Gifts

My mom was always perfectly put together. Even her casual outfits were carefully considered and accessorized. As the years went by, I would look at her at 60, then 65, and even 70 thinking “if that’s what aging will do for me, I’ll happily take it.”

In this picture she is 74, holding her great grandchild, 15 month old Logan …

This is how I love to remember her, with a silk scarf, tailored jacket and the shell necklace she always wore.

But over the next two years, she began to have mysterious neurological issues. The feeling in her hands and feet slowly ebbed away, making it hard for her to walk.

Her birthday was May 15th, right around Mother’s Day and in 2007 I flew up to Shelter Island to celebrate with her. Even though my dad always drove when they went anywhere together, she loved to drive herself. And I was more than happy to be her passenger.

But on that weekend visit 14 years ago, I was stunned as she held the steering wheel in her left hand while lifting her right leg from accelerator to brake and back again. Beyond alarmed, I asked my dad when we got home if he knew how bad things had gotten. He said he had suspected, but didn’t have the heart to pursue it. So I sat with my mom and gently told her what she didn’t want to hear.

My trips up to New York became more frequent as one doctor after another could find no good reason for Mom’s failing health.

In August, she sat in the kitchen as I put together a peach cobbler. She insisted on peeling the peaches and as she did the juice dripped down her arms and into her lap. She was oblivious.

It broke my heart.

And as we sat waiting for the cobbler to bake, Mom asked what I would like. “Take anything you want,” she said, “I want you to choose something.”

I chose this, a simple, worn kitchen tile …

I couldn’t remember its back story, who painted it or when, I only knew that Mom had always propped it in her kitchen window over the sink. I told her I would put it in my kitchen, where I would see it every day. I still do.

By September, Mom began losing her ability to speak. And she was tired, tired of the endless and increasingly intrusive medical tests. She had had enough and called an end to them.

When I flew up in November for a relative’s funeral she had gotten to the point where she could barely walk.

By December her speech was so halting that our phone conversations were almost entirely one-sided. Much to my dismay, my dad cancelled our planned family trip at Christmas, saying it would be too much for her.

By March, she was no longer able to care for her most basic needs. I flew to New York for the week following my dad’s cataract surgery, a baby monitor in my room so he could call me to tend to her during the night.

By April, one month shy of her 77th birthday, she was gone.

In hindsight the doctors declared she had suffered from cerebral vasculitis and that there was nothing they could have done. It was cold comfort.

That May we all flew up to New York for her memorial service. It was Mother’s Day weekend, 13 years ago.

……….

Today Don and I went to Meg’s to celebrate Mother’s Day. She always asks Paul to take a picture of us with the kids and, as usual, I was wearing a great new top gifted by her …

When we got home, I pulled out some muslin from one of my mom’s quilting projects and a vintage handkerchief, perfect matches for my new blouse …

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While I was stitching, Meg sent a picture my brother had posted of the two of us with my mom on Shelter Island 62 years ago …

She said when she showed the picture to the girls, Ellis pointed and said “Parkers.”

Family, pictures, life … all gifts