breast cancer.

As it turns out, fat cells create estrogen. My particular form of breast cancer – invasive ductal carcinoma – eats estrogen.

If you’re overweight, let that sink in for a moment.

As soon as I read this, I renewed my commitment to weight loss and fitness. I was able to lose another eight pounds before the end of 2017 despite the challenges of recovering from surgery and the temptations of the holidays. I gained a few pounds back the first couple of weeks of January when I continued to snack on high-calorie leftovers and skipped some of my daily walks due to the flu. But, when I uncovered another sobering fact while digging into the role of nutrition in cancer recurrence, I quickly got back on track.

What was the sobering fact?

Sugar – which I love as dearly as it loves my thighs and my belly – is cancer’s friend.

German Nobel Prize winner Dr. Otto Warburg first discovered the connection between sugar and cancer in the early 1920s. After more than 40 years of research and study, he presented findings demonstrating that the fermentation of sugar suppresses oxygen in body cells, which promotes cancer growth. Another study released just last fall by a team of Belgian scientists says the same thing. The best explanation I found is from a New York Daily News article written by Dan Gunderman and published October 18, 2017.

“Scientists explain the customary way non-cancerous cells get energy – through a process called aerobic respiration, where digested food is transformed into energy-filled molecules. The process … requires oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. Cancer cells, however, do not fall in line with that biological process. Instead, cancer cells harness energy from fermenting sugar. This means sugar can ‘awaken’ cancer cells and make them multiply and expand.”

Sugar can awaken cancer cells and make them multiply.

Oh my gosh, this is scary stuff. Sugar is omnipresent in the average American diet. I know it is in mine. Even when diligently dieting last year, I managed to include it in my meal plans and stay within the allotment of points my weight loss program allowed. I knew that sugar is a major contributor to obesity, but I figured it would be OK as long as I kept it under control. “Everything in moderation,” as the saying goes. The fact that I lost weight while consuming modest amounts supported my theory. I didn’t know about the cancer connection.

With these two ghastly realities about fat and sugar fresh in my mind, I’m now working on identifying the foods I should be eating to continue to lose weight and further reduce my risk of cancer recurrence. As you might expect, it’s mostly about fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats. There are also some so-called “super foods” that bear consideration. However, I’ll leave the details for another column. Today I just want to spread the word about the two very important things I didn’t know but wish I had.

Fat cells create estrogen. Breast cancer (at least my variety of breast cancer) eats estrogen.

Sugar not only contributes to obesity but can encourage cancer cells to grow.

Laurie - January (2)I thank the good Lord that Mom never had to deal with cancer on top of everything else that plagued her. She was certainly a prime candidate for it, just as I was. Hopefully, I learned about the risks of fat and sugar in time to save myself further health issues in my retirement years. Time will tell. For motivation, I’m going to make a little sign and tape it to my bathroom mirror. Thanks, Mom, for the quote.

Fat, Fat, the Water Rat

A Few Less Columns On My Spreadsheet

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A little more than four months after my mother died, I had a vivid, intense dream about her.

That characterization appeals to most people, which is why I use it. However, if I’m truthful, from my perspective it was not a dream; it was a visit. I’ve had enough of these kinds of nocturnal journeys after the death of a loved one to know the difference between a misty, rambling, illogical fantasy that is easily forgotten and a genuine encounter filled with stunning detail and brilliant color that is inscribed in memory. This was most decidedly the latter.

Either way you chose to look at it, there was a message in the experience for me. How do I know? My mother said so.

Mom was sitting on her bed surrounded by presents all wrapped in blue paper and ribbons. I asked, “Is it Christmas?” She said, no, it was the Awakening. Since this visit occurred after I went to sleep on Easter Day 2014, the correlation made perfect sense, as did her counsel about love and renewal. Then she said there was a message in the Awakening for me. To paraphrase, she said I shouldn’t be so analytical about everything.

Her advice made me chuckle. The older I have gotten, the more I have approached every significant decision with detailed research, painstaking work to forecast outcomes, and plenty of agonizing internal and external debate. My pro and con lists are on steroids in multi-tab, colored-coded, formula-driven Excel spreadsheets. Mom didn’t call me “the spreadsheet queen” for nothing. In the dream, I asked her …

“You mean I should have a few less columns on my spreadsheets?”

She smiled and said, yes, that’s pretty much what she meant.

Regular readers of this column may recall that my June 18th edition this year was all about reaching a coveted milestone in my recovery from the grief surrounding Mom’s death, the loss of my sweet Springer Spaniel, and career-changing events at my place of employment. In a nutshell, I had finally come to the joyful realization that there was still life ahead for me!

I kept an additional twist to myself but, while writing that column, I understood with a pleasant jolt that I had entered into the Awakening my mother had referenced during our visit in dreamland. I’ve literally been walking through a time of love and renewal these past nine months. I love myself again, I’m optimistic about the future, and I’ve been busy renewing my body by losing weight, getting fit, and catching up on neglected wellness and prevention activities. I feel more like myself – both mentally and physically – than I have in several years. It’s amazing and energizing.

In a movie, this is where you would hear dark, foreboding music. The main character doesn’t hear it. She is blissfully unaware that her life is about to change. All you can do at the theater is cover your eyes and peek through the cracks between your fingers. All you can do right now is read on.

