For educational purposes only.

This is the first in a weeklong series.

Bringing Momma Home

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001

Answers

What the fuck ever who gives a shit./

-- (who@cares.com), October 28, 2001.

I can't get past the opening page. What's up?

-- (@ .), October 28, 2001.

By John Peck · Photographs by David Sanders

I did not become a journalist by accident. For any given day in the 1930s or 1940s, my grandfather's journal recounts the state of the crops and livestock on the family's Indiana farm; my grandmother's entries detail the latest church happenings. My mother, their only child, kept a diary that describes her deep loneliness.

• I have read my great-aunt's joy at the approaching electrification of the county, and have seen my great-grandfather's notes on the business of governing a county. Some of Momma's writing is contained in bound, multiyear volumes and stenographer's notebooks. Some is recorded on small spiral pads or loose pieces of paper. She chronicled hair appointments and house-hunting trips, mumps and measles and chickenpox. She kept track of bills, taxes, money she gave her kids and, as she grew older, her concerns. I inherited this "gene," and have kept journals, on and off, from childhood.

The words here sketch a story of love and friendship, departure and death. My mother, Treva Myers Peck, knew I kept my journals, and she knew I would be writing about her, again, as she died. Almost 18 months ago my partner, James McIlrath, arranged an "energetic reading" for her, and she was told at the time she would "teach a great lesson" with the end of her life, reaching more people than she could imagine. She pondered this for a long time before deciding the task might be best accomplished by linking her process of dying with my inherited need to write it all down.

These journal entries and photographs are the result of that decision. She proposed this project, hoping to teach that lesson. I, a mostly dutiful son, embraced it.

By the time we leave the hospital, I feel assured that Momma understands where we are, what we are talking about. The question is, do I?

Throughout the summer of 2000, Momma was in and out of the hospital and rehab center. She had suffered for years with bronchiectasis, a chronic lung disease. With each hospital visit, a little more of her disappeared. We increased the level of assisted care, the visits, the phone calls. She seemed to stabilize. Then, in mid-October, she fell in her kitchen, repeatedly cutting herself on pieces of a broken coffee cup as she tried to get up. She was whipped and resigned, in complete surrender. We made the decision to move her into full assisted-living care, and she was the most eager of us all for the move. The following week, we packed up the big apartment, had furniture put in storage and, in three furious days, working till 2 a.m. each morning, I set up her "new" apartment, trying to approximate as closely as possible the one she loved but would never live in again. She was in the new space less than three weeks. These abridged entries cover much of the following eight weeks.

Thursday, Nov. 23, 2000

Thanksgiving dinner at my brother Hank's, with his wife, Barbara, and the kids, Shelby, 14, and Charlie, 12. Momma holds court in the living room. Telling us that the light from the southeast is too bright when we are silhouetted by it, she engineers it so all of us have to gather closely around her. Such a sharpie! Hank drives her home - his honker Durango most easily transports Momma and her wheelchair. It makes me weep to watch him lift her bodily - my little brother and our mom. James and I help her change clothes and get settled. Since her last discharge from Northwest Hospital's rehab unit, I've seen her to bed and kissed her good night every night - an old habit with the roles now reversed.

Friday, Nov. 24, 2000

Quiet, productive day at the office with most everyone gone for the Friday after T-day. I feel like I'm so far behind and that I haven't been able to attend to things between moving Momma, the daily hospital visits and the regimen of tucking her into bed and turning out the lights. Momma is concerned tonight that she has a new caretaker who may not be able to catch her should she "drop." She's not interested in my reiteration that if she focuses on the negative, it's what she'll get.

I put her to bed and sit in the semi-dark off her bedroom, looking at old, familiar things on the new, reduced walls. She hasn't told me directly that she doesn't like her smaller digs, but I feel it. She misses all the beautiful clothes she gave away 10 days ago, so many of them never worn. She misses the furniture she lived with for a half-century or more and the independence she's had all her life. She positively hates not being in control. I hope she won't come to resent me, too.

Saturday, Nov. 25, 2000

One of the nurses calls a little after 6 this morning. Momma slid in her caretaker's arms in the bathroom and went into convulsions. Paramedics took her to Northwest Hospital's emergency room. Hank and I arrive at the same time, meeting each other in the parking lot. Momma is violently twitching with wild, extended motions in all four limbs, but the muscle relaxant puts a stop to that. Hank and I hang there for the better part of the morning, then I leave to run some errands for her. I walk Hank down to the car and tell him that (Dr. Scott) Bronnimann felt she was in the "last presentation" of her lung disease. Hank shaken. I stay with her until she is ready to sleep. Me, too, after 16 hours there.

Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2000

Momma is disoriented, and I don't quite know how to keep this together for her - trying to provide her with a semblance of independence and making sure she feels and actually is safe.

I wouldn't have believed six months ago that this is where we might be near the end of 2000. James is the pillar in this for me. . . . He is able to provide an objectivity I can't have, and he brings an empathetic strength from his own complex caretaking and his natural capacity as a healer. He feels it is a matter of weeks, maybe months, for Momma, and that the sooner we get her out of the hospital, the better. In addition to the nursing and companion services we can arrange for her at Campana, (Campana del Rio, a seniors' apartment complex) we can rotate nights staying with her. Above all, he says, we can do a better job ourselves for her than can anyone else. I know he is right.

Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2000

The staff at Handmaker (Jewish Services for the Elderly) will do an evaluation at the hospital to determine the scale of care she will now need. It means "the" conversation needs to happen sooner rather than later. Where will she feel the most comfortable - what is the best environment for her in terms of comfort, safety and health?

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2000

Hank and I have a long discussion today - suggest we both visit Momma tonight and have the "hospice" discussion. I think she is prepared to deal with this; Hank not so sure. But she has been so miserable for such a long time, and she is ready for a resolution - any resolution. She is so glad to see us. It is the thing she most enjoys, having us together, alone with her. And it goes well. Hank and I lay out the options - a nursing home environment or the familiarity of her own apartment - and we talk about the increased security/attention she can have. Handmaker will send a registered nurse at least twice a week, plus home health care as well as counseling services. This would be in addition to what Campana offers in assisted care.

By the time we leave the hospital, I feel assured that Momma understands where we are, what we are talking about. The question is, do I?

Friday, Dec. 1, 2000

The Handmaker folks feel it prudent that she be discharged into its nursing-home setting so we can get a clearer picture. She's actually relieved - now tells me the thought of going back to Campana at this time made her nervous. Who would have known?

I go by this morning to talk to Kathy O'Neil, the nurse who evaluated her, and to look at the room she will have for at least this period. I sign papers, cry, talk . . . it is so damn hard.

Then back to the office: much catch-up. On my way out, I get a call from Robin, a high school family friend visiting Momma - a transport crew is at Northwest to move her, and now! Robin offers to make sure everything is packed up, and to follow the ambulance to Handmaker.

Was it purposeful, to take her unawares? Maybe it was done in order to not allow her to focus on it overnight, but I talk to Momma and can feel her shaking, hear the confused fear in her voice as she tells me they are there to move her and she doesn't know what to do. They had told me barely a half-hour earlier that she would be there for the night and discharged tomorrow.

I add the insensitivity of it to my growing list: Chart nurses who grudgingly offer minimal information because I won't leave until they respond; officious clerical types who schedule her to be discharged at a particular time then force her and Hank to wait for nearly three hours as they do their best to ignore them; insurance companies that won't honor a claim until Momma becomes vegetative.

I rush back to Handmaker. She seems relieved to be there and enjoys the flurry of activity surrounding her arrival. Hank comes by shortly after, and I go to pick up some meds she'll need. Hank leaves, and I sit in the dark with Momma, holding her hand until she falls asleep in this new place.

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2000

Momma is tired today but actually seems stronger. True to form, she has had rearranged what few pieces of furniture there are in the room.

The time before this most recent episode, when she could barely talk and we had to wait nine hours for an available room, she raised her head from the gurney as she was finally being wheeled into the assigned room, blinked, looked at me and said, "Too small!" Amazingly, there was something more acceptable, a room across the hall.

With each of her moves there has been an almost opera bouffe sense to the priority of interior design. When I moved her things three weeks ago to the assisted-care wing - from maybe 700 square feet to, what, 250 square feet? - I knew the entire time that whatever arrangement I did wouldn't be acceptable.

I think of her life in terms of square feet: from 3,500 at the farm to 2,000 on Mitchell Drive, where we grew up, to 1,000 at Hank's, to 700 and then 250 at Campana, to the 100 or so in her room at Handmaker. She now has more square feet of storage than living space.

Sunday, Dec. 3, 2000

James and I go to see Momma this morning, then to breakfast. Chief topic of discussion: Moving Momma again . . . this time to our home. She has been after me for the past six months to write a book called "Moving Momma" - the story of my hand in her various living transitions.

She has always been terrified at the prospect of being "put" someplace, and that fear, even though it has not been directly addressed in the past week, must be weighing on her and making it that much more difficult to focus on being as strong as she can be. We have talked about this before, and now, James says, it is time. We need to bring her home to be with us.

I don't know what Hank will think of the idea. But it feels so right and appropriate. What I do know is that we need to be certain before I say anything to Momma. I know what her reaction will be.

On the other hand, maybe I don't know. It wasn't that long ago that I talked to her about moving in with us when she was healthy.

James and I had weighed the issue as much as we speculatively could, and decided it was the only way to resolve her then-misery of living at Campana. Because our house is, essentially, two rooms, we would have a guesthouse built for her. I made the offer, knowing that once made it would be sealed. We were on the phone and I was looking out at the Catalinas, realizing that the next few seconds would start a profound change in all our lives. "Oh, honey," she said, "I'd love to talk about it some more but I need to get down to my Growth Group meeting." And that was basically the end of that conversation.

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000

She seems a bit stronger today. I talk to Hank about Momma coming home with us - he thinks it would be a great thing to do but offers a number of cautions: Will we get help? How will it affect our job demands? How will it affect us? Who knows how long this may continue, etc. It's impossible to know what we cannot at this point, but we are resolved to do this.

