MoniqueC's Open Salon Blog

Casket Shopping

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:11:42 -0500

I don’t know about you, but this does not rank up very high on my list of Fun Things To Do.

So here’s the situation. Mom is fading fast. Really, what else is there to know? I drove over to Montana from Washington yesterday (was that only yesterday?), my brother and his wife were supposed to get in last night but thanks to the vagaries of traveling by air, they arrived this morning by train from Spokane. (It doesn’t rhyme, but it looks like it should.) My sister, the marvelous nurse, has been here for a couple of weeks and is taking care of Mom in a way no one else can, since my brother and I are useless at this sort of thing. Oh sure, I’m fabulous at holding the hands of dying people and pushing their wheelchairs around, but when it comes to actually treating them? I’m useless.

So here we are, all three of us, with Mom and her husband Jerry, who has done a marvelous job of taking care of her up till now.

Last week Jerry’s oldest daughter, Kathy, was here visiting, and Mom felt so good she proclaimed a trip to a local casino was in order. Can you imagine? Most days she does well to sleep, maybe have an Ensure, and then sleep again. Going upstairs to sleep in her room was becoming too much, so the downstairs couch, which also turns into a bed when one isn’t looking, was put into service. This way she could lay in her bed while an early Thanksgiving could take place around her. This was a couple of weeks ago, when my cousins were here, along with my sister.

But a week ago she went out to a casino and was out for two hours at least and had a marvelous time.

Less than a week ago.

Today she can’t speak, except vaguely and we’re not always sure what she’s trying to say. She can’t get from here to there, she can’t turn over without help, she can’t make her wishes known, she can only lay there in bed, in what used to be the guest room because it’s on the main floor since she couldn’t be gotten up and down the stairs anymore, and put up with us bumbling family members.

She laughs, in a sort of way that someone might mistake for some other emotion, if one didn’t know her as well as we do. She smiles, when she sees someone, and sometimes, when something unexpected happens or her mind brings her back to where we are, she smiles, and it’s that smile that has never changed, the smile that I’ll always remember. Mom, just happy that the three of us are here in one place at the same time. That hasn’t happened in a very long time.

We have other siblings, the three of us, but our Mom has just three children of her own, and we are it. She has other children, step-children and in-law children and half-children and cousin children (my cousins, not hers), but only the three of us are ones she gave birth to, and the three of us share that one undeniable link.

I held her hand today, while she lay there with her eyes half open, and I stroked her hand and marveled at the softeness of her skin. I asked her how she did it, kept her hands so soft, and she smiled at me.

I told her she was beautiful, and she smiled at me.

I told her how so many people love her and wish her well and how lucky we have all been to have her in our lives. And she smiled.

This afternoon the three of us, and my sister-in-law Nancy, and my stepfather, headed to the mortuary while a thoughtful neighbor sat with Mom. This after thoughtful neighbor already brought us food, plenty of food for people who hadn’t managed to think of something as inconsequential as feeding themselves. We picked out a casket, with Mom’s husband telling us it was up to us, we could decide, and so we did. We went for wood, we thought she’d like that best. We each of us picked out the keepsake ceramic ornament that would start off on a corner, one each, of the casket, then be given to us before burial. Four corners, three children and a husband, how convenient for the numbers to match. She’ll be shipped, when the time comes, to California for a service and burial. The plots had been purchased years ago, so it’s just a matter of getting her from here to there.

And why not back again? Why not, I want to know? Some trips are only meant to be one way I suppose.

I looked into her eyes today and she looked back, and she smiled, and I smiled back at her, I can’t stop smiling when I look at her, even though I won’t be able to do so for very much longer, and there’s still so much life inside of her it’s hard to believe she can be taken from us so easily.

We had differences, once, and people ask me if I’m okay because of that. And I tell them that none of that matters now, it hasn’t mattered for months now, the entire issue of mortality can make the differences seem so inconsequential that disposing of them is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

I told her today that she always loved us just the way we were, and she never ever tried to get us to change to be more in line with what she wanted, and it’s true. She always loved us just the way we were, and why I never realized that before is rather astounding. And I told her that we love her just the way she is, and we always will.

We don’t know how long we’ll have her with us. She may rally again. She may not. How can anyone tell? So we wait, and we make her comfortable, and we tell her we love her.

Mom's Dying -- So Now What?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:11:00 -0500

Last week I emailed an assortment of my mom’s friends and relatives, using a list of emails my sister sent me from mom’s computer. I had no names to associate with these email addresses, and when someone has an email address like “HoneyBunny7” there’s really no way to tell who’s who. So I emailed all of them and told them the update on mom’s condition, and asked them to let me know if they wanted to be kept informed of her status.

