A new voice (at last)

This is from Marilyn.

In memory of Mom, Grandma, Dode, Nana, Dodie, No-no Nana,
Crystal, Great Grandma, and Dorothy:

It is said that a loved one is known by many names, and that was true with our mother, Dorothy Joan Pickrel Gravett. One of 11 surviving children and the self-described “runt” of the family, Dorothy held her own among bossy brothers and taller sisters. Her family was well off but she learned early that life had many dimensions, for she helped her mother tend to the mentally ill grandmother strapped to a bed in the upper floor of her large house. When she was still a teenager, amidst the Great Depression, her family lost everything and Dorothy turned her wages over to her parents. She married Edmund Johnson Gravett, a creative alcoholic who shared her love of music and dancing. They lived through World War II and had a family. She suffered miscarriages and a baby brought to term who died before delivery, having her last child, Joan Elizabeth Gravett, when she was 42 years old.

The house I grew up in was predictably unpredictable. Alcoholism and schizophrenia are diseases fueled by depression and repression, and the effects on family life are now well documented and better understood. As a child, I never felt safe. And for years I blamed my parents.

I heard once that forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. For years I longed for that: a better past. Until I grew up. Until I accepted who I was in sum. Only then could I see my parents for who they were: human beings terribly burdened by their own diseases and demons who did the best they could to love and rear us. And I can recognize the gifts they bestowed: creativity, a sense of humor, a love of music. My last interaction with Mom was on Saturday afternoon. She wouldn’t open her eyes when she talked to me so I made a crack about me being so homely she couldn’t bear to look upon me. Her response was that wonderful warm smile of hers, with one corner of it bent slightly, sardonically, knowing she was being teased.

My favorite memories of mom are: wrestling with Joanie and me on the living room floor; letting Joanie and me “treat” her aching legs after work with layers of cream and powder and not getting mad when she woke up caked from our therapy; playing “house” with 3-year-old Rachel for hours on end; locking herself out of our San Jose house and peeing in the dog’s water bowl; having her picture taken with Beetlejuice at Universal City; and dancing with Vera in Indianapolis when she was 92. But my favorite memory of mom is seeing her come down our street in Orem, Utah, with my late husband Robin holding her arm and swinging his white stick, and mom pushing Danny in the stroller, and keeping a watchful eye on Rachel on her tricycle, all the while smiling at me and telling the family, “Mommy’s home.”

30

July 8. 2010

The old-fashioned journalists' code for the end of a story is 30.
Not even scholars of the field can give a single convincing reason for it.
But 30 for generations meant, the end.
And so it was for Dorothy Joan Pickrel Gravett at 2 a.m. July 6.
30.
That's all she wrote.
So long, farewell.
As she had wished, Dodie/Mom/Nana/Nono left this plane in her sleep. She had suffered an attack of coughing on July 3 from which she entered a coma and never again opened her eyes to see. Pneumonia was diagnosed and left untreated. Only comfort care from hospice was administered, per Dorothy's written wishes.
Marilyn felt she had left us by Sunday, July 4. Ted and Linda came to visit, as did Sarah and Fred and I.
And we knew for sure when Alice, the kind and concerned nurse, called me at home at 2:05 a.m. with the news and an apology -- an apology for not being present.

But we felt this was what Mom wanted. After all, she had withstood the best ministrations at Ebeid Hospice Center next door since Jan. 29, care designed to help her sail into the great unknown with maximum comfort and minimum anxiety.

Moved to the Goerlich Center nursing home next door on the Flower Hospital campus, Mom had shown signs of progress, sitting more nearly upright, feeding herself, opening her eyes, and talking. all in the active dayroom of the "Main Street" unit for the least abled residents.
Hospice served her well there, too, and, when the end came, a lovely nurse named Joanne was there to lead us fumbling through the final steps.

Somehow, no matter how well you think you have prepared, when it comes to do the few final tasks, a kind, seasoned person like Joanne makes the process more human. I have been in a fog of sorts since that early morning call; not even able to cry, just going through motions that I have to dredge up in my memory from earlier, more coherent times.

Truly, I cannot believe Mom is gone, even though I am toting around the rest of her personal effects from the Goerlich center in the trunk of my car and stashing earlier transfers in the cottage next door. She is still alive in my mind, still waiting for the next visit which I will approach with a sense of duty but also anticipation of her smile and loving gaze.

Toward the end, Mom could be talking on about horses in her room or rain dripping from the ceiling or the little girl on the sofa and then, in a flash, look at me and say, "Your hair is so pretty." These days, I'm beginning to get a sense of what that fractured consciousness must have felt like.

I'm in a bare room in my head although outside life continues to bustle on.
I can hear Paul and Carter prattle on and on about video games, or play "Monkey in the Middle" at East Harbor State Park beach with all the kids and grownups as we did yesterday. I can get dinner started, served, eaten, and cleared; negotiate with workmen, file obits and pay for them with a credit card, even finish a novel, and yet, it all seems dreamlike.

After months of roller coaster emotions and crises that resolved, I think I finally unplugged that part of my heart connected to Mom for so very long. It will take time to find the connection and, when I do, look out.