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000

Handmaker's hospice team is terrific - there doesn't seem to be a question they cannot answer or a sensitivity they do not have. Medicare will pay for their services and, now that she is in a hospice program, most of the medications she needs will be similarly handled. That, at least, will cheer her somewhat. She has groused for years about paying for her meds out of pocket. A registered nurse will come over two or three times a week, as will a home health aide as needed. The former will do medical evaluations, the latter personal-assistance stuff that Momma requires - massage, hair, bathing, changing the bed, pedicures, manicures, etc. Even shopping for things Momma would like. A social worker will check in with all of us at least once a week, as will the grief counselor/chaplain. There is also a volunteer program for respite services. It feels as if we are acquiring an enormous staff of trained professionals. I cannot imagine why anyone would do otherwise in such circumstances.

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2000

This morning James and I invite Momma to live with us. She is very, very quiet, looking at us both and then out the window. "No place I'd rather be," she says, almost to herself. It's done now. She wants to know, when? How soon? I ask her about furniture, photos, art, things she wants. She is almost giddily indifferent. "Whatever you think I need," she says. There is almost a youthening in her as I watch her think about it, and all of a sudden I realize: This is her fondest dream - to be indisputably at the center of my household, my life again. At almost the same moment this thought dawns, we look at each other and she smiles. She knows exactly what I am thinking.

She is sitting by herself in a break room this afternoon, her cafeteria tray to the side. "You need to do the book," she says. "It's the BIG move." Maybe the Star should do a story on this, she suggests, doing her tabletop finger-tapping for emphasis. It's the first time in a while that she has been emphatic. Always she has story ideas for the Star. This is a good idea, she says . . . it would help a lot of people. Does she know how intrusive something like that could be to her, to us? She doesn't care. She wants to do it.

Tonight, at dinner, James and I talk about it. He is all for doing the story. Back at Handmaker to hold her hand. "Explain again why I have to be in a hospice program," she asks, just as I think she is going to sleep. We have the talk again and she falls asleep, holding tight.

Thursday, Dec. 7, 2000

I'm shocked, even dismayed. Hank adamantly . . . adamantly opposed to this. Most important are his deep concerns about how he and Barbara would tell the kids about what is happening to Momma. Feels that doing this writing would force that discussion before they are ready. James shakes his head and tells me to be centered, that this is about Momma and us. In any case, Momma is the one who really wants to do it. I tell her about it tonight and she beams: We will be working together! From her perspective, this dying process is getting better and better. She asks me to let her talk to Hank.

Friday, Dec. 8, 2000

Hank is reconciled. Momma convinced him that it is her desire. I am delighted - I haven't the energy or the time to fight. Lots to do to get Momma moved. Action Moving will do one last transfer. The corner opium bed goes out . . . that's where the hospital bed will go so she can see the gardens and the Catalinas. Earlier tonight, I brought a trunkful of photos and paintings to hang above her new bed: oils of the farm, old photos of her parents, of the four of us (the "Bushel," Daddy would say), the Olin Mills triptych of Momma, flanked by Hank at 4, me at 6. James and I place some of her favorite pigs around (she has collected hundreds and hundreds of them by now), and we clear out a closet. We have dismantled the built-in dining table to make space for her tall dresser and the buffet I brought from the farm 20 years ago and had refinished as a surprise for her. My desk will be at the foot of her bed, and we will share the view of the mountains she has loved for nearly seven decades. She was a child when she first saw them, and she's told me more than a few times that she knew then that this would be her home.

Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000

We are exhausted after being up half the night to get the house ready. While I am trying to play catchup with work, James is getting our living room refocused. Hank packs stuff up at Campana in the early evening, and I go over there at 10 to finish it up. I cart down a dozen pictures, exhausted and worn to the bone with all this. I am taking the last of her out of this place she first hated then grew to like very much. It starts to rain as I am halfway across the parking lot with an awkward armful of paintings, and I start to cry.

Next: Arrival

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Arrival

James pulls Momma up the freshly raked sand path in her homecoming from Handmaker as she beams her approval. Her smile grew larger and larger the closer she got to the top of the ramp — and the front door opening to her ripe-to-be-explored world.

The Queen Mum descending on Balmoral on a fair spring day couldn't be more happy. I can almost feel her growing in strength and resolution.

Sunday, Dec. 10, 2000

The living room is transformed. We have the clothes she wants, her dresser and the buffet; art and photos on the walls, her favorite chairs and a sofa she's kept with her. The oxygen tanks and the concentrator have been delivered, the hospital bed is in place. We have quantities of her meds, including the morphine they say we may need for her discomfort at the end, a freezer of favorite foods, flowers. We've made room, in and out, for the wheelchair.

And then, the ARRIVAL! The Queen Mum descending on Balmoral on a fair spring day couldn't be more happy. I can almost feel her growing in strength and resolution as she rolls up the ramp to the front door, the smile, the glow! It starts somewhere in her little body and just radiates out. By the time she reaches the top of the ramp, there is a brightness around her. Once inside, she has a careful look around and smiles at what she sees. The dogs (Oats and Marley) are wild and happy to see her, and that may be a problem. But she seems glad to see them and to have them racing around. We get her changed into a new nightshirt and into bed. She is tired and wanting to miss nothing, but falls asleep in the middle of the conversation about the baby monitors. I follow suit not long after, as do the dogs. James putters. An early dinner, a little "televising," as Aunt Sylvie called it. And, after the meds - Momma takes hers, I take mine (another "sharing" we will have) - to bed.

