Poor Horatio
It's pretty hard to forget a thing like that
Mom
It was Saturday and only 8:22pm, but I had dozed off on the couch. The buzzing of my phone jarred me awake and by the sound in Dad's voice I knew it was bad, “Nick, the hospital called. Your mother isn't doing well, if we want to see her, we have to go now. Can you call David?”
Only an hour and a half earlier my brother, David, and his wife had called to give us the latest on Mom. Her kidney numbers were slightly better. Something else, that I have forgotten, was slightly better. Yes, she was still on a ventilator and, yes, at that moment they were giving her 100% of the oxygen that her body needed, but was this a tiny glimmer of hope? I wasn't kidding myself, I knew her odds of survival were slim, but if her kidneys could improve, couldn't something else improve too? Couldn't we just get a few days in a row with microscopic improvements?
Mom was born in 1955 to two of my favorite people (I wrote a little about them here - Grandma is Gone). I don't know that I have ever driven down the road Mom lived on as a kid, but based on the stories from my uncle and Mom it was a great place to grow up. It always sounded like the quintessential late 50s and 60s childhood. Their childhood group of friends would grow up to include a business owner, a postal worker, an engineer in Silicon Valley, a guy that played in the NFL, and I don't know what else.
I don't think I talked to her much about high school. She was in a school play, Lil’ Abner, I recently learned. I think she was a majorette in the marching band. I suppose she got decent grades. It seems like the kind of thing any child of my grandparents would do.
It must have been in high school or just after that she met my dad - I've heard the story and have forgotten the details. They were married when they were both 20. Dad had just turned 20 and Mom was approaching her 21st birthday. A cousin shared that one of his favorite memories with her was “riding in her green Firebird convertible, top down, windows up, and heater on high.” Dad has lamented more than once, “she should have kept that car.”
But a convertible Firebird is probably not the most practical vehicle when you end up having two kids less than a year apart. My brother was born a little over a year after they were married. Mom was 21. I came along less than a year after that when she was 22.
Mom and Dad look so young in that picture. Mom told my wife once that sometimes she would just sit on the floor and cry. If I were 22 years old with two kids under the age of 1, I would do the same. But what strikes me most about the picture is Mom's smile. In all the pictures I have looked at over the last few days, there aren't many where she isn't smiling.
There were times when I was a kid when she wasn't smiling. Imagine how you might recreate “Macho Man” Randy Savage climbing to the top rope at home. For me, it involved climbing on the arm of the couch, jumping as high as I could, and then smashing down on the middle cushion. Mom was in the kitchen and I got away with it once, maybe even twice, but I went back to the well one too many times. She caught me in the act. No smiles. I was old enough to know better, of course, but also old enough to know that it was a lot of fun.
She told me once I could go to a friend's as long as I didn't ride my bike in the development behind his house. We went riding bikes. There was no other option, we had to do it. Mom knew, Moms always know.
And there was the time I was griping about my lack of allowance, it must have been 1990 or shortly thereafter, and she informed me that she didn't get an allowance when she was a kid, and I would not be getting one either. I did nothing to deserve an allowance, but I needed money for my insatiable appetite for baseball cards. My response, “But, Mom, it's the 90s, kids get an allowance these days!” was about as effective as you might imagine.
She wasn't smiling in those cases, but she didn't raise her voice either. I can't think of an instance where she raised her voice at us. My grandpa, her dad, was the same way.
Mom stayed home when we were little, and Dad worked at a foundry in Cincinnati. Life growing up was pretty good. Mom took us to baseball practice, let me use her car a lot when I got my license (that I may have wrecked), and was always a calm presence. After football games on Friday night some of the team would go to Taco Bell. Mom would take me and sit over in a corner. When you're 15 you don't want your mom hanging out with you, but I should have sat next to her.
Mom loved a lot. Until the last few days, I had never thought of all the people and things she loved. Most of all she loved her family. Dad, me and my brother, her daughters-in-law, the grandkids, her brother, brother-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, and a nephew.
I have never known someone that loved her extended family more than Mom. Her cousins were like brothers and sisters to her. It could be a third cousin twice removed that she just found, and Mom would be so happy that they were part of the family now. Mom especially loved sharing her birthday with one cousin and spending the day with her. Not just that day, but any day with her “sister from another mister” was special.
Every week Mom went to “craft day” with a group of cousins and friends. She was constantly making scrapbooks with family pictures. I'm certain her favorite scrapbooks were those of the grandkids. Craft day was her favorite day of the week.