And the responses came in, a flurry of emails that I kept track of on a spreadsheet, so I could make sure I kept them all notified. A couple of people called me, people I didn’t know, long lost relatives mostly. Not lost to my mother, but lost to me. Growing up, I heard about many of these relatives and friends, but that was usually as far as it got. My mom’s life was separate from mine, and I knew little about it, as she knew little about mine.

One gentleman emailed me and told me he’d met my grandfather on my grandfather’s birthday in 1951, when he’d first arrived in this country. My grandfather had left his own birthday party to meet this displaced Hungarian at the airport, and to help him get settled in to his new country. Several days later, Ferenc also met my mother, who must have been 13 at the time. Ever since, Ferenc has considered my family among the dearest people he’s ever known. I know, because he told me so. He was at my grandfather’s 100^th birthday party, a part of the family I’d never even known about.

A cousin of my mother’s called. She and her family had lived with my grandparent’s family for a short time when they settled in California. She has such good memories of my grandparents, my mom, and my aunts, a fun loving bunch of girls, some of whom were a bit wild. Mom, for example, or so I hear. As a teenager, she was sent to live with relatives on a farm in Nebraska, where my grandparents were originally from. A retired anesthesiologist from Boston, another relative, called, and we talked about medical issues.

I don’t know what to say when people call, though I’m happy to talk to them. I don’t know the same person they knew, at least not the way they knew her, and I always feel off balance, as if I might say the wrong thing, or prove myself a neglectful daughter for not knowing more about my mother, for not knowing all the relatives and where we should have met, when there’s a good chance we never met at all. They tell me about my mom as if I don’t know her at all, and in some ways I don’t.

But in the ways that matter, I think I know her better than anyone. But what do I know?

Most Accidents Happen In The Home

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 18:11:57 -0500

There's no draft to this post. It is what it is. My laptop has died in a horrible household accident, and the Word on my desktop is flaky at best and totally unreliable at worst, and my work schedule has prevented me from having the appropriate guru log in to fix it. OpenOffice works fine, but I can't copy and paste from it to here, for some reason known only to some guy on a hilltop in Tibet, and I'm certainly not going to type it there just to type it here again. I suppose there's WordPad, but then the formatting's gone anyway.

Please don't send me suggestions on what I should do. I'm managing just fine, really. Except for writing, which I was going to start today in celebration of national write a novel month, which I'm not participating in because my novel writing abilities are currently in doubt. No, I was going to start on something much better.

Let's get back to the point however.

I jumped out of a plane yesterday. I know, I said that last week. But I did it again! The open sky called to me all week, so I begged charming husband for the cash and he gave it to me, on the condition that I not go splat on the ground. Since I have no desire to go splat on the ground or anywhere else I told him I could live with that condition. There's a joke in there somewhere.

There weren't as many people around this time, but the plane was full. We were packed in like sardines, which seems to be the typical phrase for such situations. My jumpmaster this time was an older gentleman who even gave me gloves and took extra precautions to secure my glasses. The goggles were tightened to within an an eighth of an inch of my life, just to preclude any issues during freefall. I'm sure the pictures would have been much better this time, but having pictures done again just seemed redundant. My jumpmaster gave me much information, and pointed out all the scenery on the way up, and then again on the way down. It was a beautiful fall day again, and since we're in Oregon, everything's green. Green and blue and white mountains in the distance on all sides, and other canopies swooping around.

Have you noticed my banner? When I named it, it was metaphorical. I never had any intention of finding out about freefall. When a generous member of OS made my banner he put a skydiver in it to go along with the name. I still had no intention of skydiving.

The other day I looked at it and I thought, "Wow, it's like it came true!"

Whatever. So far in freefall I'm still pretty useless. Oh sure, I can fall just fine, but I'm still attached to another full grown person which makes it particularly difficult to do my own thing, and I'm thinking I'd really like to try it on my own. Under the canopy I can take my turn steering, and swooping left and right, but when it comes time for something serious to be done, like, oh, I don't know -- opening the canopy or landing, I'm just along for the ride. I think I'd like to tackle those little tasks myself next year. I did manage to land on my feet this time, though my legs, with their perennial cries of "no! you have fibromyalgia, remember?" wanted to just give way beneath me. But who's in charge here, anyway?

