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.

Mother's Day Tradition

 

When I lived in Illinois, I never planted any flowers until May, because of the possibility of a late freeze killing them. Gradually, our Mother’s Day family tradition evolved into going to a greenhouse to Buy Whatever Mom Wants. I never really had a plan on these excursions, that is, I didn’t shop with the intention of “filling that hole in the flower bed on the north side of the house.” Instead, I happily wandered up and down the aisles, stepping over hoses, traipsing through puddles on the pavement, randomly choosing plants and flowers that caught my eye with the mindset of “I’ll find somewhere to put them.” My cart became full of a hodge podge of perennials, annuals, herbs, and vegetables and I was often surprised at the final tally, but Scott never told me to put any back. He knew the garden was my happy place. At home, I would line everything up on the deck and ponder. I would pick up a container and carry it around the yard, mentally placing it either in this flower bed or that, perhaps in the garden or perhaps along the fence. Eventually, a decision would be made, and I would kneel on my foam pad, trowel in hand, and give that particular plant a quasi-permanent home. Sometimes the process took a week or more, and sometimes I would grow tired of my indecision and just dig a hole.

 

This is what happened the year we bought a wisteria vine (“vine” being the operative word here). Growing up, we had a beautiful wisteria bush in the front yard, just off the porch, that would gracefully bow over in a cave of sweet-smelling purple clusters each spring. After many years, it grew old (or Dad simply got tired of it), and it was cut down. But I’d always wanted one and imagined having an arbor where we could sit and read, or talk with friends, or have a glass of wine, sheltered by the twining wisteria that grew up and over the arbor. The year we decided to buy wisteria for Mother’s Day I was elated and couldn’t wait to see the arbor of my imagination finally come to fruition. Until then, we “put the wisteria in the ground for now,” until the arbor was built. Then we’d transplant it. That was the plan. But farm work and town work and life in general kept Scott busy and the arbor never got built. The wisteria didn’t mind. While it was happily thriving and spreading in its “temporary” home by the side of the porch, I would prune it back from time to time, trying to keep it from grabbing the wooden porch railing and pulling it down. One year, while mowing, I stopped to pull a vine out from where it had travelled under the porch, only to find that it had travelled completely under and out on the other side of the house. I stared at the yards and yards of pale, yellow vine that I pulled out, and that evening we agreed that planting the wisteria next to the porch had not been the wisest choice.

 

It was October when I moved away, and there were no blooming flowers or plants anywhere to be seen in the yard. I had intended to dig some iris bulbs and take them with me, but the decision to move, although long coming, was also somehow made quickly and there didn’t seem to be time. I think about my garden and flower beds often - mostly in the spring - and wonder how many of my plants are still thriving and offering their beauty to the people who now live there. I’ve driven by the old house many times when I visit, but I’ve never stopped. To walk along the fence and look at what is no longer mine is something I’m unable to do, even after all these years.

 

Today I’ll kneel next to my little flower bed and clear out the weeds and decide what might look nice in the bare spot I intentionally leave each year for annuals. Although most of it is currently a beautiful riot of iris, lilies, honeysuckle, lavender, and dianthus, which come back every year with no effort on my part, the corner triangle is what I reserve for something I must plant and tend to, to trick myself, I suppose, into believing I’m still a gardener. I consider that last sentence and mentally correct myself. There’s no trick involved: I AM a gardener, regardless of the size of my garden or what I may or may not plant. It’s in my heart, this desire to tend to living things, and that’s something akin to being a mother, isn’t it? So, I will go to the greenhouse, grab a cart, and wander slowly through the tight aisles of the parking lot, carefully considering the choices for my limited space. The sun is warm, the soil is damp and rich smelling from being watered, and there are bees that are busily working the rows of blossoms for sale. My Mother’s Day tradition continues.

The Promise

 

This morning, I fulfilled a promise that I made nearly two years ago to my great-grandmother, Rose. The setting: a neglected grave, overgrown with evergreen shrubs; a headstone with an incorrect birth year and a missing death year; and the mysterious disappearance of a ceramic photo tile, once attached to the headstone, but since lost. Seventy years ago, in 1955, Rose was buried in Las Cruces, New Mexico, next to her second husband, Charles, who had died in 1938. Her family being primarily in Colorado, and his family in Texas, time and elements, along with fading memories, took their toll and their final resting place was forgotten. Until I discovered it again through my genealogy research. The decision to find someone who could engrave dates on the headstone was easy, as was asking for some pruning and maintenance of the site around the grave. As someone who had spent many, many hours uncovering the story of Rose’s life, and who had become emotionally invested in telling it, there seemed to me to be no other choice. And now, finally, the last step had been accomplished.