Monday, Dec. 11, 2000

First night. Rough. Momma up five times. We shuffle back and forth to the bathroom. ... She is restless, in a new place. James and I decided to take weekly shifts on night duty, and this first week is mine. By this morning, I am fairly drained. Momma, however, looks quite peaceful in her window bed.

James has Mondays off, so Phyllis Cook, the woman we've hired to be her day companion, won't come until Tuesdays. Kiss everyone goodbye and head out for the first round of meetings of the day. Actually get home before it is too dark ... this might be a good schedule.

Things smooth: The home-health aide was here and gave Momma a foot soak and a massage, and Mary Wong, Momma's best and oldest friend, stopped by. We need to do something about the light - all the north and south light streaming in hurts her eyes, Momma says, challenging us to figure it out. The challenge is to me, but James picks it up and says he'll figure it out.

A quiet dinner, then unquiet Regis Philbin & Co. She sits in her swan- armed swivel rocker - Aunt Esta's chair that matches my grandmother's at the farm - and pins her hair up with Oats in her lap. She seems so very tiny as I sit here writing, looking at her. Every so often she turns the chair to look at me, just watching, and then goes back to Regis. Once more, the round of meds and the settling in. I am staying up, writing here until she falls asleep - which, with her sedative and the painkiller, is always fairly soon. The combo would make me insensate. It takes her to about 2:30 a.m., though.

Momma and James shared many conversations, often held fast between them, from spoken comments about families and friends to meaningful gazes across a room or the dinner table.

Next: Loose Ends

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All content copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 AzStarNet , Arizona Daily Star

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Unfortunately, the pictures do not transfer in the C & P

Loose ends

Like a parent, I must be watchful and responsive, make meals without fail, be up and down many times during the night.

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2000

I was wrong - 1:30. I may have missed the experience of having children - the burdens and challenges, etc. - but I am finding some of it at the other end of the spectrum: being watchful and responsive, making scheduled meals without fail, being up and down at night. It's only the second night, and I am feeling guilty about being so tired. This was Phyllis' first day and they got along well, both of them said. James has blocked one of the south horizontal windows, and Momma says it's better on her eyes. She is tethered by her oxygen tubes but works hard to keep mobile.

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000

Crazy day at the office - wrapping up the first phase of our strategic planning after months of intense work from everyone. The second window on the south has now been covered over as well and, while we seem to be sealing off light, for some reason I think of the Navajo tradition of blasting out the wall of the hogan after a death. Momma is tired and snappish ... didn't eat much today, said Phyllis, whispering to me in the kitchen.

James asks Momma if she would like a bath, and she starts up from her chair almost immediately. I watch them shuffle off together, James carefully guiding her to his bathroom, oxygen cords trailing. She trusts James implicitly, takes comfort from him in a way she doesn't from me because he is not obligated as a son to provide it. It is more freely given and therefore valuable in a different way. It is so touching to see, and I am teary the whole time they are in there. Afterwards, fresh and smiling, she carefully does her hair up with bobby pins and puts herself in bed.

The memories of a lifetime: Momma examines a montage of photos from her life we placed in a lightweight frame for close-up viewing. We have moved her memories here, and Momma considers each one a legacy. Our evenings are spent sorting trinkets to decide who gets what, wrapping the squirreled-away presents, going through recipe boxes to find the ones that need to be passed along.

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2000

Spend the day with the Israeli defense attaché in from Washington for briefings/ community meeting. Interview after interview, good turnout. Not home until almost 9, and all is fairly quiet, except that Momma is upset I have been gone and doesn't understand why.

Friday, Dec. 15, 2000

Making coffee early this morning I keep looking at the paintings in the kitchen my grandmother did when she was here in the early '30s. One of the Catalinas, the other of Harold Bell Wright's house. The view of the Catalinas is almost the same as from our big windows. I look past the paintings through the passway to the windows, then to Momma sleeping soundly, then around the shadowy living room. Tomorrow, a customized shade will be in place to block the north light in the corner where she sleeps. One of the first things we did when we bought this house five years ago was to remove the window coverings to let all the light in. Now, we're figuring out ways to gradually darken everything, step by step.

Sunday, Dec. 17, 2000

I luxuriate in bed this morning until 7:30. James has taken the "night shift" for the past two days, answering the calls over the baby monitor. It's been like an enormous gift which, of course, it is. I load the CD player with Mozart and make breakfast for all of us while he gives Momma a lavender-and-aloe bath. Hank, Barbara, Shelby and Charlie arrive at 1:30, bearing homemade soup, cookie dough for an afternoon's baking and a special dip Momma liked at Thanksgiving - months and months ago, it feels.

