Monkeyshines
chapter 20
“Adam, put your hat on your head! Don't just carry it around in your hand,” I said gruffly, as you went out the front door on your way to school. I called after you in a milder tone, “Have a good day.”
“Okay,” you said softly, as you walked on down the gravel driveway.
The tone in your voice said my gruffness hadn't quite ruffled you. The ‘have a good day’ had apparently retrieved the situation, and avoided a bad start to an otherwise innocent day.
I closed the door and said to Chris, “I can't believe my ears when I talk to him like that. I'm the guy who was always going to say positive upbeat things to my kid, like the Mormons in those TV ads of theirs. Jesus!”
“Don't forget your own preaching.” Chris said, “'Talking to kids is like going to bat; sometimes you get a hit; usually you don't.' Don't put unrealistic expectations on yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said wistfully, “But I was talking about disturbed kids. Adam's a pussycat.”
The telephone rang. I answered.
“Hello, Michael?” said my brother, James, from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’d been expecting a call from him. Ma had flown down there four days earlier for a visit. After she’d arrived, James called to say she didn't feel well. He was supposed to call today to say if she was coming home early. Chris and I hoped she didn't. We lived with her in a two bedroom house, and we'd been getting under each other's feet lately. We needed a break from each other.
“Ma died in her sleep last night,” James said in a flat, tender voice. It was November 8, 1985.
“What! Son of a bitch,” I howled. “God damn it! Shit! God damn it! Isn't life ever going to cooperate?”
“What?” James asked.
“Isn't life ever going to cooperate,” I repeated loudly. “Damn! What happened?” Ma suffered from emphysema and post-surgical depression from a recent operation. I'd told James she should see a doctor about a prescription for an anti-depressant. “Are her physical problems ruining her morale, or is her low morale aggravating her physical problems?” we'd asked each other.
James continued in monotone, “I don't know. I just went in to get her up for her doctor's appointment. Ten minutes ago. She was cold.”
“Son of a bitch!” I said loudly as I paced by the phone. I looked at Chris, and saw curiosity and concern in her eyes. I covered the mouthpiece and said, “My mother died.” Chris' eyes and face went blank.
“I guess I should call the medical examiner, or an ambulance or somebody,” James continued in monotone.
“Aw, shit!” I said angrily.
“There's nothing to get upset about,” James said, “It's over.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, “But I feel terrible that I encouraged her to take the trip down there.”
"She was worn out, Michael. There was nothing you could do about that. It fits that she should come here and die. I've been dealing with death a lot in our Viet Nam Vets group. I'll start doing what I've got to do here. You want to call Peter and Barbara?”
Barbara was the eldest, and lived in Berkeley. Peter was 42, a year younger than Barbara. He lived on a farm in southern Wisconsin.
“Yeah, I'll call them. I'll tell Barbara to call you to divide up the names in Ma's phone book, the white one she kept in her purse. I'll call aunt Gertrude and Richie. I think Mildred's dying the day before Ma left, I think maybe Ma took it as a message.”
“Yeah, I know it was on her mind, but she blue when we got her at the airport. She had no strength at all. She couldn't say a whole sentence.”
“You have things to do,” I said, “I'll talk to you later.”
I dialed Peter. “Hi, Maggie, is Peter there?”
“No. He's out on the route.“ Peter had a cutlery business like my father and grandfather. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Well," I said, my voice starting to labor as emotion piled on, “My mother died.”
“What!” Maggie said, sort of semi-shocked.
“Ma died in her sleep at James' last night,” I said, almost crying.
“Oh, no. Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I'm alright, but I feel like I killed her, sending her to visit James.” Sobbing now, tears ran down my cheeks. I was surprised. I didn't think words from a phone could do this, and I was surprised I'd cry to Maggie. We hadn't been close for years. After Indiana, the family spread out geographically, and feelings hardened. We allowed it, maybe partly, I sometimes think, just to keep any new pogroms from bagging us all at once.
“You did everything you could for her, Michael. The trip was her decision. You didn't kill her.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, she's at peace now,” Maggie's voice was starting to crack. “I'll tell Peter when he gets home. Let me know what I can do.”
“OK, thanks.” We said good-bye and hung up.
I rang up Barbara. “Ma died last night at James',” I said.
“What?” Barbara gasped in amazement. In a quiet shriek she said, “My mother's dead? Mom's dead?”
“Yeah, and I encouraged her to go.” I was crying again.