Afterwards I couldn't see, thanks to my eyes, which like to serve the same functions as a faucet when irritated by the wind, so I took off my jumpsuit with my eyes closed. I must be quite entertaining. My jumpmaster then took me in a training room and showed me what to practice. When the wind hits and you find yourself going at 120 miles there's not a lot of time for thinking.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a perfect experience. I'm still working on a couple of comfort issues, but I still feel drawn to it.

Afterwards I drove myself home. This skydiving thing has become so routine around here charming husband stays home to do his laundry while I'm gone. We went out for lunch, and he wanted all the details. In the evening he packed up, like he does every Sunday, and he left for Seattle for the week again.

I languished (in obscurity or lassitude, one or the other) on the couch. I was exhausted, which seemed rather odd. I mean, falling out of the sky is not that physically wearing, at least not the way I do it, and it doesn't last that long, so I had no idea what I was so tired for. Eventually I dragged myself into the kitchen and heated up some won ton soup we'd brought home the day before. I forgot about it, so when I finally did remember to go back to it there was some fantastic boiling going on.

I put the soup in a bowl. I dragged myself and said bowl back to the couch, and I sat down and put my feet up, with the intention of letting said bowl rest on me while it cooled off.

I know this isn't the smartest thing I've ever done.

Naturally, the boiling hot soup and I had an altercation, with me ending up with a goodly portion of said soup on my upper chest.

Are you laughing?

It's okay. Some people have that reaction.

There was screaming, and lots of quick movements, some more screaming, and somehow my laptop, which was sitting a couple of feet away, managed to get a good dose of soup too. At that point I didn't care, since I was certain my skin was coming off.

I called the nurse hotline. I cursed A LOT. Screamed. Said ow a lot. Held a wet compress to my tortured skin for the next couple of hours. Debated with myself the merits of having a full time keeper. Watched it blister. Took some ibuprofen. Later took a vicodin.

By the time I went to bed with my dogs, who had been very patient and spent most of the screaming time outside, it had calmed down considerably, and I was ecstatically happy just to be free of the burning pain. It's going to leave a mark. Oh yeah. My upper chest is bright red and painful and blistered, and I have to make sure it doesn't get infected.

I ate the won tons out of the soup once it was cold. They were good.

I've survived to jump another day.

Falling From The Sky

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:10:57 -0400

First of all, I know nothing about skydiving. It had never occurred to me, until recently, that it was something I would even do. I could never do something that . . . scary. After all, as so many have said to me, why jump out of a perfectly good plane? I always thought they had a point, and for me to try it? It just really wasn’t going to happen. Until recently, when I decided that indeed, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane had several things going for it. For one thing, it just sounded like a hell of a lot of fun. I don’t know why it sounded like fun, but it did. I do know that we all have different ideas of fun and others are always doing things I don’t particularly regard as a good time, but they seem to enjoy themselves. So there was that. It seemed like fun.

It was also, I reasoned, a sport I can actually participate in. Thanks to my old friend fibromyalgia, my legs don’t always hold up well. Oh sure, they work, but not always for long distances. How perfect is a sport that’s in the air?

So I decided and that was that – once I decided, I was going to do it, and since I’d decided to do it, I wanted to do it as soon as I could. So as soon as charming husband could afford it, he who currently has the most money, I made an appointment for October 24^th, a Saturday, for a tandem jump. How could this possibly be scary when I wasn’t even the one in charge of the jump? I’d have a whole experienced person attached to me.

I looked forward to it. I couldn’t wait. The week before my scheduled tandem jump it rained. And then it rained some more. Then it stopped raining, and then it rained some more. I was not pleased. I didn’t want to delay, and it’s getting late in the season – I don’t want to be cold. (I’m a wuss.) Friday it didn’t only rain, it poured the proverbial cats and dogs, and I lost my car in a parking lot, causing me to think I should be signing up for AARP instead, but only in the most superficial manner.

On Saturday morning the sky was the sort of deep blue of mid-fall, the air almost smelling of fall apples, Friday’s clouds gone far away, and it was a perfect day for any sort of outdoor activity, but most especially for falling from the sky. I never really believe I’m doing something until I’m doing it, which is why I seem so calm. It’s an act. But I wasn’t scared, despite my avowed fear of heights.

Charming husband and I drove to the facility, and my first and most difficult task, once we arrived, was to fill out the paperwork, in which I basically promised not to sue the facility should anything go amiss, such as me hitting the ground and going splat, or me spraining an ankle, or anything at all happening to me that could possibly happen, such as tripping on the ground on the way to the plane. One section was devoted to letting me know I should have my affairs in order, just in case. Charming husband kept trying to see what I was filling out, but when I told him I was waiving his right to sue and he said he’d sue anyway, he didn’t care, I didn’t let him see the papers.