 

I had seen an earlier photo of Rose and Charles’s headstone where, in the center, between their names, a photograph of the two of them had been affixed. It was eerily beautiful, I thought, to have this image of them in life at their final resting place, but when I commissioned the repairs and corrections to be made to the headstone, I was told the photo was nowhere to be found. Decades of New Mexico weather, I supposed. Or vandals. But when the workers I’d hired removed the stone from its base to take back to the shop, they found the lost photo tile buried in the dirt. A few months later, I decided to go back to Las Cruces to see the restored headstone for myself. I was surprised to find the tile sitting unsecured in the recessed square where it had originally been affixed. Obviously, I couldn’t just leave it like that, or it would fall out again, perhaps this time breaking. Sitting on the ground, holding the cool ceramic tile in my hands, I pondered what to do next. I decided I had two choices: Take it home and keep it or figure out a way to permanently reattach it to the headstone. I wasn’t a mason. I also wasn’t very handy with any kind of repair work. Besides, it was November, and cool. I decided to take the tile home, keep it safe, decide how to accomplish the task, and come back when it was dry and warm, and finish the job. "I'll come back in the spring," I said out loud. "I promise."

 

Six months of having the photo tile sitting on a little easel on my bookcase and I realized I didn’t want to let it go. I loved holding it in my hands, feeling its smooth, slightly curved shape, and running my finger over the faces of Rose and Charles. The photo had turned slightly yellow, and was chipped along the edges, revealing a copper backing, but I felt a myriad of emotions when I looked at it. Rose had chosen this photo- it was from when they’d gone to Colorado to secretly elope in 1920. Although they were no longer young, their faces were smooth and relaxed, and both wore slight, gentle smiles of happiness that belied the scandal they had caused back in Kansas. They kept their marriage a secret for four months- Charles returning to Las Cruces, where he’d started a business and was living, and Rose returning to her parents’ farm in Western Kansas, where she’d been living after being turned out by my great-grandfather after the discovery of her and Charles’s affair. Eventually, her divorce from my great-grandfather became final, and she took a train south to join Charles in their new life.

On Saturday, I parked my car at the cemetery and took a bucket of tools out of the back. "Hi, I'm back," I said. "I'm going to finish the job." I spread a beach towel on the ground, got out a wire brush, water, and rags, and went to work on the dirt and bird droppings that had accumulated. I used a paint brush to clear the dirt and then, carefully unwrapping the tile from where it was carefully packed, I held it for a long time. I really didn’t want to let it go; I wanted it to always be with me on my bookshelf. But I also knew that it wasn’t mine to keep. It belonged to Rose, and she had chosen it specifically to be placed on the headstone.  I spread the caulk into the recessed square, and oh so carefully positioned the tile as straight as I could. Taking a deep breath, I pressed it into the caulk, wiping away the stray bits around the edges, and held it firm. Placing blue painters’ tape over the top, I sat back and nodded with satisfaction. “I’ll be back on Monday to check how it looks”, I said. I packed the tools, shook out the towel, and drove away. 

That night, an unexpected thunderstorm rolled in, and I lay in bed worrying about whether the caulk had had time to set and if the rain would pull the tape loose. But the next day was warm and sunny, and this morning when I carefully pulled the tape from the tile, I saw the serene faces of Rose and Charles, firmly restored to their rightful place. I pressed around the edges- no movement.  I sat, satisfied and peaceful, listening to the wind and the doves, and I hoped that, somehow, my great-grandmother knew what I had done, and that she was pleased.

