My mom, aka “Jean”, “Regina”, “Queenie” (Regina is Latin for Queen), would be 98 years old on June 4th. She died last year on June 30th, shortly after her 97th birthday. Susceptible to pneumonia over the last year of her life, she was being treated for pneumonia when osteoporosis caused a spontaneous break of her left femur. At 97 years, bones so brittle that they could break easily, there was no way she would have gotten a femur nailing to fix the break. She would have died either in surgery or following shortly afterward. The hospice nurse and I sat down and I told her that the only thing we could do for mom was keep her comfortable and allow her to die. I suffered a very high femur break in 2002, and knew how hard it is to recover from a femur break. As I as recovering, I overheard my surgeon talking to another surgeon, that initially he was not too sure I was going to survive the break. The shock of a high femur break can kill you. (Note: it’s nice to prove doctors wrong from time to time. I am still alive and sinning, as they sing in an Irish song.).
My mom was a great woman of faith. It was her faith that helped her at the age of 12 years, when her mother died, and the death of her little sister, Mary Greta on Christmas Day, two weeks following her mother’s death. My mom’s faith supported her when at 25 years of age, her dad died. My mom received her degree in Home Economics and taught in the Pittsburgh school system. Religious prejudice still abounded then, and though she was a very good educator, she was fired for being a Catholic. She went on to work for the Union Gas Company in Pennsylvania and taught cooking schools all over the State of Pennsylvania. She met my father and was not too sure about him at first. But he eventually charmed her, and her pastor, Father Coglin (who at the death of her dad kind of became her surrogate father … not just anyone was going to marry Queenie, according Fr Coglin).
Mom’s faith sustained her through the ups and the downs of family life. All those 25 years of my sister, Mary Ruth’s Crohn’s disease were tough on all of us, but especially my mom and dad who walked with Mary Ruth through those days and numerous surgeries that were apart of their lives. When Crohn’s disease finally took Mary Ruth’s life in 1997, at the age of 42 years, it was their Catholic faith that sustained both of my parents.
Mom told me that a month or so after Mary’s death, she had a very vivid dream. Mom found her self at a house and knocked on the door. A very beautiful woman answered the door and invited my mom inside. Mom told the woman she was looking for Mary Ruth. The woman smiled and led mom to a room with a two way mirror. Mom, undetected, looked into the room and saw my sister sitting on the floor playing with some little children. My sister was no longer gaunt and broken by her illness, but looked very much alive, healthy and happy. Also, in the room, there was a very handsome young man with a brown beard smiling at my sister. Mom noticed that the beautiful woman, who had invited her in and led her to this observation room, was no longer with her. She then saw that woman enter the room my sister was in, and walk up to her and whisper some words to my sister. Mary Ruth got up and left with the woman. Mom turned around and saw that my sister and the beautiful woman enter the room my mom was in. Mary Ruth hugged my mom and said, “Don’t worry mom, I am okay and am very, very happy.” The dream then ended. Mom said to me, “I know that that beautiful woman was the Blessed Mother, and the young man with the beard was Jesus. I am at peace knowing that your sister is very happy and at peace.”
After Mary Ruth’s death, mom got gravely ill and was in the hospital from Thanksgiving through Christmas. The doctors were puzzled as to why she was so sick. They finally decided shortly before Christmas to do an exploratory surgery on her. My dad, stalwart as he was, was very worried. My mom was a wee bit OCD (her dirt was always the cleanest of dirt), and as we walked her down to the surgical ward, she looked at my dad and said, “Walt, you’ve been wearing the same shirt for the last week. You’ve got to change that shirt. People will think you haven’t any other clothes.” We both gave her a kiss as she went into preop and then went to the surgery waiting room. Dad looked amused. He said to me, “She thinks I have been wearing the same shirt for the last two weeks. She forgets I have more than one of these shirts.”
I think that this heavenly visit in a dream helped mom greatly when my dad died from congested heart failure in 2004. Mom and dad had only been living in New Prague one year before his death. Mom, made friends easily, something not always done in this small town of large, closely knit Czechoslovakian families. She was always entertaining guests. She had her falls and surgeries, but she was always determined to return home and managed to continue to live at home until her dementia grew to the point that she had to move into Mala Strana nursing home. Once she adjusted, she made a point of welcoming all new residents coming to Mala Strana, and letting them know that someone cared for them.
She would be at all the activities, be present at whatever religious services were being held. The home economics teacher in her was always present with mom giving nutritional advice to the other women at her table, especially one woman of 95 years that announced that she was pregnant. The woman received, much to her dismay, a lot of nutritional advice from mom e.g. “You can’t have two ice creams for dessert! That’s not good for the baby!” (I did ask mom how she thought the woman got pregnant. Mom said, “The nuns (mom’s label for the nursing home staff) caught her drinking beer in the basement with the boys.” I replied that just might produce an occasion in which pregnancy could happen.). Mom loved it when children from the elementary school would come to the nursing home and read to her.
Of course, mom’s OCD never went away. She would wheel herself into residents’ rooms and announce that she was there to clean the room. When the residents would object, mom would say that’s okay. I will cross your name off the list for cleaning today, at which point, the residents would agree to mom cleaning their room. To keep mom from watering plants (to prevent mom from falling from her wheel chair), Ruthie bought her some really beautiful artificial flowers and put them in a decorative vase. Mom would say, “people pass by and want to smell them they look so real. They touch them and then ask me, “where did you get them?” And I say to them, “My husband’s wife got them for me.” I looked at Ruthie and quietly said, “Not only am I a bigamist, I have a Oedipal complex.”
On her birthday in 1970, I composed this piano music for her as a gift.
Happy 98th birthday, mom!
Love,
Bob
