20 Years

Dad died 20 years ago today. For once, something really does seem like it happened that long ago. Twenty years sounds like a really long time, and it is. A generation. RIP, Dad.

It's Not Over Yet

Mom and her brothers: Al, Ray, Mom, and Art

I was just at the point where I thought, “I don’t know if I really have anything left to post to the blog.” Maybe at anniversaries, but I had nothing more to say. I’m not one of those bloggers who writes daily or weekly or even monthly “columns” of useful or interesting information. I pretty much write what I hope will be helpful to me. It’s not exactly, or maybe not only that I’m being self-serving. It’s really just all I think I have to offer.

Then two weeks ago today, I got a phone call from my Aunt Marian. Marian is the wife of my mom’s younger brother, Art. As soon as I saw the name on the caller i.d., I knew why she was calling. Uncle Art had died at 4 that morning. He’d been in the hospital or a nursing home since December. She didn’t know what they would consider the cause of death; he had Parkinson’s, and a number of other health issues. His latest problems were all respiratory.

I expressed my condolences, thanked Marian for calling, and asked her to call me back once the arrangements were made. I wasn’t seriously considering attending the funeral, but I did want to know the details.

The thing is, I did not expect that the news of Art’s death would affect me the way it did. Even though on some level I was expecting it, I was stunned. The news affected me rather strongly. It sent me deep inside, which I guess is really me withdrawing into myself while I try to process something. I’m still not sure why I had such a strong reaction. Art was the youngest of the four Leininger children, 2 years younger than Mom. Al and Ray (first and second respectively in birth order) had died years ago. I believe Ray’s wife Geneva has also died, but Al’s wife Analie is still alive, and of course, Art’s wife Marian. And yet, Art was the last of the Leininger children in that generation. In some ways, I guess, it is the ending of an era.

Mom did not stay particularly close to her brothers during the time we kids were growing up. Art and Marian, along with their kids John and Kris, were by far the ones we saw most often. Even with them, I think my dad was more of the driving force to spend time with them. We liked Uncle Art and his family. Uncles Al and Ray, the rarely seen, were much crabbier, I thought, and scarier.

The evening after I received Marian’s call, I sent an email to my siblings, letting them know. I told them Marian would be getting back to me with additional information. Two or three days went by, and I heard nothing back from Marian or my siblings. I couldn’t believe they were just going to not respond. Then Marian called again. During all the arrangements, she had forgotten if she was supposed to call me back or not. She asked if she could email the information to me, which I was fine with. Then we actually had a nice chat. My last few (and infrequent) encounters with Art and Marian over the phone while Mom was staying with us were on the strange side. In fact, I think I’ve always thought Marian a little odd, and Art seemed to be growing more so. But first when I talked to Marian last year to tell them Mom died, and now again with Art’s death, she seemed surprisingly fine—not odd, even likable. It was refreshing to have this talk with her.

The next day, the email with Art’s funeral information arrived, and I forwarded it to my siblings. Lo and behold, they each wrote back. Paranoid? Me? Well, perhaps just a touch over-sensitive.

The day after Marian first called me with the news about Art, I was already over the initial shock. I still don’t fully know what that was about. But as soon as you think, I have nothing more to write, look what happens. Not always a death, I’m assuming, because I do actually have another entry I want to write when I get the time, which is Mom-related but not death-related. So here’s to Uncle Art, and I hope to write again soon.

The First Anniversary

Written Feb. 16:

Saturday, February 12, was the first anniversary of Mom's death. It seems impossible to believe that it has been a whole year already.

The last few weeks have been difficult for me. Knowing the anniversary was so near, my emotions--all of them--have been right at the surface. It's hard to maintain a steady course when the waves are so constantly roiling.

