Ruth and the Math Doctor
Mom and I finally got on the same page the last two years of her life.
I lived in a conventional family in the heartland of the Midwest for my first 20 years.
Strong, healthy, and happy. Middle class, middle child, normal. Then everyone but me left to start new lives, each on separate continents.
I was too numb to be bewildered, too paralyzed to insist on explanations. My jaw dropped as the nest emptied, disintegrated, and disappeared. I returned to my sophomore year of college after the Holidays as scheduled. Each of us put a different spin on the situation, but future reunions were rare and always incomplete.
Then everyone but me left to start new lives, each on separate continents.
I loved everyone in my family. They were unique and wonderful people.
Mom had been an occasional volunteer for our family dentist when he trained rookies. She was his guinea pig in exchange for free root canals. He always gave her a definite finish time for the procedure. In return, she was a stellar patient and could endure anything up to that point. Not a wince, gag, or gurgle during the ordeal.
Ruth knew how to wait.
She waited for her three children to finish childhood…our days of school, music lessons, and sports events. There was always a box of cereal and a carton of milk on the table for breakfast, lunch money deposited in our accounts at school. She drove us to practices, watched ball games from the stands, came to the Awards dinners.
At home, we practiced good sportsmanship. She and Dad taught us to play Bridge and Scrabble, Gin Rummy and Poker, Dominoes and Cribbage. The small black and white TV gave us role models in “The Lone Ranger” and “Ozzie and Harriet”. Dad was the Emcee and official knob-twister, witty and fun. With a little coaxing and some Benny Goodman on the turntable, my parents entertained us with Jitterbug routines.
Then Mom waited while Dad went through a deep transformation: finding a sponsor and faithfully attending AA meetings for the rest of his life. This brought subtle changes between them, of course. We didn’t talk about it, but their personal interactions shifted. A layer of pretense lifted. Their practiced dialogue didn’t gel well any more. It was awkward and confusing for all of us. She didn’t need to cover for him now; he no longer needed an enabling martyr in his corner.
The kids were growing up. Mom and Dad negotiated a polite and straightforward divorce. No call for raised voices. Do what’s best for everybody, divide things fairly, no blame no shame.
That Christmas break was pretty grim, in a weird and foggy way. After that, we were never all together in the same room again. I had a dream where I was following Mom down a long narrow hallway.
“Mom…”
She didn’t hear me, just kept going.
“Mom, wait!” She turned down another hallway, out of sight.
Shaking that dream off in the dorm each time it returned, I’d analyze my situation with some Nancy Drew common sense: You’re not a kid any more. They’re gone. You’re on your own. Grow up. Be a good role model. Don’t be late for class.
“Mom…?” She didn’t hear me, just kept going. “Mom, wait!” She turned down another hallway, out of sight.
During the next forty years, cards and letters scattered among the five of us. Picture postcards and thin blue international airmail letters crisscrossed the globe in foreign arcs around an invisible center. New locations, updates of previous updates.
Thick and messy notebooks recorded the geographic changes, the strange new addresses: Tulsa, Alicante, Springfield, Lagos, Palo Alto, Leysin, Hargesia, Cork, Bogota, Santa Cruz, Alexandria, Houston, Ivory Coast, Bartlesville, Harsford, Kuala Lumpur, Stavanger, London, Nakuru, Spartanburg, Dubai, Nairobi, Cowpens, Joshua Tree.
Patchy reports of status changes in the family came through like static on a radio from space. Messages arrived with plot details smudged, encrypted, or redacted. Over the years, re-diagramming a family tree involved crazy permutations of new marriages, failed marriages, secret marriages, new children, step-children, new siblings, step-siblings, half-siblings, families formed and families reformed.
Mom’s communications were the most detailed: after our nuclear family unit was metaphorically drawn and quartered, she left her devastated homemaker hat behind and drove south to New Orleans. Sold the Plymouth Valiant and bought a ticket on the next cargo ship headed for Spain.
She would start over; she would write a book.
She waited for most of a week in a room at the YWCA, stewing about what she was doing: leaving for the other side of the world with two suitcases and a typewriter.
Her journey began when she stepped aboard the ship as the only passenger on a three week transatlantic crossing, the only woman on board, the only person who didn’t speak Spanish, and the only guest at the Captain’s Table each evening for dinner.
When the ship arrived at the Port of Barcelona, the gallant Captain kissed her hand, and his crew got her hunkered down in a hostel. They left her with contacts and instructions for the train ride down the coast to the city of Alicante, the last leg of the trip. Hemingway pointed her to Spain, and Alicante ticked the box for affordability, considering the modest divorce settlement.
She wrote me, describing how she loved feeling like a child again, starting over in a foreign country. She learned to point at fresh produce, bread, and seafood at the market, nodding, listening, repeating the Spanish words for each thing. She offered pesetas to the vendors and trusted them to take what was fair from her hand.