Watching the Birds

 

The morning is cold, windy, and rainy. Even so, flowering things are everywhere, and the lawns are turning various shades of green that match the shrubs and trees in my neighborhood. The bird feeder is empty- swaying forlornly in the wind- and I chide myself for not filling it after walking June, before the rain came. As I gaze out of my kitchen window, I also see that the bird bath could use a good scrub. Unbidden, an image of Mom scrubbing the bird bath in the backyard of my childhood home comes to me. I see her, using an old dish scrubber to loosen the grime and algae that has collected, then splashing the old water out with her bare hands before bringing the garden hose to fill it with clean. She loved to watch the birds that would come to the feeder, as well as the squirrels who were treated to their own stock of corn and sunflower seeds, but she had no patience for any of the blackbirds and grackles that would also come to the yard. “Shoo! Get out of here!” Mom would bang on the window or open the back door and clap her hands loudly. “Durn crows,” she’d mutter, returning to her spot at the kitchen table. Minutes later, they would return, and she would sigh in frustration. As a joke, I gave her crow-themed items as gifts, which she hung on the walls with a laugh. It was only the living birds – which she viewed as bullies to the smaller ones- that she had no tolerance for.

At my home in Illinois, I also had a bird bath and a couple of feeders in the back yard, which I could see from my kitchen window. Placed far from any tree or trellis, the feeder stood like a sentinel, inaccessible to the squirrels, and causing headaches for anyone having to mow around it. I wasn’t without a heart, though, and put our own corn out for the squirrels, augmented with occasional peanuts and sunflower seeds. But the suet cakes and seed in the feeder were solely for the birds. I bought a bird book in order to identify the visitors I didn’t know and kept a pair of binoculars in a nearby drawer in case I needed a closer look. I, too, would scrub out the bird bath when it got gunky, sloshing the water out with my bare hands, and then filling it with fresh, cold water from the hose. One year Mom sent me a bird bath heater, with a lifetime warranty. “Keep the receipt and the box,” she told me. “If it should ever stop working, they will replace it.” And the company kept its promise: I’m currently on my fourth heater, paying only for shipping when I send the dead one back to be replaced.

 

When Mom moved to her apartment, and then eventually to the nursing home, I set up feeders in spots where she could watch the comings and goings of the birds. When I visited, she would complain that the feeders were empty, and that “someone” hadn’t been keeping them stocked. I told her the birds needed to be less greedy, and that I couldn’t come every day, but would fill them when I could. We would sit by the window and watch them; I would point out a finch, or a blue jay, and she would comment, “Oh, how pretty.” With her failing eyesight, I was never sure how much she could see, but the fact that they were there seemed enough. Eventually, that changed. As her dementia progressed, and her personality began to change, she became indifferent, and then angry with the activity of the birds at the feeder. One day, when I was sitting next to her in her room, watching the birds wheeling to and fro outside, she declared, “I don’t know who put that feeder out there, but I wish they would take it away!” Confused, I said I thought she enjoyed watching the birds. “No!” she said angrily. “I don’t like them! I don’t want them out there!” After I left, I pulled the car around to her window and wrestled the iron poles out of the ground. Remnants of seed - along with my own tears - spilling as I walked, I shoved them into the back of my car and understood this was just one more step toward the inevitable end of her life.

 

There are no birds today. Even with the feeder filled, they are not in the mood to venture out into the wet and cold. No squirrels today, either. With nowhere to put a feeder but next to a convenient tree, my battles are with squirrels, not bullying birds. I, too, pound on the window, having no effect other than making my hand hurt and causing June to run to the door, barking and growling. Someday I’ll leave this house and move to another place; when and where, I have no idea, but I think about it often. My wish list includes a porch; a spare room suitable for writing or overnight guests; a window over the kitchen sink; and a yard where I can put a clothesline, have a garden, and a dog can run. Oh, and a place for my kitchen table, next to a window, where I can watch the birds.

Age of Retirement

 Yesterday, my younger-than-me doctor dropped a casual remark, "You're getting close to retirement, aren't you?" I looked at her for a beat and then gave a humorless laugh. "Umm... no." She genuinely looked surprised. "No?" she asked? "I don't see that happening for the next 10 or 15 years, at the very least," I replied. "And the way things are going with the markets, maybe never." She smiled tentatively, nodded, and briskly changed the subject. My mood dropped, almost as quickly as the Dow Jones in recent days. While I used to joke about never retiring, I still thought that it might, someday, if I'm careful, happen. But the joke has recently become dark as I am alerted hourly to the happenings on Wall Street by a little red down-pointing arrow that pops up along the bottom of my computer (I really should figure out how to turn it off). As for retirement, I, myself, am surprised at how often this topic comes up. My manager and team at work reiterate the importance of having my job procedures updated, having coworkers cross-trained, and strategies implemented for whatever eventualities might occur (the "R" word isn't uttered, but we all know what's really going on here, don't we). "You can't ever leave," they tell me, and I laughingly assure them it's not going to happen anytime soon, but I still hope. "Will I ever be able to retire?" I ask my Magic 8 Ball. "Ask Again Later," it cryptically replies.