On August 17th, I had my first mammogram since 2011. They called me back the following week, but I wasn’t the least bit worried. “It’s just been a while,” I thought, “and they need more images to compare.” However, after upgraded 3D pictures and an ultrasound, the radiologist looked down at me with her magic techno-wand still in hand and said gently, “You have cancer.” I actually think she said, “a little cancer,” but all I heard was “cancer.”

Everything after that was surreal. I didn’t absorb a thing that was said to me by the appointment scheduler, but I somehow managed to book a biopsy for the next day. I went back to work but couldn’t think, so I confided in two close friends – one in person and the other on the telephone. I met a couple of my cousins for lunch as they were passing through town and, after they swore to keep mum, told them at the end of our meal. I saw my husband at the restaurant, too, but he was lunching with his department director and co-workers, and I didn’t want to distract him. Instead, I broke the news to him and our grown children that night.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t say, “I have cancer,” to any one of these precious people. The radiologist had said it with no reservations. What she saw on the screen was definitive. But I said, “The doctors think I might have breast cancer.” I maintained that stance until the biopsy results came back the next week. Then I had no choice but to say it out loud.

The first night after the radiologist confirmed her diagnosis, I woke up every hour with one thought in my head, “I have cancer.” I imagine it was my unconscious mind working overtime to help my conscious mind believe it. That was essential since everything moves at light speed after a diagnosis like this. I had very little time to wallow in shock, denial and anger. Acceptance had to come quickly so that decisions could be made.

It’s now been a month since that first mammogram – the day a routine wellness check morphed into a life-altering medical condition. I’ve done a little reading on the internet to better understand breast cancer; being careful to avoid anything about prognosis and risks. I’ve gotten words of wisdom from two very close friends who are breast cancer survivors and suggestions from a few friends stricken with other varieties of this dreaded menace. The Cancer Resource Center associated with our local hospital gave me a wonderful book that literally answers a hundred questions, of which I have read about a dozen. My surgeon patiently presented every option; repeating information whenever necessary during our 30-minute encounter. Yesterday I took an hour or so and got a handle on the expenses associated with the diagnostics and surgery.

During this process I have not constructed one single spreadsheet. I have not designed formulas that estimate costs within a fraction of a cent or that compare the benefits of this treatment vs. that. I have not ranked my choices with a DEF CON color coding system or created tabs that categorize options and establish priority. There isn’t even a rudimentary pro and con list on my home desk. This time – this life-changing time – I am listening to the sage advice of my dearly departed mother and am not being so analytical about the situation and my choices. Instead of …

“a few less columns on my spreadsheet”

… there will be no spreadsheet at all. There will be only prayer for strength and grace, coupled with hopeful trust that the good Lord will help me see the blessings in this experience and make it count for something in my life and perhaps in the lives of others.

My lumpectomy with sentinel node biopsy (the most common choice of women in similar circumstances) is scheduled for Friday, September 22nd. I will let you know what happens as soon as I am able.

Make the Most of Your Time

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A New Chapter

Through the years, I have come to regard life as poetry. Between each hopeful sunrise and blushing sunset, the universe expertly weaves a melodic sonnet that perfectly reflects the infinite beauty of all that surrounds us and flows through us.

The prerequisite for this harmonic perspective, I believe, is an awareness of life’s poetic moments. When recognized, such a moment can teach a lesson, validate a decision and even serve as a compass. The most powerful experiences can affect you forever, as was the recent case when I was decluttering my bookshelf and found an unfamiliar hardback called My Time by Abigail Trafford.

Thinking the book was a potential candidate for the donation box I was filling, I wondered, “Hmmm. What’s this one about? I don’t remember reading it. Where did I get it?” I slipped it off the shelf, opened the front cover and saw familiar handwriting. The inscription from Christmas 2004 read …

Make the most of your time. Mom xxxooo.

My Time Message

I drew a quick breath and read the book jacket. It said, in part, “This generation (ages 55 to 75) is the first to experience the period of personal renaissance in between middle and old age. (The author) skillfully guides us through the obstacles of My Time and shows us how to reinvent ourselves in these bonus decades.”

Immediately, I felt the power of the moment. I had stumbled upon a posthumous note from my mother! No, it was not one that she wrote during the last weeks of her life and entrusted a family member to deliver at an opportune time (as were most of the notes that have fueled this column). This note was more profound, more ethereal than that. Written more than a dozen years ago, the message waited patiently inside that important book until I was ready to embrace it.

And, indeed, I was ready. The timing was so precise, so perfect that it left me awestruck. Clearly, it was synchronicity at its best.

Mom’s death in December 2013, in the very room where I now write these words, affected me deeply. Early on, I didn’t know how I could carry on without her. Even when the feeling passed that I may as well have died, too, it took many agonizing months to reach that place of “the new normal,” which in recent years has become the coveted nirvana for anyone suffering a loss.

Piled atop my grief about Mom were the passing of my sweet, old Springer Spaniel in September 2016 and a problematic shift in leadership and organizational culture at my longtime workplace. There was little I could do about the sorrow surrounding Katie’s death except wait for time to work it’s magic. At the office, I took the advice I had always given others. If you are unhappy, it’s up to you to make a change.

