STAFF ON CALL:
Bonnie, but who came late due to tire troubles, thus missing most of yet another Magnificent Mother-Daughter Debate.
I came downstairs after not a very good night (5 hrs sleep) to find Peg putzing around her office, ostensibly picking it up but in reality just moving piles about, making new piles, turning one pile into seventeen and so on. I scooted past into the kitchen and made a coffee, saw that two screens had been removed from the window that faces onto the dog pen, and had been left sitting on the floor in front of the stove. Went in to find Peg.
"Mother? What are those screens doing on the floor in the kitchen?"
I said this twice. Three times.
"Oh," she said, remembering. "I took them off. We only have them on in the summer."
"This is summer, Mother. It's July."
Well, yes, it was chilly this morning. Maybe that threw her. Anyhow she thought about it for a moment, realized her mistake, then qualified it by saying you can't see into the dog pen with the screens on (!) like everyone's been squinting for the past two months trying to see sweet FA because the dog went back to the breeder's in May. Anyhow I put them back on. And turned down the heat.
________________
She then decided to have another panic about her Convention Scripts. The gist of this being she doesn't want them in two boxes (nicely organized and alphabetized) in the cupboard by the couch in the den, SHE WANTS THEM IN HER ROOM WHERE SHE CAN SEE THEM GOD DAMMIT. I hasten to add that they are in the den cupboard because I spent a week sorting them last April and if they go back into her area, where they take up valuable space, all my work will be undone within the hour. Even though she has no pressing need to get at any of them. She has got it into her head that I am hiding them and will be ferreting them away to Oregon, nightly, while she sleeps. In any event, this discussion led to me crouching in front of her chair, taking her hand, and pleading with her to please please stop attacking me all the time for doing nice things for her. She claimed all I do is attack her.
This led to another discussion. Actually to about five hundred discussions--down-sizing when one should have, tidying one's life, responsibilities to one's children not to die and leave a fucking mess for them if you profess to love them so. And so on. We were just having a friendly chat about "that goddamned lawyer!", a lovely lady named Virginia who will help me with the will and tying up Odd's estate, what's left of it, and who Peg refuses to "pay one goddamned nickel to"--when Bonnie arrived and conversation abruptly switched to faulty left rear tires and a reminder of Peg's urology appointment at 12:30.
__________________
Which I took her to. Since Bonnie only had 3 tires on her car. I then took Mama to Friendly's for a hot dog and milk shake. Then to the safety deposit box where she went through the "jewelry bag" while I searched for her marriage certificate (needed to get Odd's life insurance), twelve hundred other documents, and a slew of bonds, all which look alike and you have to study the serial numbers closely i.e. is this M11110899 7567683 or wait, M11110899 7567693, which won't mature until November, and where is D 3343 4678904 587? Did I just have that? Or was that the 589? And was that the EE bond or the H? Fuck! Have to go through them again! All the while Peg's oohing and ahhing at forgotten treasures (unfortunately not worth as much as I'd hoped) and finally I had to ask her to keep quiet.
On the way home, after a quick hop into Price Chopper for fish for fish cakes for Saturday, Peg, now full of hot dog and wearing her emerald ring and in an excellent mood, says there's only one thing missing in her life, do I know what that is?
"A dog."
"Yes."
She then suggested that if I could grow a tail, she'd like me better.
________
10:20 PM. No sign of her. She went in for a nap at 3. Still sleeping. I assume. Maybe I should go check. I'll bark if there's a problem.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
VENOM
Spitting it out, pouring it out, regurgitating it, at me, full force. Totally uncalled for, totally misguided. Wrong on all counts. Here she is. As expected. Peg, back at it again, twisting the truth to suit her, her mind mixing like the inside of the Cusinart on high speed.
She has had it in for me since I arrived. Today, hm, let's see, she got mad at me because...
...I wanted to try and locate, in the chaos of her quarters, all the condolence notes and cards that came in so we could answer them before 2020. But no, SHE would answer them! It was none of my business! They were HER cards! (not counting the many addressed to me too, unopened). And it was HER room. I was to stay OUT of it.
...Bonnie never invited HER to her (Bonnie's) Christmas drinks party last December (the one Bonnie did invite her too but she declined).
...I have put her scripts from all her Old Time Radio & TV Convention appearances in very accessible boxes (organized according to date and script title) in the den cupboard, as opposed to the mishmash they were in in her now completely inaccessible (due to sudden appearance of clothes rail and mahagony desk) metal filing cabinet in her "dressing" room.
...I am going to see the lawyer to sort out the will and probate and Daddy's Prudential life insurance policy which is far more complicated than one imagines (well, too complicated for me at least).
...I went out to dinner with old mate David Jenkins on his birthday tonight (and she didn't).
...I am here.
I had arranged for Terri to kindly Peg-sit while I was out. Got back at 10:30 PM to get an earful [SEE ABOVE]. Terri hugged me and apologized and told me how badly she felt that I am treated this way by my mother. I told her it was normal. And it is. It's how Peg works. Loving me, admiring me one second, crucifying all I do the next. I'd like to think it's all because of the trauma of Daddy's recent demise but, nope. Same old Peg, whether Odd's in the next room watching CNN on "mute" or in a box on her desk next to her psoriasis lotion.
_______________
What the fuck, one wonders, is my mother's problem? It is not JUST dementia.
Why, when I could be home, am I here knocking myself out to make the rest of her life not only pleasant, but possible for her? Had I not leapt in, my mother would be out of funds by now, no question, all the staff would have left and she'd be sitting here on her tod surrounded by twelve hundred new photo printers trying to figure out how to make six thousand copies of fishers and her Gramercy Park apartment for the (rapidly decreasing) Fans of Peg to marvel over.
I give up.
________________
My son's 27th birthday tomorrow. He's taking his girlfriend Iris to London for two nights. Staying at actress Maureen Lipman's it seems, after his usual mates turned out to be out of town. This is so unbearably kind of her to offer that my eyes are filling. I hope to Christ he brings her flowers or at least walks her Basengi for her.
Denis can't find the "Play" aftershave he bought six months ago for Alex's birthday. He hid it but now can't find where he hid it. Doesn't matter hugely because I too bought Alex "Play" aftershave, at Nantes airport, two weeks ago, and in front of Denis, in fact Denis stood at the till paying for it--but not of course saying anything like "Oh, wait, YOU'RE getting him "Play" aftershave? But I already have some for him!" and thereby saving us $56...
I give up.
Going upstairs now to crawl into bed with David Sedaris. Kindle version.
She has had it in for me since I arrived. Today, hm, let's see, she got mad at me because...
...I wanted to try and locate, in the chaos of her quarters, all the condolence notes and cards that came in so we could answer them before 2020. But no, SHE would answer them! It was none of my business! They were HER cards! (not counting the many addressed to me too, unopened). And it was HER room. I was to stay OUT of it.
...Bonnie never invited HER to her (Bonnie's) Christmas drinks party last December (the one Bonnie did invite her too but she declined).
...I have put her scripts from all her Old Time Radio & TV Convention appearances in very accessible boxes (organized according to date and script title) in the den cupboard, as opposed to the mishmash they were in in her now completely inaccessible (due to sudden appearance of clothes rail and mahagony desk) metal filing cabinet in her "dressing" room.
...I am going to see the lawyer to sort out the will and probate and Daddy's Prudential life insurance policy which is far more complicated than one imagines (well, too complicated for me at least).
...I went out to dinner with old mate David Jenkins on his birthday tonight (and she didn't).
...I am here.
I had arranged for Terri to kindly Peg-sit while I was out. Got back at 10:30 PM to get an earful [SEE ABOVE]. Terri hugged me and apologized and told me how badly she felt that I am treated this way by my mother. I told her it was normal. And it is. It's how Peg works. Loving me, admiring me one second, crucifying all I do the next. I'd like to think it's all because of the trauma of Daddy's recent demise but, nope. Same old Peg, whether Odd's in the next room watching CNN on "mute" or in a box on her desk next to her psoriasis lotion.
_______________
What the fuck, one wonders, is my mother's problem? It is not JUST dementia.
Why, when I could be home, am I here knocking myself out to make the rest of her life not only pleasant, but possible for her? Had I not leapt in, my mother would be out of funds by now, no question, all the staff would have left and she'd be sitting here on her tod surrounded by twelve hundred new photo printers trying to figure out how to make six thousand copies of fishers and her Gramercy Park apartment for the (rapidly decreasing) Fans of Peg to marvel over.
I give up.
________________
My son's 27th birthday tomorrow. He's taking his girlfriend Iris to London for two nights. Staying at actress Maureen Lipman's it seems, after his usual mates turned out to be out of town. This is so unbearably kind of her to offer that my eyes are filling. I hope to Christ he brings her flowers or at least walks her Basengi for her.
Denis can't find the "Play" aftershave he bought six months ago for Alex's birthday. He hid it but now can't find where he hid it. Doesn't matter hugely because I too bought Alex "Play" aftershave, at Nantes airport, two weeks ago, and in front of Denis, in fact Denis stood at the till paying for it--but not of course saying anything like "Oh, wait, YOU'RE getting him "Play" aftershave? But I already have some for him!" and thereby saving us $56...
I give up.
Going upstairs now to crawl into bed with David Sedaris. Kindle version.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
AND SO WE BEGIN AGAIN
Arrived in Becket, Massachusetts at 4:00 PM today, courtesy of Annie K, my chauffeur up from Connecticut. Peg had just gone down for a nap. Stayed up long enough to say hello, cough her head off, then lay down again.
FIRST IMPRESSION:
The house looks immaculate, no scent of lingering collie, every surface pristine and sparkling. Tidy. Peg's quarters the usual shambles. No sign of Daddy's ashes. It's a bit--strange, not finding him here, not smelling him. I don't mean this in a bad way.
