When I was young and living in the small town of Wabash, Indiana I used to dream of different ways to become famous. During mass I often fantasized a record producer would, for some unknown reason, be in my church, hear my voice and offer me a contract. Or, I would dream a modeling agency would see me as I vacationed with my family and rush over to tell me I would be the next big thing on the cover of Seventeen Magazine. Even though I spent many years with these images in my head those events never took place. Instead, I went to college, graduated, found a job, got married and began the life I lead now.
It has only been recently that I remembered those long ago dreams and realized it is very unlikely my face will grace the cover of a fashion magazine or my singing voice be heard across the airwaves. I’m okay with this reality because I understand if I truly wanted those goals to happen I would have worked a little harder at accomplishing them. With this realization however, I wondered, have I made my mark on this world? When I’m gone will I have left a legacy? After some consideration I recognized leaving my mark does not require me to be famous. Keeping that in mind, I settled on a list of lasting qualities, I believe, I have managed to accomplish.
I have been a good daughter. While growing up I never caused my parents much concern. In turn they gifted me with their love, a comforting home, siblings to have and cherish my entire life and a college education. As an adult I welcomed my parents into my home. I enjoyed their company and we shared some great meals, laughter and many adventures when they graced my doorstep. For six years as my mother slid into dementia, I comforted and counseled her, fought her medical battles, sat through doctor appointments, made more than one run to the emergency room and, fought my own guilt feelings of inadequacy. Finally, on the day she died I held my mother’s hand and read to her the poems she recited to my siblings and me, and sang to her the songs that brightened our childhood days.
Friendship may be one of my strong suits. I love that shared intimacy. And, nothing seals a bond of camaraderie like the struggle of raising children. Many reassuring conversations took place during the frustrations and joys of raising children. I have been there through health scares, holding hands, sending cards and making phone calls to check in. I have consoled woman friends through the everyday difficulties of marriage and they have returned that favor to me. Most difficult of all I have been with my friend as she fought to keep her husband alive, then, in the end, as she graced him with her love and the permission to leave this earth.
Together my husband and I have created and raised two amazing daughters. They are kind to others, responsible for themselves, fun to be with, gifted with creativity, athletic and smart. As parents we gave our daughter many material items. When they were very young it was toys, dolls and stuffed animals. As they grew it became sports equipment, namely downhill skis. We offered opportunities to try new adventures. We bought a boat and took them tubing, cliff jumping and island camping on Lake George in the Adirondacks. All of those material presents brought the most important gift of all; a family. We formed a bond as we traveled for ski races, or huddled together in a small tent to avoid a storm on Turtle Island. We grew as a family having fun together, sharing dinners, laughing, arguing; just spending time with one another.
With this inventory I have concluded my legacy is one of kindness, love, fun, support and a future generation. Consequently, I think my daughters and our family are far more of a mark to leave on this earth than my past dreams of being famous.
death
Choosing Family
It has been said you can pick your friends but not your family. And, yet I feel I picked mine, friends who, over the years, developed into a second family.
We met because our husbands worked together. There were four families in the beginning and having recently moved into the area all of us were desperate to connect with other couples. At the time the women were all stay-at-home Moms, so we formed a playgroup thinking it was for the children. But, we realized we were just as desperate as our children for companionship and so our group became a mother’s time, too. Eventually, the other two families moved out of the area leaving just the Rome’s and Renaud’s.
Our lives soon became entwined. We shared many of the same attributes, one of them being the age of our children. The Rome’s had Jason, and then we had Catlin. Janine and Matt followed with Kyle and our Kristen rounded out the crew. They grew up together like cousins, sharing meals, bathtubs and bedtime stories.
Janine and I were there for each other through many ups and downs especially because our husbands traveled frequently. At any given time we knew if the day seemed to be stretching on forever or we just couldn’t face another dinner of beans, weenies and toddler conversation we could call one another up for some adult company.
Friday nights were the best with impromptu get-togethers. The pizza would be ordered and the kids would run wild through the house as we adults kicked back with a few beers. We were oblivious to the commotion as we laughed about the week’s events and made plans for our next adventures. Many memories were made during those times and our bond as a new family grew.
It was our times at Lake George that sealed the deal. Almost every weekend during the summer, our two families could be found either camping or picnicking on the islands in the Narrows of the lake. Who wouldn’t connect over setting up tents in a thunderstorm, camping through a hurricane, tube rides, cliff jumping, raft floating, steak night, moonlight swims and roasting marshmallows over an open fire.
Through it all, we were there for one another, for the laughs and the struggles, the good times and the bad. We knew each other’s imperfections and loved each other in spite of them.
As our children grew, we celebrated graduations from high school and admissions into college. We naively assumed we would be there together for the weddings and the birth of our grandchildren. And yes, we had big plans to travel on great vacations together. But, it wouldn’t happen.
Matt Rome died this past September at the age of 55. He lived the last five to six years of his life slowly losing the ability to hike in his beloved Adirondacks. He struggled to continue using his prized possession, a boat kept at a marina on Lake George. The last time he went for a cruise it took Janine, Paul and me, using everything we had, to get him into the captain’s seat. And still Paul had to drive for him. Matt lost his ability to bring tears of laughter to our eyes with his stand-up comedian act. His brilliant mind, the one that could beat us all in any trivia challenge and the one that could solve any computer problem, slowly faded. He became lost in hour upon hour of dizziness. He went from cane to walker to wheel chair to recliner. We forgot what his voice sounded like because that left him too. Eventually, even communication by hand was difficult. Through it all, even into the end, no doctor could figure why.