Charming husband has been totally supportive and will also skydive later on, so it’s not as if he objects. He just doesn’t want me in the form of a pancake, despite his fondness for such things.

Anyway. After the paperwork we waited around, and then I was called in for training, which lasted ten minutes and consisted of the following important information: how to arch, avoiding the propeller at the front of the plane, the left control is for left, and the right for right, keeping our feet up until our jumpmaster says we can put them down because if we have four legs and two minds trying to land at the same time it’s not going to go well, and . . . I forget. Something of immense importance, no doubt.

Then we waited outside for my load to be called. While waiting charming husband pointed up to the sky and said, “Look! See the plane? They’re coming out now.” I looked directly up where he was pointing, and I saw . . . blue sky. Lots of blue sky, and nothing else. I kept saying, “Where?” Other waiting people were looking too, and still I could see nothing but sky. And then, something small and far away, and then another. I couldn’t even tell what they were, but they were up in the sky, and they were falling, like daylight stars.

They came down slowly, or it seemed slow to me. It was pretty awesome.

Finally they called my name, and I went scampering in to see what would happen next. Perhaps scamper is too strong a word. Anyway, I made my way in, and I met Dave and Dan, one my jumpmaster, and the other my cameraman. I paid extra for that, since I knew no one would believe me with proof. Me, skydiving? Right, everyone would say, as if.

Dave, or Dan, asked me a question about the video, and Dave, or Dan, gave me a jumpsuit to put on. How fun! I love new fashions. I think jumpsuits are a good look for me. Then he had me put on the harness. I don’t really know what all was going on, since my jumpmaster fastened and tightened everything. All I had to do was stand there and behave myself. He gave me goggles, and a cool little hat that I had to try on.

We stood outside for a bit with my cameraman getting video of me and charming husband. And then we went out to await the plane. My jumpmaster checked my straps again, and gave me some instructions. My cameraman told me to get in the plane and then turn around and give him a thumbs up. Like, I don’t have enough on my mind, I have to be directed? We got in the plane, several groups of skydivers, and we sat on long benches all in a row, my back to my jumpmaster, my front to my cameraman’s back, and we ascended. They’d show me their altimeters on the way, to show me how high we were going, and the cameraman would point his helmet cam back at me for pictures. The land got smaller, the farms and waterways became visible, and I started thinking about Sim City . . .

My mind is a weird place.

I watched the altimeters impatiently, thinking 13,000 feet was so far away. I didn’t mind it being far away, I just wanted to get there.

And then we were. My goggles were tightened from behind, straps checked to make sure I was securely attached to my jumpmaster, and I was told that I’d go forward, get on the floor, hang my feet out and curl them underneath. They asked if I was ready. I said, something appropriate like indicating assent, wanting to go and see what was waiting. The first group, experienced solo jumpers, crowded around the door, and it opened, and they were gone. I moved forward, got on the floor, swung my feet out, my cameraman, hanging onto the side, and we were out, just like that, away from the plane, away into a wide open space, doing nothing more than falling towards earth. I think I yelled with the excitement of it all, and then stopped, not wanting to disturb the quiet of the racing wind. It was all I could hear, the wind rushing past us, or us rushing past the wind, as it were, and we were belly to earth. I put my arms out, and I was flying.

Then the damn wind tried to take my goggles, and I grabbed at them. I wasn’t worried about the goggles, but first the goggles, then my glasses would go next, and those things are expensive. Besides, we were going about 120 mph, and that couldn’t possibly be good for my eyes. So I held onto my goggles, and we fell in quiet space, Dan and Dave motioning and me just hanging on to my goggles. I think I was smiling.

The chute opened suddenly, a slight jerking motion, and the sound of the wind stopped, and I could hear again. I could see for miles and miles and miles. It was a perfect fall day, and I was in the air, floating to earth. I tried the controls, turning us left, and then right, seeing the mountains and the land which looks so much more organized from up high than it does from the ground, and then I started feeling slightly nauseous.

Oh. Airsickness.

I know what you’re thinking. No, I did not throw up. I was well behaved and did not embarrass myself.

Eventually, after about 6 minutes, we floated down to the drop zone, and I lifted my legs up so they wouldn’t get in the way, but then when he said I could put them down I somehow ended up on my butt instead, a graceless landing but totally without incident. It was as if I’d just sat down. “Well, that works too,” my jumpmaster said, and then he and the cameraman, who was already down and recording, helped me up.