__________
Was awakened this morning at Annie's by Bonnie ringing with a heads up: Peg on Blue Book Rampage again, just what I don't need to hear. She'd just sent Outside Bob to Staples to buy her a big new totally unnecessary colour printer (to go with the totally unnecessary microwave and toaster oven I see we now have acquired since my departure last May). She furthermore lit into Bonnie on Saturday for trying to clean the upstairs, getting the rooms/beds ready for me when Peg "needs her" to copy things ("I've got over two hundred people waiting for these photo albums!"). I know she's upset and needs a focus but still. I suggested to Bonnie they leave the printer in Bob's truck and he can return it later this week but seems he refused, said Peg had had a bad day yesterday and he wanted to please her. I'm torn between appreciating his thoughtfulness and being pissed off. Because clearly we're back to square one here, if she's starting on these bloody Blue Books. These are scrap books/photo albums, you may recall, which she is compiling: a) unnecessarily; b) using pictures and photos not only of herself and family but stupid stuff like fishers she saw in the woods or a shot of Kate Smith doing the Charleston; c) to send to people--fans--relatives--who for the most part couldn't give a fuck. Spending a fortune she does t have in the process. You may also recall that my friends Wendy and Annie and I devoted a good deal of time last spring when we thought Peg was dying, putting a dozen or so of these Blue Books together and mailing them off, thinking well! That's THAT done! And PS, good for us, we'd done our Blue Book Duty, and brilliantly.
Peg doesn't recall us doing any of it.
I'm now thinking of Blue Book the #3, which we really spent time on making perfect and filling with lots of extras, and which went to unmarried childless Cousin Barbara in Wisconsin, found dead in the woods two weeks ago--and wondering who I'd call, since she had no relatives, to maybe get this book back, to maybe send to someone else.
Peg was--all over the place at dinner tonight. Only wanting to tell stories about her career. Kept bringing everything back to her. Stories I'd heard a million times, Stories she's told a million times, sometimes within the least half hour even. The word "stories" is misleading. Imagine typing out an anecdote then deleting every fourth word, then telling it that way. Npo one but me could possible follow what she's saying. I'm starting to feel embarassed by what to me seems to me to be a desperate attempt to still seem important and hold court. I know I should't but--hard.
______________
TRAVEL UPDATE:
Air travel gets no easier. Not helped this time by all the recent disasters in the news. I had to force myself to board the plane. Was glued to "NOAH", Russell Crowe movie (interested, I quickly add, only because am adapting a musical version of the Noah story in general with writer friend Jan) and hating most of it because it was so dark, couldn't see anything, kept thinking the screen had gone off when it turns out to be only some asshole lighting cameraman being moody--and am just at a powerful part where the rain is lashing, the seas are heaving, the ark's being tossed and turned and Noah (at least it appear to be him, if I squinted) is preaching to his family, all crowded round, that this is it, this is is the end, they will be sacrificing themselves, there is no future for man, man will die--and we're meanwhile coming in to land, which pleased me, thinking Yes! We made it! (past the Ukrainian rebels' missiles and so on) when SUDDENLY, wheels having almost been touching, UP we zoom again, full throttle, almost a vertical ascent, Abort! Abort! And for the next 15 minutes I thought that was it. We're all dead. I grabbed my handbag from under the seat and grabbed the little red plastic container of Zopiclone, sleeping pills--only 6, which, cut in half, were to last me the good six weeks here--and was about ready to pop them all, figuring it would be best to be out cold when we crashed. Although as Annie pointed out to me later, it would have taken them a good half hour to kick in, by which time... anyhow we didn't crash, we circled around and finally landed safely. Don't know what was wrong, maybe something on the runway. Then my bag was last. Then there was a queue at Customs. Then the Red Dot limo coming to get me (airport transfer van) left when I hadn't turned up so they had to send another from New Rochelle and I stood waiting for it under the Passenger Pick-Up Point D at Terminal 4 for one hour and twenty-five minutes. Then traffic up to Westport.
Getting here IS NOT EASY OR FUN AND I DON'T LIKE IT OR WANT TO HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN TOO SOON, IF EVER. And PS why is this kitchen full of fruit flies?? There's no fruit in sight and I must have killed at least 2o while I've sat here typing.
FIRST IMPRESSION:
The house looks immaculate, no scent of lingering collie, every surface pristine and sparkling. Tidy. Peg's quarters the usual shambles. No sign of Daddy's ashes. It's a bit--strange, not finding him here, not smelling him. I don't mean this in a bad way.
__________
Was awakened this morning at Annie's by Bonnie ringing with a heads up: Peg on Blue Book Rampage again, just what I don't need to hear. She'd just sent Outside Bob to Staples to buy her a big new totally unnecessary colour printer (to go with the totally unnecessary microwave and toaster oven I see we now have acquired since my departure last May). She furthermore lit into Bonnie on Saturday for trying to clean the upstairs, getting the rooms/beds ready for me when Peg "needs her" to copy things ("I've got over two hundred people waiting for these photo albums!"). I know she's upset and needs a focus but still. I suggested to Bonnie they leave the printer in Bob's truck and he can return it later this week but seems he refused, said Peg had had a bad day yesterday and he wanted to please her. I'm torn between appreciating his thoughtfulness and being pissed off. Because clearly we're back to square one here, if she's starting on these bloody Blue Books. These are scrap books/photo albums, you may recall, which she is compiling: a) unnecessarily; b) using pictures and photos not only of herself and family but stupid stuff like fishers she saw in the woods or a shot of Kate Smith doing the Charleston; c) to send to people--fans--relatives--who for the most part couldn't give a fuck. Spending a fortune she does t have in the process. You may also recall that my friends Wendy and Annie and I devoted a good deal of time last spring when we thought Peg was dying, putting a dozen or so of these Blue Books together and mailing them off, thinking well! That's THAT done! And PS, good for us, we'd done our Blue Book Duty, and brilliantly.
Peg doesn't recall us doing any of it.
I'm now thinking of Blue Book the #3, which we really spent time on making perfect and filling with lots of extras, and which went to unmarried childless Cousin Barbara in Wisconsin, found dead in the woods two weeks ago--and wondering who I'd call, since she had no relatives, to maybe get this book back, to maybe send to someone else.
Peg was--all over the place at dinner tonight. Only wanting to tell stories about her career. Kept bringing everything back to her. Stories I'd heard a million times, Stories she's told a million times, sometimes within the least half hour even. The word "stories" is misleading. Imagine typing out an anecdote then deleting every fourth word, then telling it that way. Npo one but me could possible follow what she's saying. I'm starting to feel embarassed by what to me seems to me to be a desperate attempt to still seem important and hold court. I know I should't but--hard.
______________
TRAVEL UPDATE:
Air travel gets no easier. Not helped this time by all the recent disasters in the news. I had to force myself to board the plane. Was glued to "NOAH", Russell Crowe movie (interested, I quickly add, only because am adapting a musical version of the Noah story in general with writer friend Jan) and hating most of it because it was so dark, couldn't see anything, kept thinking the screen had gone off when it turns out to be only some asshole lighting cameraman being moody--and am just at a powerful part where the rain is lashing, the seas are heaving, the ark's being tossed and turned and Noah (at least it appear to be him, if I squinted) is preaching to his family, all crowded round, that this is it, this is is the end, they will be sacrificing themselves, there is no future for man, man will die--and we're meanwhile coming in to land, which pleased me, thinking Yes! We made it! (past the Ukrainian rebels' missiles and so on) when SUDDENLY, wheels having almost been touching, UP we zoom again, full throttle, almost a vertical ascent, Abort! Abort! And for the next 15 minutes I thought that was it. We're all dead. I grabbed my handbag from under the seat and grabbed the little red plastic container of Zopiclone, sleeping pills--only 6, which, cut in half, were to last me the good six weeks here--and was about ready to pop them all, figuring it would be best to be out cold when we crashed. Although as Annie pointed out to me later, it would have taken them a good half hour to kick in, by which time... anyhow we didn't crash, we circled around and finally landed safely. Don't know what was wrong, maybe something on the runway. Then my bag was last. Then there was a queue at Customs. Then the Red Dot limo coming to get me (airport transfer van) left when I hadn't turned up so they had to send another from New Rochelle and I stood waiting for it under the Passenger Pick-Up Point D at Terminal 4 for one hour and twenty-five minutes. Then traffic up to Westport.
Getting here IS NOT EASY OR FUN AND I DON'T LIKE IT OR WANT TO HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN TOO SOON, IF EVER. And PS why is this kitchen full of fruit flies?? There's no fruit in sight and I must have killed at least 2o while I've sat here typing.
Friday, July 25, 2014
TEARS
Peg can't stop crying (she says). Sleeps, cries. Sleeps, cries. Sleeps some more. Cries some more. I didn't expect her to be like this. I knew she'd miss him, how could you not, but never figured she'd collapse so. Thinking now of all the years she spent being infuriated at something Daddy did or didn't do or should have done or wasn't doing. The overseas phone calls that began:
"I'm so goddamned mad at your father---". I'd hear again and again about how he "never picks up after himself" or leaves a pile of slippery magazines on the floor that she could "break her neck on" or how he uses too much toilet paper or leaves his clippers outside to rust or--you name it, and especially always giving him a hard time about having a drink. Christ, I'd think, I'd drink too with someone constantly yapping at me about everything (in fact am happy to have a drink anyway). The tirade would almost invariably end with "---well he can just move out, that's all! He can just go live in the goddamned garage, I'm sick to death of cleaning up after him!"
Of course, by the end of our conversation, by which time we'd moved onto other subjects, she'd forgotten how pissed off she was.