When Mom died, there was the relief that now she would be at peace, and she no longer had to suffer. There were all the details of the death to handle, from getting the death certificate signed, to notifying family and friends, planning the memorial service, settling the estate, and all the other countless little things that needed attending to. There was adapting to life without her, without having to care for her, to arrange to have someone at home with her at all times, to dealing with (often fighting with) the health professionals and caregivers, and trying to figure out what is best for someone who could no longer communicate. Missing her was not immediate.

But now I miss her. As I continue to recover/uncover all of her, and not just who she was for the last few years as the Alzheimer's slowly robbed her of more and more of her functionality and her self, I miss that whole self more and more.

March 6:

I never finished that post, and now, today it is the one-year anniversary of Mom's memorial service. (On a side note, it is also the one-year anniversary of my friend Shelly's 52nd and final birthday party, the one I couldn't attend because of the service. Shelly died of pancreatic cancer in June). I have read in a couple of different places that it is the leading up to the first anniversary that is more difficult than the anniversary itself. That has certainly been true in my case. It seems that roiling emotions just relaxed into calm waters on the actual day of the anniversary.

Jeanne and I (and Cleo, the wonder dog) drove to Green Bay that day. It was the Saturday after the Packers won Super Bowl XLV, so of course our first stop was at the Packers Pro Shop at Lambeau Field. Someone asked what that had to do with remembering Mom. She and Dad had season tickets to the Packers games for all the years they lived in Green Bay. Mom preferred watching on TV, so when my brothers got older, they often went with Dad instead. Now they have inherited the tickets. Mom would sometimes tell me how when they first moved to GB, the games were still being played at the Green Bay East High School field. All four of us kids graduated from East. Cheering for the Packers was something Mom could still do even after watching most other TV shows became meaningless for her. Our visit to the Pro Shop may have been motivated by self-interest, but it's not like there are no connections to the Packers in my memories of Mom.

After the Pro Shop, we drove to the cemetery. The flat headstones were all covered with snow, so we trudged around in the vicinity of the grave, but under the snow was a layer of ice, so we couldn't dig through to the headstone itself. That was no big surprise, and it was okay. I don't need to see the marker to know it's there.

Then we drove to the nearby McDonalds to use the restrooms, and saw Kaap's Fine Candies next door. I won't go into the long history of Kaap's in GB, but will say that it was an old German restaurant, with a bakery and candy shop. Everything they made was out of this world. Otto Kaap is long gone, as is the restaurant with its dark wood interior on Washington Street, but the candy shop survives on Webster Avenue. Jeanne and I had to stop, and we picked out a pound of the best dark chocolate candy I've had in a very long time. And I eat a lot of dark chocolate! Even though I'd never been in this store location before, just being in a store called Kaap's, with pictures of the old restaurant, and the familiar candy boxes, brought a lot of memories back.

Positive memories (except for the bedevilment of knowing I may never again have a cheesecake like Kaap's used to make; that recipe was not saved when the original restaurant closed, and I've never seen a cheesecake like that--tall and light--again. What a loss!).

By the time we left Kaap's, it was snowing and getting dark, so instead of dinner at Titletown Brewery (a restaurant Mom was pleased to introduce us to), we drove home. All day long, I felt so calm, even peaceful, as cliche as that sounds. It was nothing like the emotional weeks leading up to this first anniversary. Go figure. The "grief book" was right on target about this.

And yet, it took me three weeks to write this. Ah, I'm sure it's just because I've been busy.

Happy Birthday, Dad

He would have been 88 today. His mother lived to be 90; she was the only biological grandparent I knew. Dad's dad died young. I think my dad was 17 when his dad died. I'll have to look it up. Dad died a month short of his 69th birthday, 19 years ago. And Mom died 6 months ago yesterday.

So many dates and anniversaries, I begin to wonder if there are too many to really mean anything, other than I get lots of memory prompts in the summer. They each mean a little less the farther I move away from them. I used to go to the shore of Lake Michigan and send Dad a Happy Birthday balloon every year on this date. After 3 or 4 years I stopped. I no longer felt that need.

