It is June, and to me that means my mother’s birthday with a gift of a red rose bud and gardenia corsage. Much, much later her death and burial dates elbowed themselves into my cherished June. These last unwanted dates (please, please not in her June) began one Sunday afternoon, after all of us attended the three block meetings. She started hurting to the point that regular pain pills couldn’t quench the pain. We phoned her doctor and he said that she should be immediately taken to the hospital and this began the succession of her admission to American Fork and then Utah Valley Hospitals, her 90th birthday in the latter hospital along with her last Spanish food, (When she woke up the morning of her birthday—June 15th’, she asked Patty what the date was and when told she said, “ Now I am 90 years old?
Patty said, “ Yes, that’s right!”
Mother’s response to that was, “Why am I still alive then? Who would want to be older than 90?”), her yearning to return home (our place with her separate rooms) so she stay there and could see Nicky (our cocker spaniel dog, and Mikayla, her 16 month old great-granddaughter), Patty and I being with her (together and separately) during the hospital stay, Boyd’s visit, Marva’s visit (Patty needs to tell about this event.), her hip replacement (she tried to get out of bed unaided), her last Shakespearian quote, her release from the hospital and being transported home, her thinking that the hospice nurse was an insurance sellsman and so she refused to respond to her in any way (or even open her eyes) until after she left, Patty and my attending, medicating, turning, watching over, massaging (Patty), visiting with, coming when she called, and listening to her last breaths (but never telling her good bye.)
These days were filled with breathless moments.
One took place in the tiny hospital room that she occupied at the Utah Valley Hospital for a couple of days. It was so tiny that it was totally full with her bed and two chairs (one for Patty and one for me.) Patty was standing at the foot of her bed (probably massaging her feet and legs as she often did), and I was listening and visiting. Patty looked deeply into Mom’s blue, blue eyes and said, “ Mother, what are Janene and I going to do if you leave us?”
Without so much as pausing for a breath, Mother commanded, “You two will carry on!”
Patty and I both looked wide eyed at one another and then at Mother. She gave her head a decisive nod. That was that.
I have had plenty of time since then to contemplate on this conversation and have recognized the great challenge and responsibility of carrying, or trying to carry forth, her standard. Many times I have failed. I know and accept, though, that it is well worth a lifetime’s effort. Her standard could probably be stated in what I thought was her favorite scripture but turned out to be a quote from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. “This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not then be false to any man.”
My take on Mother’s practical application of this is: be honest, let your word be your bond, do what you say you’ll do, “neither a borrower or a lender be,” excel, expand your horizons, achieve, set goals, pay your bills, pause for beauty, help where needed, be loyal to your friends and family, welcome responsibilities, honor and recognize perfection, willingly serve, don’t gossip, row your own boat, accept that silence is golden, be consistent, etc. etc. etc. (As she quoted from The King and I,)
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Pete's War
I don’t know if I was 12 or 13 at the time, but it was after the trailer park failed and the space was open, and I could see out of our kitchen window down to the corner and to the house that sat on the other side of the street. They had a big pile of wood there. The wood was pine and had been cut about 18 inches thick and it looked like you could pile them one on top of the other and recreate the original tree. Of course, no one would ever do that. Instead someone would go out with an axe when wood was needed to burn in their stove. The stove was used to heat, not to cook. Someone would go out to the woodpile and split the wood into pieces small enough to fit into the belly of the stove. That someone was Betty Joe. She was a young mother with two boys and a husband who was dubbed Pete even though that wasn’t his name.
I was afraid of Pete. He mostly didn’t talk to me at all, and he walked with a swagger. When I reached my height of 5’6” I could almost look him straight in the eye, but he still managed to look down his nose at me. He was a real cowboy and had a barrel rigged up in his barn where cowboys gathered and tried their hand at staying on while four other cowboys pulled and jerked the long stretched tubes that were attached to the four inside corners of the barn. I never got to see this done first hand, but I heard about it and did sneak into the barn once to get a look at the contraption, and I could imagine the cowboys being thrown this way and that with one hand always up in the air as the rule demanded. My fear of him kept me from getting a second peak. He also rode broncos and bulls at the rodeos and was really good at it too. He owned horses. I greatly admired them-- from a distance.