"Hey!" she'd suddenly say. "What time is it? Cripes! I better go make some soup for your father! He likes to eat at noon."
"You're making him lunch? I thought he was off to the garage."
"Oh. Yeah." She'd laugh. "Well, he has to eat---it can be a take-out."
Anyhow, now she's missing him, big time. At least, at the start of the phone call. By the end of yesterday's though she'd segued from possibly scattering Daddy's ashes around the garden to organic meat, raving about her new shopping discovery, Burgner's Farm, how it's just marvellous and she's doing a leg of lamb for dinner (for herself?) and do I want one on Tuesday when I arrive.
_____________
I was about to write how lonely it's going to be there this trip, just Peg and me and legs of lamb, when yet another email came in from more friends of hers wanting to come and visit. Becket B & B it's turning into. Non-stop sheets and towels and dinners. Perfect. Plus the mountain of administrative tasks that keeps mounting: meeting the elder services lawyer who costs $4,000,000 per second, getting Odd's Social Security re-figured, his Beloit (work) pension signed over to Peg, his Prudential Life Insurance (not fortunes but it'll help) sorted, plus some complicated stock whatevers connected to it or no longer connected to it or merged or--anyhow something complicated (to me) that requires me tearing the house apart trying to find certificates and documentation and marriage licences and--thank God for Bonnie, who's done the initial phone calls and all the hanging on listening to crap music for twenty minutes.
Plus must solve the bloody boundary dispute. The guy who's caused all this, Michael Sanders, who I'm starting to loathe, sight unseen, because it's One More Thing To Deal With, has emailed again. And I have now been in touch with a surveyor, Russell someone in Pittsfield, who has been recommended by the real estate guy, Henry. Everyone's email starts: "Once again let me offer my condolences in regards to the loss of your father…..but by the way, regarding the northern boundary.." It's like that joke DK tells, which I think came from Dudley Moore. Doorbell rings. Door is eventually opened by a woman weeping uncontrollably. "Is Stan home?" says a guy on the doorstep. "He died this morning at eleven o'clock!" the woman sobs. Pause. "Did he say anything about a tin of paint?" the guy asks.
"I'm so goddamned mad at your father---". I'd hear again and again about how he "never picks up after himself" or leaves a pile of slippery magazines on the floor that she could "break her neck on" or how he uses too much toilet paper or leaves his clippers outside to rust or--you name it, and especially always giving him a hard time about having a drink. Christ, I'd think, I'd drink too with someone constantly yapping at me about everything (in fact am happy to have a drink anyway). The tirade would almost invariably end with "---well he can just move out, that's all! He can just go live in the goddamned garage, I'm sick to death of cleaning up after him!"
Of course, by the end of our conversation, by which time we'd moved onto other subjects, she'd forgotten how pissed off she was.
"Hey!" she'd suddenly say. "What time is it? Cripes! I better go make some soup for your father! He likes to eat at noon."
"You're making him lunch? I thought he was off to the garage."
"Oh. Yeah." She'd laugh. "Well, he has to eat---it can be a take-out."
Anyhow, now she's missing him, big time. At least, at the start of the phone call. By the end of yesterday's though she'd segued from possibly scattering Daddy's ashes around the garden to organic meat, raving about her new shopping discovery, Burgner's Farm, how it's just marvellous and she's doing a leg of lamb for dinner (for herself?) and do I want one on Tuesday when I arrive.
_____________
I was about to write how lonely it's going to be there this trip, just Peg and me and legs of lamb, when yet another email came in from more friends of hers wanting to come and visit. Becket B & B it's turning into. Non-stop sheets and towels and dinners. Perfect. Plus the mountain of administrative tasks that keeps mounting: meeting the elder services lawyer who costs $4,000,000 per second, getting Odd's Social Security re-figured, his Beloit (work) pension signed over to Peg, his Prudential Life Insurance (not fortunes but it'll help) sorted, plus some complicated stock whatevers connected to it or no longer connected to it or merged or--anyhow something complicated (to me) that requires me tearing the house apart trying to find certificates and documentation and marriage licences and--thank God for Bonnie, who's done the initial phone calls and all the hanging on listening to crap music for twenty minutes.
Plus must solve the bloody boundary dispute. The guy who's caused all this, Michael Sanders, who I'm starting to loathe, sight unseen, because it's One More Thing To Deal With, has emailed again. And I have now been in touch with a surveyor, Russell someone in Pittsfield, who has been recommended by the real estate guy, Henry. Everyone's email starts: "Once again let me offer my condolences in regards to the loss of your father…..but by the way, regarding the northern boundary.." It's like that joke DK tells, which I think came from Dudley Moore. Doorbell rings. Door is eventually opened by a woman weeping uncontrollably. "Is Stan home?" says a guy on the doorstep. "He died this morning at eleven o'clock!" the woman sobs. Pause. "Did he say anything about a tin of paint?" the guy asks.
Monday, July 21, 2014
FLAGGING ALREADY
..thinking about the month or so ahead of me. Wondering if indeed I'll be able to come home when I've booked to come home, for once. Wondering what it'll be like without Daddy in the house (to complain about in a blog..). Wondering how long before my patience runs out with Peg.
"Twenty minutes," Alex says. Den says less.
I wish I had a long term plan. Will sell the house, obviously, but not with Peg still in it. I don't know where else to put her, anyway, or where she'd be happy. Suffolk's out, unless I were filthy rich and could buy her a house here in England's Most Expensive Village complete with staff and Stannah Stairlift. Normally she'd be packed and waiting by the front door but I'm getting the feeling she's cooling to the idea of moving here (DK, stop jumping up and down waving the Union Jack). I think she's realizing it would be--hard--unless of course I can import Bonnie and Terri as well, and Bob and Dominick and Dr. Aucoin and Pablo Cuevas and Tina her hairdresser and Sue Bohmer the urology nurse who changes her catheter every month. I'm having a tiny hutte (cottage) built at the bottom of the garden but it hasn't even gone to the Planners yet. It'll be awhile.
She could come for a visit, though. Perhaps I can work that out. Sophie from the Anchor has offered a small house she owns down the road there, a minute away, two bedrooms on the ground floor with en suite baths (walk in showers actually, even better). I'd definitely need Bonnie or Terri to come too. And I doubt they would fly alone with her, so I'd have to go get them, and fly back with them, and…it's sounding more and more like a terrible idea but nevertheless I will present it to her, because she's always told me you have to have something in life to look forward to.
I'm looking forward to having no more collies in Becket peeing on the carpets. For example. Am furthermore greatly looking forward to emptying the attic, garage, basement, and potting shed. And figuring out what to do with her 38 Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates besides putting them on eBay or throwing into the fireplace accompanied by bouzouki music and taramasalata.
And getting her bloody website up and running before I completely utterly and totally lose interest in not only the entire Labour Of Love but possibly my mother's entire career and FedEx everything she owns straight to the Peg Lynch Papers at the Universty of Oregon, pronto. And maybe her too if she's not nice to me (and I can get that steamer trunk in the attic emptied).
Please. I could really do with her being nice to me on this trip.
"Twenty minutes," Alex says. Den says less.
I wish I had a long term plan. Will sell the house, obviously, but not with Peg still in it. I don't know where else to put her, anyway, or where she'd be happy. Suffolk's out, unless I were filthy rich and could buy her a house here in England's Most Expensive Village complete with staff and Stannah Stairlift. Normally she'd be packed and waiting by the front door but I'm getting the feeling she's cooling to the idea of moving here (DK, stop jumping up and down waving the Union Jack). I think she's realizing it would be--hard--unless of course I can import Bonnie and Terri as well, and Bob and Dominick and Dr. Aucoin and Pablo Cuevas and Tina her hairdresser and Sue Bohmer the urology nurse who changes her catheter every month. I'm having a tiny hutte (cottage) built at the bottom of the garden but it hasn't even gone to the Planners yet. It'll be awhile.
She could come for a visit, though. Perhaps I can work that out. Sophie from the Anchor has offered a small house she owns down the road there, a minute away, two bedrooms on the ground floor with en suite baths (walk in showers actually, even better). I'd definitely need Bonnie or Terri to come too. And I doubt they would fly alone with her, so I'd have to go get them, and fly back with them, and…it's sounding more and more like a terrible idea but nevertheless I will present it to her, because she's always told me you have to have something in life to look forward to.
I'm looking forward to having no more collies in Becket peeing on the carpets. For example. Am furthermore greatly looking forward to emptying the attic, garage, basement, and potting shed. And figuring out what to do with her 38 Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates besides putting them on eBay or throwing into the fireplace accompanied by bouzouki music and taramasalata.
And getting her bloody website up and running before I completely utterly and totally lose interest in not only the entire Labour Of Love but possibly my mother's entire career and FedEx everything she owns straight to the Peg Lynch Papers at the Universty of Oregon, pronto. And maybe her too if she's not nice to me (and I can get that steamer trunk in the attic emptied).
Please. I could really do with her being nice to me on this trip.
Friday, July 18, 2014
INTERVIEWS AND TEST RESULTS
Negative. The ultrasound one on Peg's legs, that is, No sign of blood clots. But now they want to do a chest ray. Not sure when that'll be. She's still got a terrible cough.
Nevertheless. She had her phone interview yesterday with Mike Sacks from Vanity Fair for some literary magazine, an interview I'd set up at his request, and reminded Peg of a thousand and one times, including one hour before Sacks was due to ring her and a sound recordist's arrival from Boston was imminent.
"Is that TODAY?" Peg says. "Christ! Is it Thursday? What'll I wear??"
"Anything you want, you're not on camera, Mother, I told you, it's a phone interview."
