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The Last Present

     Mary Barry, my friend Pamela’s mother, died on February 27, 2009. She was born on July 30, 1914, but until recently, I was not aware of her exact age.  Mary retained the vanity of not wanting people to know it.  I remember how impressed I was by her when I first made her acquaintance.  She was so unique, vibrant and interesting to me, and not at all what I grew up perceiving mothers to be.  Mary was an artist, an astrologer and a fascinating person.  I met her when I was a new college student and still of an age when I had not yet recognized the gifts my own mother had given to my life and would still give me until her own death in 2000.  I found Mary intriguing, and so very different than my own mother.  My eldest son, Jesse, also found her charming and  had a number of  thought-provoking phone conversations with her years ago. At that time Mary was hoping to land a movie deal on a book she had written.

      Over the past several years, Pam, her only child, lived through the turmoil, pain and grief of losing the mother who had raised her, as Mary’s faculties declined and dementia set in.  Pam and I often discussed our feelings and experiences about what this was like, and tears were shed on occasion as we did this.

     The above photo was given to me by Pam. The photo is of Pam’s father, Richard, and her mother, Mary, taken on their last Christmas, about a year before Mr. Barry died, on Dec. 4, 1988.   Mary was in her 70’s when this photo was taken.  It is a favorite of Pam’s.

     In January, Pam sent me one of several “mother poems” she wrote to express and process her own feelings. 

       Mum, it’s like you’re shipwrecked,

       Cast up on the shore

       Every little bodily storm takes

       away more of you.

        At what point are you no longer you?

       What’s left now?

       An occasional smile when I come or leave.

        About a month ago I said

        “Hi,  How are you?  I love you”.

         You repeated it all back to me,

         but with no comprehension, I imagine.

         On Christmas Day you said, “Pam”.

          Was that my last present from you?

           Most of the time it’s a great vast vacancy,

           With just a little you,

           A small wreck on an immense beach.

       -Pamela  Barry Strauss-Jan 2009, with permission

     Pam’s grieving journey started a long time ago, as she began to experience her mother’s changes and loss of function, both mentally and physically.  Slowly their roles transformed and she became the caregiver. She shared a home with her mother and had to take over all of the business affairs and sell the house to pay her mother’s outstanding bills and new expenses.  She had to find a new place to live, as well as an appropriate one for her mother, and to continue being the support and responsible person, dealing with Mary’s medical and personal caretakers and handling what was left of her affairs. 

     In assuming this role, Pam sometimes felt alone and overwhelmed. She was also undergoing treatments for a newly diagnosed medical condition of her own.  There were moments of course, when even though an adult, she wanted so much to reach out and be comforted by the mother she used to know.  On her many visits to the care facility, she would scan her mother’s face and eyes for a sign that Mary was still there. Sometimes there was surprising recognition and responsiveness and other times, nothing.  Yet Pam continued to be Pam, and being a creative, caring and sensitive person, she found many different ways to engage her mother. She tried to elicit a response, or just to be with her and make that time more meaningful.

     I asked Pam to answer some questions about her mother as a way to facilitate her memories and to share them with others.  She has given permission to post them here. I am hoping that in the process of responding, it will help a little to express some feelings and perhaps will launch her a tad further into her grief journey, which road must be traveled by us all in one way or another.

 

       Q. Tell me about the things that made Mary, your mother, special. What memories best represent her?

         Pam: My mother was fun, confident, unconventional, dependable and loving. Under her guidance some big, wonderful birthday parties were staged for me.  There were about 25 kids from the look of the pictures. How did she do it? She also made or bought me many Easter outfits and always a pretty hat and gloves.  It was fun.  We had many long, wonderful talks.  In her later years we enjoyed going on retreats together.

         Q. What are some of the ways you believe you are honoring her most in how you live and what you do?

          Pam: I believe I have been and am honoring my mother by being a good daughter to her and mother to my daughter.  Even when she had dementia, I visited her in the nursing home, though I found it very depressing most of the time.  I was there for her to the end.    I live by the values she gave to me.

           Q. How are you most like her?

             Pam: I am most like my mother in my desire to help others help themselves. She was artistic, sensitive and loved language as I do.  The natural world was appreciated by both of us.

              Q. How are you most different?

               Pam: My mother was more confident than I. She liked to be on stage in a group or lecturing. She was less traditional in some ways than me and disliked routines.

                Q. What does your grief for her feel like?

                 Pam: Grief feels different at different times.  I feel abandoned, lonely, happy that she’s free, and also cheated I could not speak deeply with her the last 6-7 years.  I also feel very grateful that she was my mother.

                 Q. Does it differ from the grief you have experienced in the past while watching her decline?

                 Pam: Not really, but I do feel relief that it’s over.  I don’t have to wonder any more about what the right thing to do for her is.

                 Q: How did it feel to answer these questions?

                  Pam:  It felt good. I also followed through on my commitment to you to answer them. I felt I was honoring my mother a little more and proceeding with my grieving.

                   Q. Is there something you wish you had told her when she was younger and could have better understood?

                   Pam: I have a couple of regrets. Sometimes she used to drop hints here and there about wanting to go on some outing with me and my significant other, Ernie. Since I lived with her, I really wanted that time away from her and did not pay attention.  Also our astrological signs were Leo and Virgo (Relaxed housekeeper vs neat and organized) so we sometimes grated on one another due to that.  I can think of things I wished we had discussed, such as aging and dying. I would have liked to know her views and feelings.

                    Q. What would you like to tell your two granddaughters about your mother?

                   Pam: She was a very nice person. She could be a lot of fun, was artistic and was very interested in kids.

      As I have discovered after multiple losses in my own life, of both young and elderly family members and friends, certain feelings are recycled with each new death. These tend to surprise us suddenly and unexpectedly, though we believe we have moved to a less painful place. This is perfectly normal, but it doesn’t always feel that way and others often react as though we are violating some unwritten principle because we are not “over things” in the time frame or way they think we should be.  Though each loss has its own characteristics, depending on the type of relationship we had with the person and on our own way of coping, there are startling commonalities that people experience. They often transcend age, culture, etc.

     Most of us will go through the loss of our parents at some point and must face that we have fallen into the role of being the older generation. As with all losses of loved ones, we must slowly shift our shapes and must adopt somewhat of a new identity.  When we become “orphaned adults” we often feel our sorrow on both an adult and a childlike level, even in cases where our relationship with our parents may have been painful and difficult. I remember after my mother died, I often found myself humming, “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child”. I didn’t even realize I knew the words to this song, but it kept on intruding into my consciousness. 

      People are frequently discouraged from taking the journey through grief in a personal way that suits them when it makes others uncomfortable. Yet we must all travel this way. Knowing others who can give us our space to grieve, but who don’t view it as pathological is important. They are available to listen when we need it, and to coach us through it so that we emerge with our health in tact. It is often helpful when our grief guides have walked this terrain themselves. They can assist us to navigate, finding ways to honor our loved ones and to incorporate the lessons learned from them into our own lives and into our futures.