It's meant as a brief respite for James and me, and a chance for the kids to talk to their Nana. James and I take off at 2 for a 90-minute break. Hank also comes back in the evening so we can visit friends. When we get back to River Road, Hank and Momma are sitting serenely side-by-side, holding hands and watching TV. He would, of course, be here on a non-Regis night.

A hair affair: I thought she became a cosmetologist so she could focus on her hair. It was always beautiful - swept, puffed and perfectly in place. She kept it so with industrial-strength sprays, bluing and secret tricks, and with the help of Alice, who kept every hair in formation every week for decades - and kept up with all the family gossip in the process. Toward the end, finger curls and bobby pins became a routine.

Monday, Dec. 18, 2000

"Do you think it would be better if we lowered the shades?" she asks me at 5:15 this morning. "What do you want, Mother? Do you want them lowered?" I respond, exhausted by the fourth wake-up and escort to the bathroom since she went to bed at midnight, and exasperated by 40 years of such politely framed questions that no longer mask a lack of self-confidence in expressing her needs. She looks at me in pain, and I instantly feel guilty and uncharitable; later in the morning she will tell James I am grouchy. Still later she will tell a visitor it's time for her to die because she is a burden.

She has, it seems to me, forever couched the expression of her needs in questions requiring our approval, our complicity. For years, I thought it was a politeness, a kind of graciousness mysteriously acquired in the Midwest and transplanted to the desert. For much of the past two decades I have warred with her about this attitude and the passive-aggressive nature of it she uses as a control.

Now, as I've said to the Handmaker social worker, and to James, these frustrations have flared again. I want her to be healthy so she can fight with me. I want her to fight with me because she is healthy. Because if she is fighting and healthy she is not dying. I majored in philosophy in college, but even then, logic was neither a favorite nor a strength.

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2000

Momma is trembling this morning, and I sit and hold her until she stops shaking. She asks me not to leave and, when I explain I must, she begs me to come home as soon as I can. By the time I get to my office, across the street and four minutes later, already late for the first meeting, I begin to cry as I walk to my patio door. These jags come on me suddenly, and this one is bad: I'm in the bathroom for almost 10 minutes, water running and tears flowing. And I am really, really late to my first meeting.

Momma talked with the hospice chaplain a lot about dying and her frustration about not being able to do so expediently. She worries she is being a burden to us.

Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2000

It's 4:30 in the morning, and I am the one who cannot sleep. I've heard nothing on the baby monitor except the hum of the oxygen concentrator, and I've gotten up twice to check on Momma.

The second time, she opened her eyes and smiled, reaching up to me for an embrace and a kiss. In silence - her hearing aids were out for the night and there was nothing we needed to say to one another at the moment - I lifted her from the bed and helped her to the bathroom. She held tight to my elbow and wrist and we quietly glided across these stone floors in our bare feet.

As a consequence of having been up most of the night with her, I'm staying home today. I'd like nothing more than taking a long nap - I'm not sure when I have ever been this tired.

Phyllis told me yesterday that when Mark Papen, the hospice chaplain visited, Momma talked a lot about dying and her frustration at not being able to do so expediently. She worries that she is being a burden to us, and while I have assured her that it is not a burden we resent, I'm not altogether sure she truly worries about it or whether she simply wants to be reassured. She would like us to be with her when she dies, and she would like to make the transition, as the polite nomenclature has it, after the Dec. 25 open house at Hank and Barbara's. She's concerned she won't make that deadline.

Burning at both ends: It's crazy at the office and busy at home, and I don't feel like I'm doing either place justice. It's only the second night and I'm feeling guilty about being so tired.

I ask Momma if she would like some lentils cooked down in broth, and she nods. Then, thinking about it, decides she'd like butter beans instead - but not the butter beans here: She likes those made at Souper Salad. Does she really want one of us to go off and get her a bowl? Indeed she does. They don't have it at the First Avenue location - but maybe somewhere else? Momma wonders.

I don't even know if there are other Souper Salad locations, but I don't care, either. I am tired, I know, but I am irritated at her willingness to send us - me - off on errands. It is such familiar behavior on her part, a way to determine how much we love her. And I feel so guilty about my irritation. Surely I can take an hour out of my schedule to fetch my dying mother a bowl of soup she likes? In the end, it doesn't matter: Butter beans are not part of Souper Salad's featured menu today. She has to settle for the homemade stuff.

It's a good thing I'm home, if for nothing else than to hold her hand and keep feeding her Ativan, a sedative, every two hours. There is so much company and she gets anxious with each arrival. Aunt Georgia and Uncle Irwin bear homemade candies and a pig clock that squeals the hour. I know how hard this is for them, can see it in their faces and their exchanged looks. David Sanders, the Star's photographer, is here, taking pix, and I explain that in addition to my regular journal-keeping, we are documenting this phase. I think they think that odd, but then, they've always thought I was a little odd.

Friday, Dec. 22, 2000

A quiet day for the most part. So odd that she is not coughing as much anymore. All my life I have been used to her wracking coughs. It has been as much a part of her persona as her admonitory finger- tapping, her smile, the glittering in her eyes. She told me the other day that it is a treat not to cough so much. I don't know if she understands it is because she is getting less and less air each day, but I do know she doesn't want to discuss the details.