"Oh yes. That's right. Oh! I think I've figured out my opening too--"
"What do you mean, opening? This isn't a monologue, Mike will be asking you questions. You've had them since last week. Twice. And the answers. Bonnie printed them out for you, and so did Terri, when you couldn't find them. You don't need to "write" anything new. He wants the Charles Laughton story, the meeting JFK one, something I forgot, oh and the Lou Gehrig one."
"There's not much to tell about meeting Lou Gehrig."
"I know, so I told him to ask you about having room service waffles with Knut Rockne".
We went over the anecdotes a couple of times. I knew she'd be fine. And she was, at least with the stories, but her voice was so hoarse Mike says that they're not sure how much is usable. I feel badly.
And won't tell her. I'll tell her she was fabulous. (See how nice I can be when I want to?)
Mike says that the interview he did with her two years ago for his book that's just come out: "Poking A Dead Frog - Conversations With Today's Top Comedy Writers" seems to be everybody's favourite. Peg read the transcript yesterday and loved it.
"Marvellous!" she said, "For once, somebody's gotten everything absolutely right about me!"
I edited the interview for him. And told her.
Nevertheless. She had her phone interview yesterday with Mike Sacks from Vanity Fair for some literary magazine, an interview I'd set up at his request, and reminded Peg of a thousand and one times, including one hour before Sacks was due to ring her and a sound recordist's arrival from Boston was imminent.
"Is that TODAY?" Peg says. "Christ! Is it Thursday? What'll I wear??"
"Anything you want, you're not on camera, Mother, I told you, it's a phone interview."
"Oh yes. That's right. Oh! I think I've figured out my opening too--"
"What do you mean, opening? This isn't a monologue, Mike will be asking you questions. You've had them since last week. Twice. And the answers. Bonnie printed them out for you, and so did Terri, when you couldn't find them. You don't need to "write" anything new. He wants the Charles Laughton story, the meeting JFK one, something I forgot, oh and the Lou Gehrig one."
"There's not much to tell about meeting Lou Gehrig."
"I know, so I told him to ask you about having room service waffles with Knut Rockne".
We went over the anecdotes a couple of times. I knew she'd be fine. And she was, at least with the stories, but her voice was so hoarse Mike says that they're not sure how much is usable. I feel badly.
And won't tell her. I'll tell her she was fabulous. (See how nice I can be when I want to?)
Mike says that the interview he did with her two years ago for his book that's just come out: "Poking A Dead Frog - Conversations With Today's Top Comedy Writers" seems to be everybody's favourite. Peg read the transcript yesterday and loved it.
"Marvellous!" she said, "For once, somebody's gotten everything absolutely right about me!"
I edited the interview for him. And told her.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
NEWS
- Odd Knut's ashes were delivered today "by a very nice man" according to Peg, Fred, from Dery's Funeral Home, who also brought along 10 copies of Odd's death certificate and stayed to chat with Peg for an hour.
- Daddy's ashes now reside on a table positioned underneath his portrait that Peg commissioned artist Nelson Davies to paint in 1965 for Odd's parents in Norway and which was shipped back to us after they died.
- Dr. Cuevas the dentist in Fairfield wanted only to remind me or someone in charge that Peg should keep her dentures out as much as possible to let the infection clear up. It was not a hush-hush phone call behind her back, as Peg had imagined, to tell me that she had gum cancer and 3 hours to live.
- 1st Cousin Barbara, an "A LIST" Blue Book Recipient, [SEE PREVIOUS POSTS], unmarried and childless, has been found dead in the woods in Minnesota not far from her trailer. I am on my knees, praying, as I type, that I am not the closest living relative and have to go out there.
- Peg's leg is swollen and rather hard. It is the leg from which they scooped out a vein when she had a quadruple by-pass twenty years ago. It has a tendency to get like this but the VNA nurse is concerned and if not better by the morning, Peg's GP is sending her for an ultrasound, Terri said.
- I have booked my air tickets. Arriving Becket 29th July for…another stint.
Allow me now to add to the above prayer: please God don't let Peg suddenly die before I get there or before her website comes out.
- Daddy's ashes now reside on a table positioned underneath his portrait that Peg commissioned artist Nelson Davies to paint in 1965 for Odd's parents in Norway and which was shipped back to us after they died.
- Dr. Cuevas the dentist in Fairfield wanted only to remind me or someone in charge that Peg should keep her dentures out as much as possible to let the infection clear up. It was not a hush-hush phone call behind her back, as Peg had imagined, to tell me that she had gum cancer and 3 hours to live.
- 1st Cousin Barbara, an "A LIST" Blue Book Recipient, [SEE PREVIOUS POSTS], unmarried and childless, has been found dead in the woods in Minnesota not far from her trailer. I am on my knees, praying, as I type, that I am not the closest living relative and have to go out there.
- Peg's leg is swollen and rather hard. It is the leg from which they scooped out a vein when she had a quadruple by-pass twenty years ago. It has a tendency to get like this but the VNA nurse is concerned and if not better by the morning, Peg's GP is sending her for an ultrasound, Terri said.
- I have booked my air tickets. Arriving Becket 29th July for…another stint.
Allow me now to add to the above prayer: please God don't let Peg suddenly die before I get there or before her website comes out.
Monday, July 14, 2014
IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Peg. If this were a new thing, I would put it down to Emotional State Brought On By Daddy's Death and feel more sorry for her but she's just, well, like this, period, and always has been, it's just gotten worse as she's gotten older. She'll harp on something and won't let go, rewriting it all over and over in her mind until she's convinced a grave injustice has occured. Today for example she's still going on about how all the trees have grown along Rte 8 on the way to Fairfield (I mean, how fucking dare they!) and how nothing looks familiar and how the Merritt Parkway "isn't even on the map anymore". I assured her it was, that it was possibly called Connecticut Rte 15. She disputed this. My problem is I should really just say "Really? How terrible! My!" and move on to other subjects but…I manage only the segue onto another subject but there's no guarantee I won't open a can of worms there too.
"Hey!" I told her I'd written to Hospice, thanking them all, in particular Ellyn the nurse and Brooke and Erica the wonderful Home Health Aides.
"I HATE THEM!" she says, spitting venom.
"Hate them? Who? Ellyn?"
"No no, she was lovely. Just lovely. So were the girls. I hate Hospice. I hate what they did to Daddy and will never forgive them! NEVER!"
"What are you talking about, they were magnificent!"
"They sent women to bathe Daddy--WOMEN!"
And then I see red. Because, well, because Hospice were so wonderful on every level, angels, faultless, and we were dead lucky to have had them on board; and because women have looked after men since time immemorial, nurses, nannies, traditionally even did the "laying out" of the dead; and because the Aides, Brooke and Erica were always so respectful and careful to preserve his modesty and anyhow Daddy didn't care; and because my mother is acting like some 19th century Victorian prude. All of which makes me want to inform her that she is out of her mind but if I do that she'll yell at me that she certainly isn't, that I'm the one who's crazy, and then she'll hang up on me.
And, because I don't want to be responsible for causing my 97 year old mother any more pain or emotional distress at this particular time--I held myself back.
Until she said Hospice had cost us $35,000. At which point I corrected her, explained how Hospice worked, at length, for the five hundredth time, that it has not cost us anything, that they are free, that she had her wires crossed, at which point she shouted that she certainly didn't, that I was the one who did--and hung up on me.
It's going to fun over there this summer. I can tell already.
"Hey!" I told her I'd written to Hospice, thanking them all, in particular Ellyn the nurse and Brooke and Erica the wonderful Home Health Aides.
"I HATE THEM!" she says, spitting venom.
"Hate them? Who? Ellyn?"
"No no, she was lovely. Just lovely. So were the girls. I hate Hospice. I hate what they did to Daddy and will never forgive them! NEVER!"
"What are you talking about, they were magnificent!"
"They sent women to bathe Daddy--WOMEN!"
And then I see red. Because, well, because Hospice were so wonderful on every level, angels, faultless, and we were dead lucky to have had them on board; and because women have looked after men since time immemorial, nurses, nannies, traditionally even did the "laying out" of the dead; and because the Aides, Brooke and Erica were always so respectful and careful to preserve his modesty and anyhow Daddy didn't care; and because my mother is acting like some 19th century Victorian prude. All of which makes me want to inform her that she is out of her mind but if I do that she'll yell at me that she certainly isn't, that I'm the one who's crazy, and then she'll hang up on me.
And, because I don't want to be responsible for causing my 97 year old mother any more pain or emotional distress at this particular time--I held myself back.
Until she said Hospice had cost us $35,000. At which point I corrected her, explained how Hospice worked, at length, for the five hundredth time, that it has not cost us anything, that they are free, that she had her wires crossed, at which point she shouted that she certainly didn't, that I was the one who did--and hung up on me.
It's going to fun over there this summer. I can tell already.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
ASHES
Five days in France working on DK's memoirs and meanwhile--in between sound cues while producer/audio engineer messed around on Pro Tools--trying to sort out All Things Becket.
NORTHERN BOUNDARY NEWS:
The dispute continues but have managed to shut the guy up by saying my father died. Am vaguely interested in seeing how long a property developer thinks might be a decent enough period of mourning before he starts cranking out the nine million emails with "SEE New Attached Surveyors' Reports" again. Still quiet after a week though so Mr. Sanders rises perhaps slightly in my estimation. I've got my team over there hot on the case, in any event, and will do nothing until I am physically there, hopefully in a few weeks, and can see for myself how keen I am to lose 44 feet of frontage. This will have to be all sorted before I put the house on the market. Which certainly won't happen this week or next or even this year but--have to be ready. Which brings me to the next subject on the Becket Agenda.