I watched Betty Joe from my window when she went out and chopped wood. I can’t remember anyone helping her, but there might have been. She was a good chopper and could steadily slice off piece after piece. We had axes at our place. When I would see her go out and start chopping, I wanted to help. Actually, I think that I wanted to visit more than help, but offering to help would help me do both. I chose our one-headed axe and sharpened it in anticipation. The day came when she went out to chop wood. I checked to be sure that Pete’s pick up wasn’t there, and then I picked up my axe and walked down to her place and went to the wood pile, rolled out a piece of wood, and started to cut. I put in a lot of effort but couldn’t cut the slices like she did. She told me what to do differently, and with practice I started having some success. We had great visits as we chopped. It got so that every now and then I would go and help when I saw her out with her axe. We became great friends, and I learned to love her boys too. Soon I would go and visit with her as she cleaned her house etc. I would climb up on the big butane tank just outside of her kitchen window and tap on the window to get her attention. She would beckon me inside if she had the time or let me know she didn’t.
I, along with all of the rest of the town, heard when her youngest child got sick. The grapevine news told about headaches and loss of balance, about things getting worse, about taking him to Phoenix, about an operation because of a brain tumor, and about the child’s death.
Shortly thereafter, I was looking out of our kitchen window. I might have been drying the dishes or helping in the kitchen, but I might not have been because I wasn’t known for readily helping. Pete came out of the back door of their house with an axe in his hand, and attacked the woodpile. I imagine that, at this time, their young son was lying, in his coffin in their living room awaiting the funeral. I pictured the child, whom I loved, all dressed in white and still as only the dead can be, just like my brother had been in our house.
Pete angrily pulled a big piece of wood out of the pile and started chopping it. He swung the axe high over his head and brought it down hard. He did this over, and over, and over. The chips flew. I saw him swing the axe and cut into the wood, and then I heard the delayed sound of the hitting. On and on and on it went. Swing thud. Swing thud. Each thud hit into me as if it were connected to my line of sight. Each hit hurt me, but I couldn’t turn away. I was frozen in place and willingly took the hurt. He didn’t stop, he jerked piece after piece from the pile and avenged himself. I didn’t move, or take my eyes away, even though I felt I was witnessing something of a religious and very private nature. “Take that!” I imagined him saying. “That is for the pain my boy felt, and that is for my wife’s heart breaking as she watched him walk, and fall, and die. That is for my older boy losing his brother. That is for robbing me from watching him grow up. On, and on, and on it went, and I knew it was death itself he was cutting into pieces. I silently cheered him on.
Go Pete. Smash into death. Make him bleed. Give him no mercy, for he certainly showed you none. Beat him down; tear him to pieces and grind him into the dirt. Punish him; make him pay.
I wished, until the hurt was unbearable, that my father would have done the same thing when my brother was ripped away from our family. If only he would have taken a sledgehammer to the offending truck that had crushed the life from the boy. That truck could have chosen a thousand different ways to travel instead of over the child. Why didn’t it hold onto him, with door and running board, instead of shrugging him off and turning to end his life? I pictured my broken father smashing that sledge hammer into the truck over and over again and saying, “Take that. That is for robbing me of my four year old son, and that is for breaking my wife’s heart, and that is for my other children getting a forced lesson on life’s ultimate thievery.” I pictured my father driving the guilty truck to the edge of the canyon, getting out and letting gravity jerk it into motion down the incline and over the edge of the canyon, and watched Dad looking over the edge at the sacrificed truck, dead and useless, and feeling the satisfaction he felt knowing that it could never again destroy a life. That is not what happened. For our family, death won that day. It blinded my dad so he couldn’t see that everyone understood and forgave him even as they heard the news. It screamed into his ear that his carelessness could never be forgiven, and he believed. It raged that his life was over too, and he accepted, as just, the indictment and the sentence, of living the rest of his life in despair.
How I admired Pete as I watched those chips fly, and his attack continue. The assault continued, and somehow, the hurt I felt with each blow eased. Finally the chopping slowed and then stopped. The wood had all been cut, and I saw Pete bend over, lay down the axe, and put both hands on his knees as he took huge gulps of air. I knew that he was covered with sweat, even though I couldn’t actually see any at that distance. I was convinced it was running off of his face and falling onto the chips at his feet. The battle for that day was over and that Pete had won, but Pete knew,and I knew many, many more battles faced him. When he could breathe again, I watched him gather an armload of wood and start toward the house.
I was afraid of Pete. He mostly didn’t talk to me at all, and he walked with a swagger. When I reached my height of 5’6” I could almost look him straight in the eye, but he still managed to look down his nose at me. He was a real cowboy and had a barrel rigged up in his barn where cowboys gathered and tried their hand at staying on while four other cowboys pulled and jerked the long stretched tubes that were attached to the four inside corners of the barn. I never got to see this done first hand, but I heard about it and did sneak into the barn once to get a look at the contraption, and I could imagine the cowboys being thrown this way and that with one hand always up in the air as the rule demanded. My fear of him kept me from getting a second peak. He also rode broncos and bulls at the rodeos and was really good at it too. He owned horses. I greatly admired them-- from a distance.