After months of blog silence leaving Mom suspended in the 1990s, I cannot just pick up the threads of that story, so I'll end this post but say, watch for more.

Love,
s

what empty nest?

L-R: Betty, Carol, Dodie, Ann.

In the mid-70s, Dorothy and Ed were left in a mostly empty nest, except when one of their kids flew back for a short stay.
The same year Joan graduated from high school, 1974, Sally and her three kids moved back in after Sally left her first husband, Willard Carter. Things were crowded and hectic, to say the least. While Dodie loved the energy, the encampment was short term.
Joan, meanwhile, was off to art school in Oakland, Ca. Marilyn was working various outdoor jobs including Metroparks ranger and dump-truck driver. Ted was in the U.S. Army. Ed was still working for the U.S. Treasury.
Dorothy took those years pretty hard. She needed to be needed. She worked at Way Public Library and kept house while helping her offspring fledge.
But by the early 1980s, tension between Dodie and Ed finally led to divorce court. Dorothy moved to Dayton and rented an apartment in Oakwood, where Ed had grown up. (Ed, retired, put their house on the market and fulfilled his long-held dream to move to Florida. He bought a manufactured home in a senior development just west of Vero Beach, Fla.
Ted, mustered out of the military, joined Dodie in Dayton. She loved having her son close and also being able to get together with her sisters, Betty, Carol, and Ann, for gossip and jokes.
Dodie found a child care job that left her time to tend to hers and Ted's needs.
Life for her had become calmer, as the loss of tension from her marriage -- plus regular meds -- reduced flare-ups of her schizophrenia.
Ted needed lots of support adjusting to civilian life and Mom was there to provide it. Dorothy needed to be needed. She encouraged Ted to move into his own apartment, to build independence. Ted went to school and held a series of jobs.
By the late 1980s, however, economics and emotions led Dorothy and Ted to find a larger apartment they could share. The situation on Lawnview Court in Kettering, a suburb south of Dayton, seemed ideal for both.
"Blessed" with the Pickrel knees, Dorothy signed on replacement surgery early in the 1990s. Her sisters had lots of experiences to share and they fostered her decision to go for broke -- have both knees replaced at once. Her recovery was rapid and without incident. Sally, now an empty nester herself, was able to come down and take care of things for a few days until Dodie's mobility was restored.
With the exception of one mental health crisis due to inadequate doctoring, Dodie's life just seemed to get happier and happier.
Stay tuned . . .

bitz and pixels

Mom's hair slowly turned grey but her smile never dimmed as her family grew and each child became more well defined. With disputatious Sally off to college and then to Connecticut for a job, Marilyn, Joan, and Ted became a more closely knit group, although each had a strong and creative impact on the family as a whole.

Dorothy's illness progressed like a slow tide rising amidst the ongoing drama of the kids' adventures and Dad's disruptive drunken habits. The Gravetts' had such a bland, attractive home on a quintessential mid-American street -- but inside, what excitement, fear, laughter, good food, and progress roiled around at all times -- much like most American families.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," wrote Leo Tolstoy in his classic novel, Anna Karenina.

And each Gravett had his or her own take on the family, depending on a host of variables. Somehow though, many, many endeavors -- school years, homework, meals, laundry, vacation trips, gardens, workshop projects, music lessons, and so much more -- were started and most often completed.

Family life moved itself along like a staggering juggernaut, driven by the irresistible spirit of Dodie.

Soon enough, Ted left for college. Then Marilyn,.

By then, Dodie had her first grandchildren -- Emily Maud, Sarah Sawyer, and Hannah Holly. They were in Connecticut, too far for a casual visit. But Dorothy made sure to keep in touch with them, directly and through Sally.

And then, by the early 70s, just in time for Joan's high school graduation, when it seemed the nest had emptied at last, there was a homecoming.

Stay tuned . . . .

xoxo

Joanie corex

I am, according to Marilyn my eagle-eyed editor sister, an "unreliable narrator." Sounds slamlike to me, but then Marilyn always was watching to see how soon I'd slip up. (And i rarely disappointed her.)
Funny thing, as a newspaper writer and editor for decades, I had a low error rate. But writing this Blog I've found my percentage of goofs his much higher.
of course, I'm not fact-checking the way i normally do.
Still, I did get Joanie's birthday off by an entire month!!
Sorry, Joanie.
I know you were born May 30, not June 30. And now, so do all seven readers of this blog.
So let the record stand corrected.
Mom has been sleeping a lot in the last 24 hours.
And Ted, our brother, has retired from his government job.
Congrats, Ted!!

xoxo
sally

Dodie then and now, again

At right, Joanie with her big sister on the family trike. (Note the used brick sidewalk in the middleground, a big deal to Dode at the time. And the rail fence, another addition to the property.)

But the big addition, prompted by Joanie's arrival, was the addition of another bedroom and conversion of the screened in porch (see two posts prior) to a spacious family room.

All this happened during the time between these two photos.