PEG:
Called me in tears yesterday, must have been 4:00 AM her time. She misses Daddy. I know this. We all do, of course, but when you figure they were together for almost 66 years--whatever they had, they made it work, and now her companion is gone. I do get it. So, I started to say soothing stuff about Daddy but it turns out what's upsetting her at the moment is that she finally--after in fact four years of saying "I've GOT to get down to Fairfield to get my teeth cleaned!" she finally, actually picked up the phone and made the appointment and, for a change, didn't cancel it. Dr. Pablo Cuevas is her hero because he's the only one who every managed to make her dentures and make them fit and not hurt. She even writes to his mother to say how brilliant her son is, the woman and is in fact on Peg's Blue Book list [SEE EARLIER POSTS] of recipients.
So, Dominick drove her down (2 hrs), Bonnie being too nervous, and Dominick took Google Maps directions instead of mine, mistake, so whether they got lost or the traffic was unbearable or both, in any event the drive, it seems, was the first thing that Peg was in tears about because, as far as I can figure out, time had passed, trees had grown, buildings have been torn down, and she didn't recognize anything along Route 8 anymore. Then there were "at least a hundred and fifty cars in the parking lot!", also cause for concern, and then it seems Dr. Cuevas found she has an infection.
"And--and--he wants to call you!" Peg sobbed, and added that she'd done nothing for two days but cry over this.
I reassured her that this is normal, that her GP is in touch with me too. Although I am ever so slightly worried because--well. Because. Who knows. But I would never tell her this. Anyhow while Peg talked and hiccuped I googled Cuevas to find his number and email and the first entry I see is "Pablo Cuevas - Sex Offender". What?? Clicked everything, madly, seems this guy's in Trumbull too, but that's right near Fairfield, I think, so well. Christ. Could it be? Am frantically reading stuff like "...positive identification cannot be established unless a fingerprint comparison is made.." and on and on and then found some Pablo Cuevas soccer player in South America and then finally finally saw a "Brighten Your Smile" or something and there he was, our own DDS Cuevas (Pablo, I love you) but stayed cross-checking for another few minutes to make sure. Anyhow I've emailed him but it's Sunday, no one in the office, so have no further info yet. ("Say, Pablo, while we're on the subject, what's sex in a dental chair with an anaesthetised person with no teeth really like?")
ASHES:
Daddy was cremated last week and returned to Dery's Funeral home yesterday. They will make an appointment to bring the ashes out to the house. I am fairly sure everyone will feel better knowing he's come home, even in that unfamiliar state. I don't know what Peg has in mind, meaning what she'll do with them. Mantle? Fridge? She kept her Aunt Elise in the exercise room for four years, I don't want that to happen to Daddy. I was up there one day poking around for a bag of Alex's old baby clothes and happened to see four tins of various sizes, floral pattern, on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. "Susie" said one, and on the others three names I've forgotten, but one had the word "cat" in parentheses, which was the clue. Ah, I said, ashes! Elise's pets, clearly, which maybe had traveled up from Bronxville with her when she'd moved in with my parents the year before she died, at 92.
My eyes then lit on a four litre plastic container, like Wall's family-size ice cream would come in. "Dr. Elise L. Renning" it said, in not particularly attractive penmanship. It took me fifteen seconds or so to process that the remains of my great aunt were in that box. I flew down the stairs.
"What is Elise doing in the exercise room?? Why hasn't she been--I don't know--buried!"
Peg regarded me blankly for a moment. My mother has and always has had, an--occasionall--endearing tendency to reside in her own world, a factor which no doubt makes her the great writer that she is. Still. How can forget an aunt sitting in Tupperware between a treadmill and a Nordic Tracker. I repeated my question, with more urgency this time and included the helpfull reminder that Elise was dead and in ash format and not some apparition in white lab coat sitting on the bookcase up there dangling her legs. Finally it all clicked.
"I know. I know. Don't tell me," Peg said, shaking her head, "and I feel kind of badly about it, too. Elise wanted her ashes scattered over the back garden in Bronxville, where Josh is, but by the time she died the house had been sold and I couldn't see myself ringing the bell and saying 'Do you mind terribly if I throw my aunt's ashes over your rhododendrons?' So I don't know what to do with her. What do you think?"
"I think she should go back to Minnesota and be buried alongside her parents and her family where she belongs."
"Great. Perfect!" Peg said, like it's a novel idea to be buried with the people you loved in the state you loved.
I went to TJ MAXX and bought a brown naugahyde stationery box big enough to hold Aunt Elise In Tupperware and the four tins of cremated pets. They all fit together perfectly, like a kid's puzzle, and I brought Elise in her new brown box downstairs to the front hall in preparation for outer wrapping for the Minnesota leg of the journey. Almost immediately, the overhead light blew. We replaced the bulb. Out in the kitchen, where my mother was starting dinner, the broiler suddenly frizzled, then died. My son, aged 13, appeared from the other end of the house to say his Nintendo machine had stopped working (no bad thing), and that when he tried to use Grandma's computer, it flickered on and off for a bit, then went black. From the front garden, we heard the lawnmower stop; my father came in a few minutes later, annoyed, having been unable to get the thing, brand new, started again. I knew exactly what was going on.
I drove back to TJ MAXX and purchased another stationary box, this time a bright what we used to call Puerto Rican Pink one, in a silky fabric. I then went next door to Michael's Crafts and bought two yards of inch and three quarters black satin ribbon, after which I drove back home over Washington mountain and carried my new purchases, along with Elise, back up the stairs to the exercise room, where I set about creating The New And Improved Aunt Collection. I found a team photo of her playing basketball for Rochester High School. Her medical degree, which I rolled up and affixed with gold paper seal. A photo of her as a little girl in Kasson, Minnesota. A photo of her mother, who'd died when Elise was only sixteen. Two greeting cards with poodles on them, her breed of choice, a cat toy, a hand-penned Bon Voyage note from me, her great (really great) niece, tucked everything into the new pink box amongst the ashes containers I had already installed--then wound the box with the black satin ribbon, gift-like, with a beautifully-tied bow at the top and pinking-sheared two ends. Perfect! Don't you see? Elise hated brown! She didn't want to be in an ugly brown fake leather box, she wanted to be in a pretty bright pink and black one, to match the colours in her bedroom an bathroom back in Bronxville!
Well may you laugh, but it was all crystal clear to me. And PS. the computer, in the presence of the pink box, immediately started working again, ditto the lawnmower, mircowave (did I emntion the microwave?) and Nintendo. Although we had to buy a new broiler.
I bubble-wrapped the pink box, then did so in brown paper, addressed it to cousins in Minnesota who ran a florists in Rochester (having warned them to say it was coming so they didn't tear it open thinking it was Fruit of the Month or something), drove it to the Hinsdale Post Office where the man asked me if I wanted to insure it and if so for how much. I let three people go ahead while I stood there deliberating, wondering how much Elise was worth, even $37.95, the top rate, seemed insulting somehow, since this was after all a woman who had not only been Golda Meir's gynecologist for awhile but Indira Ghandi's too, and finally decided to not insure her at all and put my faith in the U.S. Postal system crossing my fingers that Elise didn't end up in lost property in perhaps Baton Rouge. I am pleased to report that Elise traveled safely to Minnesota where she then rode around in the trunk of Bud and Wim's Chrysler for four months until the ground in Maple Grove Cemetery had defrosted enough to get a hole dug.
It is therefore with just a tad of curiosity that I await to see what my mother does with my father's ashes. I had in mind a burning Viking ship--I read you can buy miniature balsa versions specifically for this purpose, I think they're about five feet long and cost about £300--and thought of launching it over here into the North Sea (rather than Center Pond in Becket, say) but as I'm certain he'd want to be buried with my mother and I can't see her rashing to impale herself on the dragon's head, puttee-fashion, it'll probably be--yep. Back to Ye Olde Exercise Room.
NORTHERN BOUNDARY NEWS:
The dispute continues but have managed to shut the guy up by saying my father died. Am vaguely interested in seeing how long a property developer thinks might be a decent enough period of mourning before he starts cranking out the nine million emails with "SEE New Attached Surveyors' Reports" again. Still quiet after a week though so Mr. Sanders rises perhaps slightly in my estimation. I've got my team over there hot on the case, in any event, and will do nothing until I am physically there, hopefully in a few weeks, and can see for myself how keen I am to lose 44 feet of frontage. This will have to be all sorted before I put the house on the market. Which certainly won't happen this week or next or even this year but--have to be ready. Which brings me to the next subject on the Becket Agenda.
PEG:
Called me in tears yesterday, must have been 4:00 AM her time. She misses Daddy. I know this. We all do, of course, but when you figure they were together for almost 66 years--whatever they had, they made it work, and now her companion is gone. I do get it. So, I started to say soothing stuff about Daddy but it turns out what's upsetting her at the moment is that she finally--after in fact four years of saying "I've GOT to get down to Fairfield to get my teeth cleaned!" she finally, actually picked up the phone and made the appointment and, for a change, didn't cancel it. Dr. Pablo Cuevas is her hero because he's the only one who every managed to make her dentures and make them fit and not hurt. She even writes to his mother to say how brilliant her son is, the woman and is in fact on Peg's Blue Book list [SEE EARLIER POSTS] of recipients.
So, Dominick drove her down (2 hrs), Bonnie being too nervous, and Dominick took Google Maps directions instead of mine, mistake, so whether they got lost or the traffic was unbearable or both, in any event the drive, it seems, was the first thing that Peg was in tears about because, as far as I can figure out, time had passed, trees had grown, buildings have been torn down, and she didn't recognize anything along Route 8 anymore. Then there were "at least a hundred and fifty cars in the parking lot!", also cause for concern, and then it seems Dr. Cuevas found she has an infection.
"And--and--he wants to call you!" Peg sobbed, and added that she'd done nothing for two days but cry over this.