Strangers taught her phrases she needed and smiled at her with kind eyes. She soon met the man of her dreams and spent twenty years loving, working and living with him in a high rise apartment overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
During my time at college, then starting my teaching career in California in the tumultuous 70’s, my Mom and I exchanged long personal letters comparing our worlds, our roles, our lives. For the next twenty years, she worked alongside ‘Don Carlos’ in the mornings, delivering clean linens to big hotels from their laundry/dry cleaning business. After midday siesta, she made oil paintings and sipped cognac or gin for a few more years till she started the first AA group in the beautiful seaside city. After they retired, they separated amicably.
She was finally ready, after enough hard work, afternoon love, walks on the beach, and tapas at the bodega, to write her book, “Detour Through Spain: Seeking the Cure.”
She returned to the States to start over yet again.
Her Dad, ‘Papa’ to me, agreed when she asked to move into his home with him in the suburbs of Spartanburg, South Carolina…as long as they were clear that neither was taking care of the other. This arrangement worked well for the last 12 years of his life. They had a well defined routine that suited them both.
Mom wrote and painted.
Until he died at 103, Papa, long blind, walked at least a mile a day, kept his tomatoes growing, started a new crock pot stew every Monday, sat in one of the wooden rocking chairs in the carport every afternoon, sipping bourbon and holding court with his Prodigal Daughter. Their neighborhood admirers gathered at about four.
By now Mom was in her mid-sixties; he mid-nineties. She had always longed to have her Dad’s full attention. She had so many questions about family history and the century he had lived through. Princeton, New York City life, World War I, marrying my Grandmother, a young Southern Belle in South Carolina, and taking her back North with him to raise their family.
Papa confided to Mom how, in the later years, while Mom lived in Spain, her Mother suffered from Altzheimer’s and he took care of her as long as he could.
In those days, my Grandmother Bea still played the piano in the study, down the hall to the left. She also still needed a cigarette or two during the day. It was always hard for Papa to deny her anything, but the smoking was a real worry. She didn’t remember that she had already started one, no idea she might have left it somewhere.
Across the hall to the right was their bedroom with en suite bathroom. Sometimes when she made the wrong turn, Papa couldn’t console her as he got her cleaned up and into fresh clothes.
“Vaughn, Where Am I?” she wept.
Eventually Papa couldn’t manage her care and she no longer knew who he was. He admitted her to a Nursing Home. After she died, his walks past the cemetery took on a different rhythm and purpose. When Mom moved in, she accompanied him each morning. They would touch base with Bea, then head for coffee at Hardee’s.
When Papa died, Ruth bought a trailer and put it out in the boonies of Cowpens. In her seventies she started a garden and a forest, planting 500 fir trees in the red dirt on ‘the acre.’ She rescued a series of dogs to keep her company, and invited her friends from town for tea in the ‘Art Barn.’
During those years, Mom and I talked on the phone cross-country, every day in the late afternoon.
One day she surprised me:
“Sher, you know how I’ve always told you I would be independent till the day I die?”
“Yeah, I know, Mom.”
“Never leave the acre, never move into assisted living, never bother anyone?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’m reneging on that. I can’t see well enough to drive any more. On Tuesday, when I drove into Cowpens for groceries, I saw the Dawson’s bull grazing in their pasture as usual. But on the drive back, I noticed there were TWO bulls….
Do you think we could find me a little place out there in California near you guys, where you’d be close enough to get me to the doctor if there were an emergency?”
“WOW Mom! Of course!”
And so we did.
We moved her and her paintings and books into her own apartment near us. The pool and jacuzzi were right outside her door. Mom was in heaven. She let the jets pummel her aching back before she moved to a pool chair for stretching and yoga. The other tenants marveled at her flexibility at 90. She beamed.
She often called me before she went to the pool, so I could come join her for a swim. I’d walk backwards, pulling her slowly through the water while she looked up through branches at the blue desert sky. She’d never relax for long, though. With a sudden splash, she submerged, then broke the surface like a dolphin, insisting it was her turn to pull me.
She could not be outdone. She would not be beholden to anyone for anything, ever.
We made her apartment as accessible for her as we could. Her computer read text to her and printed her dictations in giant bold fonts. Her lighted magnifying glass let her read one word at a time, looking out the side of her eye. The special phone’s ring tone signaled incoming like an air raid warning, the voice volume set to bellowing baritone.
She was more than satisfied with the new digs. No row of recliners in a TV room for her. No lights out at eight, institutional meals, or mandatory chit chat. No gathering around the piano for a group sing.
She filled the bathtub with hot water more than once every night, to soak her bones and discuss things with the frequent visitors between her ears. She hummed songs from her childhood, planned the chapters for her next book.
It would be a Wake Up Call to people preparing for longevity.
Ruth was aware first-hand of the failure of American society to recognize and accommodate the real needs of the elderly. She knew that losing any of the sensory faculties was akin to experiencing a death. Losing sight, or hearing, or memory, a limb or organ, requires a complicated grieving process. It is a loss of who and how we know ourselves to be.
When we talked about the subtler implications of her own aging process, the pain and confusion of losing herself, we agreed that it’s not just ‘facing Death.’
