July is a poignant month for my family.
My dad died in July, 2008. He and mom had just celebrated their 59th anniversary, on July 17. Three years after he died, Mom broke her leg and, in July, had to move from their beloved home in the high desert of Hesperia, California. That was in 2011. She just celebrated her 89th birthday last month. In spite of leg pain and other challenges, she’s doing great (I know many of you will remember my posts about her resisting the move.)
Just before she moved, three years ago, I wrote a post that reflects our aging experience: us, and caring for our elders, and the drive to be independent. I’m reposting it here in honor of my family. I hope you enjoy it.
I spent several hours at Mom’s house today. I alternate weekends with my SoCal sister. We get Mom’s mail, water her plants, check her phone messages, and just generally make sure all is well while she’s in the rehab hospital.
The sky really was that blue today
Yes, it’s inconvenient (it’s a 90-minute drive), but it’s short-term because she has agreed to sell her house, and this time I believe she will follow through. I’m glad, but also heartbroken. To think of them – them! but it isn’t “them” anymore, is it? It’s just her – not living up there ever again. Well, I’ve held off the tears all day but I guess I can’t forever. Time moves on, and we all get old and die.
I feel conflicted. I want her to move down by me (“up” and “down” relate to land elevation) for all the logical reasons, and then all of a sudden, like right now, I don’t want her to move at all. I want her to risk it, to inconvenience and vex and terrify us with her dogged determination to stay as long as she can in the house that she and Dad built. For me to yank her away from that – and then add in the heartbreaking, elegiac, mind-numbing beauty of the high desert – I can hardly bear the thought.
Poppies grow wild in her yard
It’s an end. I’d like to think it’s a beginning, too, but who can say? Mom is healthy and vibrant for almost-86, there’s no reason she can’t have a great ten more years. But will she have the courage to start over, to walk away from that place?
It hurts to think of losing it, because for ten years, Hesperia was my home, too. It was a difficult time, when I worked harder than any human should have to, and delayed my dreams, and saved everybody.
The memories are good and bad.
As a young single mother, I took my son Danny (now 33) on his paper route some weekend mornings when the snow made it impossible for him to ride his bike. One morning I ran over his foot, but the deep sand saved him and after we got over the shock, we laughed. And then newspapers stopped hiring kids and kids stopped getting up early and riding bikes and getting their first paychecks.
On the negative end, my previous marriage ended there. And Dad died up there! I wouldn’t live there now. Couldn’t. But I miss it.
When Dad and Mom build the house in the ’80s, they preserved the native juniper trees
But I digress. Today I worked my butt off, getting Mom’s house all spiffed-up for Amber to look at next Saturday. Amber might buy it. That would be nice, to know it’s still in the family. Amber is a dear friend of my step-daughter. So we would know the house that Dad and Mom built in the ’80s would be well cared for.
It was so beautiful up there today! I swear, when you live in such a place as the high desert, and especially on a spring day like today, you feel a sense of hope and optimism about rearing kids, growing your own food, having quiet and privacy and clean air and astounding skyscapes. You can pretend that you’re living life on your own terms. I imagine this is what people seek when they move to Idaho or Montana or the Dakotas.
This picture hints at the mountains they can see out the back AND the front of the house
Mom’s coming home to my house tomorrow. I started out being excited, and I still am, but we’ve had a couple of conversations since the hospital said they’d cut her loose, and I realize I’m a bloomin’ amateur. I see that Mom’s looking for ways (already) to cut corners and speed things up; and now I understand it’s not about reveling in the relative luxury of my house as compared to a rehab hospital. It’s about my house as stepping stone to – you guessed it – her house. I think she’s just biding her time until she can go home, and once she’s there, who knows? And my other sister, the one who hasn’t yet adapted to her new home near Canada, would do almost anything, including promising to take care of Mom, to be able to come south and thaw out for a couple of months.
So I rearrange furniture at my house to make Mom comfortable, to encourage her to stay, but like an inadequately compelling acquaintance, I know I don’t have much pull. Because I suspect she’s going home for good, even if she doesn’t yet say it. And the tears and frustration and anger of her children and grandchildren are nothing compared to the incense of creosote and sage calling to her from the high desert.
Turn up the volume and you’ll hear the wind chimes in her back yard.
Great post, Lynne. Your photos showed the beauty of the ol’ homestead and your words captured so well the memories and the bittersweet anguish of letting go. Your blogs touch on so many of the transitions that are a part of life and I can always relate on so many levels. Thanks! Hope you and your mom are doing fine.
Lovely post, Lynne, thanks for re-sharing it!
My pleasure, Karen.
What a gorgeous home, I can only imagine how difficult it was for your Mom to leave it.
Change can be revitalizing, I am glad she is adjusting so well.
Beautiful story.
Thanks, Doreen, it was very hard for her. Sometimes I remind her that nothing’s perfect, and in exchange for mountain views and space, she gets closeness with family and somebody to call in the wee hours if she has a problem, somebody who can be there in 5 minutes. But we both know I’m just trying to put the best face on it, and she’s kind enough to go along with my pontificating.
These transitions are never easy, as you so aptly point out. With kids scattered to the winds it gets even more complicated. Blessings on your mother. 88 is darn amazing!
Beautiful post, Lynne. It was a wonderful place your parents had, and the wind chimes evoked just how serene it must have been up there. I went through many of the same things, first with my mom, then with my dad, a few years back. Like you said, it’s an end—but also a new beginning, and one always has conflicting emotions about such times. I wish your mom and you the very best.
