A Birthday . . .

My mother will be 97 next Tuesday. Another milestone, but one she’s not particularly happy about.

It’s been nearly four years since my dad died at 93. She misses him terribly and really, really wants to go to join him.

I dedicated my first book to the two of them. Theirs was a love story that lasted seventy years and still persists despite his death. He’s still very much in her heart. They were never apart during those years except for the few business trips he took as an engineer for NASA. Once he retired, they were never apart.

They were one of the reasons I could write romance novels. I knew there were happy and healthy relationships that lasted forever, where one was never truly whole without the other.

He told me – frequently – how they met. He saw her across a room and announced to his brother that she was the woman he was going to marry. His brother said no, that she was an university girl, and he was a poor technical school student. He said she wouldn't have anything to do with him.

But that wasn't the reason she hesitated to date him. Instead, it was that he was a bit cocky and had a habit of calling her at the last minute to go out. She quickly put him in his place, but his persistence won out. Her father was opposed to their marriage. He had sent her to college to be a teacher, and she had no business marrying a penniless graduate of a technical school in the middle of a depression.

They married anyway with only her mother in attendance and then he had to pick up her things, passing by her father who sat in a chair, completely ignoring this presence. She always said she admired him tremendously for going in and out, gathering her things, under the disapproving glare of an unmoved man.

They were different. My dad was gregarious. He never met a stranger, and he was one of those people that was automatically picked when attending some kind of show that selected people from the audience. Whether it was a hula in Hawaii or dancing in Greece, he was always the first to be selected. He had that twinkle in his eye that told the actors he would be fun. And he always was. I remember one time when we went to Escot, and there was a medieval farce being held in the street. The actors pulled people from the crowd and dad, of course, was one. He stole the show.

Mom was quieter. She was a reserved Norweigian. She loved to read, and was perfectly happy to be alone while dad loved to be with other people. Any yet mother kept friends forever. They balanced each other out.

They both loved to read and instilled the love in my brother and myself when we were toddlers.
Bill and I loved comic books. They were appalled but instead of taking them away, they subscribed the two of us to the Junior Literary Guild. We received a new book every month. It was like twelve Christmases each year.

When I was writing my first book, I just casually mentioned the fact in conversation. My dad was ecstatic, absolutely convinced that it would sell. I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t even sure I would ever submit it, but he pushed.

And then it sold, and I was afraid to let him read it. It was, gasp, a romance, and my dad, bless his soul, was somewhat of a prude about things. I winced when thinking about him reading a love scene. I was single and I knew he would be trying to figure out how I knew about some things.

I shouldn’t have worried. I received a call one day from Canada. He and mom were on vacation, and he'd wandered in a book store and found my first book. I hadn’t even received a copy yet. According to my mother, he bought every copy and went up and down the street telling everyone that his daughter had written a book. That crazy American, Canadians probably thought.

After that he was my biggest fan. He would accost women in book stores, telling them they should buy my book. He placed them in the bestseller slots. He got all his golfing buddies – all retired military – to read them, and they became fans.

He was always a force in everyone’s life, and then he died, and Mom’s core was gone. The balance was gone as well.

She’s in a nursing home now. She lived independently until about fourteen months ago when her legs just stopped working, and an injured shoulder made it impossible for her to move on her own. either with a walker or wheelchair. She then suffered a septic infection that deteriorated into congestive heart failure. For several months she was semi-conscious and on oxygen and went into a nursing home. Then her heart stopped. It started again on its own, and she awakened from a long sleep. But now her life is limited. She has no strength in her legs and can barely hear, but her mind is still strong. She has short term memory loss but long term memories are still there.

The nursing home is a very good one. It’s almost like a hotel with aquariums and song birds and bright walls and private rooms. But she hates being dependent on people for every single thing, including changing all garments and moving from a bed into a wheel chair. I go over every night – and take along the small dog which she loves – but it’s not enough. We have changed roles now, and I seem to be more mother than child, taking special foods to tempt her appetite, or persuading her to take a whirlpool path when her legs ache. She argues she hurts too much, but after much persuasion she finally goes, and feels better when she returns.

But she’s terribly unhappy and can’t understand why God won’t take her. She asks what she has done that he won’t. And it breaks my heart. I wonder at times if modern medicine is really a blessing some times.

But next Tuesday is her birthday, and I’ll make a crab casserole she loves, and my brother and his wife and two of her grandchildren and their children will be there.

It will be a good day for her. And I expect Dad will be peeking in as well, a twinkle in his eyes as he whispers once more, "the moment I saw you, I knew I was going to marry you."