A transfer to a different job in the same state department helped for a while. In fact, voluntarily moving into a position with much less responsibility gave me time to focus on myself for the first time in a decade. I joined Weight Watchers and began to take long, purposeful walks in the evenings after dinner. The pounds I had accumulated through years of stress eating and a sedentary lifestyle began to melt away, and the solitary walks gave me time to think. It was on one of those walks that I suddenly realized I had finally passed a previously elusive milestone. There actually was going to be life after Mom for me! It took more than three years, and I honestly didn’t see it coming, but I had finally arrived at the summit of my long journey. It was such a surprise, such a defining moment, that I almost expect to see an “X” marking the spot on Ryegrass Road in our neighborhood.

Around that time, some disconcerting issues at the office led me to another realization. A different job, on what was essentially the same organizational chart, was never going to restore the joy I once took in my work. After much soul searching, I decided to leave public service as soon as I could develop a viable plan. The biggest obstacle, of course, was my budget. Retiring before age 65 meant a financial sacrifice. I went on the hunt for a low stress, private sector job to supplement my pension. The day after I picked up an application for a position that fit my criteria, I found the book. That moment … that indescribably poetic moment … changed everything; most importantly my attitude. I threw the job application in the trash, stopped planning an escape and started planning a life.

My Time

Just 15 pages into My Time, I began taking notes on post-its and pasting them like tabs so I could easily return to certain passages. Information about the landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development, directed by Dr. George Valliant, captured my attention like nothing else had in a very long while. I could see myself in the stage called Generativity, which typically involves giving back, and in the stage called Keeper of the Meaning, which involves tying the past to the future.

Both personally and professionally, I highly value the future as well as the past. I’ve often said that raising two children who I regard as superlative adults is the single most important thing I have ever done or will do on this planet. And, as a leader, mentoring my staff and preparing them for their turn at the helm is consistently at the top of my priority list. Equally important is passing on family history at home and imparting lessons learned at the office.

Until I saw myself in Abigail Trafford’s book, I didn’t regard my interest in heritage and legacy as anything other than a personal passion. Now I understand that it’s part of life; part of being human. It’s an especially great motivator in one’s later years when most of us begin to truly grasp the reality that our time here is limited.

My Time didn’t change my mind about retirement. What My Time did was inject excitement into the possibilities of life after retirement. I am blessed with a well-developed sense of Generativity. I am the Keeper of the Meaning; that’s so me. Doggone-it, I still have something to give! What an incredible awakening! Between now and the end of the calendar year when I step out of public service, I intend to transform these cherished gifts into my new life’s work. I intend to dream and hope and create. I intend to take risks. I intend to live.

Sometimes I wonder why Mom gave me Abigail Trafford’s book. Here is what I know. At Christmastime 2004, Mom was in the midst of a health crisis. We had lived together for three years, I was taking her to see specialists of all kinds, and she was enduring a laundry list of tests to determine the cause of her distressing symptoms. We wouldn’t know for two more months what the problem was and how to address it. Once we did, her health improved, and she lived another nine years. But on Christmas Day 2004, when she gave me that book, she probably thought she didn’t have much time left herself. I imagine she looked back on her life, regretted the things she didn’t do, and wanted me to live with enthusiasm after she was gone. Mom didn’t talk much about her deepest, most personal thoughts, but gestures like this one were worth a thousand words.

I know I never read My Time until now. Not only was I busy taking care of Mom, but it just wouldn’t have interested me. When I unwrapped that Christmas gift a dozen or so years ago, I had just hit my 50s, still had a long career in public service ahead and was still zealous about my work. How grateful I am that I kept the book all these years. How poetic that I randomly picked it up at a major crossroads in my life. How I appreciate Mom for somehow nudging me from the other side …

Make the most of your time.

I will, Mom. I promise you. Your baby girl isn’t ready to settle into a rocking chair just yet. To borrow a popular quote attributed to writer Hunter S. Thompson, I don’t intend to arrive quietly at my final destination. I will “skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a Ride’!”

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Quiet Sleep and A Sweet Dream

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Dream (3)Throughout her adult life, Mom experienced a recurring dream that was poignantly revealing. In the dream she roamed the halls of a school, unable to find her locker or her classroom. She was always lost, always searching, never finding. One hardly needs to consult a dream interpreter to understand the obvious meaning behind her unresolved quest. To think that she was perpetually adrift, unable to find her heart’s desire, was reminiscent of an ancient Greek tragedy.

Toward the end of her life, Mom also suffered from vivid nightmares. Many times I would hear her during the night or during an afternoon nap fighting against someone or something that posed a threat. She could rarely recount the experiences when I woke her, but judging by the flailing and yelling, the danger must have seemed very real. Sometimes she was so enmeshed in these dreams that it was difficult to break the spell. When gently touching her shoulder or softly calling out “Mom” didn’t work, I resorted to shouting her name, “Joy!”

One day just before she was admitted to the home hospice program, she was able to recall a particularly powerful vision. It began harmlessly but ended in disturbing cries that drew me to her bedside. Her story is still clear in my mind.