“Oh, I’m not afraid of dying!” she declared. “I just don’t want to lose RUTH!”
I gave her a thumbs up. Then we both burst into a prolonged belly laugh.
Of course it’s not ‘Death’ we’re afraid of. It’s the not hearing, seeing, thinking, or remembering clearly. It’s the ‘thousand tiny cuts’ that slowly zap our sense of self, our abilities, confidence, our identity .
When we don’t quite understand what people are saying, we don’t respond. When we don’t see their expression, we don’t know if they are rolling their eyes or sympathetic. We miss important cues, but are ashamed of drawing attention to our deficit.
We used to be an articulate speaker, a witty conversationalist, a charmer. But now our timing is off and it’s just easier to avoid social situations. People COULD slow down, speak up, include us. But it becomes too much of an effort. So we feel rejected.
Unfortunately these frustrating changes spawn anger and resentment. Mom admitted she once got blunt and huffy at a formal luncheon. She stood up and let people know that she’d rather eat alone than be made to feel invisible!
Then she explained to me again, and to Everyone In The World:
“Face me. Look me in the eye. Speak clearly. LOW and SLOW!”
Her best friends tried their best, but it was frustrating. She got that the loss of communication skills led to alienation, isolation, and loneliness. She was cut off from what she craved: intellectual attention, stimulation, recognition.
One of the most effective strategies we found, once we got her better hearing aids, was to hire a man with a deep voice, a good heart, and mental curiosity.
He came every week to read to her. They started with “Siddhartha” and analyzed every chapter! They discussed anything and everything. Mom got brighter every day, and so did he.
We found some outlets for her to share her perspective, where she was in the role of Guest Speaker. She spoke at Hospice Staff Meetings and AA meetings. She joined Senior Center Without Walls, a program that arranges for weekly phone conference calls for Seniors with common interests. These experiences fed her soul, and she was on fire to spread the word in her next book.
The two years we spent together at the end were precious to both of us. Our fifty years apart had produced strategic exchanges of news and opinions, reading each other’s letters between the lines. Between the judiciously edited headlines and the sisterly ‘atta girl’ assurances at the end.
In person and in time, after extended months of daily visits, she admitted she really had no idea who I was and what I had been doing all those years. What does ‘teaching school’ even mean?
Indeed, I nodded. So it was an incredible healing to finally get to know each other.
As she reached 92, 93…she let me help her more because she had to. Physical systems were wearing out. More pain, more sleeping, but still a remarkably sharp mind. After some heart and breathing issues sent her to the ER and qualified her for Hospice, her Doctor advised her to go to a Nursing Home.
“That’s what your rainy day nest egg is for. It’s raining.”
She and I decided to make our own plan.
We hired a compassionate professional care giver who took a shift every day while I went home to rest, be pampered, and rejuvenate. Celeste was loving and experienced and practical. We were in complete accord about how to serve my Mom’s transition.
During one of our last ‘campfire’ talks, Mom and I sat at the table together and she turned on her electric tea light candle. It was an endearing ritual she had played out with her friends back in her days on ‘the acre.’ The campfire was the place to talk the truth, to be real.
She admitted how discouraging it was, realizing she wouldn’t get the new book written. She was ashamed of nodding to the doctor when he asked if she ever had thoughts of hurting herself.
When our hands met on the table to squeeze, she allowed herself one gasp and sob to escape, “I don’t want to be a bad mole rodel!”
Our heads cocked at each other, and again, we exploded into a mutual belly laugh. She handed me one of her fresh folded handkerchiefs and we blew our noses and wiped our eyes.
Within a few days, Mom was on oxygen and morphine, unable to sit up. She woke every 3–5 hours to ask me what time it was, whether it was a.m. or p.m. What’s the date?
She’d nod and lick the tapioca pudding off the spoon, then suck the wet sponge-on-a-stick I held for her.
Many times she said, “All righty, I think we’ve said everything that needs to be said. I’m ready to call the game. Thanks again for everything you’ve done.”
I’d adjust her bedding, kiss her eyes and the top of her head, then back away till she woke up again in a few hours with a dry mouth and a taste for some more pudding.
“Ok, NOW what day is it? Morning or afternoon? Well, I’m ready any time. What time IS it?”
One of those times, when she was pretty loopy, she asked me to get in touch with the Head Math Doctor in San Bernardino County.
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“I mean the top Math Doctor.”
“You mean a statistician?”
“Yes, the top statistician, in charge of all the numbers. I’m ready to go, and I’m tired of the hold up. He should be able to give me a date.”
“You mean the Bureau of Records? Births, marriages, deaths, like that?
“Yes!”
“Mom, I’ll look it up, but that’s one thing no one can tell you. It’s just a Mystery. No one knows when it will be. I’m really sorry.”
“I know….I’m just so tired of waiting.”
“I know, Mom. I love you.”
Your mom was determined to be her own person and succeeded, as well as giving you both the opportunity to come together in a loving way. Thanks for sharing this. You have given us a better understanding of both of you in a clear-eyed and compassionate way.
I like them ALL.