It always comes as a bit of a shock when I hear of friends or coworkers retiring. How is it possible to stop earning an income and live off of savings and investments? How do you know how long you'll be alive? How do you know what might happen? I understand that I've bought into the classic retirement scenario fed to us for so many years as part of The American Dream: Work hard, retire, draw a pension, and travel. Or fish. Or play with grandchildren. Did anyone really do that or is this a collective fantasy? My own idea of retirement is vastly different and doesn't involve not working. Perhaps that's the disconnect. I can see myself "retiring" from working full time because I have to, but maybe pursuing a second act career, or working part time at a job I actually love. I imagine travelling or temporarily relocating to a place I've thought about. In my fantasy "retirement" I pack up only a few belongings, load up a U-Haul, invite June to jump into the back of my car, and off we go. I talk to her about these things, often. "How would you like to be a desert dog?" I ask. "We could go to New Mexico for a couple of years. I could work at a grocery store, and we could hike the desert trails. You could bark at roadrunners, and I could practice my Spanish." Or, on another day, "I think you'd like to be a prairie dog," and I laugh at my turn of phrase. "We could move to somewhere in the Flint Hills. We can ramble on the trails, and you can listen to the coyotes sing at night." Then there's the safety net scenario of returning to Illinois. "We'll have a small house with a yard," I tell June. "And you can run around, and chase rabbits and I'll have a garden and a clothesline. We'll be near friends and family, and I won't be alone." The one constant in my vision of my future is that I will have time to write. Always, time to write.

My doctor shares her own vision of retirement with me as she listens to my breathing, checks my eyes, and has me push against her hands. "You could move to Costa Rica and rent a little place; it wouldn't be very expensive, and you'd have sun and beach and ocean." I laughed with her, thinking there's probably nothing I'd want less than to do that, but also knowing that my ideas would most likely not appeal to her. I wonder if she worries about her dreams not coming true, like I do. I decide not to mention the flailing economy again and instead step into the retirement scenario she is painting for me. "A beach and plenty of margaritas," I add with a grin. "That sounds really nice."

The Day of the Valentines

 When I was seven years old and attending Will G. Price Elementary School, a reporter from the local newspaper came to do a fluff piece on little kids and Valentine’s Day. I remember I was sitting at my desk, going through my homemade Valentine box when he came over to interview me. “Did you get a Valentine from your boyfriend?” he asked with a cheezy grin and I was confused. “Ummm…” I whispered and he lost interest and left, looking for another child to question. What did he mean, I wondered. We gave Valentines to everyone in the class.  I remember looking around the room, my gaze settling on one of my favorite friends (who also happened to be a boy) and wondering if he was my boyfriend. Of course I got a Valentine from him, and I tried to catch the reporter’s eye again, to let him know that yes, I did have a boyfriend, but he had moved on.

Not too many years later, Valentine’s Day morphed from a fun class party with heart-shaped cookies and red punch to The Day of Crushed Expectations. Just being a teenager was hard enough, but add to that being a socially awkward, painfully shy nerd, and school was not a happy experience. The popular, pretty girls received notes and flowers while I perfected my “I don’t care” face and hid behind my waist-long hair. Nevertheless, each time I opened my locker, I held my breath for just a beat, hoping that a note might fall on the floor, and I would discover that someone had a secret crush on me. It never happened. I ate lunch with my socially awkward and nerdy friends in “C” hall, our backs against the lockers, laughing at the gooey-eyed couples and believing we were far too superior to participate in the silly relationship drama that ran rampant in high school. 

College was more interesting, living on a small campus in a small town and learning to navigate the almost-but-not-quite adult world of sex and relationships. I spent many nights (and some days) sobbing, heartbroken, in my room while listening to “Toto” and “Chicago,” vowing off men forever, only to be completely smitten the following week with the guy who had smiled at me over a beer at the Öl Stuga. In my junior year, a guy I knew from one of the fraternities dedicated a song on Valentine's Day on the radio station we all listened to. “This is from Mike to all the girls at Bethany College,” the DJ laughed, as the familiar strains of “Love Stinks” wafted through our collective stereo speakers. My roommate and I looked at each other and laughed, too.