I was with a bunch of other people by the water. I’m not sure whether it was the ocean or a lake, but there was a pier. I’m pretty sure the people around me were my brothers and sisters. Sam (her late husband, my father) was in the water and he wanted me to get in. He kept laughing and trying to coax me, but I didn’t want to go. Finally, he grabbed me and pulled me in. Everyone was laughing, but I was really mad.

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As with her recurring dream, this one did not require hours of thoughtful analysis. She simply was not ready for the end of this life … or on the flip side … the beginning of a new one. The hospice social worker she shared the story with concurred without hesitation. I was quietly concerned because I knew Mom did not have much time left to prepare. The ethereal boat was going to leave the pier with her aboard regardless of whether she wanted to go. I shuddered to think that she might die flailing and shouting – figuratively if not literally – as though she were in the middle of another bad dream.

The day inevitably came, of course, when she traded her hospital bed for a seat on that ghostly vessel bound for the Other Side. By that time, though, I was no longer worried that she wasn’t ready. Long after she stopped talking to us, my sister and I heard her pose two important questions to no one that we could see. I was alone with Mom for the first question. My sister was alone with her for the second.

Where are we? Where are we going?

Although she displayed some typical signs of near-death anxiety in the days leading up to her departure, Mom was entirely calm and peaceful when she asked these two questions. Her eyes were closed to the mortal world. There was no trepidation in her voice whatsoever.

I can’t think of anything she could have said in her last hours that would have given me more comfort. The answers would be interesting, but the questions are solace enough. Evidently, she went somewhere with someone.

Dream (6)The idea that our loved ones depart on a journey of mystical proportions is not without basis. Religious beliefs aside, it is a fact that the dying use travel as a way of expressing their impending departure without even realizing it. In their 1992 book Final Gifts, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley documented multiple examples of patients who exhibited near-death awareness in this way. Mom could have been one of their case studies. Out of the blue, about three months before she died, she told me that one day I would come home from work and she would be gone – out the front door, walking and carrying everything she needed in a small bag. I thought she was joking as she so often did, but her voice was somehow different. Faraway. When I questioned her scenario, she was indignant. I let it go, and we didn’t talk about it again.

Today, with about 17 months of bereavement under my belt, I still miss my mother terribly. However, I don’t worry about where she is. I don’t picture her splashing around with my father in a lake or the sea near a pier, nor do I imagine her walking down the sidewalk of our neighborhood with a hobo sack slung over her shoulder. I don’t think of her futilely roaming the halls of a school because I think that, in the end, she finally located the elusive door of her locker or classroom and found paradise inside. No, I have embraced another vision – one that she shared with me on a sunny morning after she awoke from a quiet sleep accompanied by a sweet dream.

I was riding a motorcycle down a winding road with tall trees on both sides. It was getting dark and all I could see clearly was the headlight of the motorcycle on the road as I went around the curves. I don’t know where I was going, but I could feel the wind in my face and I felt free.

Dream (1)That is how I like to think of Mom – on an endless sojourn with no particular destination. I can imagine her long, dark hair blowing in the wind and a beautiful smile on her youthful face. She leans right into one curve, straightens out her bike, and leans left into the next turn. She is free.

And maybe freedom is the real point after all. Not where you are going or how you get there.

When our family gathered to scatter Mom’s ashes at her beloved Oregon Coast, we took some time to play and sing the songs she had requested – Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan, Tender Years by John Cafferty, Around and Around by John Denver, Always by Irving Berlin. I read a little poem she wrote when she was a child about wanting to be a cowboy. We wrapped the tribute up with a piece by the late British poet laureate John Masefield; a poem Mom had loved since she was old enough to read and appreciate classic prose. I could never deliver it in the resounding, dramatic way she always did, but it was the perfect farewell nevertheless.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, and the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, and a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied. And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, and the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, to the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife. And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

On this Mother’s Day 2015, my long trick writing Notes From My Mother has come to a natural end. I have shared all of the posthumous notes Mom left me and have posted some additional stories that fit in nicely with the theme. As of today, I am going to suspend my weekly entries in order to follow my maternal muse down a different path of remembrance. If you look back at my October 2014 column titled “Don’t Forget Our Secret Handshake,” you’ll get a clue about what is to come. I expect to check in periodically while my sister and I work our way through this other exciting project. For now, I thank you for reading these stories about my beautiful, funny, sometimes weird, always wonderful mother. And I wish you all – wherever you are – quiet sleep and a sweet dream.

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Life Is Just A Bowl Of …

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Forrest Gump famously said that his mother compared life to a box of chocolates because you never know what you’re going to get. My mother had an opinion on life as well, but it was a little more fruity. Depending on the circumstances, life could either be a bowl of cherries or a bowl of cherry pits.

Last Note (12)In the latter half of the 1980s, Mom and I repeated the cherry pit version often. We would laugh each time we said it, but it wasn’t really very funny. During those years, Mom lost her little home on a forested acre with a creek running through it because she couldn’t afford to install a dedicated water system as the bank required for refinancing. That meant she was unable pay off a 10-year mortgage balloon on her private contract, and the house reverted to the former owner. Also during that time, she spent the last year of her career working as the administrator of a nursing home that was in danger of closure due to licensing violations. The corporation she worked for gave her the assignment because they trusted her to bring the facility into compliance and, indeed, she did. However, the stress was monumental. All the while, she was living in a rustic geodome without water or heat on a friend’s property.