Making a point with a visiting friend: I never saw anyone use their hands more expressively, whether it was the tap, tap, tap of long fingernails on table surfaces, the tight grip of a greeting or a farewell, or the outstretched palm emphasizing a point or directing someone's attention.

"Today is the day, isn't it?" she asks James. "Yes, possibly. Are you ready?" "No!"

Saturday, Dec. 23, 2000

James lets me sleep late, and we get lots of work done through the day. Momma is low and fuzzy, and we're working more and more to prop her up. Hank and the family over today, and James and I use the 90 minutes to go have burgers by ourselves.

Back at home, I pull out the boxes of items she bought and saved over the years for "eventual" gift-giving. We grew up with drawers full of small gifts for every occasion. She sits in the swan-armed chair and is entertained by it all. She loves the idea of my wrapping her gifts for her. I hold up items and we discuss each of them - to whom they should go, how they should be wrapped, the card. By 10 p.m. we have a stack of 70-plus gifts and three tired people.

Monday, Dec. 25, 2000

The Big Outing to Maria Drive today. Up early to make a big breakfast and start the proceedings. James gives her a bath and a facial. She knows exactly what she wants to wear - dress, belt and shoes - and by some miracle James finds them immediately in one of the storage boxes in the shed. Their holiday party is sweet and family-focused, as always, but I could see Momma was already tired when we arrived.

Most of the people have not seen her in some time. Some hushed discussions and awkward looks. We leave after 90 minutes or so ... she is drained. Tonight she has been again concerned about whether she gave enough gifts.

Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2000

Solid, quiet workday at the Federation. In the evening, Momma wants to go through more jewelry, so I bring out the boxes; she has already given some things away, but she selects other pieces she wants me to give to family and friends - Mary and Margaret, Trudy, Wilma, Louise, others. There's a story for each.

She wants me to use her diamonds for cuff links and she wants us to make a montage with the rest of the jewelry, she says ... Mary will teach us how.

Thursday, Dec. 28, 2000

Momma drifting as she sleeps in her chair tonight ... talking, arguing with someone about something. James and I watch and listen, trying to puzzle it out.

Sunday, Dec. 31, 2000

Up early, and we debate whether to go to Maria Drive to congratulate Barbara on being named Woman of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce. Momma decides she shouldn't go out. We call and offer the congrats. I spend the morning bonsai-ing the mesquite and creosote as she watches me from her bed. She is quite unhappy today and is lashing out at me. We bring her out to the porch and she sits, shrunken and sullen. I finish the trees and stand back to look. They are ancient, noble, magnificent. "What do you think, Momma?" I ask. "It's so sad when they die," she responds.

Quiet, quiet, quiet: Things feel as if they are winding down. She is not hungry and is forcing herself to eat. We are all keeping vigil. I spend a lot of time at my desk. I cannot cry anymore.

Monday, Jan. 1, 2001

Desultory work around the house today. Self-absorption and hurt, and I am too preoccupied to want hugs. I hold her but it feels distant. Momma has a Christmas cactus that belonged to her grandmother, and James has pruned and cared for it to the point it is vitalized and bursting with life. It's been with Momma always. He brings it out this morning for her inspection. Not much interest.

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001

"I need to feel loved," she tells me. "How can you possibly feel otherwise? We're totally focused on you. We want to be." I ask her to think about it, and there are thoughtful silences, a perceptible change. It is now 4 a.m., and Momma and I have been up six times. We are both dragging.

Friday, Jan. 5, 2001

I wake up, listening for her breaths, and there are none. She hasn't been up at all. In bed in the dark, listening, I hold Oats tightly and he luxuriates in his own pug dreams. She's either breathing more easily or she's not breathing. ...

Sleepless, I get up to check, sure that she is gone or going. She is breathing and restful, much more so than I am. I fire up the computer to write in this journal and work on the strategic plan. In about 20 minutes, she awakens and sits up; we look over the monitor at each other for long moments. I get up and help her out of bed and to the bathroom. She is there a long time, and when she finally flicks the light and I go to her to help her back to bed, she doesn't hold on so tightly. At the bed, she fumbles a moment, messing with something on the rolling table. I realize she's putting bobby pins down - she's unpinned her hair in the bathroom. I put her in bed and she reaches up to me, pulling me to her for a kiss and a whisper - she doesn't want to wake James up. "I'm feeling much stronger this morning," she says, as if to reassure me. I kiss the top of her forehead and she almost instantly goes back to sleep.

Sunday, Jan. 7, 2001

Ativan early and often. James and I both have meetings this morning. Bobbi Olsen's funeral ... Momma keeps it on, but mute. Lute Olsen is not merely the UA basketball coach, but a titan in her life. The basketball in the corner signed by Sean and Steve and Matt and everyone (from the 1988 Final Four team) is one of her most-cherished possessions. I've left messages asking for respite so we can go to Julia and Beth's for dinner, but no one calls back. James goes by himself and I make lamb chops and spinach torte, onion soup and brie, roasted potatoes, strawberry Jell-O and apple pie. I am a stress chef.

