This may seem like a strange piece to have as my last entry for the year, but bear with me...
It was towards the end of last week when NH Diane left a comment about her mother’s passing just before Thanksgiving. Her pain was palpable, even in the few words she shared about the experience, but the ones which stood out for me were,
When I first got back to my computer and started catching up, it was tough to have the reality of "life goes on" slap me in the face. I have had a hard time accepting the fact that most of our deaths, including my mother's, cause nary a ripple in the fabric of the universe.
And this...
Oh, my mom's name was Nancy Richer. She never did anything that will be remembered by history, but at least by writing this I know that people all over the world have heard of her now.
I was struck by the honesty, the simplicity, and most of all, the truth, of those words.
Diane is right. Most people in this world pass through it without making Bill Gates-Brad Pitt-Oprah Winfrey sized waves on the ocean of humanity. In fact, out of the billions of our fellow travelers, it is a tiny, infinitesimal percentage who will be remembered on a national or international level.
That doesn’t, however, mean their contribution was small, or the lives they touched, less important.
Such is the story of Nancy. You did not know her. I did not know her. It doesn’t matter.
For she lived, she loved, she cared. She got frustrated, she laughed, she cried, she ate, she drank, she had good times, she had bad times. She suffered, she rejoiced. She is you, she is me.
And I thank Diane for sharing some details with me that Nancy’s ripple might extend further than it may normally have.
Nancy grew up like most of us, not rich, not poverty stricken, somewhere in the middle. Life was not easy, it was not extravagant. And like most of us, she would probably look back and apply the word "survived" to her youth, happy to be rid of it, and not willing to go back to it for all the money in Bill Gates’ bank account.
Nancy met and married Henry, and embarked on the generational (at that time) job of a woman, that of wife and stay-at-home mother. As Diane told me, of course, back then that meant just being a "normal" mom.
With five children, money, as in the majority of families, was tight, and Nancy did her part to help supplement the family income with various part-time jobs and babysitting other people’s children. Shoes and clothes for five children do not grow on trees, you know.
And much like my own Mom when I was a child, Nancy struggled with her place in life, feeling more functional than fun. (I dare say that would apply to so very many of our mothers. Women who did what society expected, moving from their parent’s home into their own home and procreating. No real thought given to the process - until many years down the road, that is – just doing the societal female shuffle. They don't regret we children, but I certainly don't begrudge my mother looking back and wondering what else she may have been capable of doing in her life.)
Henry died after they had been married for 39 years. Two weeks after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Thirty nine years. In today’s marital terms, that is as admirable as it is rare. Thirty nine years of highs, lows, ups, downs, passion, ennui, love, commitment, stress, and chafing one another like a sandpaper wedgie.
Thirty nine years. Would that we are all that lucky. I would like nothing better than to have Rudy still pissing me off 22 years from now.
Growing up, and till almost the very end, Diane admits to being the oil to her mother’s water. They butted heads, grated on one another like parmesan on a Food Network microplane, bugged each other, and whirled in an orbit of parent-child inertia. Held together by blood, terse emotion, and yes, love, but not true understanding or enjoyment of one another.
Go figure. Nancy was human. Something we children don’t like to admit about our parents. It’s easier to hold them to a higher standard when, in our minds, they are supposed to be "perfect" or somehow more than they are.
It’s not until we, too, have grown and learned, often by having kids of our own, or simply running head first into life's proverbial brickwall (my mother's personal favorite warning), that we realize they are just as fallible, frail, and stupid, and making it all up as they go along – as are we.
And as human beings often discover, our innate frailties mean being claimed by a force beyond our control, bigger than our wishes, a nightmare come to life.
Nancy would have turned 70 the day before Thanksgiving. Life, or death, as it were, had other plans.
Diane and her siblings, wanting to take advantage of the still warm weather, threw Nancy a birthday party at the end of October. She was happy, in fact, according to Diane, Nancy said that it was the "best day of my life, except when I married your father."
The happiness was fleeting.
Again, as human beings, we all know how "happy" turns on a dime. We can have the rug yanked out from underneath us at any moment. Life is like a roller coaster that way. Incredible highs often being quickly followed by spiraling, out of control lows.
A few days after the party, due to pains in her back, she was admitted to the hospital. After ten days, a fracture in her vertebra resulting from osteoporosis was diagnosed and arthroscopic surgery was performed.
She went home.
Briefly.
She became extremely ill, unable to keep down food or water, and was readmitted. It was discovered she had contracted one of the most common hospital borne infections, known as "c. difficile".
From this point on, life was pretty much a blur for all involved, but details aside – Nancy quickly slid downhill.
And it was during this slide, that Diane finally "caught" her. She’s not sure what exactly happened, likening it to the Grinch’s heart "growing three sizes that day", but for the first time, whatever long held glacier of resentment, anger, upset, and discontent calved. It all fell away, and the daughter saw the mother through nothing but eyes of love.
She held her hand. She comforted her, She visited daily, and she finally told her mother she loved her – only now it was not out of obligation, but out of desire, out of need.
How many of us can relate to that? More than would probably admit it.
The end came soon. The night before she passed, doctors urged Nancy to allow them to place her on a ventilator. She steadfastly refused. As Diane recounted for me, this was huge. Her mother was very much afraid of dying. But who among us is not? We’re human, after all.
Still she refused. Diane’s sister calls her mother’s decision, "the bravest thing she ever did."
The morning of her passing, Diane, with all her siblings gathered around the bed, held vigil. They knew the end was very near. As Diane held her hand, her mother asked one simple question. Five words which I know tore through Diane like an arrow: "Am I going to die?"
Diane told me, "That nearly killed me."
I cannot imagine holding my mother’s hand under those same circumstances and being able to maintain. Diane is my hero. She held on and was still holding when her mother took her last breath, a breath Diane was not prepared for.
The one breath that separates all of us from life and death.
Over a month later, Diane’s home now contains many items from her mother’s. And as she looks at them daily, they serve as reminders of the woman she fought with, clashed with, rolled her eyes about, and ultimately loved – very deeply.
I’ll let Diane take it from here...
When I think of all the things about her that drove me crazy, I have to wonder what the hell was wrong with me. I have in my tiny house many of her possessions with which I just can't part. Looking at them is a constant reminder of her, and often fills me with regret for what I squandered. I know she knew that I loved her, but things could have been so different. So anyway, I guess I'd just like someone to know that my mother existed. She wasn't famous or a hero or mother-of-the-year, but she did her best and she loved her kids with all her heart.
As I said at the beginning, that last line will sum up the lives of most of us. Not famous, not infamous, not larger-than-life, not super heroes – just people.
People who may not ever be featured on the cover of Time, but people, like Nancy, and Debbie's mother who passed away earlier this month, who lived here for a time, and who did make a difference in the lives they touched.
My New Year’s wish for all of you is that you realize that your life is important. And as long as it is touching someone else’s - in person, or even here, in the comments section of a blog - it is capable of incredible things.
Here’s your ripple, Nancy. May you rest in peace.
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