As for me, I was burned out as the editor in charge of the content of eight neighborhood newspapers in the city of Portland. Although it may sound like an important job, it didn’t pay particularly well. Neither did my husband’s job, so we were constantly counting pennies. At least we were when we were together. In 1988, we hit some bumps in the marital road and split up for several months. The same year, my mother-in-law succumbed to a six-year battle with lymphoma. That was in May. Two months later my father died unexpectedly during orthopedic surgery. My parents had lived apart for years, but his death hit my mother hard nevertheless. Looking back, it’s no wonder that she and I periodically shook our heads and, with utter resignation, made the cherry pit comment.

Last Note (11)By 1994, both of our fortunes had changed. Mom had retired and realized her dream of moving to the Oregon Coast. I had embarked on a more fulfilling and financially stable career in public service and happiness had been restored to my marriage. In a just-in-case farewell note I wrote and tucked away for Mom that year, I documented five rules of life. A few I’ve covered in this column because they were also among the posthumously delivered farewell notes Mom left for me. Live long and prosper. I’m the pretty one. A more uplifting version of Mom’s personal mantra, I’m the only one. In the Number One spot was the Joie de Vivre we had lost for a while.

Life isn’t always a bowl of cherry pits.

Whether you compare life to a box of assorted chocolates, to juicy cherries or to the ugly pits, the fact is that life is an ever-changing adventure. One day can be entirely different from the next. Grief is of the same nature.

Over the nine months or so since I started writing this column, I’ve sometimes gotten lost in the joy of remembering my beautiful, funny, sometimes weird, always wonderful mother. Some weeks, though, I’ve found myself slipping backward into sorrow. During those times, I would trade all the sleep and personal freedom I now have for the pleasure of helping her in and out of bed, escorting her to the bathroom, preparing her meals, managing her medications and otherwise caring for her 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

These past few weeks have been like that. I miss her so much that my heart aches. Even with other family and friends close by, I feel lonely. Talking to a peer the other day about the tough choices she is faced with concerning her elderly parents, I was secretly envious because she still has her folks … even if they are in fragile health. I want my mother back, gosh darn it.

It started because I discovered something tucked away in her closet that I didn’t expect. It was a surprise, a delight and a source of agony all at the same time. Three big scrapbooks full of memories.

I knew the scrapbooks were there; I just didn’t know what was in them. I found out while searching for documentation of a particular event in Mom’s life. I wanted to see if, by chance, she had saved the program from the Christmas Day party aboard the battleship U.S.S. Oklahoma in 1937 when she received her first doll. I didn’t find that particular item, but the pages were filled with so much more.

Last Note (2)Inside one of the scrapbooks were touching mementoes that celebrated both special moments and everyday occurrences. A postcard my father sent from the Gulf of Mexico in 1947 was full of passion and love, along with a P.S. to order a new lens for his glasses while he was away. A 1977 letter from my grandmother shared all the family news from afar. A pocket pasted to one page held poems, songs, quotations and toasts that Mom explained “all meant something and touched the inner me in some way.” Another pocket held a multi-page love story she wrote when she was a pre-teen. Roughly the second half of the scrapbook contained page after page of drawings, stories and cards from her children and grandchildren.

Last Note (9)Another of the three scrapbooks was home to dozens of examples of Mom’s artistic gifts, including a self-portrait etched in charcoal in 1949. I browsed through the drawings with interest and appreciation until one page stopped me short. I immediately felt a lump in my throat and tears stinging my eyes. I was looking at the faded remains of a once beautiful watercolor Mom painted for a community college class that we took together in the spring of 1974. Our instructor sent us into a wooded area adjacent to the campus and told us to paint what we saw. I was in front of Mom. She painted me amongst the tall trees and bushes. As I gently ran my fingertips over her brushstrokes, I was overwhelmed with longing to share the moment with her. Instead, I texted my sister, who said she knew about the contents of the scrapbooks since she helped Mom fill them. Even in a text, I was too choked up to say little more than, “Well, I did not.”

Last Note (8)My sister commented that, for Mom, the scrapbooks were “a work of undying love for her family.” How I miss that love right now. Friends tell me that the love is still there or that I will see her again when it’s my turn to Walk into the Light. Of course, there is truth in those words. But when I go into Mom’s bedroom, today’s reality is that she is not sitting in her recliner watching the birds in the trees that my husband and I planted by her slider. She is not napping peacefully in her bed with her oxygen machine rhythmically pumping nearby. She is not there to talk to me, smile at me, laugh with me or cheerily greet me with a lyrical, “Hello, Laurie Joy.” She will never be there again.

Never. For those coping with grief, that word cuts like a brutally honest knife. The only thing that can dull the pain is time. The most we can hope for is to cherish our memories and move on in a way that would make our departed loved one proud. Through this column, I have been able to bring my mother’s memory to life for family, friends and other interested readers. I’ve often felt as though she has been standing at my shoulder whispering in my ear, “Put in this. Don’t say that.” I hope that she is proud of the result.