I reassured her that this is normal, that her GP is in touch with me too. Although I am ever so slightly worried because--well. Because. Who knows. But I would never tell her this. Anyhow while Peg talked and hiccuped I googled Cuevas to find his number and email and the first entry I see is "Pablo Cuevas - Sex Offender". What?? Clicked everything, madly, seems this guy's in Trumbull too, but that's right near Fairfield, I think, so well. Christ. Could it be? Am frantically reading stuff like "...positive identification cannot be established unless a fingerprint comparison is made.." and on and on and then found some Pablo Cuevas soccer player in South America and then finally finally saw a "Brighten Your Smile" or something and there he was, our own DDS Cuevas (Pablo, I love you) but stayed cross-checking for another few minutes to make sure. Anyhow I've emailed him but it's Sunday, no one in the office, so have no further info yet. ("Say, Pablo, while we're on the subject, what's sex in a dental chair with an anaesthetised person with no teeth really like?")
ASHES:
Daddy was cremated last week and returned to Dery's Funeral home yesterday. They will make an appointment to bring the ashes out to the house. I am fairly sure everyone will feel better knowing he's come home, even in that unfamiliar state. I don't know what Peg has in mind, meaning what she'll do with them. Mantle? Fridge? She kept her Aunt Elise in the exercise room for four years, I don't want that to happen to Daddy. I was up there one day poking around for a bag of Alex's old baby clothes and happened to see four tins of various sizes, floral pattern, on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. "Susie" said one, and on the others three names I've forgotten, but one had the word "cat" in parentheses, which was the clue. Ah, I said, ashes! Elise's pets, clearly, which maybe had traveled up from Bronxville with her when she'd moved in with my parents the year before she died, at 92.
My eyes then lit on a four litre plastic container, like Wall's family-size ice cream would come in. "Dr. Elise L. Renning" it said, in not particularly attractive penmanship. It took me fifteen seconds or so to process that the remains of my great aunt were in that box. I flew down the stairs.
"What is Elise doing in the exercise room?? Why hasn't she been--I don't know--buried!"
Peg regarded me blankly for a moment. My mother has and always has had, an--occasionall--endearing tendency to reside in her own world, a factor which no doubt makes her the great writer that she is. Still. How can forget an aunt sitting in Tupperware between a treadmill and a Nordic Tracker. I repeated my question, with more urgency this time and included the helpfull reminder that Elise was dead and in ash format and not some apparition in white lab coat sitting on the bookcase up there dangling her legs. Finally it all clicked.
"I know. I know. Don't tell me," Peg said, shaking her head, "and I feel kind of badly about it, too. Elise wanted her ashes scattered over the back garden in Bronxville, where Josh is, but by the time she died the house had been sold and I couldn't see myself ringing the bell and saying 'Do you mind terribly if I throw my aunt's ashes over your rhododendrons?' So I don't know what to do with her. What do you think?"
"I think she should go back to Minnesota and be buried alongside her parents and her family where she belongs."
"Great. Perfect!" Peg said, like it's a novel idea to be buried with the people you loved in the state you loved.
I went to TJ MAXX and bought a brown naugahyde stationery box big enough to hold Aunt Elise In Tupperware and the four tins of cremated pets. They all fit together perfectly, like a kid's puzzle, and I brought Elise in her new brown box downstairs to the front hall in preparation for outer wrapping for the Minnesota leg of the journey. Almost immediately, the overhead light blew. We replaced the bulb. Out in the kitchen, where my mother was starting dinner, the broiler suddenly frizzled, then died. My son, aged 13, appeared from the other end of the house to say his Nintendo machine had stopped working (no bad thing), and that when he tried to use Grandma's computer, it flickered on and off for a bit, then went black. From the front garden, we heard the lawnmower stop; my father came in a few minutes later, annoyed, having been unable to get the thing, brand new, started again. I knew exactly what was going on.
I drove back to TJ MAXX and purchased another stationary box, this time a bright what we used to call Puerto Rican Pink one, in a silky fabric. I then went next door to Michael's Crafts and bought two yards of inch and three quarters black satin ribbon, after which I drove back home over Washington mountain and carried my new purchases, along with Elise, back up the stairs to the exercise room, where I set about creating The New And Improved Aunt Collection. I found a team photo of her playing basketball for Rochester High School. Her medical degree, which I rolled up and affixed with gold paper seal. A photo of her as a little girl in Kasson, Minnesota. A photo of her mother, who'd died when Elise was only sixteen. Two greeting cards with poodles on them, her breed of choice, a cat toy, a hand-penned Bon Voyage note from me, her great (really great) niece, tucked everything into the new pink box amongst the ashes containers I had already installed--then wound the box with the black satin ribbon, gift-like, with a beautifully-tied bow at the top and pinking-sheared two ends. Perfect! Don't you see? Elise hated brown! She didn't want to be in an ugly brown fake leather box, she wanted to be in a pretty bright pink and black one, to match the colours in her bedroom an bathroom back in Bronxville!
Well may you laugh, but it was all crystal clear to me. And PS. the computer, in the presence of the pink box, immediately started working again, ditto the lawnmower, mircowave (did I emntion the microwave?) and Nintendo. Although we had to buy a new broiler.
I bubble-wrapped the pink box, then did so in brown paper, addressed it to cousins in Minnesota who ran a florists in Rochester (having warned them to say it was coming so they didn't tear it open thinking it was Fruit of the Month or something), drove it to the Hinsdale Post Office where the man asked me if I wanted to insure it and if so for how much. I let three people go ahead while I stood there deliberating, wondering how much Elise was worth, even $37.95, the top rate, seemed insulting somehow, since this was after all a woman who had not only been Golda Meir's gynecologist for awhile but Indira Ghandi's too, and finally decided to not insure her at all and put my faith in the U.S. Postal system crossing my fingers that Elise didn't end up in lost property in perhaps Baton Rouge. I am pleased to report that Elise traveled safely to Minnesota where she then rode around in the trunk of Bud and Wim's Chrysler for four months until the ground in Maple Grove Cemetery had defrosted enough to get a hole dug.
It is therefore with just a tad of curiosity that I await to see what my mother does with my father's ashes. I had in mind a burning Viking ship--I read you can buy miniature balsa versions specifically for this purpose, I think they're about five feet long and cost about £300--and thought of launching it over here into the North Sea (rather than Center Pond in Becket, say) but as I'm certain he'd want to be buried with my mother and I can't see her rashing to impale herself on the dragon's head, puttee-fashion, it'll probably be--yep. Back to Ye Olde Exercise Room.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
SAD TODAY
But only when I look at a recent photo of my father. Am fine with the early ones, when I was little, or in my teens. There's something about seeing him older and looking more like the man I knew when I left Becket last May, the one I took care of, and fed, and cleaned up after and sat in the kitchen with my glass of wine late at night writing and hoping to Christ he stayed asleep so I didn't have to do dinner at midnight and then being annoyed when he clumped out there with his walker, looking lost and confused. I feel sorry for that man, the one who died with his diapers on and ugly little cotton gown hiked up. That's what's making me sad. I just put an older photo now of him my desktop (computer one). Will see how I do with that.
Peg today told me she "hadn't known he was dying" and complained about "all the money" Hospice has cost us and that she never knew that Hospice coming on board signified Odd being "terminal".
I went over it all, patiently, for about the hundredth time. Finally she muttered something about cremation and said she couldn't talk and hung up. Upset. She'd started out bright and cheery. It was only when I (politely and kindly, for once) intimated she might have things a little ass backwards that she got the needle. Feel slightly guilty leaving Bonnie and Terri to cope with her but then again they're getting paid to do this.
Bonnie says they have already, with Peg directing, moved Odd's desk into the office (making 4 desks in there, can't wait, should be really easy getting around in there now…) and the piano back into the hallway but no mention yet of what Daddy's "bedroom" has or will become. Hospice has already collected the hospital bed, desk trolley thing, 2 wheelchairs, a walker, the oxygen machine and the tanks.
Told Bonnie to pay Dery's funeral home bill, I imagine they're waiting for payment before sending Odd's body to be cremated and I can't bear thinking of him on some slab (wearing whatever crap outfit Peg picked out). Terri suggested donating all his casual clothes--sweatpants and so on to Laurel Lake Nursing home. Nothing ever comes back from the laundry there to the right person and am sure they could use extras.
Bed now. France tomorrow.
Peg today told me she "hadn't known he was dying" and complained about "all the money" Hospice has cost us and that she never knew that Hospice coming on board signified Odd being "terminal".
I went over it all, patiently, for about the hundredth time. Finally she muttered something about cremation and said she couldn't talk and hung up. Upset. She'd started out bright and cheery. It was only when I (politely and kindly, for once) intimated she might have things a little ass backwards that she got the needle. Feel slightly guilty leaving Bonnie and Terri to cope with her but then again they're getting paid to do this.
Bonnie says they have already, with Peg directing, moved Odd's desk into the office (making 4 desks in there, can't wait, should be really easy getting around in there now…) and the piano back into the hallway but no mention yet of what Daddy's "bedroom" has or will become. Hospice has already collected the hospital bed, desk trolley thing, 2 wheelchairs, a walker, the oxygen machine and the tanks.
Told Bonnie to pay Dery's funeral home bill, I imagine they're waiting for payment before sending Odd's body to be cremated and I can't bear thinking of him on some slab (wearing whatever crap outfit Peg picked out). Terri suggested donating all his casual clothes--sweatpants and so on to Laurel Lake Nursing home. Nothing ever comes back from the laundry there to the right person and am sure they could use extras.
Bed now. France tomorrow.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
OBITUARY? CHECK!
