Remembering Mama Louann

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Mom

When you live to be nearly a century old, you live a series of lives, really. Your chances to make mistakes of all shapes and sizes grows exponentially…to cause hurt, to endure hardships, to mend fissures, to try again, to process sorrows and to find and create beauty and joy in the world. Significantly magnified also, if you choose it, is your opportunity to persevere, expand, and grow. Mom did all of this in her 93 years.

She was complex and sometimes complicated. She was wise and also a little girl. She could be a lot and she could be just right. Mom was beautiful and intelligent and talented and a little bit haunted. When she was just 13 months old, her parents made the choice to send her to her grandparents to be raised by them. It was the tail end of the Great Depression and times were tough. Mom knew her grandmother loved her, but Great Grandma Anna was more stern than warm and fuzzy. Mom often longed for her own parents until she moved back with them when she was 13 years old. I believe this created in her a life-long hunger to love and be loved…to feel deeply connected and accepted.

Mom had a great deal of gratitude for things that brought her joy. When autumn leaves began to change colors, or the first dogwood blossoms appeared…when a bird she admired was perched nearby so that you could see the detail in its unique markings, she would express big awe and pleasure and would want you to see it the way she did—to feel what she felt. Especially when I was younger, this could be annoying. As I have aged, however, I have come to realize that what found its way past the annoyance and into me was an attention to detail that allows me to see and experience what others often miss and an appreciation of small things that always offers me something in which to find joy.

When going over to my folks’ house, I would often feel like I needed an exit strategy because, no matter how long I stayed, Mom would always have one more thing that she wanted to show me—the blooms on her Christmas cactus, a beautiful card someone had sent her, or a new piece of fabric she’d purchased. What this ultimately meant, though, was that I always knew there was someone out in the world who would be thrilled to see me and a place where I could visit and stay as long as I wanted.

Creatively resourceful would also describe our Mom. She could stretch a penny further than anyone I knew. She loved putting together fashionable outfits on a budget. Mom worked at JCPenny for decades. She would come home after a little shopping spree there, and I’d get a fashion show with a detailed account of the original price of each item, how many times it had been marked down and for how much, and what the final super bargain price was after her employee discount was applied. Though these sessions could feel long and drawn out, and I sometimes wished she would just buy something simply because she liked it, she did put together the best outfits. And I learned to understand the value of things and that there is more than one way to get what you need and want.

Rather than get angry and instantly judge someone when they were ill-behaved, Mom would always consider what they might be going through in their life and what might have caused them to make the choice that they did. This would sometimes drive me crazy because I would want her to demand respect and set a boundary. I realize, though, that she modeled for me compassion, tolerance, and empathy.

With Mom, there was a bright side to most everything. “Get up, get dressed, put on your lipstick and get out of the house. You’ll feel better!” could be hard to hear when sometimes I just wanted to feel bad about what was bad. But Mom lost an infant daughter, Bonnie Sue, early in her life and an adult daughter and best friend, Sandy, at the end of her life, and still she was able to keep moving forward and continue finding joy. From her I’ve learned that we are in control of how we view the world. We can lay down and give up or we can learn to navigate the sorrows and choose to believe that life can still be beautiful, after some really good cries, of course.

Mom would have kept her kids at home forever and she loved having her grandchildren, too. This could make it hard to venture away, and I am the one who stayed. But it also meant that all of the friends of all of her kids were always welcome in her house—the more the merrier. She was fun and funny and often regarded as a second mother by them, and our family extended beyond what was already fairly large. As a result, to this day, we have a network of kind and caring family that was born under many different roofs.

It’s difficult to encapsulate any life in just a few minutes, harder still to share a life that spanned so many years and was lived by someone who was forever learning, growing, and improving. I could tell Mom’s story from many angles following a variety of threads. In the end, I think that it comes down to a few simple truths.

Many people assumed that, because I’m the only living daughter, most of the responsibility of this end-of-life journey for mom fell on me. And I did do a lot of work to gather information and set things up and attend to the details and be an advocate along the way. It was the boys, though, who sat with her around the clock and kept her clean, fed, and comfortable for weeks at a time, so that I could go to work. And Dad literally did not leave her side for 5 months. He often spent 10-hour days sitting in a chair next to her bed in the hospital and rehab center, and he slept in a chair next to her hospital bed at home. Mom raised boys who can be tender and nurturing and won the life-long dedication of her sweetheart.

There are people here from three corners of the country and the Pacific Ocean, and every one of Mom’s children are present. She would have been in awe of the number of people who have joined together in this room to remember her. Because she connected deeply with others, she was and is so loved.

Like all of us, Mom was complex and sometimes messy. In the end, though, she lived her 93 and three-quarters years fully. She didn’t let challenges or sadness or circumstances squelch her exuberance for life. She blossomed in her own ways in spite of it all.

The past few weeks have been harder than I anticipated. We’ve been letting go of and grieving little parts of Mom for years now as she was losing bits of herself–first some words and names, then whole memories and recognition of people and, finally, her mobility. If you knew Mom, you know she had a crazy energy—always in motion and always doing. I was able to spend lots of fun time with her just doing things for pleasure over the past few years. She was always so easy to please, and she maintained her spunk, mischievousness, sense of humor, and sweetness to the end. There was nothing unsaid between us…nothing unresolved. I believe we were completely at peace with each other. But now there’s this person who was ALWAYS there, who we somehow fantastically believed might always be there. She is gone. The truth that I have to remind myself of, though, is that I feel closer to Mom now in a lot of ways than I have in a long while. I can talk to her without the barriers of lost words, difficulty hearing, and general confusion. I can feel her vibrant spirit, and I can have her company anytime, no matter where I am.

Just about a week after Mom died, Dad’s sister, Diane, passed away. Her service was yesterday in Buffalo, so we couldn’t be there, but I told my cousin that we’d bring Aunt Diane to Mom’s service. Diane was a consistently kind presence throughout our life…a loving life thread. When my folks would make their way up to Buffalo for visits in my adult years, Mom, Dad, Sandy, and Diane would spend marathon days going to book and craft stores, sharing meals, and eating ice cream. Every activity laced with laughter. I see them together now as swirly, giggly stardust, disease and pain-free, reminding us to see beauty and find joy, even when its existence seems scarce. Not gone, just gone on ahead.

Thank you, Mom, for being a wonderful model of humility, complexity, perseverance, joy, and a simply beautiful life.