Last Note (6)What I think she would most be proud of, though, is any success I may have in moving on with my life after 12 years of sharing a home with her and caring for her. It’s not an easy task, especially when every room in our house is filled with reminders that she is gone. But I am trying. I just have to remember that some days are always going to be better than others. As the late singer-songwriter John Denver once sang, “Some days are diamonds. Some days are stone.” And to paraphrase what Mom and I used to say …

Some days life is just a bowl of cherry pits. Other days you get the cherries.

Here’s to more days full of ripe, juicy cherries. As for the pits, well, I guess when you think about it, they aren’t really so bad. Pits are the seeds that grow into the trees that produce the cherries that fill the bowls. With apologies to Forrest, you can’t say that about a box of assorted chocolates.

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Beyond The Dead Cabinet

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Avast, me hearties! Last week, mustering my best online pirate impression, I invited you to accompany me on a quest for hidden treasure …

Beyond The Dead Cabinet.

If you didn’t read last week’s column, we’ll gladly stay at anchor while you browse through that tale of the cherished possessions residing behind the glass casements of a small curio Mom and I irreverently called The Dead Cabinet. The three shelves are a storehouse for trinkets that hold the keys to the kingdom when it comes to ancestral memories. Among other things, it is home to the wallet that was in my grandfather’s pocket when his body was found washed up on a beach after the only tropical storm to make landfall in California in the 20th Century. On the shelf below that is a well-loved Raggedy Ann that belonged to my husband’s little sister who mysteriously died in her sleep at the age of 13 in 1971. My father’s pipe, my grandmother’s spectacles, my father-in-law’s favorite blue hat – all these and more serve as introductions to stories that might otherwise be lost to the next generation and the next.

Be lively now! Haul in the boarding plank, raise the anchor and hoist the sails. Let’s skim the waves through stories associated with booty that won’t fit in The Dead Cabinet.

Dead Cabinet (14)As noted more than once in this column, my mother was a Depression-era child. She was also very much a product of World War II. The events of that momentous, four-year period naturally had a major impact on her values and character. One of her most cherished possessions, stored safely in her bedroom closet, is a touchstone for that time in her life. It’s her high school sweater. When I caress its coarse, red threads and stroke the thick white and blue “S42” emblem, I instantly float backward some 73 years. I may not have even been a gleam in my father’s eye yet, but the sweater doesn’t care about that. It’s a time machine for anyone who wants to take the trip.

Mom celebrated her 17th birthday just three days before the Japanese waged their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Unlike today when news of that importance would break on every television channel within minutes, it took more than an hour before the general public on the mainland started to become aware of the event. I imagine Mom missed the first announcement. More than likely, she was doing homework or helping her mother in the kitchen at 11:26 Pacific Standard Time (PST). Perhaps, though, her older brothers were listening to the WOR Radio broadcast of a football game between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Yes, it was a football game.) A sports announcer was excitedly describing a pass, catch, run and tackle when the play-by-play was suspended for the following message.

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. Flash. Washington. The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Dead Cabinet (15)Sixteen words to introduce a nine-word headline that would change the world. Imagine the shocked stares. Imagine the sound of squeals and static from old tube radios as listeners frantically turned dials, searching the airwaves for more news. They heard it through brief interruptions and then more lengthy commentaries on regularly scheduled NBC and CBS shows. Finally, they heard First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s call for courage during her regular Sunday radio broadcast at 3:45 PST. Just three hours later, the entire West Coast from the Mexican to the Canadian borders went black. No radio. No lights in businesses or homes. Even automobile headlights were extinguished. The next day radio broadcasts resumed and President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the nation. He recounted what was known about the infamous Pearl Harbor attack and announced additional attacks by the Japanese on the Philippines, Midway, Guam, Wake and other islands in the Pacific. There was no room for doubt that the United States was at war.

Two months later, in February of 1942, Mom sadly watched her Japanese-American high school friends shipped off to internment camps. They were forcibly removed from their homes on Terminal Island in East San Pedro and their entire fishing village, known as Furusato or “Old Village” was razed. That same month, a Japanese submarine unsuccessfully fired upon an oil field near Santa Barbara to the north. The next day an unknown object (or objects) spotted in the sky over Los Angeles triggered screaming sirens, a blackout, and the firing of some 1,400 artillery shells. San Pedro quickly transformed from a small fishing town into a major U.S. Naval Base. Concrete bunkers concealing 16-inch battle guns that could pitch a 2,000-pound shell 26 miles out to sea were built into the hillsides. People began to suffer from what the military called “war nerves” and were easily panicked. Mom’s photo album from that era tells the intensely personal side of her experience – her brothers in uniform, friends writing from battle zones, classmates killed in action.

The Perfect Thing (15)Mom never over-dramatized that time in her life. Other than the heart-wrenching story about her Japanese-American friends, most of the memories she shared were full of nostalgia and patriotism. Food rationing spawned creativity in the kitchen. A paper shortage prompted her senior class to forgo a yearbook. Those headed for graduation chose red, white and blue as their class colors. Mom’s red, white and blue class sweater is testimony to that choice.

The sweater is tiny and, studying it on its hanger, I wonder if it will even fit my slight-of-frame, 10-year-old grandson. Surely, it won’t fit me. My daughter tries it on and the sleeves do stretch around her normal-size arms. Together we get a sense of Mom’s diminutive stature at the age of 17, and somehow we can feel her plucky, young life force in the little garment. Not only that; but the turmoil of wartime is blended right into every stitch of that old, red yarn.