Regis joins us, but even so, Momma is not feeling well and I am glad I have stayed home and am with her. James is home about 9:30. Had a great time, of course. Momma is asleep now even though the news is yet to come. James falls asleep in front of the fire, infested by pugs. They snore in stereo: Momma, James, the pugs. I'm thinking a lot about nuclear families and how wonderfully that can be defined.

Next: Farewell

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

She reaches up and pulls me down for a kiss. "When I'm gone," she whispers in her loud hearing-aidless voice, "you will have lost your oldest friend."

Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2001

James is painting and I am writing; we watch her in her chair, talking to herself half-audibly but in a trance. She seems to be driving a car in her mind: makes the motions with her feet as if accelerating and braking, and turns in her chair as if looking for traffic. At one point, she reaches down and, very clearly, brings her hand up to her mouth, tilts the imaginary cup and drinks. She puts it back down and drives on. Ativan will take you safely anywhere, it seems.

Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001

We are all tired and cranky this morning. After breakfast, we discuss the day. Momma and James are on the couch, I am at the desk, holding Oats. In the middle of conversation, this: "I wish you loved me as much as you love that dog," she says. The immediate silence following is profound and deep. I turn in my chair to face away, crying noiselessly. James rushes in with words: something about me doing some shopping, buying plants, picking up stuff at Costco ... any words. I put Oats down and walk to my bathroom and wash my tears off.

Back in the living room, Momma looks up at me, pleading. She knows what she said and how hurtful it was. She wants to hug and make it disappear. I bend down, awkwardly. It's hard, so hard. I have to get out of the house, away from this changed person.

On the way to the most-distant Costco in town, my cell rings. It's James. "Take your time, have lunch, drive around," he says. "David is here. We're going to go for a drive." Three hours later, I'm home. She's sleeping. They drove around Tucson, James said, by the landmarks in Momma's Tucson life: apartments, social haunts, workplaces, houses. David sat in the backseat snapping pictures and Momma wore a pair of swept-back sunglasses she found in the car while James drove them in the Mom mobile. I can't help laughing and it wakes her up. We smile at each other.

Thursday, Jan 11, 2001

She is becoming increasingly quiet. Yesterday, I think, drained her a lot. Tonight, as I tuck her in bed and give her the pills, she reaches up and pulls me down for a kiss. "When I'm gone," she whispers in her loud, hearing-aid-less voice, "you will have lost your oldest friend."

Saturday, Jan. 13, 2001

Things feel like they are winding down. She is not hungry and is forcing herself to eat. Her bowel movements have become less regular and we have to stop for rest on the way to the bathroom 25 feet away. I am spending my time here at my desk, watching her sleep. I cannot cry anymore.

Sunday, Jan. 14, 2001

Quiet, quiet, quiet. I make a complex, fussy soup/stew today. Don't think there will be much time for cooking this week, and I want us to have something on hand. Mary comes by, as does Margaret. Hank and the kids. I read parts of the paper to Momma, and read the draft of the obituary about her we had written. She smiles at the bits about Republicans and Democrats and Lute. Mostly, she keeps drifting in and out of sleep.

Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2001

I have been up all night, holding Momma's hand as she sleeps. About 11 last night, she woke suddenly and sat up in the bed, eyes wide open. I was here at my desk and she stared at me. "Do you want to get up, Momma?" She nodded and I helped her out and to the bathroom. When I brought her back, she wanted to sit in her chair rather than go back to bed.

She was very quiet but very focused, looking carefully around the room. "Why, this is a beautiful room," she said, as if seeing it for the first time. "Look, there is my sofa ... and my bureau. That was in the dining room at the farm, you know," she said to me. "And these pictures on the wall ... my pictures!" Tears were running down my face. James and I looked at each other. Momma was calm, happy even. She sat quietly, then turned her chair back toward the bed. "Do you want to go back to bed, Treva?" James asked.

"Yes," she nodded, and we helped her in. She asked for something to make her more comfortable and we gave her an Ativan. She fell asleep within seconds. "She's going," James said.

She has a terrible fit of coughing this morning, worse than anything I have ever heard from her, ever. I was asleep in her chair, holding her hand when it started. I call out for James, who is there immediately. He takes her to the bathroom. "Today is the day, isn't it?" she asks James as she sits on the toilet and looks out at her mountains. "Yes, possibly. Are you ready?" he says. She shakes her head: No! We calm her. Another coughing spell, less this time but still startling. I mix two drops of morphine in fruit juice and she gets it mostly down. Around 10, she wakes and looks at me and smiles. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Momma," I say into her hair, kissing her. I call Hank and tell him to come over, that he needs to be with us. Then she sleeps on and off, waking only occasionally. We take turns holding her hands, brushing her hair. Barbara comes, and Mary. After 5, pretty much, she stops talking and sleeps. Hank goes home for a few hours in the afternoon, and James and I gently wash her with scented water and brush her hair. We can't wake her to eat, but are able to give her a bit more morphine when she seems to be laboring. We sit on the bed, Hank, James and I, and hold her. Around midnight, I go to the bedroom and lie down.

