A Cold Day and a Dog

 

I was sitting at my kitchen table, drinking hot tea, and trying to think of something to write about. Outside, January had finally come into its own, and it was cold. I, too, was cold, and although I loved the window that overlooked my birdbath and feeder, it also meant that my right shoulder, arm, and hand were never warm as long as I sat there. And since this was the only place I had in my little house with a table, I was cold much of the time. My space heater blew almost intolerably hot air at my left leg, while I draped a throw over my right side to try to offset the cold coming in through the window. My house was small, and also old. I rented, which meant I was at the mercy of my landlord’s whims, and new windows had never been on his list of priorities. I shrink‑wrapped them as much as I could, but the cold still found its way in through unseen cracks and crevices in the walls, around the door, and up from the basement. I stayed because the rent was ridiculously cheap. I stayed because I liked the neighborhood and felt safe. And I stayed because I was allowed to have a dog at no extra charge.

Gradually, I became aware of a nose pressed against my leg. I looked up from the keyboard and saw that it was June, the aforementioned dog. She gazed at me earnestly when she saw she had my attention, trying to convey some important communication with her eyes. She laid her chin briefly on my leg and then did a little two‑step with her front feet. What could she want? I wondered. Her bowl still had uneaten breakfast, and we had already been out for a frigid walk during which she had left two piles of poop in the grass, so what was the urgency? I stroked her head, scratched between her ears, and returned to my laptop. Again, the nose, the earnest look, the chin rest, the two‑step. I considered: she was on new medication that had disrupted her already‑sensitive digestion, so perhaps she needed to go out and leave another pile? I looked outside at the grey, cold morning, lit by a weak, ineffective sun. I didn’t want to go through the ritual of putting on layers of jacket, coat, gaiter, hat, and gloves. I didn’t want to change from warm slippers to cold shoes. But I also didn’t want to clean up after a potential accident. “Do you need to go outside?” I asked June, but her hearing had deteriorated as of late, and she didn’t give me any indication that she understood. Sighing, I shrugged off my throw and went to the door. “Outside?” I repeated, and she looked confused. We had already been outside. Still, I snapped on her leash, opened the door, and watched as she unhurriedly stepped onto the porch. I stayed inside the doorway, reasoning that if she REALLY needed to go, she would, with or without my following her into the yard. June stood on the porch and smelled the frigid air. I wrapped my arms around myself and sought shelter behind the door, leaving just enough space for the leash. “Go on!” I gave the leash a little shake to snap June out of her reverie, but she stayed on the porch. I tugged a bit to see if that would make her come back inside, but she stood, solid and statue‑like, surveying the yard, my car, the birds, the neighborhood. I sighed and tried to go into a patient state of waiting, but a sharp gust of wind put an end to that, and I had had enough. I pulled on the leash with intention. “Come on, June,” I said loudly, and with one last look across the street, she turned and obediently trotted back inside. As was our post-outdoors custom, she laid down for her treat, but I didn’t produce one. This had been a pointless trip outside, and I felt duped. “Nope,” I told her. “You go finish your breakfast.” I sat back down at the kitchen table, one foot tucked under, and tried to pick up my thread of thought. A few minutes passed, then June got up and plodded over to her food bowl, sniffed, and took a few bites before going back to the living room and laying down again. The new medicine had also reduced her appetite, and she had not been as interested in her meals lately.

After a while I glanced over my shoulder to see what she was doing, which caused her to stand up and came over to my side, again pressing her nose to my leg and gazing up at me. I looked at her sugar‑sprinkled face, her slightly clouded eyes, and her chunky body, her tail that was now happily waving at my attention. These days would not last forever, I knew. I’d been down this road before, and the halcyon days of carefree adventures, long walks, and play were numbered. I shut my laptop, grabbed a book, and moved to the couch so that June could snuggle up next to me while I read and, eventually, she began to snore. 