Mom isn’t the only family member who left behind a touchstone too large for The Dead Cabinet. My son is the proud curator of a handmade violin once played by his fraternal great grandfather. Its smooth curves and the rich sound it emanates when chalked horsehair is stroked across the strings can magically turn the clock back a hundred years.

Dead Cabinet (11)Dell Millard, my husband’s grandfather, was a prolific composer of beautiful hymns, an accomplished gospel singer with his own radio show, and a New Age evangelist decades before the Charismatic Movement of the 1960s. He helped developed the town of Shady Cove east of Medford, Oregon, and loved to hunt for, cut and polish unusual rocks. After a chapel that he built in Medford was removed to make way for a courthouse, he constructed a picturesque water fountain and bench from petrified wood that still welcomes Jackson County visitors. In recent years, every member of our family, from the oldest to the youngest, has gone on a quest from Nevada to Oregon to drink from that fountain and figuratively summon the spirit of our departed loved one. Standing there myself one summer afternoon with my husband, I pictured Dell on that very sidewalk dedicating the fountain to the pioneers of Southern Oregon and reading his poem called “Rocks.” It was June of 1945, World War II was coming to an end, and celebrations were slowly spreading around the globe. In Medford that day, the celebration was just for a simple fountain built by a simple man, but it was no less historic for our family.

Dead Cabinet (17)These days we don’t really have to go further than my son’s farm, 15 minutes down the road, to time travel with the aid of Dell’s violin. My sister-in-law turned the coveted instrument over to him three years ago this May. The violin was not in the best of shape but, after entrusting it to the healing hands of a local craftsman, it is glorious once more. The restoration revealed that it was made between 1910 and 1912 by a violin-maker in Minneapolis named L.H. Cornell. Dell probably bought it when he was attending a Minnesota university. According to the local craftsman, the quality is on a level with the legendary Stradivarius … without the life-changing price tag.

The Perfect Thing (12)Those details are fascinating but no more so than the man who played the violin. Judging by his entertaining short story about Freddy the Freckle-Faced Frog, his uplifting sermon about “The Greatest Thing You Can Believe,” and his heartfelt song about going home to “The Beulah Land,” Dell had a winsome spirit, was a profound thinker and, most of all, was a man of deep faith. He passed away a few years before I met my husband, but his legacy looms large in our family. If I have a guardian angel, I could easily imagine it being this tall, strong, gentle, reverent and wise man. When I hold his violin, I can not only imagine it; I can believe it.

The time-worn sweater, the glorious violin, the fountain made of petrified stone and other heirlooms too large for the shelves of a small curio are symbols that give generations past a place in the present. If the sweater had once been worn by the beautiful Marilyn Monroe or the violin had been played by the talented Itzhak Perlman, they might be of interest to pirates looking for valuable plunder. Never mind that. To the landlubbers in our family, they are more precious than gold. They are the keys to our ancestral kingdom. The touchstones that take us across the oceans of time to the sacred place that can only be found …

Beyond The Dead Cabinet.

The dedication plaque at the fountain in Jackson County, Oregon.

The dedication plaque at the fountain in front of the Jackson County Courthouse in Medford, Oregon.

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Mom and her friends show off their class sweaters. Mom is kneeling in front on the right.

The Dead Cabinet

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For at least the last decade, my living room has featured an unusual conversation starter known as The Dead Cabinet.

Although I am at times likely to curl my upper lip and offer “aargh, matey” as a gravely greeting, this wonderful curiosity has nothing to do with pirates. It’s not a reproduction of the Dead Man’s Chest where scurvy buccaneer Davy Jones stashed his broken heart. It’s not a rendering of a faraway Caribbean island where 15 men sang about a bottle of rum.

It is, however, very much a treasure chest.

Dead Cabinet (7)Safe behind three glass casements are keepsakes so precious that, in case of fire, I would likely choose to save them as soon as I was sure that people and pets were out of harm’s way. It’s not because any of these mementoes could add significantly to my bank account. They are, instead, an irreplaceable link to my family’s past. Dead men may tell no tales, but The Dead Cabinet surely does.

Mom and I bought the cabinet a few years after we began sharing a home in the high desert of Northern Nevada. During one of our Sunday morning coffee chats, I mentioned a long-time fantasy of creating a sort of family museum if ever I had enough space. It seemed so pointless to accumulate mementoes of lost loved ones and then keep them packed in boxes gathering dust in the garage. Mom’s eyes lit up.

We didn’t have enough square footage in our little, yellow house to devote an entire room to things that belonged to the dead, but we could certainly spare some wall space in our main living area. A trip to the local furniture store turned up the perfect size display cabinet fashioned like a lawyer’s bookcase. As soon as it was delivered, we both began unearthing treasures that hadn’t seen the light of day for decades.

