The Wads of Winter

My friend Connie raises Geese in Missouri. That’s not what she intended to do with her life. She was an award winning landscape designer in Chicago - but her mother was dying alone on the family farm and her city slicker siblings would not step up.

I’m not saying Connie’s mother “was” dying because she died, but because somewhere along the line she started holding her own.

Her brother grudgingly writes checks to make the problem go away as her sister sits back and criticizes.

It’s the traditional American family.

Hospice still comes out – that’s a surprise. Connie can’t get it through her head that they are there for end of life. When death is not imminent, they go away. When hospice saw my Gram was getting better that’s what they did. I joke that they fired her after four months. She lived years past that.

But Connie needs help, she can’t even accept the thought that they might stop coming. She hates and needs them. She rages on Facebook, she doesn’t want to hear the truth about hospice nurses being there to dispense comfort, not healing. I throw my two cents in like a grenade and run for fear of fallout.

It’s not good, it’s not bad – it just is.

I don’t want to get into it with her. Nobody carries a burden as heavy as hers. Her mom has lung cancer and mild dementia and Connie is in her second winter of horrific bronchitis and migraines. She and her mother live in separate buildings on the land and she has to trudge through deep snow to keep her mother fed and medicated and make sure the furnace is working. Not to mention feeding/watering/caring for the geese and the herding dogs and ….

I would break under her burden.

Today she wrote me privately. I have to take a deep breath to open her emails because they break my heart. She explained it this way. I’m not changing one word – just the punctuation because – well, I’m a Virgo.

She wrote “Not to put pressure on you, but I just can’t deal with people right now. And I don’t consider you a person. If you know what I mean- that is a compliment. You are more like a dog.”

The compliment was significant; we both like dogs better than people.

She wrote a very long email and it seemed wads were the crux of it – the straws that broke the camel’s back.

She said she was losing it due to her mother “stuffing endless amounts of kleenex up her sleeves and then my washing her clothes only to have millions of shreds of tissue all over everything, that then falls off when I take the clothes out of the dryer and then I have to sweep the floor.....her home aid brought red washclothes for some unknown reason--- she has millions here already- and so when I washed her clothes all of her whites came out stained pink. I blew up.”

The pink thing made me snicker a little.

But the tissue up the sleeves … that brought Gram back. She did that. She wadded some of it up and stuck it in her ears too; only in the winter.

Back when she was just a dumb blonde – before the dementia started to take her away. Her ears would be full of it and you’d say something and she’d get pissy – annoyed – like “speak the hell up!” Only she would never say “hell”.
I’d point to her ears and she’d double over with laughter. She’d pull them out and I’d say “there for a second I thought you were deef!” That was one of her words.

I think she had a theory that the wads kept her ears warm. Well, maybe the cochlea. I don’t recall ever having cold cochlea. I guess it could happen.

Hats messed up her hair and made her look like “the wreck of the Hesperus” – whatever that was. She was very vain.

We were exposed to the elements more than most because we were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Gram brought out the big guns on Saturday mornings when we went door to door with the Watchtower and Awake. She used COTTON BALLS instead of tissue wads. Maybe they were her “dress” wads.

And she wore an oppressively heavy brown mouton coat with tissues tucked up the sleeves. I’m sure she felt quite elegant, but I hated that coat. One Saturday morning, she caught a heel in the hem and I turned to see her rolling around on the sidewalk struggling to break free. The thickness broke her fall, but it looked like she was being mauled by a bear.

We laughed so hard we cried.

Years passed. I grew up and got married … a few times. She got older and dementia eased in slowly. She got a little testy with people. She bought me dog grooming mits for my third wedding. I’ll never know for sure - dementia or one last lucid shot at my credibility?

Then she forgot who we were; but it seemed like she remembered she loved us. I missed her before she was gone.

Yeah, I remember wads.
Connie ended her tirade …

“I have to get my head back on to seeding the fields and paying my debts off and dealing with hospital bills and sewing curtains, getting to meetings and pretending my life isnt freaking me out of my mind.... NOT lose it over pink clothes. And tissue bits. And hypocrites. And loneliness.”

