Mother of Marty

Marty’s mother is 500 miles away and physically deteriorating.  She is 86 years old and spent Marty’s stroke years in a nursing home in her home town of Dalhart, a long way from anywhere, a long drive from everywhere.  We need to go because I think she is coming to the end of her journey in this life and time.

I met Jean in 1974, a life time ago.  Marty and I were in college when I met this woman.  She was barely five feet tall, smoked a lot and drank coffee all the time and she took me to a marvelous steak house in Lubbock that had the most fantastic cheese rolls.

To a small town, sheltered boy who was falling in love with her daughter Jean was an interesting mix of southern bell and eccentric middle-aged mother.  She was the typical southern Baptist woman attached to a large burly man.  She struck me as incredibly worldly and independent but my base view of the world consisted of west Texas.  

In the 40 years I have known Marty’s mother I have never been able to really figure her out.  She was loving, caring, smart, loyal and very passive aggressive.  She grew up a pampered only child adopted by one of the first architects in New Mexico.  She didn’t tell Marty she was adopted until Marty and I were in our 30s and Marty needed some medical history.  She simply never thought it was important.  That was Jean.

I learned pretty quickly that Jean and Marty loved each other but at times, many times they didn’t like each other very much.  Jean was to her husband, “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right as rain.”  Marty was, “You’re wrong and I’ll prove it.”  Jean mastered the art of passive aggression, Marty got the aggressive without the passive part. 

They were/are so very different.  But they are both dogged determined survivors.  Jean is so far away because we wanted her to live her last days close to her home and her friends and with her poor health we didn’t think she would be long for this world.  That was eight years ago.  Marty’s fight for survival, Marty’s instinct to live come honestly.

Jean has suffered from age related dementia for several years.  The dementia was apparent even before her husband died, she had quit being engaged, she had quit being able to fully care for herself years before Arty’s passing.   

When I first took Marty back to Dalhart after her 2^nd stroke we went to the nursing home and I rolled her into Jean’s room.  We hadn’t been there for two years because of the strokes.  Jean, who was watching television in her room, immediately sat up in her own wheel chair, startled by seeing Marty, seeing Marty clearly impaired, seeing Marty in her own wheelchair.  

It was the second time I had seen Jean, in spite of her dementia, in spite of her physical and cognitive frailty, respond as a mother.  She was shocked and clearly dismayed that her daughter, her youngest was in a wheelchair.  She looked at me for an explanation and wanted to know what had happened.  As I related the stroke stories she reached her hand over to Marty’s, grasped, then patted her hand as they sat together, side-by-side in their chairs.  It was one of her finest moments.

Any trip for us is hard because of Marty’s medical condition and overall frailty.  This trip, 500 miles, nine hours one way, is best described as arduous.  Marty wouldn’t have it any other way.  She feels called, compelled to make the trip to sit beside her mother, to touch her mother, to whisper to her mother, maybe for the last time.  

Me, I make lists of stuff, I gather stuff, I pack stuff, I load the van, Marty and her caregiver ride, I drive, and drive, and drive some more and then unload everyone and everything at your friendly neighborhood Holiday Inn.  It’s a bone cruncher.

Like our other trips to Dalhart we will make a quick turn-around.  I don’t like keeping our caregiver away from their family too long and motels aren’t a great place to care for someone who is incapacitated.  We get the accessible room, but it’s not very comfortable for any of us.

On Saturday, tomorrow morning, we will get into the van early that morning with all of the associated tools, bags and stuff that are required for Marty’s care.  We will turn the van north and I will drive as fast and far as I can without stopping or getting stopped.  

We will go see Jean and while she may not know that we were there, she may not respond to me or her daughter, we will know we were there, we will know, Marty will know, she made the trip to reach out and touch her mother one more time.

Its nine hours across Texas from central Texas to the top left hand corner of the panhandle.  Its nine hours back, it’s a bone cruncher, it’s worth the effort.

Subbing for Marty

The call came late in the evening as I stood at our front door and watched as the city repair crew dug up portions of our street to repair the very obvious water leak.  They worked until the very early morning hours to restore our water service.  The only real consequences were no bath for Marty that night and it threw me out of rhythm, and we all know I’m a very rhythmic guy.