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2001

James comes in to get me at 12:15 this morning. "Your mother is leaving." I join them and we hold her close in our arms. She dies a half-hour later.

A final kiss: I call Hank and tell him to come over, that he needs to be with us. After 5 p.m., pretty much, she stops talking and sleeps. I go to my room at midnight to try to do the same. "Your mother is leaving," James tells me at 12:15 a.m. I join him and Hank, and we hold her close in our arms.

Next: Homeward

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Homeward

Treva Lorraine Myers Peck Born may 24, 1916, Marshall, Indiana

Died January 17, 2001, Tucson, Arizona

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Monday, June 4, 2001

We have been on the road for three days now, threading our way north, climbing gradually. At my side, Oats and Marley are asleep in the overstuffed and air-conditioned comfort of one of Detroit's finest, the car Momma gave up driving a year ago. It seems forever; it seems like yesterday.

I planned this trip to retrace one we made almost 40 years ago. Then, we traveled north to Page, then up to Bryce and Zion and the lands of the saints, north to Laramie. In Richfield, something happened to the Buick and, rather than wait a week for parts, Daddy and Momma traded it in on a new Dodge station wagon. From there we drove to Montpelier and then north. I remember the Snake River shimmering in the sun as it undulated along the valley floor. Hank and I argued in the back seat, and Daddy smoked and put the new car through its paces as Momma charted our course with the Texaco maps and kept an eye on the gas gauge. We met cousins in Jackson and had a cabin with a player piano that we thought was the coolest thing in the world.

When we made this trip in the early '60s, we stopped at Yellowstone and turned back. This journey will take us even farther. It's Momma's last trip to the farm, on a route we talked about 10 years ago but never had the time to do. Now, there's time. I will be 51 the day after tomorrow. I look down at the pugs sleeping on each other and smile. Oats and Marley each has a paw on the wooden box wedged firmly between dashboard and floor. The Chinese ideograms on it read "Good journeys, long memories." At least I think that's what they say.

Monday, June 18, 2001

This big farmhouse is quiet today, save for the pugs and me. James and Mary have left, as have Hank and the family. My friend Trudy and her children, my godchildren, Karli and R.D., headed out yesterday for St. Paul after making sure that dishes were done and put away and beds stripped. Having R.D. here for the past 10 days helped keep me balanced through all the moods that led up to this past weekend.

We also got a lot accomplished in less than two weeks. Momma would be pleased: the gardens cleared and covered for another winter, new fruit trees planted and others pruned, the smokehouse emptied after decades . . . the ongoing curating of this living museum.

And Wolf Creek cemetery received a new resident. One of my earliest memories of my grandfather was a walk with him in this wondrous, peaceful park studded with ancient slabs of granite and surrounded by old-growth trees. I'm sure he told me stories, drew connecting lines across the generations, but I don't recall many specifics. What I do remember is being dwarfed by my great-grandfather's headstone and the field of family around him, and learning exactly where I would someday be buried, immediately next to where Momma and Daddy would be.

Early last Friday afternoon, Larry and Hank and R.D. went to the cemetery and prepared the grave site. James had arranged for a bouquet on the headstone and for flowers to be sent to the family here. In midafternoon, those closest to Momma came together around the hole in the warm Indiana earth.

Hank and his family had added some things to the Chinese box containing her urn, as had James and I. We all said a few things about her - our mother, cousin, defender, critic, friend. Together, Hank and I put the box into the container and the container down into the ground. I instinctively reached around and grabbed a handful of dirt and covered her. Hank took the shovel and put in more, and each person came forward to do the same. Mary added three shovelsful. It was profound and moving, and this participation in burying her was a new tradition in this special place carved out by circuit-riding preachers and their community.

The next day, we had the "public" memorial. Momma's obituary was read, and Hank spoke movingly. As with the service in Tucson, I couldn't talk. Karli and R.D. sang, and everyone came back to the farm to be together, share memories and sample the pies and cakes delivered by the neighbors.

In the midst of it, I suddenly flashed back to a scene 43 years ago, when I was 8, sitting in the same big living room amid cousins and friends, my grandmother in her casket in the west bedroom. As then, everyone stayed until early into the evening.

It's two days later now, and I am in my "tower" bedroom at the head of the stairs, writing this and looking up and out at the fields and forests. I am surrounded by paintings and books and photographs and chests and cabinets of memorabilia. In dusty trunks in our farm's attics are records of who belonged to what political party, who voted how and what the votes cost. There are beribboned locks of hair, lace from weddings past, love letters and wills, the original land grants to my great-grandfather's great-grandfather, signed by Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren.

Earlier this morning I opened the cedar chest at the end of our bed to put away some letters I had written to Momma and Daddy when I was at college and at odds with them. When I moved Momma from Mitchell Drive, this was one of the chests that moved here. Seven or eight years ago, she and I went through it together. It was an exercise in a kind of generational catch-up we did throughout our lives. In a half-century with her, there was a lot we never got around to doing.

But then, there was a lot we did.

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." Rossiter Worthington Raymond (1840-1918)

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Thank you Aunt Bee.

-- Another Mother (bites @ tender.com), January 18, 2002.