 I eventually made peace with the day, after becoming an adult and gaining experience in the relationship arena. I had a few wildly romantic Valentine’s Days, more than a few disappointments, and a few unexpected surprises, but it wasn’t until after I had children that I truly came to love it again. Even though my husband might forget what day it was and then scramble to bring home flowers from the convenience store at supper time, it didn’t really bother me. Even though one of my coworkers routinely got obnoxiously large floral arrangements to display on her desk, I laughed it off. The real thrill was being a room mom at the elementary school and helping my daughters make homemade boxes to put their Valentines in, wrapping tissue roses around pipe cleaners as party favors, and making cupcakes with pink frosting for treats. It made me remember the innocence of my own childhood school parties, before girls became mean and boys became impossible. It was fun!

 

Now, my children grown, my romantic relationships non-existent, and the dog unable to buy me flowers, I more or less ignore February 14 (except to post a couple of snarky memes I find amusing). I feel sorry for the men these days, trying to meet the impossible standards set forth by Hallmark and Kay Jewelers, and I feel equally bad for the women who are told that if he REALLY cared, he would make some sweeping grand gesture to proclaim his love. I know that real love, while it can be full of romance and passion, is often quiet. It’s in the mundane, day-to-day routines, and could look like cleaning up after supper or taking the kids to the park or relinquishing the TV remote. It’s bringing home ice cream. It’s planning a date night. It’s putting another’s happiness above your own because that’s what love does. And, contrary to an old movie line, love means OFTEN saying “I’m sorry.”

 I hope to experience romance and passion again. I hope to have a relationship where I can make someone happy by loving them and being loved in return. My life is interesting and full as it is, and I have friends, family, and dreams. It would be wonderful to have someone to share my life with, but it would also take someone whose baggage matches mine, and there’s the challenge. It might not happen. But, then again, it might.

Cooking for One

 

It’s no secret that I’m a mediocre cook at best. Growing up, I helped Mom make cookies and watched her make meals for us, but I never really “learned how to cook.” My siblings tell me that Mom was an excellent cook, but by the time I came along, she regularly used canned vegetables, instant mashed potatoes, and other convenience foods that didn’t require a lot of effort. She once told me that although she knew how to can and make bread from scratch and all that, “I don’t have to do that anymore.” Consequently, I can make a mean chocolate chip oatmeal cookie, but without a recipe, I’m not very creative in the kitchen.

At my first wedding shower, guests were instructed to bring a favorite recipe to give to me, the blushing bride, with the idea of helping me be a successful wife. Easy taco casserole, Sara’s yummy potato salad, tuna mac and cheese--I still have some of those 3x5 cards in my recipe box, tangible reminders of the women who tried to pass their cooking skills on to the next generation. I tended to rely on the familiar, however, choosing to make the meals that I had grown up with. That made me happy, but not my husband. “What kind of a cook is she?” his mother asked him early on in our marriage. He felt obliged to share that he told her, “Not the best,” perhaps hoping to inspire me to ask his mother what his favorite meals were. It had the opposite effect.

The second time around I married into a farm family, and my mother-in-law was a no-nonsense, make-everything-from-scratch type woman. I remember trying to bond with her by asking how to make her incredible sweet rolls. “First, you take your dough,” she began, and I stopped her. “Wait--where do you get the dough?” I asked. She stared at me for a second, and then (as I remember) walked away. That Christmas, she gave me a subscription to “Taste of Home” magazine. Subtlety was not her strong suit. But I didn’t have to worry about my family starving. My husband ate what was put in front of him (thanks to his mother, no doubt), and even polished off the leftovers no one else wanted. My children didn’t know anything different, and so everyone remained well-fed as I tried to create tasty meals day in and day out. But I rarely deviated from the familiar, and only then if I had a recipe.