Then the call came from my number one son-in-law, a halting, kind of plaintive call asking a simple question before getting to the larger question, he said, “Hey Marty’s Husband, what’s going on?”

Marty’s Husband, “Not much son-in-law, how’s things?”

“Oh, not too hot, your daughter is not doing well; she’s got a really bad headache and has been throwing up.”

“That sucks,” I replied with more fatherly concern than it sounds.

“Yeah,” son-in-law says, “I wonder if you could come up tomorrow to help out with Lily?”

The question itself was simple, straight forward and belied a very simple courage on the part of son-in-law.   He saw a need for his wife, my daughter, and a need for his daughter, my granddaughter, and called seeking help.  I can remember trying to squirrel up the same kind of courage, call and ask for help.  I didn’t do it very well or very often.  My son-in-law clearly loves his family.

 

My instinct in changes to our rhythm, in any changes to my schedule is to go with the real easy, “Oh, I can’t.”  “Nope,” has always been my unfortunate fall-back position.  My brain ran through the list of things I needed to do in Waco, I needed to pay bills, I needed to exercise, I needed to be with Marty and the damn water was off and she didn’t get her bath.

In the back of my mind came the old arguments Marty and I used to have, she would want to do something different, my instinctual response was no.  Instinct can be limiting and Marty hounded me to not always start with “nope” but to simply think before responding, to think what was really important, to focus on what could be better than just the same old.  

I paused, took a breath, took a mental accounting of what needed to happen for me to leave early the next morning, pushed away from my baser, selfish instincts and said, “Of course I’ll come.” 

Of course I would go; helping with my granddaughter was the priority, not the paying of the bills, not the gym, not the rhythm of life; of course I would go.

As I lay in bed that night I couldn’t help but think how much and how often in many situations like this our family misses Marty being Marty.  It was in her nature to be the matriarch, the Victoria Barkley, of this family.  She would have been right in the middle of helping, maybe to the point of too much.  She probably would have driven up that night, she certainly never would have thought about not going and she would have severely chastised me for even having an inkling of not helping. 

Our new normal mandates that I substitute for Marty, that I try to fill in the gaps the strokes took from our family when they struck Marty.  I know I cannot be Erin’s mother or Matt’s mother, I know I’m a substitute for the real thing.  I’m a pretty good substitute, the spirit is willing, but I am replacement for the real thing none the less.  Marty was a good mother.  She was a different kind of mother, one prone to profanity, one prone to telling dirty jokes, one prone to listening to you cry, one prone to offering the best and most qualified advice.  

I know how much both of our children have missed Marty’s presence, her advice, her confidence and her intimate involvement.  I know there are times in her life, when Erin feels Marty’s absence, Marty’s inability to mother, the most.  

Marty and Erin, mother and daughter, so very much alike and often at each other’s throat, only to be followed by whispering in each other’s ears and laughing out loud.  There is no bond like a mother and daughter and I think a woman wants her mom when she has her first baby, Erin gets her dad.

Marty is painfully aware of her lack of a maternal role.  I’m aware that she feels less than, that she feels guilty, that she feels she is not doing what she was intended to do. Marty’s response to my quick trip to Dallas, “Poor guy, that’s what I should be doing.”  I love that she knows, I hate that she knows.

I did the parental duty and loved doing it but, as always, missed Marty.  I didn’t wish she was pre-stroke Marty to relieve me of my responsibilities, I mostly wished she was okay and functional so she could have the same joy I did as I sat on the couch feeding our precious Lily.   I wished she could truly feel and give voice to the pride in our daughter and her husband in how they are caring for dear Lily.   I wished she could connect and feel the power of holding and feeding the vulnerable and the innocent.  

That’s where we are, the agony and the joy of recovery six years post stroke.  Marty is aware of what’s going on, she’s aware of what she can’t do what she once did.  What I hope Marty knows, what I want her to be aware of, is how much what she has been, how much of what she is today impacts my thinking and my doing.  I want her to know how much of what she was as a mother is being lived out by both her daughter and her son in how they care for their own children.