Unexpected Gifts

 

Although I’d set my alarm for 6:30 a.m., relying on my weather app’s assurance that sunrise was at 7:07, I couldn’t go back to sleep. 6:15. My room was taking on a faint light, and I could make out the chairs, table, laptop, and dog sleeping at my feet. I threw off the covers and scooched past June, whose eyes were open but had not moved. I lifted the window cover and, peeking out, I gasped in awe. The entire landscape was enveloped in a thick mist. I hurriedly put coffee on to brew, filled June’s water dish, and threw on clothes. By now, June was up and making her excited noises, barely holding still while I struggled to put on her collar and leash. “Hang on, just a sec!” I admonished, while I poured coffee, grabbed my phone and journal, and stuck a pen between my teeth. Outside, June snuffled out past the paving stones to relieve herself and then, after reaching the end of her leash, reluctantly returned to the porch where I was settling in the rocking chair and balancing my coffee. I touched her rear end and she sat, but then immediately jumped back up, like a canine jack-in-the-box, too excited to relax. I wrapped her leash around my left hand and held my coffee in my right, knowing that it would take very little for her to spring into action. A rustle in the grass, some sound from the neighboring unit, a leaf blowing across the yard- any of these could cause a coffee tragedy. Finally, she lay down next to the rocker, and we both relaxed.

I inhaled the fragrant steam of my coffee and June’s twitching nose dissected and categorized whatever scents were brought to her on the pre-dawn breeze. I wrote, in my mind. I didn’t want to disrupt this by putting my coffee down and opening my journal. I didn’t want to do anything but sit and experience the gift. I did wish for someone to share it with, however. To run inside and say, “You have GOT to come see this!” The mist swirled and flowed over the pastures across the road. Trees disappeared and reappeared, sometimes looking as though they were being flooded by a white wave. The eastern sky grew lighter- yellows, oranges, purples- and I took a few photos with my camera, despite the knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to truly capture what I was seeing with my eyes.

A pickup broke through the cloud wall on the road and disappeared again. A bird flew past, eliciting mild interest from June. I sipped coffee and dandled my fingers along my dog’s neck and ears. I imagined there was bird song, maybe a distant moo or whinny from the farm across the way, but I couldn’t hear it. I was momentarily saddened by the loss of what I used to take for granted, but as the sky grew brighter and brighter, and the mist continued to dance and swirl, I forgot my self-pity and marveled at just how beautiful this world can be. Perhaps it’s just physics and chemistry that causes the sky to be blue, or the sunrise to be orange, or the mist to play hide and seek with the trees, but I believe that the Creator of the physics and chemistry that caused things to be this way, did so with love, knowing the delight we would find in His gifts of natural beauty.

My revery was suddenly and violently broken by June’s leaping to her feet and barking wildly. A young couple and their old – and very soggy- dog had just come around the corner of the bunkhouse, and June was having nothing of it. I quickly shoved her, barking and protesting, into our unit and closed the door. The old dog padded over to me and curiously sniffed my jeans; his fur matted with weeds and dew after walking the trails. "Who is this?" I asked. "Bumble," the young woman answered. "Looks like you had fun this morning!" I said to the quietly panting dog. "We had a great walk," the young man said to me. He waved his arm out over the view. "Isn’t this beautiful?"  “Oh yes,” I agreed, looking out over the misty ocean and smiling, knowing their presence had also been a gift. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.”

The Changing of Time

I woke up early, of course, because my body thought it was 5:30 and that’s when I always wake up, even on a Sunday morning. I lay in bed, resisting the strong urge to look at my bedside clock, but after a few minutes I finally rose up on one elbow and took a peek: Just as I had feared. It was only 4:45. I flopped back down in bed and sighed loudly, turned my back on the offensive digital numbers, and closed my eyes. An hour later, I popped awake again, the morning light warning me to get out of bed or I’d be late! Late for what? I thought angrily and punched the pillow into shape under my cheek. In her bed, June shifted and snorted, blissfully unaware of the distress that the biannual time change was causing her owner. Daylight Savings Time. An invention straight from the pits of hell, as far as I was concerned. Pet owners and parents of small children suffer the most, it seems, but after a couple of weeks of sleep-deprivation and grouchiness, everyone gets acclimated and life goes on.