Our two families rallied together, as did so many of the Rome’s friends, to support Janine, Matt and the boys. In the end it was all we had to offer. Our chosen family is missing an important figure but we are still intact. Our children living adult lives still remain friends. Janine will always be one of my most trusted confidants. As families do, we will regain ourselves and once again we will find times to laugh and have fun together. But, always there will be a toast to our friend, father, husband and chosen family member, Matt Rome.
Snow Fall Reflections
One of my favorite things: watching snow fall.
So here I am alone and quite honestly, enjoying the time. My companions are a glass of red wine, cheese and crackers, piano music and snow falling on the Adirondacks. I use to be afraid of being alone. After all, I grew up in a large family. I think I’ve actually only had a bedroom to myself my senior year in college. Doing activities and making decisions on my own has been a gradual awakening. Now, there are times I can spend hours writing at my computer and not notice I am alone.
Still, I realize that this is the eve of the anniversary of my mother’s rapid decline into her passing. It will be one year ago tomorrow that I got the call she was not doing well. Then, less than 48 hours later she was dead.
It is hard to say what I miss about my mother. Certainly not the last six years of her life when she slid into dementia. It is not a friendship, we never really had that. But, I think I miss knowing she was there. Comforted by the fact I could call for advice, laugh with her when we watched David Letterman together. I miss her presence in my life.
It is in this grieving moment that I sit in my beloved Adirondacks in a house I rented with the gift of a small inheritance I received from parents who somehow managed to put money aside and still raise seven children. I sit here watching the snow fall and thank Mom and Dad for this small gift that means so much to me.
Remembering February
For close to a year the month of February has been looming just outside of my conscious. February 21, 2013 will be the one year anniversary of my mother’s death and the 12 year anniversary of my father’s death. I have prepared myself to be sad. But, what I haven’t prepared myself for are the down times leading up to that day.
On January first of 2012 I was celebrating the start of the New Year with friends. We were at a bar having chicken wings and beer. That was when I received the first call about my mother not doing well. With the help of my sister Roxann, who flew in from Georgia, we spent nearly two weeks watching my mother slowly succumb to pneumonia. Then, miraculously she pulled herself back from the brink of death. Bewildered from what we had prepared ourselves for, Mom’s death, and reality, Roxann wearily went home. As January faded into February Mom improved to the point where some days she didn’t need the oxygen.
One weekend in February, I visited Mom on a Friday. I even took her picture to send to my sisters because Mom looked so good after her close call with death. Unbelievably, that following Monday I was called by the nursing staff because Mom was once again ill. The change in Mom over the weekend was startling. I saw the look of panic in her eyes as she struggled to breathe. With the help of the nurse practitioner, who prescribed, and then the nurse, who administered the morphine, we were able to ease Mom’s discomfort and fear. I sat with her most of the day until she fell asleep. I left knowing I would need to get many tasks accomplished before I began, once again, waiting with Mom for death to finally relieve her of her painful existence here on earth.
The next morning, as I prepared myself and my home for the long hours of sitting with Mom the nurse called. Mom was worse. Since Mom’s illness the month before, her children had resolved not to continue the brutal cycle of stopping the pneumonia, with antibiotics, only to have the illness return very shortly afterward. We were committed to shortening Mom’s downward spiral towards death for her sake, instead of prolonging her dementia bound life for us. But, I won’t lie it was difficult to see my mother laboring to breathe and the fear in her face. I gave the nod and morphine was administered so that she could rest easily. That afternoon the nurse practitioner told me this was it; Mom would not recover this time. I called Roxann. She made plans to return to Upstate New York.
As suddenly as Mom had become ill, she died. She died before Roxann could arrive. She died within 48 hours of my initial phone call. No one on the staff, not even the nurses, thought she would die that quickly. Yet, I had a feeling all of that day, because I sensed my dad in her room with me. I understood that he had come to take her to their afterlife.
I remember many aspects of those long days in January and the few days in February that led to our extended family standing in a grave yard, once again sheltering against the biting cold winds of an Indiana winter. It is with those days ingrained in my subconscious that I sometimes find myself crying for no apparent reason. Why certain songs can turn a bright day into one of melancholy. My conscious mind continues to check items of my list of tasks to accomplish. I go to work. I make dinner. I admire the beauty of the winter blue sky. I enjoy the company of friends, the stimulation of a good workout. Still, I never know when or why the tears will come. They just do.
The Oldest Generation
As I was tooling around yesterday in the car, flitting here and there, a song I had not heard before came on the radio. According to the DJ it was a new song by Jason Mraz, 93,000,000 miles. I like many of his songs and this one caught my attention.
The lyrics contain the following:
oh my beautiful mother
She told me, “Son in life you’re gonna go far, and if you do it right you’ll love where you are
Just know, that wherever you go, you can always come home”
Much to my surprise, my eyes welled with tears and my throat constricted as I started to cry. Because, it hit me, I can’t go home. My mother passed away last February and my father passed away, on the same day 11 years before that. In reality, I am “the Home.” I am the parent now, the oldest generation. There is no one I can go home to when I need that reassuring hug from mom or dad. No one to consult for advice. No one to remember me as a child. No parent to share holidays with. No one to visit and find sitting in the small home I grew up in that always felt like it hugged me as I walked in the door.
Being the oldest generation is a huge responsibility; one that my parents and generations before them endured. Some with grace, others struggling through their whole lives. As the oldest parent, you are shouldered with the duty of being the consultant. The keeper of family lore. The one who remains calm and in control in a crisis, so that others can look to you for their strength. That is a lot to take on, even at 54 years old. I know I can do all of these life requirements and more, after all I have been doing many of them for years. It just makes me sad. I never realized how much I enjoyed the comfort of knowing mom and dad were always there for me if I needed them. And I miss that.
Rosemary Christle-Renaud 