Cooking for a family is vastly different from cooking for one--or two-- and it was a difficult transition after my divorce. My then-fiancé did most of the cooking for us, since he loved to experiment and was very good at it, and he occasionally let me make one of my old tried-and-true meals, politely eating what I made but not asking for seconds. Feeling depressed one evening, I called my ex-husband. “Did you think I was a good cook?” I asked pathetically. He didn’t even hesitate. “As I remember you were,” he said, his voice like warm butter. “Why, doesn’t he like your cooking?” I sighed. “Not particularly,” I said. “It’s pretty unimaginative, I guess.” “He’s an idiot,” he replied, and I gave a little laugh. “Maybe so…”

These days I have only myself to cook for, and I’m still struggling with how to make a decent meal for one. If I cook, it’s usually on the weekends or days off, most evenings opting for frozen dinners or chicken breasts in the air fryer that leave me thinking, there has got to be a better way. I consider delivery services and wonder if I’d save any money by using them. I collect recipes and make shopping lists, but then I question the practicality of spending money on that one ingredient I need but will never use again or not have time during the week to use what I’ve bought. I have occasionally made my “serves a family” dishes and frozen what I didn’t immediately eat, but after plowing my way through two containers of chili, it loses its charm, and I end up shoving the remaining three to the back of the freezer behind the fish sticks.

But then there are the times I’m inspired, and with no recipe but my imagination, what I have in the fridge, and an arsenal of Penzy’s spices, and I somehow manage to create something amazing. When that happens, it gives me hope. While it’s very satisfying to cook for others, it’s also very liberating to not have to please anyone but myself. I can experiment, fail, try again, and succeed. Or not. It took some time to convince myself that I’m worth the effort, that I deserve a well-cooked meal as much as anyone. I can and should take the time to cook. To use nice dishes and enjoy a glass of wine. But also, to know that some days there’s no shame in a bowl of mac and cheese.

Fear of Dying Alone

There’s an episode of “Sex and the City, “where Miranda has just moved into a new apartment and one night begins to choke on Chinese food. In a panic, she runs from room to room, unable to breathe, unable to call anyone, totally helpless. Until she throws herself against the edge of a box yet to be unpacked, thus performing a self-Heimlich and dislodging the chicken. In tears, she calls one of her best friends, crying hysterically, “I almost died! I couldn’t breathe! I’m gonna die alone, Carrie!” Carrie assures her she isn’t going to die alone, but then her voice-over adds, “The truth is, I couldn’t be certain of that.”

I live alone. In 2020, as fear of the COVID pandemic began to ramp up and things began to shut down, the reality of my situation became crystal clear as I was mulling over how much food and supplies I would need to get by for two weeks, in the event I had to quarantine. How many cans of tuna? Frozen veggies? Pounds of hamburger? A mere inconvenience, I decided, and I could certainly survive on soup and peanut butter and jelly if I had to. But then, a more insidious question came to mind: What if I got sick?

A few years ago, a friend of mine who also lives alone, fell on the ice as she was doing the mundane chore of taking out the trash, and seriously injured herself to the point where she was unable to do anything but lie on the couch. Fortunately, she had a network of ready and able friends who brought her food, prepared meals, took out her trash, cleaned the litter box, and checked on her several times a day. We talked about that time, and she told me how scared she had been, lying in the driveway, without her phone, unable to drag herself to her house. A neighbor found her and helped her inside, but that was the point where she realized how vulnerable she was. And she didn’t like it.

I don’t like it, either. I like being independent, and I do everything I can to stay that way. But as everything began to shut down and the pandemic raged on, I knew that it was probably not a matter of “if” I got sick, but “when”. While others snuggled in at home with their families and significant others, I hunkered down and made contingency plans. I wrote out instructions to take with me in the event of having to go to the hospital, since no one would be with me to advocate or provide information. I compiled a notebook of passwords and other important information, letting my daughters know it existed. I made a will (that was fun). And, perhaps most importantly, I and my other solitary women friends made a pact to keep in close contact. We texted, phoned, video chatted on a regular basis, sometimes just to say, “How’s it going?” We created a network and provided our own safety nets. Although we didn’t have physical contact that others still enjoyed, we made certain that no one was alone.

I am making plans to move in the not-so-distant future, but to where, exactly, remains to be seen. I toy with the idea of moving to a place I’ve never been, to start over and create a new life for myself. But as attractive as that is, a small voice in my head whispers, “You aren’t young anymore. Do you really want to live alone, in a strange place? What if…?” That’s when I begin to think I should be more practical. Move closer to one of my daughters. Go back to the familiar. Or stay where I am. Safe. Predictable. It’s what my fear tells me, and if I’m not careful, I will begin to believe it. I will begin to close my life down and huddle in my safe zone, and this window of independence that I have will eventually close. “I want to live a life where my kids talk and worry about me,” I joked to a friend not long ago. “Then do it!” she replied, and we laughed, knowing that although we may live by ourselves, we most certainly are not alone.