My first successful jump on a blue fall day was over.

Later charming husband asked if I wanted to do it again, and I said I wasn’t sure. I almost lost my goggles, I got airsick, and my bra was spectacularly painful with the straps.

Minor details. Since then I’ve been looking at the paper they gave me when I left, which tells me what I’d have to do to in order to get certified to jump solo. It’s an orange piece of paper, and it details the next 6 jumps I’d have to do, a couple more tandem, then a few hours of school, then some more jumps, supervised solo jumps. And that’s the part that’s scary, me in charge of getting me down safely, no one else. This wasn’t scary at all, but that?

Day Two of the Alone Project

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:10:59 -0400

I have begun a project which entails me living on my own for days at a time. This may not seem very challenging, but I've grown accustomed to having charming husband around on a constant basis. We both work from home, so we're always tripping over each other and whoever's not trying to work is making so much noise the other person can't think. We happen to like it this way.

Alas, he is now working in Seattle for several months, and this means, given the distance between here and there, that he'll only be home on weekends. While I realize that many people go for long periods without seeing their significant others for a variety of more pressing reasons, this is different. You have to know this much: we are madly in love and the mere thought of being away from each other for a night is unbearable. (Do you like how I just put us in a special class while managing to denigrate the relationships of countless others? We're special all right.)

So yes, people do this all the time, for much longer periods, and I figure if they can do it for long periods, I can do it for five days at a time. I am, after all, chronologically a grown up.

Unfortunately, there are a few things I am unable to manage on my own. I've come to rely upon charming husband for certain tasks, being rather the lazy sort that I am. When I have a bottle of wine to open, I hand it to him, and he opens it. This morning I was reminded of my limitations, which came as quite a shock, since I like to think I have none.

(Are you thinking I'm starting to drink wine early in the morning and proceeding throughout the day?)

I decided that I would set a precedent for responsible behavior and undertake the task of feeding myself as if I matter. I have a reputation for forgetting to eat, and then, at the last minute, deciding any old thing will do, such as popcorn. Yesterday I stopped at Taco Bell. Can you believe it? That can't possibly be good for me. Fortunately I had a board dinner to attend last night and there were scads of vegetables, so I was in luck. I decided that today I would make a stew, and last night I stopped at the store to pick up a few things. I found six dollar wine on sale for three dollars. Who can pass that up? I mean, it's not like I'm going to drink it or anything. But there's nothing like a red wine, good or not, for dealing with the fond after the meat has browned. (I don't always take care of myself well, but I can cook. We take turns around here. We're enlightened and all that.)

This morning while browning the meat I cut up some vegetables in nice big chunks to match the meat. Then I tackled the wine bottle. You would think, for that price, they'd just put a screw top on it and forget about it. But no. The thing has a cork. I used to use, back in the days when I did my own wine decanting, a simple handheld corkscrew which would invariably get me a mutilated cork, but access to the wine. I'm not that big a wine drinker so it was never really an issue, and I have strainers to strain out the cork that gets into the wine. Really. This is how I cook. Stop shaking your head -- I never said I was perfect.

But my reliable corkscrew, which is simply a corkscrew and not much else, is nowhere to be found. This is probably because charming husband has his own versions of corkscrews. I found one, a lethal looking contraption, and put it over the top of the bottle and then . . . nothing. There must be a trick to these things that I'm unaware of. I could not figure it out.

I looked around a bit more, and found some sort of vacuum pump corkscrew still in its original case. This looked promising. I wondered why it was still in the original case, and then realized it was still taped shut. How could this be? And yet, it had been opened -- one of the little rubber tops for opened bottles was gone. Charming husband is probably so fond of his exquisite corkscrew that he tapes it back up when he's done. It looked as if it would know what to do all by itself, without needing any help from me.

I opened it, put the thing around the top of the bottle, and then became my normal clueless self.

What the? I'm sure it's simple and easy and any five-year old could figure it out, though I hope five-year olds aren't figuring it out in order to drink wine. But I am technologically challenged at times, and I can't see how things work. I can see how people work quite well, but things? Not so much. I gave up on the wine, and substituted other liquids, none of them of the spirit variety. I am well accustomed to substitutions.

When charming husband is home on the weekend I shall have him open the wine, then stick one of those rubber thingies in the top of it. Those I can figure out all by myself. I'll be set for week two.