 

Changing the clocks twice a year for Mom was something I’d done for the last 13 years since I moved back to Wichita. Mom was very time-conscious and got anxious if the clocks weren’t set correctly, so I tried very hard to keep her on track. There was the clock by her bed, the oversized clock on the wall, the clock over the stove, and her wristwatch. I had never known her to be without some sort of timepiece on her wrist, putting it on first thing in the morning and taking it off right before bed. As Mom aged and lost most of her eyesight due to macular degeneration, her peripheral vision remained surprisingly clear for a long time. She developed a way of looking at her watch, her eyes looking to the side, telling time by the position of the hands. It grounded her, knowing the progression of the day, the expectation of activities, and her place in the midst of it all. “Jan, I think my watch is losing time,” she said to me one afternoon, holding her arm out as evidence. “Looks like it,” I agreed, after noting the disparity between what time the watch showed and what it should be. “I’ll take it and get the battery replaced.” Reluctantly, she handed it over, while I mentally calculated how soon I could get to the battery store and back. Once there, I presented the well-worn watch like an artifact in a museum. “It just needs a new battery,” I said, somewhat sheepishly, and watched as the painfully young man behind the counter tried to figure out how to open the back. Had he ever seen a wristwatch? I thought idly, resisting the urge to snatch it back and pry it open myself. After consulting with an older co-worker, who easily popped the cover, the battery was replaced, and I could leave. “Will there be anything else?” I was asked. “Nope, that’s it!” I chirped as I paid and I hurried away, eager to get Mom’s watch back to her before she missed it too much. “Oh, I was wondering what had happened to my watch,” Mom said after I returned. Although I was startled that she didn’t remember, I feigned nonchalance as I slipped it back on her wrist. “Just needed a new battery,” I smiled. “All set!” “Thanks, hon,” she said and patted my cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

 

It was her watch, and not her signature butterfly pins, or even her wedding rings, that was the last to go as she declined and got weaker and thinner. The day I realized she no longer cared whether or not she had a butterfly pin attached to her shirt or cardigan was difficult, to be sure, but worse was the day the nurses told me they had removed her wedding rings because her fingers were so thin they were afraid of them slipping off and becoming lost. They were put into a locked drawer, and I asked about her watch, which still hung loosely around her bony wrist. “Surely she doesn’t look at it anymore?” I said. “She still plays with it, though,” one nurse replied, looking to another for confirmation. “Yeah, she likes to mess with it," the other agreed. "It gives her something to do.”  But eventually, as Mom became bedridden, the watch, too, was put away.

 

I had come to clean Mom’s room after she passed, and I stood by the empty bed, door shut against the bustle of the nurses’ station, and cried. Bear watched with his benign smile from the dresser as I began the awful process of packing for the very last time. I emptied dresser drawers and collected the detritus of the last five years of Mom’s life without stopping to think about what I was shoving into boxes. Cards, glasses, hearing aid batteries, nail polish, tweezers… I blindly worked as quickly as I could, in order to get out of that stifling room and its vague vanilla/bleach smell. Then, in the top drawer by her bed, I came upon Mom’s watch, second hand still valiantly marking the progression of time, even as the owner now existed outside of such constraints. I stared at the plain, white face and the missing sections of band. It was nothing remarkable and yet it meant everything. I slipped it deep into my jeans pocket and resumed my packing.

 

Yesterday, as I was thinking about the time change, I pulled Mom’s watch out of my own dresser drawer and sat with it, watching the second hand marching steadily around the face, still marking time whether anyone was paying attention or not. One day, the battery would become weak, the hands would begin to lose time, and eventually, it would stop. Like Mom. Like me. Like all of us. I tucked it back into my dresser and shut the drawer.

I Am My Mother's Daughter

 

I hang up the phone and a coworker pops her head over the partition dividing our desks. She has overheard my conversation and has a comment about how I might find an answer to the caller’s question. “Oh, you heard me?” I ask, dismayed, as I was trying to keep my voice “office discreet.” “I didn’t realize I was talking so loud.” “Oh, you weren’t loud,” she is quick to assure me, “I just have really good hearing.” I smile, thank her for her help, and after she returns to her seat, I fall into a silent funk. I vow to be quieter on the phone. And in talking with my coworkers. I vow to pay closer attention to the volume of my voice. But truthfully, I can’t tell how loud I’m talking; it’s just one of the side effects of being hearing impaired. But if being overheard by coworkers at the office is annoying, there is another side effect that is much more demoralizing: Being excluded.

 

My team at work sits at a desk arrangement where each workspace is at the perimeter of a small circle. While we work with our backs to each other, the configuration allows us to meet in the middle, or at someone’s workspace, for impromptu collaborations, which I’m certain was the whole point of the arrangement of teams and desks in my department. Often, one of us will have a question or situation that they wish to discuss, and we meet in the middle and talk about it before turning our backs on each other to resume work. But, just as often, I will be working and gradually become aware of conversation and laughter coming from behind me, and when I turn around, I find a group of coworkers have gathered and are deep into floating ideas about an issue or sharing some hilarious story, and I have once again missed out. It didn’t matter that the conversation had nothing to do with me, and I know they weren’t excluding me on purpose. No, what saddens me the most and makes me feel the loneliest is that I didn’t know they were there, and now it’s too late to join the conversation.