She loved going to Skyline for lunch with another group of cousins.
She loved a friend of my brother like he was her third son, and he calls her Mom. My sister-in-law's cousins call her Mom, and she was always so happy to see or get a call from them.
Beyond just loving people, she loved so much more - Christmas, snowmen, cats, birds, butterflies, music, reporting the weather on Facebook, buying cakes from Central Pastry for birthdays, eating at the Jug, the Reds, the Dragons, and countless other things.
Mom was a huge baseball fan. For a few years she was an usher for the Dragons. Other than Donald Lutz's own mother, Mom had to be his biggest fan because of how nice he was to her. And she was thrilled when he made it to Cincinnati, she was always thrilled when a former Dragon made it to Cincinnati.
I don't know who her favorite Red of all time would be, but Bronson Arroyo would have to be in the running. My brother cemented his place as favorite son when he bought her the 8’ tall light post banner of Arroyo that hung outside of Great American Ball Park.
She had to give up working for the Dragons when she needed a liver transplant. It took some time, but she bounced back from that and, as soon as she was able, was back to planting flowers, digging up others, asking anyone and everyone if they needed a start of some flower X, filling up hummingbird feeders, and anything you can think of to make sure the backyard was an oasis for birds and butterflies. Over the summer she brought in a dozen (maybe it was two dozen? I don't remember) Monarch caterpillars so they would be safe. When they were ready, she released them outside.
She loved to travel. She visited cousins in California, cousins in NYC, and went on bus trips with different groups, in addition to going to Gatlinburg and Mackinaw about every year with Dad. Last year we took a family trip to Frankenmuth, MI right before Christmas. Just being able to go to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland with her made the drive worth it. She was like a kid in a candy store.
More than anything, she loved her grandkids. However good you are as a parent, you are always better as a grandparent, right? Mom was a great “Maw” to her three grandkids. It's hard to put into words just how great she was. She did so much for them. She sewed, read books, played dolls, played video games, took them school shopping, and so much more.
With COVID-19 I was most worried about three people, my 94 year old grandma, my uncle who was having lung issues and then underwent a double lung transplant, and Mom. With Mom being on anti-rejection medication, seeming to get bronchitis every year, plus allergies, and a few other ailments, I was worried about her getting it.
The evening before her 65th birthday she started feeling bad. And the symptoms were consistent with coronavirus - fever, loss of taste and smell, and coughing. She got tested. It seemed to take forever to get her results back and then she sent this text.
I was hoping it would be a mild case and at first it seemed that way. Her taste and smell were coming back before she got the results. She seemed to be doing better. Things started to turn for the worse though. She was coughing a lot and her oxygen levels dropped. Dad took her to the hospital on November 19th. It's hard knowing your parent is in the hospital and you can't visit them.
There were hopeful text messages and posts on Facebook, but the amount of oxygen they were giving her was going up. They moved her to a different room where they could give her even more oxygen. I talked to her on November 28th and the first thing she told me was where the bills were at home. Mom always took care of paying the bills. Did Mom know? Moms always know. My heart sank. Then they moved her to the ICU. Then they put her on a ventilator.
We told the kids that Maw was really sick. Our son asked my wife what we could do. She told him the doctors were doing all they could. “But what can we do?” he asked. “Can we spend some money and buy Maw more medicine?”
It all happened so fast.
As I drove down the highway I literally wondered if it was a dream. Had Dad actually called? Could this really be happening?
I got to the hospital and saw my brother. We went in through the emergency entrance and a lady was waiting to take us up. We put on gowns, gloves, and masks. We talked to the doctor and were told there would be no days of microscopic improvements. Her oxygen levels were too low. Her lungs were too damaged. They had done all they could. About three hours after Dad called, on Saturday, December 5th, Mom was gone.
By the time I got home Mom had already passed, but I didn't know it yet. Our daughter asked if Maw was still alive and I said she was. Knowing how much Maw loved the holidays she asked, “Will she be alive at Christmas?” The sadness in her eyes when I told her no was tough to handle.
It still hasn’t fully sunk in yet that she won’t pick up the phone the next time I call. That I won’t see her at Christmas. That she won’t tell me about her flowers next spring. That she won't tell me what she worked on at craft day. That she won’t be rooting for the Reds next season. And, most of all, that she won’t watch her grandkids continue to grow up. It hurts to know they won’t be able to spend more time with Maw.
Goodbye, Mom, I love you.