I wrote back that the days are already getting longer – spring is coming. The snow will melt, the new chicks will arrive and the cycle will begin again.

I did not write that she will get well - her mother won’t and one day she’ll miss the wads and the day the laundry went pink.

The Drafting Compass

I had a friend who wanted to move to Florida except that his parents lived in West Palm. He spread a map, took a drafting compass and drew a circle that rendered 250 miles of comfort zone.

He chose a city on the edge of that zone - far enough to discourage unannounced visits, but close enough to get there quickly in case of emergency. Brilliant.

My situation is not like his. I came to Florida first and my parents – well, they’ll probably never come at all. They’re in Northern Michigan near Lake Superior.

I would need a bigger compass.

I look at my map and there is some satisfaction in being closer to Castro than my mother. I’m about 400 miles north of Havana, 1700 miles south of mom’s.

Both dictators are getting on in years.

Mom is much younger, mid 70s. Castro – well, he has to be ninety by now. I think I’d have a better time with him, but he never calls – he never writes. He doesn’t know I exist.

My mom knows but she doesn’t care much. She had one child - a bastard – that’s me. That was her defining moment. She came home pregnant at 15 and got heat from her mom. Sure, blame the Gram for being upset because she already had her hands full raising three kids while her husband – Grandpa – was suicidal; crazy on his ass with bipolar.

Despite the hardships, Gram welcomed me with open arms. But my mom? According to her current life script, she never forgave her for coming home pregnant. Funny, I don't remember it that way. I grew up with those two and I never saw my Gram dish out anything but food, shelter, love and money.

Some years after mom married – still stalking the ever-elusive happiness - she went into therapy and came out blaming her mother for every disappointment. Her resentments started growing right around the same time Gram started slipping gears.

I told her I thought Gram was getting dementia. Mom disagreed. She said she was playing games.

So - of course - after years of steady decline Gram died of dementia. She has been gone for four years, but my mom continues to claw at her memory like a housebound cat attacks a scratching post.

I have a hard time picking up the phone to make a call. I miss my Gram; she's glad she's gone.  Sometimes I prefer email because written words don't cut as deep as spoken words. There is something powerful in a person's "tone."

I’ll bet Castro doesn’t have this kind of drama. He wouldn't permit it. He'd wave it away in a hairy knuckled cloud of smoke.

I’ll bet he embraces his bastards as living/breathing signs of macho.

He would be full of himself – like her – but he wouldn’t give me creepy, judgmental stares over a steaming mug of herbal tea.

She sits curled on the left corner of the great blanketed Collie Couch, with one or two of the great wooly beasts dozing at her feet. If she has food, they huff and puff with desire.

It annoys her that I am vegetarian; but she says she is too - well, except for the bacon. Oh yeah, and the burgers.

Castro wouldn't take my shit. He'd have his chef slap a big bloody steak on my plate and inform me it's that or nothing; at least I could go on Atkins for the duration.

Not so at mom's. She bakes cakes and pies the whole time we're there. She's an incredible cook. Maybe that's how she shows her love. At the end we waddle back out to the SUV with our bags - emotionally deflated and physically fat.

Castro would have a fully stocked bar of prime rums and brandies.  I imagine him puffing as he leans back comfortably in a heavily tufted leather chair. It might have some ash burns.

He might have a dog – or maybe even a cat. I could see him with a cat. He probably has people standing by with lint-rollers. In fact, he would have an entourage of trusted friends and cohorts.

My mother doesn’t because she is fierce.

My step-dad hides out with the remotes in his ginormous but somewhat drafty family room. The kitchen is the late-night demilitarized zone where they elbow roughly past each other, exchanging muttered “fuck you’s” in the dim light of the open fridge.

The open profanity usually occurs at the dinner table when the stepdad asks her to pass something and she'll respond with something like "fuck you, get it yourself." 

It was unnerving but sort of laughable when he was stronger; now that his health is bad, it's intolerable. We've started taking her aside to tell her to calm the fuck down. Well, not me - I'm afraid. My son does it.

I'm afraid because if I get into it there's a very good chance we will  never speak to each other again. Ever. And if I have cause to get into it, I would probably be ok with that.