The new "master" bedroom rode above the garage, off the same landing that led farther upstairs. The new family room had space for a dining table, sofa and chair, the TV, ironing board, large chest, and a high chair. The family gathered here at all parts of the day and night.

Dodie was domestic goddess, making solid dinners, packing lunches, fixing breakfasts, keeping house, doing laundry, gardening, chasing kids, and, occasionally, stepping out with Ed for dancing or having friends in for bridge club. In her spare time, she sewed a lot for the kids, for herself, and for the house.

For several years she crafted fancy holiday candles. One type was made by pouring melted and tinted paraffin into square milk cartons filled with crushed ice and centered with a taper.

The more memorable candles started as a tall taper to which were added tiers of wax cooled and cut into disks and layered over the taper to achieve a tree shape. The coolest thing about these candles was the final touch: Mom would whip melted paraffin until it resembled thick cream and ice the tiers, sprinkling stars and glitter on the "frosting.' She sold these at some of the large department stores downtown.

During this period -- the mid-1950s into the 1960s -- there were the semiannual treks to Fort Lauderdale in the family wagon.

That meant tooling down 2-lane roads through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennesee, Georgia, and Florida, a grueling three-day campaign featuring sibling rivalry, arguments about where to stop for lunch, dinner, and overnight; dirty diapers needing to be cleaned, and plenty of whining from everyone on board.

There were annual Pickrel family reunions in the summer and the famed adults only Christmas party. There was church on Sunday, dinners out occasionally at Don & Sis in Maumee and the Delft House on Bancroft Street in Toledo. There were Sunday rides in the car with ice cream cones from Isaly's in Bowling Green. There were dogs that came and mysteriously disappeared, an electric train set up in the basement (American Flyer), lots of ping pong, and Dad's jazz and classical music playing the nights he was home. (He traveled one night a week to visit all those 17 counties.)

It was a time of keeping up appearances, taking care of one's property, getting kids to checkups at doctor and dentist, PTA meetings, and, unfortunately, ongoing strife between Ed and Dodie over Ed's drinking habit.

At some point, the tension became a pathology and the entire household tuned into the dynamics between the two parents. On top of that, Dorothy's suspicions of others were gradually transforming from a neurotic tendency to true paranoia. That both parents could continue to function says as much about the pressure of the post-war family era as it does about the strength of Ed's and Dorothy's individual character.

When things were good, and they often were, there was always a certain breathless and fearful anticipation for that signal comment to trigger an argument. When times were ugly, there was frantic waiting for the crisis to pass. Usually but not always, the peak was on Saturday night, with accord being reestablished in time for a Sunday afternoon ride.

No one could say Ed and Dodie didn't give their best to the challenges of being married, being parents of kids ranging from high schooler to toddler, and being responsible citizens. They certainly tried and cared.

It's easier to see that and realize their efforts now than it was then.

NOW:

Today, Mom said to me: "I think I'm dying."

She looked right at me with a question in her eyes and I had to concur.

"You are, I said. It's alright. You've had a good long life."

Mom was unsure of her exact age, but knew it was old. We then talked about how Maudie (her sainted mother-in-law) lived to 94.

A few minutes later, she asked: "Am I dying?"

I looked directly at her and said, "You are."

She caught her breath, then smiled, and said, "You always tell me the truth."

Since late January her decline has accelerated, at first slowly but in these last weeks, more rapidly. She walked into this lovely Ebeid Center but that was about the end of her mobility.

She has good days and not so good days. Dode's good days are brightened with her sense of humor, her interest in what's going on around her (real and delusional), her continued interest in food, fashion, and decor, and her taste for big band music and Little House on the Prairie.

On her bad days, she lies very still, very pale. She has scary catarrh. Sometimes she clings to the rails of her bed. "I feel like I'm going to fall off," Dodie will say. (She resists being moved at all.) Then, she likes softer music and fairy tales. I'm working my way through them the same as I did for the grandchildren.

Sometimes Marilyn sings to her and she loves that. Marilyn and I are spending more time at Ebeid Center, just hanging with Mom. It's a very pleasant, airy, clean place looking out over a sloping meadow with pond. Deer, squirrels, ducks, and geese come close to the door, in hopes of a handout. Hannah comes by and Edward and Kiki visited not long ago. Mom wants to see Kiki ("Little Sweetie") again. Linda and Ted were up last weekend and want to come back.

It's an interesting phenomenon, this pulling together watching your mother move away from you. It's not unlike watching a baby progress in tiny increments, only Dorothy is moving in the opposite direction.

She is largely pain-free, non-anxious, and still cheerful as she can be. What a way to go!!!

Love,

Sally

When it warms up a bit more, Mom can be moved in her bed

Lotsa photos

The early ages and stages of Joanie. It's clear what a welcome newcomer she was and how she loved her family .

I will post more photos in a day or two. Just found these in Mom's "things," we we had sort of dropped into the house next door and not touched. I was thrilled to find so many photos of Joanie as well as letters and cards she has faithfully sent Dode and Ed and Ted over the years. When she was little, we didn't realize how very talented Joanie was, but she soon showed us all.