The Apple Tree Wins

My husband and daughters and I have been joking for years that we were closely linked with three living entities that were far beyond their natural life spans: my mother, our 15-year-old corgi dog, and the apple tree in our back yard. We regret that we never took a posed photo of my elderly mother and Frisky seated in the shade of this ancient tree.

We did celebrate my parents’ 45^th wedding anniversary beneath its leafy bower in 2001. We festooned it with streamers.

The very old apple tree is the only one of the three that remains, and only one crumbling trunk of it. I was out there with the camera yesterday trying to capture the feelings of loss it produces in me, but I don’t know if I succeeded.

Of course, people and pets move on, children grow up, young parents become middle aged empty nesters, old people die, the middle aged people prepare to become old people, and so on. I know this. I don’t run away from these truths.

Since 2001, our four parents have died, along with my husband’s only sibling, his brother. Other friends and relatives have also passed away. Dana presented with bipolar disorder in 2003, became a crack addict in 2008, began her recovery in 2009. Marcy is a senior in college, preferring to date girls for the present time.

I am fresh out of dying people and dying dogs. For this minute in time, my immediate family is in good shape. My 12-step program tells me to keep the focus on myself, and here’s my chance!

Since my mother died on May 14, here’s what I’ve been doing:

Marcy came home from college three days before my mother passed. All of her stuff got dumped in the dining room where it stayed until after the funeral. She was home for about six weeks before leaving July 2 for a seven-week art history internship in France. She was nervous and excited and spent her time tanning and seeing friends. Phil spent ten days away from home, teaching in a writing program.

Dana had a cat crisis going on just as my mother died. She had taken in a friend’s two young female sister cats—both un-spayed, one of them pregnant. This did not sit well with her established cat, Shadow, and it became a disturbing problem Dana could not solve on her own. We called every shelter in the state to no avail, as apparently late May is “kitten season.” Ultimately we placed them in a Rhode Island shelter (for a $100 donation) where a family friend volunteers. Marcy, Dana, two wailing cats, and I drove three hours to RI. That was a hoot.

Phil and I drove to Cape Cod for a long weekend in June, which was lovely. We had terrific weather. We ate seafood and walked many miles.

I gave away a lot of the remaining supplies from my mother’s care—adult diapers, wound bandages, bed pads—to our hospice agency. I moved Marcy’s college stuff to the basement. I had a cleaning service come and do a “deep cleaning” of all the walls and floors and windows.

I still have bags and bags of mom’s clothes to give away. I haven’t been able to face that yet.

The month of July was, by comparison, peaceful. We took some nice drives, went out to shows and dinner with friends, ate lots of local farm produce. Then the weather turned very hot, and we stayed in the house to hide from the heat. I worked on filling out the probate paperwork for my mother’s estate.

Phil had a book come out in mid-July to appreciative but very quiet response, so there was disappointment in the air. The novel tells a difficult story set in a time in American history that is painful to recall, and unless it gets tapped for an award, people are not going to be standing in line to get a copy. And so the promotion was tentative, and reviews were subtle. The discontented author licked his wounds and soldiered on with new and ongoing projects.

August 10 we flew to France to visit Marcy for seven days. The weather was delightfully cool there. We saw many lovely sights. I had really balked at going, not being in the mood to plan a trip, but with the help of a travel agent friend, we booked it and went and are glad we did. We rented a car and enjoyed driving around the Picardie region. We ate lots of delicious food and saw ancient villages and cathedrals, went into Paris twice. We had the pleasure of seeing Marcy in her element, giving English language tours of an impressive art collection, functioning with grace and charm so far from home. Marcy’s French came back to her and she was speaking like a native when we got there; people often complimented her accent. She made good friends and lots of important career connections.

Phil and I returned on Aug 17. Before she left, Marcy got sick with some nasty lower intestine bug. She moaned at me via Skype for three days, but she came home as planned on Aug 20. We got her rested up, doctored up, antibiotics, Gatorade, haircut, dentist, psychiatrist check-in, dermatologist, re-packed and off she went back to school on Aug 24!

Hurricane Irene kept us indoors and on edge all last weekend. Our property fared well, but Dana lost power and came to stay with us. Friends in town without power came to our house to shower, eat, and charge electronics.

Dana regained power last night and slept at home. Her stay with us was no trouble, but only today has true peace come back to our house!

All the while, in between the comings and going and catastrophes and fun, I have been grieving. I am surprised by how involuntary the grief process is. I thought I would mostly feel relief once my mother passed away. Instead, I have been struck off and on with a heavy feeling in my chest, almost as if the wind has been knocked out of me. I often wish I could just have a good cry and get it all out. I feel almost sleepy or foggy headed. 

A friend who lost her dad as a teenager said that little by little, she felt herself “wake up” as time went on, and I find that to be a useful way of thinking of it. Every week I feel a little more “awake,” and now I feel that I am past a good part of it. But at the same time, now that events have finally settled down a bit, I have more time to sit and think about my mother and ponder her life and death, as well as our relationship and my role in the last years of her life. This leads to more grieving. It will take time. I am not surprised.

Today is the two-year anniversary of my mother-in-law’s passing. You may wish to go back and read the account. (I must figure out how to link back to previous blog posts.) We found her a year ago tomorrow.

As you may recall, I have been transcribing a collection of letters and documents my mother saved that tell her life story. I will take another six months to continue gathering, annotating, and interpreting this story. I am seeking a way to bear witness to it, as well as a way to lay it to rest. My sense is that by understanding her story I am provided clues to understanding myself and my place in my family tree, so to speak. Thanks for reading.