I watched Betty Joe from my window when she went out and chopped wood. I can’t remember anyone helping her, but there might have been. She was a good chopper and could steadily slice off piece after piece. We had axes at our place. When I would see her go out and start chopping, I wanted to help. Actually, I think that I wanted to visit more than help, but offering to help would help me do both. I chose our one-headed axe and sharpened it in anticipation. The day came when she went out to chop wood. I checked to be sure that Pete’s pick up wasn’t there, and then I picked up my axe and walked down to her place and went to the wood pile, rolled out a piece of wood, and started to cut. I put in a lot of effort but couldn’t cut the slices like she did. She told me what to do differently, and with practice I started having some success. We had great visits as we chopped. It got so that every now and then I would go and help when I saw her out with her axe. We became great friends, and I learned to love her boys too. Soon I would go and visit with her as she cleaned her house etc. I would climb up on the big butane tank just outside of her kitchen window and tap on the window to get her attention. She would beckon me inside if she had the time or let me know she didn’t.
I, along with all of the rest of the town, heard when her youngest child got sick. The grapevine news told about headaches and loss of balance, about things getting worse, about taking him to Phoenix, about an operation because of a brain tumor, and about the child’s death.
Shortly thereafter, I was looking out of our kitchen window. I might have been drying the dishes or helping in the kitchen, but I might not have been because I wasn’t known for readily helping. Pete came out of the back door of their house with an axe in his hand, and attacked the woodpile. I imagine that, at this time, their young son was lying, in his coffin in their living room awaiting the funeral. I pictured the child, whom I loved, all dressed in white and still as only the dead can be, just like my brother had been in our house.
Pete angrily pulled a big piece of wood out of the pile and started chopping it. He swung the axe high over his head and brought it down hard. He did this over, and over, and over. The chips flew. I saw him swing the axe and cut into the wood, and then I heard the delayed sound of the hitting. On and on and on it went. Swing thud. Swing thud. Each thud hit into me as if it were connected to my line of sight. Each hit hurt me, but I couldn’t turn away. I was frozen in place and willingly took the hurt. He didn’t stop, he jerked piece after piece from the pile and avenged himself. I didn’t move, or take my eyes away, even though I felt I was witnessing something of a religious and very private nature. “Take that!” I imagined him saying. “That is for the pain my boy felt, and that is for my wife’s heart breaking as she watched him walk, and fall, and die. That is for my older boy losing his brother. That is for robbing me from watching him grow up. On, and on, and on it went, and I knew it was death itself he was cutting into pieces. I silently cheered him on.
Go Pete. Smash into death. Make him bleed. Give him no mercy, for he certainly showed you none. Beat him down; tear him to pieces and grind him into the dirt. Punish him; make him pay.
I wished, until the hurt was unbearable, that my father would have done the same thing when my brother was ripped away from our family. If only he would have taken a sledgehammer to the offending truck that had crushed the life from the boy. That truck could have chosen a thousand different ways to travel instead of over the child. Why didn’t it hold onto him, with door and running board, instead of shrugging him off and turning to end his life? I pictured my broken father smashing that sledge hammer into the truck over and over again and saying, “Take that. That is for robbing me of my four year old son, and that is for breaking my wife’s heart, and that is for my other children getting a forced lesson on life’s ultimate thievery.” I pictured my father driving the guilty truck to the edge of the canyon, getting out and letting gravity jerk it into motion down the incline and over the edge of the canyon, and watched Dad looking over the edge at the sacrificed truck, dead and useless, and feeling the satisfaction he felt knowing that it could never again destroy a life. That is not what happened. For our family, death won that day. It blinded my dad so he couldn’t see that everyone understood and forgave him even as they heard the news. It screamed into his ear that his carelessness could never be forgiven, and he believed. It raged that his life was over too, and he accepted, as just, the indictment and the sentence, of living the rest of his life in despair.
How I admired Pete as I watched those chips fly, and his attack continue. The assault continued, and somehow, the hurt I felt with each blow eased. Finally the chopping slowed and then stopped. The wood had all been cut, and I saw Pete bend over, lay down the axe, and put both hands on his knees as he took huge gulps of air. I knew that he was covered with sweat, even though I couldn’t actually see any at that distance. I was convinced it was running off of his face and falling onto the chips at his feet. The battle for that day was over and that Pete had won, but Pete knew,and I knew many, many more battles faced him. When he could breathe again, I watched him gather an armload of wood and start toward the house.
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