Remembering mom

My mom was “Wonder Woman” long before Lynda Carter assumed that title.

She did all the laundry, always had home-cooked meals on the table, kept an immaculate house, tended to the garden and flower beds, sang in the choir at church, and had my grandparents and other extended family or friends over for dinner many Sundays after church. She did all that while working full-time beginning when I was 12, in an era when it was rare for mothers to work outside the home. Her jobs at Northern State Hospital and Skagit Valley College in essence made it possible for me to attend a private college in Chicago, spread my wings a little bit and meet the woman I would marry. I thought at the time, that was just normal. It wasn’t.

As I grew into adulthood, I began to appreciate her enormous skill set and the sacrifices she made for our family. It was also during these past eight years since our dad died, when I spent more alone time with her, I learned what she loved.

Music touched her soul. I have vague memories of her as a soloist at church. As time went on, though, she was content to be just another soprano in the choir. Mom was never comfortable in the spotlight. After our dad died, we enjoyed special music concerts at Bethany, and she loved to sing the old hymns here on Sunday mornings. Just before the outbreak of COVID, we were invited by David Benson to a violin and piano concert at Saxon north of Sedro-Woolley. David and the pianist played music from Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven and Fritz Kreisler arrangements of Viennese parlor tunes. At the end of the concert, she turned to me, and with tears in her eyes said, “I loved this music. Thank you so much for bringing me.” Mom had an eclectic taste in music. In fact, she liked some of the music I liked growing up. Dad liked Lawrence Welk music. Mom liked the Bee Gees (So how deep was your love for them, mom, because, I really mean to learn). Mom also wasn’t a stick in the mud when it came to worship music preference in church. She liked music that glorified God – contemporary and traditional.

Mom loved flowers, especially tulips, begonias, gardenias and fuchsias. She told me many times her favorite time of the year was spring ­– the blossoming of flowers and the budding of leaves, which I think to her also represented renewal and new beginnings. She loved bird watching. She loved the colors pink and especially purple, though she wasn’t necessarily a Husky fan.

Mom was a gourmet cook. I found her recipes hand-written on 3×5 cards, neatly filed in shoe boxes, under specific categories. On the backs of those cards, she wrote the guests she served them to, and the date, and how she thought the meal turned out.

Mom was dainty, loved to dress up, and took great pride in her hair. That meant having it styled every Friday ­– without fail! And heaven forbid if I picked her up for an outing on a rainy or windy day, and that fresh hair-do might get messed up!

Mom was the disciplinarian in the house. While dad was no pushover in his gentle way, mom drew a line in the sand ­– and made sure you didn’t cross it. I occasionally challenged her. Hey it was the late 60s and early 70s! Everyone was protesting. She didn’t like that. I regret that. There were a few instances in high school I wanted to do some things that looking back would have done me great harm. She didn’t let me do them. I could have easily rebelled, but even back then I had this feeling she was just trying to protect me. My parents insisted I go to church when I was young — even on Sunday nights, when frankly I would have rather stayed home and watched Wonderful World of Disney and Bonanza on TV. I am forever grateful for that. Bethany Covenant built a firm foundation for me that would make Jesus the manager of my life and later weather the storms of life.

I only found out in recent years that mom was one of the first to enter the transfer portal, going from Sedro-Woolley High to Mount Vernon High (personally, as a proud Cub, I would have gone the other direction, Mom.) There was no NIL money for mom at Mount Vernon – just dad. And that was gold. She didn’t know then that for most of their marriage, mom would be a caregiver for my dad, who lived with Multiple Sclerosis for more than 55 years. Yet, she never complained.

Everything changed on August 10, 2017, the day my dad died. I was on my way to work in Seattle when I got the frantic call from mom that dad had fallen in the shower, was unresponsive and rushed to Skagit Valley Hospital. For the first time in my life, my self-sufficient mother showed cracks of vulnerability.

“I’m scared,” she told me. “What should I do?”

This would be a devastating blow to my mom, one she never quite recovered from. As you most of you know, our parents were a tight-knit team for 64 years. And dad had taken me aside in the year leading up to his passing to tell me that mom was forgetting things she shouldn’t be forgetting.

Life after dad was hard for mom, and in 2021 it became apparent she could no longer live on her own. She had lost her interest in cooking, and driving the car was problematic.

At this point, the protector role mom played when I was growing up was about to be reversed. It was now my job to protect her. That meant taking the car keys away, which she didn’t like it.

“I’ve never been in an accident,” she told me.

And I said “Yes, and you’re getting older and your reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and that’s why I want to protect you from having one.”

“Well,” she said, “Shirley’s still driving. And by the way, she has a new car.”

Protection also meant taking over her finances to guard her from government imposter scams. Of course, mom wasn’t happy with these changes. “Quit teaching me,” she once said. I think she meant to say “quit challenging me,” but she had forgotten the word.

Truth be told, however, as a I assumed this role of “her protector” she was in fact “teaching me.” She was teaching me how to take care of her in her final years, as she took care of me when I was young. I am not nurturing by nature. These last years with my mom, it was as if God was telling me “you need to grow in this area.” She began to rely on me. She trusted me.

Dementia has been described as the “long goodbye.” I hardly got to say goodbye to dad. He died suddenly. In the years, months and finally days leading up to mom’s death, I was able to say goodbye to mom – to say the words for years I had too often neglected to say – thank you for making sacrifices for me, for encouraging me, for believing in me, and for loving me, even when I was doofus.  In the last year, she was wheelchair-bound from the hip fracture and it was hard to get her out. She had also lost the ability to form words. Our time together often consisted of me reading to her – mostly from Alice Van Liew’s book about growing up in Baker Heights – or playing music, or reviewing her 90^th birthday memory book. Or just holding hands. She no longer knew my name. But she always greeted me with that warm smile. She knew my face. She knew my voice.

I started writing my mom’s obituary about four years ago. It wasn’t that I thought her passing was imminent. I just didn’t know how much of her past she was going to remember. My mom had been so sharp, so well read. But dementia was slowly eroding her cognitive abilities. I started asking questions, like “when did you accept Jesus into your life, mom?” Now this was one of those days when she was having trouble putting a sentence together. But she looked me square in the eye and said “at church, when I was a little girl.”

Even with her clouded mind, mom knew where she was headed. She had “blessed assurance.” A few days before she died, even in her weakened condition, I watched her lift her head up and stretch her arm to the ceiling, as if reaching for something. Then she lowered her arm and closed her eyes again. Did she see an angel? Dad, beckoning her to join him? I couldn’t believe what I just witnessed. I took a picture of it.

However many years we have on this broken planet, 70? 80? 90 years? ­– is just a blink of an eye compared to the trillions of years we’ll spend in eternity. No more sickness. No more wars. No more political divides. No more broken relationships.

As believers, Isn’t that good news?

I may lose my 401K, my house, or my lake cabin – but I will not lose my salvation, the promise of eternal life.

I may lose my health – as my dad did when 55 years of MS crept into his upper-body and claimed his life. But I will not lose the promise of eternal life.

I may lose my mind – as my mom did, in the final years of her life. But I will not lose the promise of eternal life.

You see, when you’ve been born again, you can’t be unborn. When your name is written in the Book of Life, it can never be erased.

Thank you, mom, for all you did for me, and for our family. I’ll see you and dad on the other side.