Thanks, Jim. I think Mom has come full circle. Yesterday, Sunday, we had her and my sister Karen over for bbqd lamb chops. After dinner, after desert, we watched an episode of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, and we got laughing so hard it was just like gold raining down from heaven to hear Mom’s belly laughs. And then afterward she was able to drive herself the four blocks home without even leaving the gates of our little 55+ community. She has adjusted beautifully, and I am so blessed to have her nearby.
I so loved this–and loved the video experience of that wonderful high desert yard. Does your mother read this blog? Just curious… I would bet she does indeed. My father will celebrate his 90th birthday in two weeks. He will be confused about which birthday it is and who everyone around him might be and why he’s still here. He no longer obsesses on the first baby he and my mother had who died in his arms at two days old. He’s forgotten, and that’s such a relief. But he has forgotten SO MUCH that’s good too. He and my mother, age 86, live in their home together still, but she is wearing out. That doesn’t mean she skips the canning in the summer. Heck no. But she at least has someone come mow the little patch of lawn for her, and now maybe someone will come vacuum too. So–this is turning into “all about me,” when what I really wanted to say is, “Thanks. Sharing this experience with other Boomers is so helpful.”
Jan, I like to celebrate the good about aging, but as your dad’s story shows, there is great sadness, too. No, Mom doesn’t read my blog, she doesn’t use a computer, and she probably wouldn’t like me yakking about her anyway. I have shown her all the posts I write about her, and she is torn between enjoying being the subject and worrying that people will “trace us.” Like we skipped bail or something! Anyway, I’m assuming you and your hubby are the helpers? If so, a good argument for living near each other. I will treasure this time. I do.
I’m amused at your mother’s likely horror at being “yakked about.” It reminds me of my mother’s reaction when I showed her how to look at the Facebook walls of her kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and VERY few age-alike friends of hers who are also on Facebook. She may even have blushed as she said, “I feel bad looking at all this! It feels so intrusive!” She comes from the generation of women who would recite the maxim, “Fools names and fools faces always appear in public places.” She cannot imagine her family or friends MEANT to be among the fools! 😉
Re: my dad, we live too far away to be caregivers. When we are able to visit (and that should be MORE often), we do a lot. Wish we could do more.
Thank you for sharing your story. Today is my mother’s birthday – she passed away in 2000 but I still send her birthday greetings out to the universe – and my father’s (now gone three years) was in July also so this month is meaningful for me too. My mother never had to move from their home but my dad did and it was heartbreaking. I’m happy to know that your mother is doing great!
Janis, happy birthday to your mother. I am blessed to still have Mom near me but even after 6 years some days weep for Dad. We humans are privileged to live long lives, but part of that is the accumulation of sorrow.
Decisions, they are so hard when family is involved.
I am 70 now, and have already settled with my daughter, that when she feels it is not good for me to live alone the decision is hers to make.
I do not want her to have to go through the terrible turmoil you are right now.
I trust and love her, and she knows that later I may just change my mind and call her out about it. But, she knows that now , I am making the decision for her so she will not ever, for a second feel guilty for any decision she may have to make in my life. As we age, change is a terrible thing, but sometimes it has to happen, even against our wishes.
So if that day comes, I know that my child will feel less pain.
~~Kathleen
Kathleen, thanks for sharing another glimpse into the world of “what happens when we get older.” In my mom’s case, she wanted to continue living in her own beloved home, of course, in the high desert that she loves so much. But her decision carried obligation for us kids, in that since she no longer drove freeways, she relied on us to transport her to many of her doctor appointments, for example. A doctor appointment meant my sister or I would drive to her house (90 minutes) take her to doctor (40 minutes plus wait + appointment time), return her home (40 minutes) and return to our house (90 minutes). This is just doctor time.
Also, we frankly resented that she had to miss birthday parties and other events unless we either had them at her house (necessitating many people driving up and down the dangerous Cajon Pass) or went up and got her, and then brought her back. And this doesn’t even take into consideration that she said she was lonely, or that her house sometimes needed attention that we provided (oh, it was fun, don’t get me wrong. We enjoyed going up there and fixing stuff, making a day of it. But you see my point.)
Now, 3 years later, she is within walking/biking distance from my house. The benefits are so numerous I can’t take any more space to yak about them, but here are just two: she sees her great-grandkids frequently (as well as everyone else) and if she gets sick, we can be there in the dead of night or whenever within 5 minutes. Okay, more: she has dinner at our house at least every other Sunday, and she can drive herself. If i make something really good I’ll drop off a portion for her – like Bill’s fab bbq ribs. We’ve now begun “tandem entertaining”: if she has family visit her from out of town and they spend the night at her house, I have a nice guestroom if they need it; and whoever doesn’t do the main meal/party hosts breakfast the next day. I could go on. Life is so good now, and she says even though she misses Hesperia, she is happier now.
Very nicely done. Who could not feel the sadness? The things we must give up. You are both giving up a home and at the same time receiving one another’s company in a familiar and yet foreign circumstance. I assume that this reflects the love you received from “them.” I am amazed at you resilience and hers. As my own writing takes me to the other side of bliss, I learn to handle angst as a builder of creativity. Something that I see you doing quite adeptly.
Oh, Bob, the angst is so powerful sometimes, isn’t it? I tried reading Dakota Blues aloud, recording it for a sight-impaired friend, and there were places I choked up. Because the vignettes about immigrant life (Germans coming to Midwest in late 1800s) and for their children growing up on isolated farms sprang directly from my mother’s history. And that was just reading it. The funeral of “Karen’s mother” was really an account of my dad’s funeral in North Dakota in 2008.
Buckets.
So I hear you. And thank you for the compliments.