"Odd Knut Ronning, former
Export Manager in charge of Foreign Sales at the Beloit Corporation in Dalton, died
at his home in Becket last Wednesday. He was 96. Many knew him as the dashing
husband of radio and television comedy writer and actress Peg Lynch (he was
once voted “New York’s Handsomest Husband” by Radio and TV Magazine)--the
welcoming, generous host, the ever-so-slightly formal but always jovial man who,
to everyone’s delight, played the piano and sang old time American standards in
Norwegian, who would never let you sit there with an empty glass, the man who
listened when you spoke, who stood up when you entered the room, who held doors
open for ladies, the man who was at ease in any situation, a well-dressed, polite
and perfectly groomed true gentleman, one you’d be grateful and proud to have
on your arm, anywhere. I remember all these things about him, but I will also
remember him as just plain Daddy. A devoted son, then husband, father and
grandfather, uncle and even fourth cousin by marriage---“family” was everything
to Odd Knut. We could do no wrong in his eyes. Ever.
My father was born
on June 6th, 1918 in Oslo Norway, where he attended local
schools, often on skis. After a stint working at a paper company in Skotfos, he
moved north in 1938 to Trondheim to study mechanical engineering at the
Technical University of Norway, where he was the popular head of the Student
Council. His studies were interrupted on April 9, 1940 when he awoke to see
German soldiers marching down the street--the beginning of their occupation of
Norway which would continue until 1945. He and many of his fellow engineering students
were hauled out of bed by the Gestapo and taken to nearby Falstad, a former
prison turned concentration camp which was to hold several thousand prisoners
of war, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners—anyone the Nazis didn’t
care for, including an American poker-player and an English lord who had been unlucky
enough to find themselves in Norway when the war broke out and for whom Odd Knut,
his English being excellent--his Norwegian father had spent time in North
Dakota--later acted as translator (and I imagine fellow card player).
After my father’s
release from Falstad, due to a combination of his father’s petitioning and it
being Hitler’s birthday—he joined the Norwegian Underground and took part in
numerous acts of sabotage, including the destruction of the Nazi-commandeered ferryboat
carrying heavy water and components bound for Germany across Lake Tinnsjo.
He completed his mechanical
engineering degree after the war, secured a student visa, and in 1946 traveled
to New York aboard the liner the S.S. Stavangerfjord, where, before heading up
to Syracuse University, he found a phone booth, found a dime, and politely
called his third cousin Peg to say “hello” at her Gramercy Park apartment, as
per his parents’ instructions.
My mother,
frantically busy as usual at her typewriter writing a script—at the time, her
15 minute radio comedy series Ethel and
Albert was on five days a week—grabbed the phone.
“Odd Knut from
Norway!” she heard, in a thick accent.
My father identified
himself a few more times before Peg stopped saying “What? Who??”, after which
he heard her put her hand over the phone and in a (slightly) muffled voice,
call out: “Mother? It’s some cousin from Norway! Do we have enough lamb chops
to ask him for dinner?”
My parents were
married on August 12, 1948. I doubt that a day went by, since that moment at
the Little Church Around the Corner in Manhattan, that my father still couldn’t
quite believe his good fortune in snaring his “Peggy”.
A masters degree at
the College of Forestry, Pulp and Paper Department, from Syracuse University in
1949 was followed by a year in Norway working for the Union Paper Company in
Skien, after which Odd joined the E.D. Jones and Sons Company in Dalton (later
becoming the Beloit Corporation, Dalton Division) in 1950. By now an American
Citizen, he and Peg settled first in Bronxville, New York, then Stamford, then
Fairfield, Connecticut before moving to Becket, Massachusetts in 1970.
Odd Knut offically
retired in 1986 and, when he was not studying Consumer Reports or reading
Norwegian newspapers or tending his beloved twenty-eight acres--planting,
weeding, sweeping pine needles off the drive--he devoted his days to traveling back
to Norway, accompanying my mother when she performed at radio and television
conventions around the States (the last one as recently as 2012), and visiting
me and my family at our home in England. A firm believer in the highly
questionable theory that “Vikings don’t get sick”, it was only in the last six
or seven years that my father began to wind down and “indoors in front of CNN”
began to have more appeal than tramping up and down pruning the euonymous
hedge.
He is survived by
his wife, his “Marvelous Peggy”, one daughter, me, Astrid King, one son-in-law,
the composer Denis King, and one grandson, Alexander King. All of whom will
miss him every day. And who wish his Viking longship safe passage."
That will go into the Sunday edition of The Berkshire Eagle tomorrow. Peg had only to choose a photo, and had all day to do this, but didn't, so in the end I told Bonnie to pick something, not having anuy good ones over here. The paper charges $50 for the first fifteen lines, then $3.50 for each line thereafter and $30 for a photo. This is one expensive obit. But he's worth it. Only about nine hundred phone calls from Becket this evening were needed to ensure my copy had all the dates and spellings right and that it, along with the photo, whatever it is, got sent to the Eagle in time to make the 4:30 PM deadline. I was at a 50th birthday party for Wayne the Tattooed Man during most of these calls, one of which required me to explain what a euonymous bush is ("And what's that e something word you wrote?") at the Rugby Pavillion over in Southwold being eaten by mosquitoes. I hadn't particularly wanted to go, so much to do, but felt obligated, then we get there and find out his birthday isn't until February but tonight was the only night the Pavillion was free.
Peg, according to Tory, who bless her heart went over to Becket today, reports thusly:
"Well, your mother doesn't appear to be unhappy. She was watching "1776", a truly dreadfulmusical about the creation of the Declaration of Independence. She and Dominick were
lapping it up. Dom says she's planning a lot of furniture re-arrangement."
And, more good news, she has taken the three bronze sculptures of "Horses Running and Trees Blowing In The Wind" or whatever they're called, and actually she thought they were collies, she didn't have her glasses on when she bought them--off the mantle in her quarters (formerly the Living Room) and relocated them to the den. So we may all enjoy them. Is I believe the idea.
Friday, July 4, 2014
TRIBUTES POURING IN
We went ahead with a July 4th barbecue for 10 last night (a day early, yes) because: a) I had made all the food; and b) my father was a true party hound, always up for a drink or a crowd, always the life of every gathering, the perfect host, elegant and charming and making all the ladies drool, and if there were a piano in evidence, playing and singing old time favourites of his, often in Norwegian (and always in the key of D flat, Denis says). So last night turned into "his" night, at least it did for me. My lovely friend Claire skaoled him with these words, which she had had a friend translate into Norwegian for her, and which she then delivered, in Norwegian, despite not speaking it. I became a bit teary (due to sentiment, not pronunciation):
"En skal for den store viking Odd Knut Ronning, en hengiven or trofast mann, far or bestefar. Han blir veldig savnet. Vu onsker han en trygg reise ombord hans viking skip."
("A toast to the great Viking, Odd Knut Ronning, devoted husband, father and grandfather, who will be sorely missed. We wish his longship safe passage.")
And, from Bob Bowers, a fan, on my mother's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/peg.lynchronning
I have spent the past two days answering emails, all so kind and hugely appreciated and full of the loveliest words about that dear man, who I choose to remember looking devastatingly hansdome in his beautifully-tailored silk business suit, gold cuff links and tie pin--off to work, and smelling deliciously of aftershave.
Last night I got an email from Bonnie saying about a week ago, when Odd was still capable of sitting up, he called her over to the bed and handed her his gold ring, which he'd just removed, asking her if she would place it somewhere safe. This was his engineering ring, he called it, from Norway, which they'd all got at graduation. He never took it off, ever.
So…he knew, didn't he? Then. He must have.
It'll go to Alex, Alex should have it.
Peg had the Hospice team dress him in "something brown" she said, Daddy's favourite colour. I hope it wasn't sweatpants but I guess it doesn't matter. When I'd gone through his closet last fall and was getting rid of things I knew he'd no longer have any use for, I'd saved out a nice shirt, tie, shoes, socks, and a business suit. Brown, of course. Well, more taupe.
Peg's up and down, one minute being tearful and the next making applesauce or obsessing again about getting to the dentist in Fairfield. We're keeping The Staff in place 24hrs for the moment. Expensive but I don't want her alone. Friends have been "just marvellous", as Odd would say, going over there, driving up, driving down to keep her company and be a distraction. I'm so grateful. Just hope that she is.
I'm trying now to write Odd's obit for the Berkshire Eagle and for Aftenposten in Norway but having problems because I don't have his CV or any biog info here, it's all in Becket. Told the Staff where to look and they found it all but the scanning has defeated them, they keep saying they've sent it but all I get is one page of Odd stuff which only takes him up to grammar school so not very useful, eight pages that have "PDF" as a sort of faint watermark but are otherwise blank and, for some reason, two pages of an anecdote looks like Peg typed maybe twenty years ago, about when she played Puck in high school in Minnesota, which has nothing to do with anything. I hope. Will soldier on. And deal with the bloody boundary dispute over there, which has hotted up. Have been keeping the guy at bay as best I can, claiming work (true) and am hoping "my father died" will gain me a couple of weeks of him feeling sorry for me because he starts hitting me with downloads of deeds and town tax plans again.
"En skal for den store viking Odd Knut Ronning, en hengiven or trofast mann, far or bestefar. Han blir veldig savnet. Vu onsker han en trygg reise ombord hans viking skip."
("A toast to the great Viking, Odd Knut Ronning, devoted husband, father and grandfather, who will be sorely missed. We wish his longship safe passage.")
I have spent the past two days answering emails, all so kind and hugely appreciated and full of the loveliest words about that dear man, who I choose to remember looking devastatingly hansdome in his beautifully-tailored silk business suit, gold cuff links and tie pin--off to work, and smelling deliciously of aftershave.
