Mother's Day

The little girl on the left, Jane, in 1929 or so, became this young girl in the early 1940s:

Who became this mother in the late 1940s:

Who became a grandmother, a great grandmother, and this is the story of her at Sunset:

I found my room on the second floor, considered unpacking my small bag, but decided my clothes would suck up the smell if left  out, so I got out the pillow case and zipped the suitcase closed.  I had picked up a bottle of Fabreeze earlier.  I replaced the pillow case and sprayed the sheets, the carpet, the recliner, but everything still smelled of old feces.  Trying to sleep, I thought of Mom, down on the first floor, how difficult it was for her, especially since she kept everything so clean, and had such sensitive smell.  Hell, I was smoking cigarettes, and I couldn’t stand it.  The entire facility smelled like feces, struck you like something physical when you entered the foyer.   I suppose they all reek like that, assisted living facilities, old folks homes, their last home—no home at all.   I guess it’s what I have to look forward to, should I live that long.  When I asked my friend, Willy, what he thought about getting older, he replied after lengthy thought, “Well, if you get old, you’re lucky, I guess.”  That made sense back in my thirties, but now, I’m not so sure.

Typically, when I flew in from Alaska to visit Mom, I rented a two bedroom suite at the Marriott Courtyard and liberated her, sprung her from Sunset, if only for one or two weeks.  We gathered all her laundry and bedding and washed it at the Marriott, ate out or made simple meals in the kitchenette, watched T.V. and talked.  I took her to dialysis appointments, from which she emerged looking weak and beaten.   Sometimes they couldn’t get the bleeding stopped.  Her fingers would cramp applying pressure, and I would slide my fingers under hers.  Afterwards, she wanted to stop at a coffee shop for a café mocha or Frappuccino, even though it exceeded her fluid allowance.  I couldn’t say no, nor could I say no to anything else she wanted that wasn’t on the dialysis “smiley face” list.  She had suffered a stroke a few years back, had a bad heart, no functioning kidneys, and her feet were messed up, toes knarled into each other.  She had to use a walker, or I pushed her in a wheel chair. She didn’t have enough arm strength to wheel  the chair across carpet.  Not even eighty, but her body was worn out; her body, but not her mind.  She enjoyed those escapes, but especially my company: family, loved ones.  It was heartbreaking when I had to leave, gathering her stuff and taking it back to Sunset.  Once I left her at lunchtime sitting with her tablemates.  At the door, I looked back and she was hanging her head crying as the other old women stared into their plates—they knew.  Such sadness in life.  Sometimes I couldn’t wait to get out of there, but when I saw her crying, I saw her as a young girl, and from old photographs, a beautiful young girl.  I vowed to keep that in mind whenever I visited.   

With Mom at dialysis, I went shopping for groceries, did our laundry, and returned to Sunset for her plethora of medications and to work on her apartment, which had a small sitting area, television, kitchen all in one room and a separate bathroom.  The room had large windows that looked out on the back courtyard, and beyond that, a grade school where you could sometimes see the children. Of course, all guests had to enter through the main door and into the foyer, stop at the desk and sign. A young Vietnamese girl sat behind the desk.  She was pretty, and she knew it.  Her demeanor said, “I’m young, I’m pretty, I’m healthy, and you are not.”  The building itself was quite nice. It resembled a southern mansion from the front, with a wraparound porch, complete with rocking chairs; although I seldom saw anyone rocking.  Smell aside, the foyer was welcoming  with nice carpet , sofas , chairs and coffee tables, the dining room, also nice, off to one side, a TV room to the other,  with a staircase curving up to the second floor—although few could use it.  There was even a dog, a fat golden retriever lounging about who sometimes came to life and woofed at visitors, but never the old folks.  The foyer was a gathering place, mostly before and after meals.  The old folks chatted and read newspapers, or just sat quietly in wheelchairs.  Remembering John Prine’s, “Hello in There,” I stopped to talk or read newspapers with them, to look in their eyes and ask questions: do you have kids; where are you from; what kind of work did you do; were you in WWII or Korea, and so on.  One lady had been a ballerina, one man a sportswriter, and I met several school teachers.   It’s shocking, but they all had full and interesting lives to which one gained access by merely stopping: hello in there.