“Oh, Michael, don't do that to yourself. You did more for her than any of us, and she was in pain. She's been in so much pain for so long. Ma's at peace now. She could have died at home, too. Oh, my God! Did you tell Peter.”
“He's on the route. I told Maggie.”
“Well, I better call James. Oh, my God.”
“Yeah, I told him you'd call and split up the phone numbers in Ma's book. I'll call Gertrude and Bob, the Hillenbrands, and Richie.”
“When did this happen?”
“James just found her a few minutes ago. She was cold in the bed.”
“Oh, my God; I have to call my kids, and, oh, I'm supposed to work today.” Barbara drove a super modern train for BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah, I'm OK.” We said we'd talk later, and hung up.
I turned to Chris, and we hugged.
After you got home from school, Chris and I waited for a quiet moment, then we sat down with you to explain that ‘Gralma’ had died. We said her body had gone back to the earth, but that her spirit would come to visit in our memories. You wrote in your diary the three things you liked most about Gralma. On a separate sheet you wrote the three things you liked least, then you crumpled up the separate sheet, and threw it in the fire. We sat together in front of the fireplace and thought good-byes.
The next ten days made me numb with unending reflections, conversations, and arrangements. I told people my mother died like I was talking about dead fish. She'd been a devout Catholic, so we consulted her priest and learned that cremations were no longer banned. Ma's sister, Mildred, had just been cremated, and Ma put great store by her, so we planned cremation for Ma, too. We scheduled a memorial Mass for the next Saturday. Each ring of the telephone became a dreadful sound, but there was no way out. Each conversation had a part to play in resolving our feelings.
My brain overworked for some days. I wanted to sue the airlines for not warning people with pulmonary disease about the dangers of flying. Ma had turned blue on the plane, and I remembered a TV show about how airlines re-circulate foul air to save fuel. I was convinced that something had happened to Ma on the plane. But it wouldn't wash. You remembered that she looked gray (a sign of hypoxia) when she’d boarded the plane when she was leaving, and the doctor said, “Foul air could make a person sick, but they'd be recoverable. She may have needed oxygen when she got off, but maybe she needed it more as regular therapy.”
“Ma had refused to keep oxygen in the house,” said Barbara, “And she’d told me, after her last trip to Albuquerque, that she'd never fly again, it was so terrible.” Slowly, I accepted the likelihood that Ma was tired of sitting on the sofa wheezing, and that she didn't want to live like that.
My brain ran in new circles hunting the causes of this, the disappointments that had hurt her, from the distant past to recent times. Her mother, Mabel, my grandma, had disappeared into Alzheimer's disease for her last ten years of life, and Ma had taken care of her. Mildred and Ma both were horrified at the prospect of a similar fate. We called it old-timer's disease in the old days.
Also, Ma's kids seemed to be bickering along on separate paths. And Social Security had been sending Ma bureaucratic letters every month that babbled about rule changes, and even accused her of accepting more money than she should have. Each month, they notified her of what she had coming minus what she had to pay back. This was maddening to her.
Her marriage had been very painful, and she'd never quite resolved that.
The state had prosecuted her sons in a way that broke her heart and maybe her health as well.
Another loss tied to an angry priest. Watching the '68 Convention on TV in Ma's basement, this priest said of the demonstrators, “They ought to be taken out and shot.”
Ma said, “My kids could be out in that street!”
This didn't matter to that priest, so she threw him out of the house, and she stopped going to his church. She never replaced religion, and she seemed to miss her involvement with a congregation.
Lots of places to lay blame. . .no one had to bear full responsibility for killing this tired old woman.
After more reflection, I changed my feeling that Ma had been killed by long-term abuse with the sense that time and life overload each of us in turn. Like the guy said, “None of us is going to get out of this alive.”
A dangerous time, friends warned, is after the funeral. . .when the family gathers. Potential heirs are particularly vulnerable then. I heard horror stories of fist fights by the coffin, etc. We were advised to let the dust settle before pursuing questions of wills or property, lest people confuse grief with dollars and bric-a-brac. Our family gathered in peace and harmony.
There was actually a lot of good stuff to remember. Ma was a born social worker always willing to help. If a neighbor family was in crisis, we'd get a new brother or sister. Letters came from people all over the country who loved Ma, and remembered how she'd helped them. Ma was always ready to help, always willing to listen, and always able to talk. Her interpretation of the world was intensely religious. Her unifying principle was to love the children, love all the children. This kept her sane. I actually think she left this Earth to avoid getting senile and causing problems. And, like Mildred, she wanted to leave with a full deck. You can never be sure whom you might run into.

THE END