 

I tell people I miss being able to eavesdrop, and I say that as if it were a joke (I also miss being able to hear music at the grocery store, whispers from a loved one, the sound of rain, and most bird song, but that’s another column). And even though I don’t need to actively overhear conversations, I do miss catching snatches of conversation about interesting topics I could join in on. I miss overhearing someone describe what their dog did and being able to turn around and share a similar story. I hate relying on someone to recap a joke that everyone has already heard, laughed at, and moved on from. And I hate not being able to engage in the fast, back-and-forth quips that I love and used to be so good at. I want to tell people, “I actually have a very good sense of humor! I love to laugh; please include me!” But the evidence of my silence, blank expressions, and constantly asking someone to repeat themselves belies those statements. The other morning, I met a coworker at the coffee machine, and I asked how her morning was going. She smiled and answered, then asked a question. I had no idea what was said. “I’m sorry, again?” I asked and she raised her voice and repeated the question. I still had no idea. Not one word. Frustration creeped in and panic as well. “I am SO sorry,” I apologized and she said, very deliberately, “Are…  you…  ready… for… the … weekend?” Now I felt stupid, but managed to laugh, trying to diffuse the awkward moment. “Oh! Oh yes, definitely!” I responded. “I have been since Tuesday, I think!” We both smiled in relief, and then I fled, cheeks flaming in embarrassment. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m losing my hearing, and my coworkers are, for the most part, accommodating and forgiving. But I know that it takes a considerable amount of effort to have a conversation with me, and not everyone is up for that. I understand when it’s just easier to “tell me later” than to invite me into a group discussion, and I also understand the awkward silences at the coffee machine or in the elevator, when it’s easier to smile at me without comment than to talk about, well, anything. I tell people I’m hearing impaired, and, in that moment, they understand. But it’s an invisible disability, one that is easily overlooked and forgotten, even by friends and family.

I often think of Mom, who struggled with gradual hearing loss for over 60 years, until she finally became--for all intents and purposes--deaf. As I recall, she rarely mentioned it, and I often wonder if things would be different for all of us if she had. Growing up, I knew she had a “good ear” that I should speak into, and that she had a hard time understanding fast talkers or high-pitched voices, but until I found myself in the same situation, I just never understood the daily struggles she endured. How many times did she do what I do, smile and hope her response was the correct one? How often did she weigh the choice of asking for someone to repeat themselves or just go on and try to catch the thread of conversation as it went on? I have flashbacks of holiday dinners, where Mom is sitting at the end of the table, silently eating and letting the conversation and laughter wash over her. I think of us exchanging amused looks when someone has asked a question that she hasn’t heard. I remember her spark of anger when an adult grandchild made a wisecrack that Mom suspected was about her hearing, but at the same time couldn’t understand what was said. How I wish I could talk to her again. She was the one person who completely understood my frustrations, anger, loneliness, and fears.

 “Are you okay?” a coworker messaged me after my shamefully juvenile act of storming out of work without saying goodbye. I wasn’t proud of my actions and resolved to quit acting like a girl in middle school who didn’t get invited to eat lunch with the popular group. After all, I’m not the only one who has had to adjust, to work a bit harder at things others find easy, or who felt misunderstood or excluded. The responsibility for how I deal with my evolving life, however, is mine alone. I can feel sorry for myself or continue to advocate and educate, taking advantage of the technology available and refusing to let my disability define me. “I’ll be fine,” I messaged back. “Just letting things get to me.” Fortunately, I had a courageous and spirited woman who showed me what it meant to never give up. And because I am my mother’s daughter, I never will, either.

The Weight of Sundays

 

Sundays are heavy. People often refer to the “Sunday Blues” as that feeling of impending doom that comes toward the end of the day, when the realization that the weekend is almost over and Monday is looming on the horizon (this doesn’t apply to those who work retail, where the term “weekend” doesn’t apply). My Sunday Blues start upon waking up in the morning and thinking about all the things I need to accomplish. Saturdays are days I keep to myself, choosing to spend them how I want, but Sundays? Sundays are full of obligation. That is, they used to be.