After visiting, I moved on with my Windex, Lysol, Fabreeze and paper towels to deep clean Mom’s room.  I borrowed the facility vacuum cleaner—to the amusement of housekeepers—and vacuumed everything in her apartment.  I could tell from one visit to the next that I was the last to clean under the bed, or behind this or that, and Sunrise wasn’t cheap.  Mom ran out of money, but my brother, Jerry, and I pitched in so she wouldn’t have to move to a state facility, certain horror for Mom; she still had her mind, but would have lost it at a government  facility.  She could hardly abide Sunset, but we made it as nice as possible.  Jerry and his wife furnished her apartment with quality furniture, I cleaned, and we let the staff know—in a non-threatening way—that we were concerned and watching.  You don’t want to complain too loudly in such places for fear of retribution against your parent.  It happens, even in the nicer homes, and there’s not much you can do about it.  So I deep cleaned and dusted, cleaned the windows inside and out, replaced light bulbs, thawed out the freezer, tightened things, spread potpourri, sprayed Fabreze.  Hers was the best smelling room at Sunset.  When she first moved in, the staff did her laundry and bedding, and it came back smelling of feces, smelling of Sunset.  She tried doing it herself, keeping her laundry separate, trudging up to the second floor, but the equipment stank, the dryer stank.  On my first trip, she couldn’t wait to gather it all up and take it to the Marriott.  Then my brother and sister-in-law, who lived close by, began taking her laundry home and returning it clean and smelling fresh—it meant the world to her, such a simple thing.  Mom had a dryer most of her life, but she still hung laundry outside, she liked it aired out.  I know it must be difficult in such places where every time they turn around there’s a wet spot on a sofa or the carpet, or some old guy has lost control of his bowels, but that’s the job: take care of them.  The government inspection report was posted by the front desk, as required, no doubt.  I read the few discrepancies the inspectors noted, and thought if that’s all they can find, they either don’t know what to look for or aren’t looking too hard.  Government inspectors should be required to spend a few nights every quarter—unannounced— talk to the old folks, listen to their complaints, eat and sleep there.

I ate with Mom and her tablemates several times and got acquainted with them, her few Sunset friends.  I sent them gifts from Alaska, simple things like coffee mugs, hats, knick-knacks, but receiving any kind of mail at a place like Sunset, especially a package, a gift, is a grand occasion that has everyone talking.  As I met more people, I never failed to send them something from Fairbanks when I returned, so that I became known as,” Jane’s son from Alaska.”  A couple times, I brought in a few dozen doughnuts from Dunkin’ Doughnuts for the old folks as well as the staff, and you would have thought it was gold.  I had an ulterior motive for that kindness.  Unless in church—her own church—or around relatives, Mom was very shy and not at all outgoing.  She was too timid to order at a restaurant.  My gifts, treats and willingness to sit at Sunset and eat in their dining room was, in some part, designed to make Mom known, to help her make friends, and it did.  At first, she spent so much time alone that my brother and I noticed a mental change; she saw and heard things that didn’t exist, at least not for me and Jerry.  She worked her way through that, and the friends helped.  They shared the same expectations, Mom and her tablemates:  their next visit from family.  And they shared the same dream: going home.  But they would never go home.  Although quiet, Mom listened hard, and was more savvy than most at Sunset.  Once at dinner, one of the old women talked about going back to her home, her own house, and Mom leaned over and whispered, “She doesn’t have that house anymore.  Her daughter sold it.”

The staff’s strong point was providing activities and outings: card games, movie nights, exercise, wine tasting and trips to local restaurants, for instance.  Even so, there’s not much to look forward to in such places.  A visit from family was number one, and mealtime a distant second, but mealtime drove the day.  As the dining room could not hold them all, they ate in two shifts, not necessarily rushed, but with no time to linger and little time for decision making, two things I found the old folks required.  The food was not bad, but the service was horrible.  It was inefficient, obviously unorganized, illogical, and so terribly slow.  For instance, if one of the entrees was a hamburger, the staff first served everyone their hamburger, then served the other entre, and then “maybe” came back around with the condiments required of any hamburger.  So the old folks had two choices, they could eat their burger warm without condiments or watch it grow cold for thirty minutes while trying to flag down a server.  It was the same with other food.  Eggs: no salt and pepper.  Soup: no crackers.  Salad: no dressing.  Coffee: no cream and sugar.  Sometimes, if I saw someone in need, I’d get up and serve them myself.  Other than being understaffed—which they were—the staff’s excuse was they could not leave condiments or crackers on  tables because the old folks would abscond with them, horde them in their rooms.  My feeling was, “So what?  Put out a barrel of crackers.  These people are paying a fortune to live here.  If you weren’t so stingy in the first place, they wouldn’t be hording.”  The service was slow, but the servers moved quickly when serving.  If they came through offering coffee or desert, the old folks had to have their wits about them and shoot that hand up right now, or the offer expired as quickly as it came.  Sometimes, anger and yelling resulted, but anger and yelling did not score points with the serving staff, and the staff kept score.  Too much yelling and uncontrolled anger, too much crying or too much helplessness, would buy you a ticket to the third floor.  Those on the third floor did not come down to dine.  It was a running joke, “Better behave, Josie, or they’ll put you on the third floor.” 