Vintage jewelry, eyeglasses, Bibles, a well-loved Raggedy Ann, a pair of tiny antique baby dolls, a blue fabric hat, letters and postcards, trinket boxes, photographs, sheet music and dog-eared, yellowed documents all found a place on the shelves. As long as an item was handed down from a deceased relative, it was a candidate for the cabinet. Once we discovered that a small plastic Kewpie doll standing in one corner had actually belonged to my husband and not his departed sister, so out the little guy came. Exactly how and when we started calling the case The Dead Cabinet, I don’t recall, but it was typical irreverence for Mom and me.

There’s nothing irreverent about my adoration for what is in the cabinet, however. Every piece is a true delight. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be my grandfather’s wallet. Perhaps it’s because I never knew him.

Dead Cabinet (8)Mom was 14 years old when her father, Noble Cleveland Metzger, was one of about 45 people killed at sea during the only tropical storm to make landfall in California in the 20th Century. It was the proverbial “perfect storm” because the currents off the Pacific coast are very rarely warm enough to carry a Mexican hurricane that far north. The difference that day in September 1939 was that the area had just experienced a week-long, record-breaking heat wave.

In the absence of any kind of weather tracking system, the historic storm caught everyone by surprise when it whipped through the region with gale force winds and torrential rain. Onshore, cars floated down flooded streets past homes and businesses that had washed off their foundations. Offshore, pleasure and commercial boaters frantically fled for safe harbor when the pleasantly rolling sea suddenly turned into an angry, churning adversary.

A fisherman by trade, my grandfather was trolling aboard The Nina off the coast near Oxnard when the storm struck. The engine swamped and failed, but the captain of a nearby fishing charter loaded with guests came to the rescue and tossed a tow line. In a punishing shower of rain, salt water and foam, my grandfather steadied himself on the pitching deck, caught the line and lashed it securely to The Nina’s bow.

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Mom with her Pop, sister Carrie and friend Mr. Schneider.

At first it seemed that The Nina was out of danger, but it soon became apparent that both of the wildly rocking vessels would likely be lost if the tow line was not severed. Over the roar of the unforgiving wind, the two men desperately called back and forth. My grandfather begged the captain not to cut The Nina loose. The captain shouted an anguished, “I’m sorry,” and sliced the strained line. It whipped back toward my grandfather with violent force and broke his neck. He was killed instantly, his deck hand perished, and The Nina sank.

My grandfather’s body, with his wallet still in his pocket, washed up on the beach at Point Mugu a few days later. The distraught captain of the other vessel told the authorities and my uncles the details of the heartbreaking story. It was passed down to me through my cousin, Norm Metzger, from his father, Cecil.

The fact that my mother, the youngest of 10 children, ended up with my grandfather’s water-logged wallet is a blessing to me. It’s empty now except for the fine grains of sand leftover from that tragic day. Once in a while I take it out of its place of honor in The Dead Cabinet and run my fingers across the brittle, stained leather. I close my eyes and imagine my grandfather’s strong hands flipping it open to retrieve a dollar bill to buy chewing gum or soda pops for an entourage of children, and then slipping it back into his pants pocket. The vision connects me to a man I can only dream of through my mother’s stories, photograph albums, and documents discovered on genealogy websites.

Dead Cabinet (1)Of course, not every family keepsake from the past few generations will fit into one, small Dead Cabinet. Now that she has reunited with her beloved Pop, Mom actually has her own display case. We used to talk sometimes about what items she might like me to place in the original cabinet after she passed, but she left behind so many meaningful mementoes that I simply turned the tall curio in her bedroom into a resting place for a generous selection. Inside are elephant figurines, crystals, a charm bracelet, sparkling earrings that dangle to your shoulders, a white feather boa, old tin tags for dogs who crossed the rainbow bridge more than a half century ago, a bust she made in a long-ago art class, and a lengthy list of other memorabilia. The little brass bells she chimed to summon me after our relationship evolved into one of caregiver and care receiver have a special place in front.

Fittingly, Mom’s bedroom has become the quasi family museum that I once envisioned. The curio is the centerpiece, but the room is a cornucopia of heirloom furniture, photo albums, handmade quilts, fat scrapbooks and vintage clothing. Most of Mom’s bedroom furnishings also remain in their original places. I picture her watching from a safe distance, chuckling as she remembers a conversation we had when we knew her time was growing short.

“What are those black spots on the arm of my chair?” she asked as I prepared to help her transfer from her wheelchair to her lumpy, old, beige recliner.

“I don’t see anything. I’ll have to get down there.”

“Right there!”

“Oh. Those little spots? They look like ink marks. Your pen probably slipped when you were writing down your blood sugar.”

“Oh. Oh well. You’ll probably get rid of that chair anyway when I die.”

“No, Mom. Your room is going to be a shrine.”

“Well, in that case, you should buy a better bed.”

“What? Mom, you’ve waited until now to tell me you don’t like your bed?”

Priceless.

Priceless is also the most appropriate way to characterize the family keepsakes I’m fortunate to have amassed. They are like the keys to the kingdom in terms of our heritage. Clues in a vast treasure hunt through the roots and branches of the family tree. The elusive “X” every pirate seeks on his tattered map to buried booty.

Hold that thought while I curl my upper lip, clear my throat, and conjure up my inner sea-going scoundrel.

Avast, me hearties! Riches await ye. Meet me here next week. Together we’ll set sail and venture …

Beyond The Dead Cabinet.

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