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Memories and Gifts

Mom and Dean, 1950

Losing Mom, the last of her generation, leaves me feeling responsible as the Keeper of the Memories, memories that have been stored in cardboard boxes and manila envelopes and dusty file cabinets and in the back of closets.  I am going through this as a journey through memories of love and sorrow, regret and gifts.  Yes, gifts.

I found a letter I wrote to my mother forty years ago.  I don’t remember writing it, but it is mailed in a Yale University Section of Neurosurgery envelope and appears to have been sent instead of a traditional Christmas card.  It includes a poem that is copied from an unidentified medical journal, written by a doctor identified only as David to his mother on the occasion of her birthday.  I told my mother that it spoke clearly from my heart about what gifts she had given me.  Here’s the poem:

What gift can I give you

On this birthday? You have

Pain in your shoulder. In

Darker moments you have

Sighed and said

Two-thirds of my life are over.

 

Your children are scattered

Your womb gone. Nature’s trick

So strong in you to gather

And protect, nurture and

Help us bloom like flowers

Yet now, in your Indian Summer

We seem to turn from yellow dandelions

To white, evanescent hairs

Emanating from a seed

Floating where?

Where has your love, your tears

That caring water gone?

Swallowed by a hungry

Seemingly ungrateful earth

The sunlight of your warmth

May seem at times reflected back

Unfelt, unchanged.

 

And yet, did you know

That when I put my hand

On a crying child’s head

Whispering ssssh

It is you whispering softly

Rocking him close to my chest

That love that I feel for a wide

Eyed baby that I never saw before

That is your love for me

That I can take anywhere, and

Give anytime so filled am I

With this love. I am so grateful

If you take this, my thanks

For your birthday gift

I hope that it will give you

Some peace. It has for me.

Love, David

 

I’m glad I told Mom what David told his mother:  Her care for me turned into my care for someone else, actually lots of other someones.

Recently I watch a documentary about the life of Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.  At a college address near the end of his life he said, “You smile because someone once smiled at you; you love because someone first loved you.”

Fred and David had both discovered this important truth.  Love is never wasted.  Hate fails, anger fails, pleasure fails.  But love is never wasted.  It beats off the chaos and the darkness, it plants seeds that grow into the greatest of shrubs, it gives hope to the hopeless, and gives to the warrior and caregiver alike, courage.

The letter and poem remind me that my bigger responsibility is not as Keeper of the Memories, but as Giver of the Love.  So thank you, Fred Rogers, and thank you, Doctor David wherever you are.

And thanks, Mom.

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Good Bye Mom

Mom celebrating her 99th birthday

Although we had plans for a big 100th birthday party on Thanksgiving Day, Mom is celebrating early in the arms of the angels.  She died peacefully with family at her bedside at 7 PM on Thursday evening, August 30, 2018.

Eunice, along with her four older siblings, was raised by a single mother in the tiny hamlet of Plaza, North Dakota early in the last century.  After high school she attended a business school in Fargo then went on to Minneapolis working as a secretary at Jean Lang Dresses.  There she made lifelong friends with her co-workers, and, up until they were all well into their eighties, the six “Jean Lang Girls” got together for their annual Christmas party.  Eunice is the last survivor of that group.  She never let a friend go. 

During the war she met a handsome young Army officer, the brother of her fellow worker, Florence, and fell in love.  She married Larry Lohse in 1947 and gave up work to raise her two sons, Bruce and Dean, and her daughter Jean Marie.  The other mothers in the neighborhood became lifelong friends.  At the age of 90, Eunice traveled with her old neighbor, Lois, by train across Canada.  She never let a friend go.

When she felt the children were old enough, she returned to work to be certain they could all afford a college education, a special priority for her and Larry.  She worked as a secretary for a regional airline, and this afforded her the opportunity to travel throughout the country and the world, which she did, dragging her much more reluctant husband along for the adventure.  She still exchanges Christmas cards with her old boss.  She never let a friend go.

She retired to Florida in 1986, less for the weather than to be close to her youngest grandchildren, whom she spoiled outrageously at every opportunity.  Here she became active in Southside United Methodist Church where she volunteered in the kitchen helping with Wednesday night dinners up until she had to give up driving at the age of 94.  Last Christmas, her kitchen co-workers, also now retired and living out of town, got together again for lunch.  She never let a friend go.

In 1999, her beloved Larry became severely disabled as a result of Parkinson’s Disease and a stroke.  She shouldered the responsibility of primary care giver for the difficult years until his death in 2005.  Because she never let a loved one go, either.

She is survived by her three children, her son-in-law, Claude Garvin, her daughter-in-law and best friend, Mary, her grandchildren and their spouses, her great-grandchildren, a cadre of nephews and nieces, and various honorary step-children, all of whom are grateful for her love and wisdom.  She never let any of us go.

A memorial service will be held at Southside United Methodist Church, 3120 Hendricks Ave., Jacksonville, Florida, on Sunday, September 9 at 4PM.  Internment and a second memorial service will be at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis on October 15.