 

I had been Mom’s caregiver since I moved back to Wichita in 2012. Although, at first, “companion” might have been a more appropriate term, since she was still living in her home and so was I, for the most part. After she moved to a retirement community, I became her “provider,” dropping in several times a week to check on her, make sure she had snacks and essentials, doing a bit of housekeeping that got overlooked, and keeping her company. Back then, I could tell her I was going out of town for the weekend, or I had something else planned, and she would cheerfully give me a kiss and tell me, “Call me when you get there,” or “OK, Hun, I’ll see you when I see you.” It was the COVID lockdown – when I showed up one evening for a routine visit, only to be barred from entering – that my role as “provider” shifted to something with a little more weight and no good definition. Now I needed to communicate by phone. Or by waving through the window. The supplies I brought must be left on a table in the entryway so they could be disinfected. I left notes I hoped she could read and brought her reminders that she was loved. I impulsively purchased a large stuffed bear that became her constant companion, giving her something tangible to hold on to during the time when physical touch was forbidden. Mom’s isolation meant I had to try and bridge the gap between being a daughter and being a caregiver, and the weight increased.  Eventually, hospitalization and declining mental acuity forced our hand, and Mom was transferred to the “skilled nursing facility” (aka “old folks’ home,” as Mom called it), where I was a caregiver by proxy, overseer by definition. As I learned the rhythms and schedules of the nurses, mealtimes, personal care, and housekeeping, I gradually fell into my own schedule of the Sunday visits, when I knew Mom would be less likely to have things going on, and our visits wouldn’t be interrupted. Little by little, as Sundays grew heavier with Mom’s health degenerating and our worries accumulating, it got to the point where I hated Sundays.

 
Ironically, it was a Sunday morning when Mom finally went home, and so my last Sunday visit was to sit by her side that morning, talking to her as I often did, with the familiar rhythms and sounds of the day’s routines going on around me. But this time, when I told her good-bye, I knew it would be the last time we would be together in this room. As I kissed her cold forehead and cried, smoothing her hair and arranging Bear in her arm, I expected that the weight that had come to define Sunday for me would somehow be lifted with the reality of her death. I imagined feeling grief, yes, but also feeling a sense of freedom from the obligation and worry. I thought it would be instantaneous. It wasn’t. Days later, after having cleared out her room, and after picking up her cremains from the mortuary, I expected the weight lifting then, at least a little bit. But it didn’t. In the days and weeks that followed, with each fresh bout of grief and tears, I visualized my feelings of responsibility and guilt being purged and being released. But no.

Now, on this Sunday morning almost three months after Mom’s death, I sit at my kitchen table, gazing out the window, and say to myself, “Well, that was naïve and stupid.” I have nothing to do today except go to church and do laundry. Maybe run to the grocery store - I haven’t decided yet. I could read a book, or write, or take June somewhere. I could visit an antique store I haven’t been to in a while, go to the library, or take June on a long walk. I could take a nap. But the muscle memory of being Mom’s caregiver runs deep, and when Sunday rolls around, I still feel the invisible weight of obligation and the anxiety of responsibility. I tell myself, “It’s over; you don’t need to do that anymore,” yet after lunch I still feel the need to get in my car and drive east to the nursing home. Even though Bear sits on my bedroom bookcase and Mom’s cremains are hidden behind a picture on a shelf, even though the evidence shows me that Mom no longer needs me, I am unable to shake the sense of obligation. Of needing to do something. Of worrying. Of my life being on hold and my time not my own. I sigh and ask myself the unanswerable questions: When will I let myself move on? And when will I be able to let Sundays be just Sundays again?

A Most Loyal Bear: Goodbye to Mom (Pt I)

Saturday morning. I trotted downstairs to put a load of sheets in the wash, no thoughts but the mental organization of things I needed to get done. Neglected housework, grocery shopping, maybe looking for shoes, going through some papers, and other mundane errands on what promises to be a hot, muggy day. I pulled the knob, watched the water begin to fill the tub, added detergent, and closed the lid. I turned to go upstairs… and there was Bear. He smiled happily at me from his perch on the blankets I brought home after Mom died, as if he’s been waiting for me to notice him. An odd sort of guilt surged through me as I realized he’s been alone in the basement for nearly three weeks, as if this oversized stuffed bear would even care. But, in truth, he had never been out of Mom’s arms for more than a short period of time since I first introduced them in 2020. The pandemic was just getting serious, and although Mom’s retirement home hadn’t yet locked everyone out, masks were required, and human touch was becoming scarcer. I remember seeing him in a corner at Walmart and impulsively adding him to my cart. I attached buttons on either side of his snout, so that he, too, could wear a mask. Mom was delighted when I presented him to her, hugging him tightly, patting his head and arms, adjusting his mask, and talking gently to him. “What will you name him?” I asked, and she laughed and replied, “Oh, I think I’ll call him Bear.” It was a good name, I agreed. Very appropriate. And a week later, the doors were locked against visitors.