Yet I also notice that I do not forget these dates. I make a point not to forget all these dates. They must mean something; in fact, I feel as though their meaning is probably fairly obvious. Maybe it's too close, staring me in the face, as they say, so that I cannot make out the relevance of remembering these milestones. Or maybe that's the point, remembering. Those casually tossed off "memory prompts" are the meaning. Wisdom has it that one mustn't live in the past. Ignoring the past is, on the other hand, ignoring what made us what we are in the present.

Whatever the meaning, the memories are here, as is the love (and the fights and the laughs and the dysfunction). Another milestone, more memories, another summer day.

Another milestone

When last I wrote, I mentioned that my dad's birthday is this week--tomorrow, actually. What I didn't even realize was that today, August 12, is the 6-month anniversary of Mom's death.

I had lunch with a friend/colleague today, a mutual friend of my colleague who died two months ago tomorrow. We talked a lot about death, and her aging parents (her mom has Alzheimer's). I would not say it was a morbid conversation, however, or even a depressing one. It was a necessary one, perhaps. What I have found, especially in these past 6 months, is that there are a fair number of people out there who will do anything to avoid talking about, and thus thinking about, death. Quite frankly, that doesn't work for me. Death is a natural consequence of life. To try to ignore it makes absolutely no sense to me. Acknowledging it, accepting it, even expecting it seems not only rational, but helpful. Being at my mom's side when she died was an incredibly grace-filled moment. I felt that she honored me by allowing me to witness that transition.

So a lunch conversation about death does not strike me as odd or morbid, but in many ways as helpful. Death happens.

And Mom, wherever you are now, it cannot be as bad as the hell of Alzheimer's, so I don't wish you back, but I do miss you. I hope that whatever place you are in, in whatever form you are in, it's giving you peace.

Pilgrimage

Monday, July 26, would have been Mom's 88th birthday. To mark the occasion, Jeanne and I drove up to Green Bay (with our dog Cleo). We hadn't been to the cemetery since Mom's burial and the engraving being finished. So I bought a plant, which is surely dead by now unless "neighbors" are watering it, and placed it on the grave. Here is a partially shaded photo:

We didn't stay long at the cemetery; there's not much to do there. So we cruised past Mom & Dad's old condo. We also found my childhood home, which got moved when the YWCA bought the lot for parking. I knew what street they moved it to, but not which block. So we drove up the street until I recognized it; it's a big house, and had a few identifying features that made me confident that I'd correctly identified it. That was enjoyable; I loved that house. We also drove past my old high school, to make sure the headless children still had their heads reattached (long story, but one that always brings a smile. I may have to tell it some day, as Mom has a significant role in it).

Then we picked up some lunch, and had a little picnic at a park by the river. It felt surprisingly freeing to be in my home town with no agenda, no one to have to see, nowhere to have to be.

And then we drove home. I did not feel overtly emotional that day, but I could feel the next day that things were not their placid normal selves. Not much more to report than that. Getting ready for Dad's birthday next week. As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the season of remembering for me.

Anniversaries

Today is the 19th anniversary of my dad's death. Monday is the 88th anniversary of my mom's birth. Mom was never crazy about her birthday, and once Dad died, 3 days before her birthday, she liked them even less. Even as Alzheimer's took her mind, some part of her seemed to remember these dates. Ever since she came to live with us, and possibly before, this time of the year was difficult for her. Her moods and demeanor would be a little darker and agitated in mid-to-late summer. She was unhappier. And it definitely was not because of the weather. Wisconsin summers are too short, and she disliked the winters too much for us to think it was a "seasonal" effect. We're sure it was an anniversary effect, though perhaps never conscious.


For me, this is also a time to remember these anniversaries. I try to stay focused on the happy memories.