Last night I got an email from Bonnie saying about a week ago, when Odd was still capable of sitting up, he called her over to the bed and handed her his gold ring, which he'd just removed, asking her if she would place it somewhere safe. This was his engineering ring, he called it, from Norway, which they'd all got at graduation. He never took it off, ever.
So…he knew, didn't he? Then. He must have.
It'll go to Alex, Alex should have it.
Peg had the Hospice team dress him in "something brown" she said, Daddy's favourite colour. I hope it wasn't sweatpants but I guess it doesn't matter. When I'd gone through his closet last fall and was getting rid of things I knew he'd no longer have any use for, I'd saved out a nice shirt, tie, shoes, socks, and a business suit. Brown, of course. Well, more taupe.
Peg's up and down, one minute being tearful and the next making applesauce or obsessing again about getting to the dentist in Fairfield. We're keeping The Staff in place 24hrs for the moment. Expensive but I don't want her alone. Friends have been "just marvellous", as Odd would say, going over there, driving up, driving down to keep her company and be a distraction. I'm so grateful. Just hope that she is.
I'm trying now to write Odd's obit for the Berkshire Eagle and for Aftenposten in Norway but having problems because I don't have his CV or any biog info here, it's all in Becket. Told the Staff where to look and they found it all but the scanning has defeated them, they keep saying they've sent it but all I get is one page of Odd stuff which only takes him up to grammar school so not very useful, eight pages that have "PDF" as a sort of faint watermark but are otherwise blank and, for some reason, two pages of an anecdote looks like Peg typed maybe twenty years ago, about when she played Puck in high school in Minnesota, which has nothing to do with anything. I hope. Will soldier on. And deal with the bloody boundary dispute over there, which has hotted up. Have been keeping the guy at bay as best I can, claiming work (true) and am hoping "my father died" will gain me a couple of weeks of him feeling sorry for me because he starts hitting me with downloads of deeds and town tax plans again.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
GONE
Odd Knut Ronning 1918 - 2014
Terri rang at 3:45 PM today. She was with him, holding his hand and talking to him, saying how much we all loved him and that if he wanted to go, everything was fine, he shouldn't worry. He then closed his mouth, which Peg says has been hanging wide open enough to "fit a tennis ball in" for the past two days--and stopped breathing. They checked with a mirror. Peg remained unconvinced for five or ten minutes, saying she felt "movement" but I think I would have heard by now if this were a false alarm. Ellyn the Hospice nurse was called, she was on her way out there as we spoke. She will then call Dery's Funeral Home in Dalton, with whom I was in contact yesterday. The guy seemed nice on the phone but then why wouldn't he be. I liked that his father worked for the same company Odd did, I found out, for 44 years he said. Shop floor, not "management" like Odd, but still. Why this should make him a better funeral director I don't know but somehow it does.
There will be no funeral. Cremation. Will hang onto the ashes until I have Peg's and put them together somewhere. I suppose. She's pushing for under the rhododendreons in the lower garden along with about 5 dead collies, there already, but this doesn't work for me.
I'm glad I rang earlier today. They put me on speaker phone and I again told Daddy how lovely the garden here looked in the sunshine, listing the flowers in bloom, and before hanging up reminded him how well we all were and how much we loved him, and how everyone in Norway loved him, and that maybe after he had a little sleep I would ring him later. And then Terri rang, an hour later, in tears.
And then Peg picked up, was surprised to find me on the phone: "I hadn't even dialled!" she said and was annoyed to find that Terri had rung me so I imagine there will be ructions. Peg seems--shaky but OK. Says she's never watched anyone die before, hopes she doesn't end up like that, in diapers, mouth hanging open, groaning, hospital gown hiked up.
Trying to figure out how I'm feeling. Relieved, I think, on many levels. That he didn't linger in this distressed (and distressing) state for a long time--only ten days ago he was up in his chair in the den, situation normal except for a slight cold. Relieved that I didn't get on a plane, I would never have made it time anyway. And relieved I guess that whatever demons have pursued Daddy for so many years, since the war, really, back to the 1940s--have at last let go of him. He was a true gentleman, unbelievably kind, thoughtful, caring, and ate anything put in front of him. And, having gone through his papers over the last year, I am reminded too of what a funny writer he was. Peg may have got all the credit in the comedy writing department, but Odd had a lovely sense of fun and turn of phrase on paper.
Peg was his whole life. Me, yes, Alex, yes--but without his "Peggy"---well. She was his everything. Thank God she didn't die last April. Thank God he didn't have to suffer that. Did he know about her affairs? I have no idea. Did he have affairs? I have no idea. There's still so much I don't know. Will Peg tell me? NO IDEA.
I loved my Daddy.
Terri rang at 3:45 PM today. She was with him, holding his hand and talking to him, saying how much we all loved him and that if he wanted to go, everything was fine, he shouldn't worry. He then closed his mouth, which Peg says has been hanging wide open enough to "fit a tennis ball in" for the past two days--and stopped breathing. They checked with a mirror. Peg remained unconvinced for five or ten minutes, saying she felt "movement" but I think I would have heard by now if this were a false alarm. Ellyn the Hospice nurse was called, she was on her way out there as we spoke. She will then call Dery's Funeral Home in Dalton, with whom I was in contact yesterday. The guy seemed nice on the phone but then why wouldn't he be. I liked that his father worked for the same company Odd did, I found out, for 44 years he said. Shop floor, not "management" like Odd, but still. Why this should make him a better funeral director I don't know but somehow it does.
There will be no funeral. Cremation. Will hang onto the ashes until I have Peg's and put them together somewhere. I suppose. She's pushing for under the rhododendreons in the lower garden along with about 5 dead collies, there already, but this doesn't work for me.
I'm glad I rang earlier today. They put me on speaker phone and I again told Daddy how lovely the garden here looked in the sunshine, listing the flowers in bloom, and before hanging up reminded him how well we all were and how much we loved him, and how everyone in Norway loved him, and that maybe after he had a little sleep I would ring him later. And then Terri rang, an hour later, in tears.
And then Peg picked up, was surprised to find me on the phone: "I hadn't even dialled!" she said and was annoyed to find that Terri had rung me so I imagine there will be ructions. Peg seems--shaky but OK. Says she's never watched anyone die before, hopes she doesn't end up like that, in diapers, mouth hanging open, groaning, hospital gown hiked up.
Trying to figure out how I'm feeling. Relieved, I think, on many levels. That he didn't linger in this distressed (and distressing) state for a long time--only ten days ago he was up in his chair in the den, situation normal except for a slight cold. Relieved that I didn't get on a plane, I would never have made it time anyway. And relieved I guess that whatever demons have pursued Daddy for so many years, since the war, really, back to the 1940s--have at last let go of him. He was a true gentleman, unbelievably kind, thoughtful, caring, and ate anything put in front of him. And, having gone through his papers over the last year, I am reminded too of what a funny writer he was. Peg may have got all the credit in the comedy writing department, but Odd had a lovely sense of fun and turn of phrase on paper.
Peg was his whole life. Me, yes, Alex, yes--but without his "Peggy"---well. She was his everything. Thank God she didn't die last April. Thank God he didn't have to suffer that. Did he know about her affairs? I have no idea. Did he have affairs? I have no idea. There's still so much I don't know. Will Peg tell me? NO IDEA.
I loved my Daddy.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
THE DEATH PATH
That's what Hospice calls it. And that is what my father is now officially "on". A long email last night from Hospice Nurse Ellyn saying he might have weeks now, or perhaps a month---was followed today by a panicked phone message from Terri while I was in the car coming back from Norwich but didn't get till I got home, saying Daddy's breathing is getting worse, about 20 second periods where he stops completely. I rang immediately. Spoke to Tammy the Hospice Nurse. The heart-wrenching cries and groans in the background I suddenly realized were coming from my father.
Tammy said 24-48 hours now, max.
Alex and I Face-timed on Terri's iPad. Their idea. Huge mistake. Signal not great at that end of the house. Vision not great either, of Odd in Deep Distress, lying down, eyes closed, crying out--from the POV of the iPad, giving us a great view of his diapers. Alex and I horrified and said NO! Not a good idea! We will ring on someone's cell and put it on speakerphone.
So I did, Alex being already half an hour late for work. I spoke to Daddy about the garden, how beautiful Walberswick was in the last afternoon sunshine, how lovely the flowers were looking, what a fine grandson he had, how proud he should be of him, how we are all fine, happy, and doing well, he doesn't need to worry about us, everything is perfect. And that we all loved him. And that the family in Norway loved him. I hope he heard me.
And I don't think I can write anymore now. Alex went off to work in tears, shaken. And I noiw have to call the funeral home to give themn a heads up in case he goes in the night.
Please please let him just go to sleep and that's it.
I need a glass of something. All I can hear are his cries.
Tammy said 24-48 hours now, max.
Alex and I Face-timed on Terri's iPad. Their idea. Huge mistake. Signal not great at that end of the house. Vision not great either, of Odd in Deep Distress, lying down, eyes closed, crying out--from the POV of the iPad, giving us a great view of his diapers. Alex and I horrified and said NO! Not a good idea! We will ring on someone's cell and put it on speakerphone.
So I did, Alex being already half an hour late for work. I spoke to Daddy about the garden, how beautiful Walberswick was in the last afternoon sunshine, how lovely the flowers were looking, what a fine grandson he had, how proud he should be of him, how we are all fine, happy, and doing well, he doesn't need to worry about us, everything is perfect. And that we all loved him. And that the family in Norway loved him. I hope he heard me.
And I don't think I can write anymore now. Alex went off to work in tears, shaken. And I noiw have to call the funeral home to give themn a heads up in case he goes in the night.
Please please let him just go to sleep and that's it.
I need a glass of something. All I can hear are his cries.
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