Bear was Mom’s constant companion, the staff told me. She slept with him, tucked him next to her in her wheelchair, and he kept her company when I couldn’t visit. When she had a medical emergency and had to go to the hospital, the ambulance personnel left Bear behind in her apartment, and I frantically ran back to grab him, racing to the hospital, only to be told I couldn’t go in. “My mom needs this bear!” I sobbed, and the overworked emergency room attendant wearily told me to put her name on him, and they would deliver him to her once she was in a room. I left him on a table by the front desk, along with piles of other personal belongings for other off-limit patients, convinced he would never be in Mom’s arms again, but somehow, he was.

Years passed, Mom made her move to the nursing home, her mental and physical condition slowly deteriorating, and yet Bear remained the one constant in her life. He got caught in the wheels of her chair once, black grease marring one of his paws. He became worn, his once-smooth fur a bit matted, and yes, he had begun to smell. Whenever I suggested a bath, Mom would tighten her grip on him, and so I eventually stopped pestering. One day he was wearing a toddler’s T-shirt, and when I asked about it, the staff told me one of the nurses had brought it in because Mom had worried that Bear was naked. After that, he was never without a shirt, sometimes pants, and for her 100th birthday, he wore a red sequined bow tie that my sister-in-law provided. I would visit and always greet Bear, asking Mom how he was doing and if he was behaving himself. Sometimes she would tell me stories of his late-night wanderings, his growling at strangers, his appetite for sweets, and his dislike of having his head patted (much like Mom). “How are you doing today, Bear?” I would ask, shaking his paw. “Grrr grrr grrr!” Mom would reply for him, and we would laugh. “He’s a good Bear,” she would always add, adjusting his shirt or stroking his cheek, and I would agree. A most loyal Bear.

The morning Mom died, I went to the nursing home to see her one last time and to attend to the business side of death. The nurses greeted me with sympathy and hugs and invited me to stay as long as I needed. I opened the door to her room, and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Mom lay in bed, looking much as she had the day before she died, but the nurses had carefully arranged the blankets, her hair was smoothed back, and there was Bear, nestled in the crook of her left arm. His serene, smiling face was what broke me, and as the tears flowed, I said my goodbyes. Two days later I went back to collect her things, and as I left for the last time, the nurses made sure I hadn’t forgotten Bear. At home, I put him in the basement with the blankets and other items I wanted to keep but didn’t have the energy to sort through, and he was forgotten. Until this morning.

I should wash him, I thought. I should work on that grease spot with some cleaner. I could wash him in a pillowcase and make him all spiffy for Mom’s memorial service (which he would most certainly be attending). I picked him up and instinctively held him to my face, closed my eyes, and inhaled. They say smell is the strongest memory trigger, and I believe it. In an instant, I was taken back to the nursing home, and Mom, and all the emotions that I’d been trying to manage for the last few days. Helpless, I sat on the basement steps, crushing Bear in my arms, letting the waves of fresh grief wash over me. It was then that I knew: Bear won’t be getting a bath anytime soon.

Remnants of a Life: Goodbye to Mom (Pt II)