Love

Grief is a strange beast. I rarely feel actively sad about Mom's death. Mostly I feel strange things going on in my physical self. I'm tired a lot, even though I get enough sleep. I have more aches and mysterious pains than I used to, and I'm convinced it's not just a part of getting older. Not all of it, at any rate. I was talking to someone I know who has recently been through more than his share of grief. He said that while he was in the midst of his wife's cancer, people kept asking him if he was okay. He always said he was, because he didn't realize until after her death that he wasn't. You have to keep going, and you don't recognize the effects caregiving takes on you. Then after his wife died, he said it was like all the air rushing out of a balloon. It's an apt metaphor.

Recently, I've started remembering Mom more. Up until now, it's been a lot of blankness. But now I start to think of her more often. I remember her, her life, not just the past 6 years. She was a great mom.

This may seem a bit after the fact, but I am posting the eulogy I wrote for Mom's memorial service. I guess it's time.

I would like to read from 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

So I trust that, with love for my mother and my mother’s love for me, my words will be neither a noisy gong or clanging symbol.


And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Of the people I’ve spoken to in the last 3 weeks, almost all described my mother as a lady. And she was.
And she was patient, and kind, and never arrogant or rude. One of my favorite
stories’ of Mom’s was about how she met Dad. She was working in the treasurer’s office at Wartburg College. Dad was teaching there.
Mom’s home congregation in Nauvoo, IL was temporarily without a pastor.
They were getting supply pastors from all around, and one week, Dean Kilgust was
tapped to go preach there. Mom’s roommate, Arlean, told her, “Ask him for a ride; you can go home and visit your family. Besides, he’s single.” Mom, who was already in her late 20s and convinced marriage was not in her future, said, “No, I don’t want to ride with Dean Kilgust. He’s so arrogant.” Well, Arlean finally convinced her that it was a free ride home, and worth putting up with Dean for. Mom told me that on that ride to Nauvoo and back with Dean, she saw a different side of him, and found out he could be thoughtful and kind. And the rest, of course, is history.

It was not until Mom came to live with us that I found out how strongly that love endured. When words were becoming hard for her to use anymore, we would often get the picture albums out for her to look at. She enjoyed that most of the time, but the only time her face would light up would be when she would see a picture of Dad. Then she would gently touch the photo, and sometimes stroke his cheek. I always knew my mom loved my dad, but it took Alzheimer’s to show me that she was in love with him.

Language was the first thing Mom had trouble with due to Alzheimer’s. She loved to read, and always had a stack of library books next to the love seat she would sit in. She, more than anyone, modeled for me the reading that became both my love and my life’s work. It was when Mom could no longer remember what some of the words she was reading meant, words that she knew she knew, that she went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.


Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

Mom endured Alzheimer’s with a grace and dignity I couldn’t quite fathom. When something she used to be able to do became hard for her, she would say, “Well, that’s the disease. I won’t be able to do that anymore.” She wasn’t perfect, or a saint, but
she faced her disease with more acceptance than I thought humanly possible. She never asked, “Why me?” and she didn’t complain.

As her disease progressed, people would often ask, “Does she still know you?” That was always hard to answer, because I don’t believe she knew our names, or who we were to her, but she did know us. She knew that Jeanne and I were the people who were always with her, and who cared for her, and who kept her safe. On that last day, she knew we were out that afternoon; she knew when we got home; and she knew that when we got her into bed and comfortable, that she could finally leave.


For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

Being a witness at my mother’s death was one of the greatest gifts she’s given me. It was a privilege to be with her at the end of her life on this earth. And now she is complete again.


When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Mary Kilgust embodied love, and I am blessed to have had her as my mother.

At the Hairdresser's

Yesterday I got my hair cut. I know, by itself, not exactly big news. But this stylist is the same woman who has done Mom's hair for at least the last 5 years, maybe 5 1/2. She said that she cannot believe the number of people who have been asking where the lady in the wheelchair is. Not just her customers, but the customers of the other stylists who rent spaces there. "It's amazing," she said, "how many lives your mother touched."


It's amazing indeed.