During her first two years at Sunset, Mom’s health was good enough for long outings.  She went to church with Jerry and Jan; in spring, they drove her around D.C. to see the cherry blossoms, and in fall, took her on a foliage trip.  Once, all of us loaded up, including my son, Eric, and his buddy and pushing her in a wheelchair, rode the metro to the D.C. Mall and spent the day in museums and touring the newly opened WWII Memorial.  Charlie, the middle brother, and his wife, Linda, made their first trip to the East Coast, and consequently took Mom with them on a meandering driving tour that covered a few states.   Her favorite activities at Sunset were church related, and she showed up whether it was the Catholic priest or the black lady who played piano, led singing, and then read from the Bible to the few  in attendance, which made no difference as two or more were gathered.  The black lady was her favorite and Mom brought her Bible and followed along, although she knew it by heart.  Those of faith gravitated toward Mom and she strengthened them in their last days, prayed with them, prayed for them.  

The scream of an ambulance was a daily occurrence at Sunset.  The old folks declined so rapidly, their last days came quickly.  On every visit, familiar faces were gone, or those who strolled the courtyard on my last visit now struggled with walkers, those who had used walkers now sat in wheelchairs.   Some went to the third floor.  Some departed in a silent ambulance.   Mom’s health declined as well.  She could no longer stay at the Marriott, so I decided to stay with her.  I slept on her recliner on one trip, and then learned that Sunset would sometimes rent vacant apartments to family members for short stays.  On the next trip, I rented the room on the second floor.  After my attempt to deodorize, I lie on the sheets in my underwear and read a book.  A female staffer opened my door without knocking, then stood there nonplussed and talked.  I thought, “This is it.  This is how they treat you, with no privacy, no respect, and it’s so prevalent, they’re doing it to me.”  The apartment doors had locks, but the staffers had keys.  They were required to knock before entering, but I noticed in Mom’s room that they seldom did, and if they did knock, it was concurrent with barging in, so that you could be standing there naked or sitting on the toilet and find yourself looking into the blank face of a staffer.

I sent Mom an Alaska wildlife card and short letter every week, and enclosed a few bucks so she would have money for church or to go to lunch in the Sunset van.  I told her not to save it, but spend it, and if it were stolen, not to worry about it—occasionally, things did disappear.  She sent  letters weekly or more often while I was in Vietnam and Iceland with the U.S.A.F., and she sent homemade Toll House cookies—man, were they good over there—and she prayed for me, always.  For her 80^th birthday, Vicki bought a beautiful diamond pendant for her, but I told Vicki it was too nice, that it would worry Mom to death, the fear of having it stolen.  So Vicki took it back and bought an April birthstone instead.  We told Mom not to worry if it were stolen or lost, that it wasn’t expensive.  She hid things around her room, kept her little wad of money in her bra.  One of her favorite gifts was a thick book on pills that she studied with knitted brow, memorizing the side effects of every prescription drug she was on, much to the chagrin of my sister-in-law, who had to suffer Mom’s analysis.

Mom saw Sunset in a dream years before she landed there.  “Yes,” she said, “this is the place. This is the building I saw in the dream.”  She was forever dreaming dreams and seeing visions.  While in high school, whenever I secretly got involved in something untoward, she told me of a dream.  “Stevie, last night I dreamed you were a baby, and you were playing at the edge of a dark abyss.  I called for you to move away from it, but you kept playing.”  One Christmas, my brother, Charlie, and I drove from Denver to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Mom and Dad lived. The car was packed: my two kids, his wife, Linda, and their three kids.  Driving across Kansas at night, the car’s steering wouldn’t respond when I moved the wheel, but kept tracking straight in the lane.  I told Charlie, “I think there’s something wrong with the power steering: look at this,” and I moved the wheel right and left with no response.  Charlie told me to try and pull over and we’d take a look.  So I slowed—I had been doing 75 mph—and eased it over on the shoulder.  Charlie opened the door, stepped out, but he had to grab the door to keep from falling on his butt.  “You’ve been driving on black ice!” he yelled.  The remainder of the trip was uneventful, and we pulled into Hot Springs the following morning, pretty much forgetting about the black ice incident.  Mom met us at the door.  She seemed anxious, and asked me specifically, “What were you doing last night around eleven O’clock?”  This was the age before cellphones.  We told her about the black ice.  She said she was awoken at that time and saw me standing in her bedroom.  She knew I was in trouble and got on her knees and prayed; she asked Jesus to keep his hand on me and keep me safe.  My life abounds with such stories, stories that most either do not believe or attempt to explain away.  The fact is, my mother was spirit filled and close to God.  She might get tongue-tied in front of strangers or a waitress, but she talked to God all day, every day.  As a teenager and young man, it was exasperating.  She couldn’t follow the conversation, couldn’t get the joke, because she was always off somewhere, either thinking about God, or praying.  Not five times a day, but a thousand times a day, while washing dishes, hanging laundry…she prayed ceaselessly, she talked to God.  She talked to God at Sunset.  I pray she talks to him now.

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