Yesterday I drove out to my storage unit to fetch a couple of wooden rocking chairs that I decided I didn’t want to keep. They had belonged to Mom and had been outside for a couple of years at her apartment, and then in storage after she moved to the nursing home, and they were not pretty. Still sturdy, though, and I fantasized about having a back yard or porch to put them on, or maybe (even more of a fantasy) a lake or cabin where their ugliness would blend right into the rustic surroundings. Lately, though, I’ve been letting go of such fantasies, and have been culling the things that I’ve hung on to for Someday, which included the rocking chairs in storage. They were even worse than I remembered and now covered with spider webs, dead insects (and a few live ones), and dried leaves. I pulled them out, sneezing in the process, and wiped off the worst of the detritus. Looking into the very back of the unit, I saw three boxes that I couldn’t identify, so I wedged myself between Mom’s dresser, cedar chest, credenza, and kitchen table, carefully squeezing my way until I could pull them out. I opened them and immediately realized I was looking at all the loose items I had kept when I packed up Mom’s apartment, five years ago. At the time, I was emotionally unable to deal with it all, and had just shoved everything into boxes, stashing them away for later. And now here I was, even more emotionally fragile after her recent death, forced to confront the consequences of my inaction. Hot, dirty, but determined to finish this task, I loaded them into the car with the chairs, and then I saw the black lawn bag. It was in a far corner, on the kitchen table, and I assumed it, too, held papers and cards from Mom’s apartment. But it didn’t.

It was her quilt. The one I had taken to the nursing home when she moved, along with the small quilt rack I’d found at a flea market in Missouri. Although her room was tiny, I had tried to make it as homey as I possibly could, decorating it with familiar photos, some lace doilies, a small side table, framed wall art, and a few knick knacks. Nothing would alter the fact that this was not home, but I could try. Week after week I’d visit, and the quilt would either be folded neatly on the rack by the wall, or (my favorite) tucked around the corners of her bed. “See this quilt?” she’d say to me, and I would dutifully look. “It’s beautiful,” I’d tell her. “It looks like the one Mother made when I was little,” she would say. I would smile and tell her, “It IS the one your mother made,” and I’d watch her face to invariably switch to surprise. “How can that be?” she’d ask in wonder and I would tell her I brought it for her to have. “It came from the farm?” Yes, I’d say (no point in trying to bring her to the present), and she would lapse into reminiscing about how she would go with her mother to the Methodist Church on Wednesdays, where the Ladies’ Aid women would meet to quilt. “They thought I was something special,” she’d grin with a sly look in her eye. “Oh, but you were!” I’d agree and she’d laugh. “Yes, yes I was.” Another day I would lay the quilt across my lap and Mom would tell me about the design. “It’s called, ‘Flower Garden,’” she’d say. “All those squares were from our old clothes. Mother never wasted any material.” I told her I loved the lavender and mint green rings the best, and I would find a square and ask her if she remembered wearing that piece of clothing. “Not really,” she said, “But I must have. Maybe this one was one of Dad’s old shirts. I don’t know.” She’d grow silent, stroking the design, then she’d hold up the edging. “See what small stitches Mother made,” she pointed out. “You can barely see them- she was very talented at quilting.” I agreed, it was a beautiful quilt, and I patted myself on the back for bringing it to her, happy that it brought her so much joy.

One day, the quilt wasn’t in her room. Frantic, I ran to the nurses’ station, asking about it. “It’s probably in the laundry,” I was told, and I blurted out, “But it’s an old quilt! It can’t be put in the laundry!” The nurse gave me a look of confusion and maybe sympathy, and assured me her name was on it, and it would be put back in her room. Feeling sick, I told myself that it would be fine. Maybe some stitches would get pulled out, but it would be fine. It wasn’t. The next time I visited, I was horrified to find the quilt on her bed, the beautiful lavender and mint green rings now faded to a dull, dingy yellow. They had used bleach and this was what had happened. My grandmother’s quilt. Ruined. Fighting tears and anger at myself for being so stupid, I gathered it up, folded it, and set it aside to take home. I remember putting it in the black lawn bag and shoving it into a dark corner of the storage unit, where I wouldn’t have to see the results of my actions. Of course I couldn’t have known this would happen, but I should’ve known better than to leave something valuable in a nursing home. My guilt and sadness were enormous, and I wrestled with the “if only” for a long time afterwards. Mom didn’t miss the quilt, of course- out of sight, out of mind- and, eventually, I also forgot about it. I bought a cheap butterfly comforter from Walmart for her, and life went on. Until yesterday, when the ruined quilt resurfaced.

As I packed it away with some other blankets, I asked myself: Was it worth it? If I had never taken the quilt to her, if it had stayed pristine, safely stowed away in a chest or bag, I would have the object, but I wouldn’t have the memory of the joy it brought Mom and the stories she told me. When I look at it now, I don’t see a ruined family heirloom so much as I recall the happiness on Mom’s face when I told her this was the same quilt her mother had made. “I miss her,” she’d say, her voice shaking and tears welling up in her eyes. Much like the tears I have right now. I know, Mom. I know.