The dad sleeps downstairs in his own room. It WAS the prime guest room. Mom takes offense to that, but then she takes offense to most everything he does.

I remind her she has a blessed life and it's all because of him.

I sleep upstairs under a dozen glassy eye deer-heads. I get the pull out sofa with the metal rails that bite because I’m the asterisk in family visits to The Great White North. Don’t get me wrong, I like it that way – below radar, with my son, daughter in law and granddaughters out front like the marines. 

I make it up there about once a year. I drive to my son’s place in lower Michigan, then we drive another 500 miles past that. We go in my son’s great guzzlin’ SUV with sleeping kids, spilled Cheetos, farting dogs and The Little Mermaid on DVD.

My first daughter-in-law misses us. During delivery of Emma, my first granddaughter, she discovered the joy of pain meds and drugged herself right out of a perfectly beautiful family. Today she has a new family but she misses the life she had with us.

We've hooked up on Facebook and it's like old times. She asked if she could list me on as her mother and I said OK. I always loved her. She was young, she fucked up. We all fuck up sometimes.

She's sorry.

This week she sent an email asking me to tell my parents she misses them.

I understand how she feels. I miss my ex-husband's parents, they are awesome. But I knew what was going to happen.

I sent an email and my mom wrote back: "We will NEVER forgive her for what she did.”

I wrote back saying that doesn't change the fact that Becky will always be Emma’s mother. I envision my mother making some unforgiveable comment that will offend Emma for all time.

It seems like my mother has become the mother she manufactured in her head, the mother she THOUGHT she had. I half-think a person who has never met me or us will read this silly overview of our family's maternal dynamic and have more clarity.

Maybe one day I'll have that. I wish I could understand.

I'm pretty sure my Gram would have accepted Becky’s apology. I think she lived 96 years because she knew how to forgive and accept.

So I’ve got my map and I’ve got my drafting compass.

Let’s see … only 400 miles to Castro’s; 1700 miles to the mom’s. It takes a lot of gas, forgiveness and acceptance to go there.

Open Letter to Fox News

Dear Ms. Kenney:

Tonight I accidentally stopped on Fox as I was flipping through. I briefly heard that a person can still weigh in on that hate speech thing. I'm sorry to be bothering you, but if you don't know who to write, write to the top.

Do I believe the hate speech factor is valid? Absolutely. I've read up on the shooter and I have little doubt he has some form of autism. I have a friend who has Asperger's Syndrome. That person is emotionless and sometimes horrifically inappropriate; he has tremendous difficulty fitting in socially. Is he affected by the media he sees and hears? You bet - if it's in his "script." These people "script" themselves to squeak by. They can only manage one - maybe two.

The shooter had a vision of hate and death; if he needed encouragement to follow through, all he had to do was turn on the radio or TV.

We've been banging this around on Facebook since Saturday. Today someone asked "how many people would be influenced by that sort of thing?" Well, I did some research. They say approximately 20% of the adult population has mental health problems. I didn't take time to find out how many are smoking pot, drunk on their asses or strung out on Hillbilly Heroin. Let's say another 10% are strung out on drugs - liquid, prescription and otherwise.

That leaves about 70% of the adult population to watch you and your commercials in a lucid state. Well, at least half of that adult population thinks like me. Fox News is Faux News, a freakshow of hate and venom. If I knew someone was advertising on your network, I would go out of my way to NOT buy from them.

I had a friend from up north who spent a night here last year - on the heels of another guest. She came out the next morning and whispered "did you know your guest TV is set to Fox News?" Embarrassed, I said "Omigod no, I'll fix that right away."

I have unfriended friends who parrot the Fox hate rhetoric - online and in real life. I've known some of those people for 30 years.

Your network has been ugly and divisive since before the presidential election. When I think Fox I think bigots, christian fanatics and KKK. I think that evil crying clown Beck.

It would be amazing to see you initiate some renaissance of working together across the political divide; to see Fox become part of an intelligent solution instead of the loaded gun that it is.

(Sent to Fox 4 News in Fort Myers 1/11/11)