A new matriarch

Over five decades ago, my mother took my brother and I to meet our grandfather and aunt for the first time in her hometown of Frankfurt, Germany.

Having heard stories of her war time experiences and of her father’s resistance to the policies of Hitler, the trip to this “exotic” place during our high school years held the promise of finding a piece of ourselves there in her homeland and our heritage.

She and her little sister had a complex relationship, which we only knew through mom’s stories. My mom left everything behind to start a new life in America as a military wife and became a card carrying member member of the lower middle class. Her sister remained in Frankfurt to continue a path towards wealth and social status.

Aunt Charlotte, for whom I am named, greeted me warmly that first day and, holding my hand, walked me upstairs to her bedroom which had one wall of mirrors. She put her arm around my shoulder and looking into our reflections in the mirrored wall, announced in broken English, “We look like each other…”

It was meant as a compliment, but for the remainder of our stay, I took note of her poor treatment of my mom, bordering on distain, it seemed. Mom seemed destined to be thought of as “the poor relation,” lacking manners and class, however that was decided in Aunt Charlotte’s world.

And so I didn’t want to “look like her.”

But secretly, I think Aunt Charlotte admired her older sister Irene. Irene was the adventurer who literally sailed the seas as she followed my dad to various military assignments. She was the one who traveled the globe, four children in tow. She was the one always conquering new challenges in a foreign land with vigor and with joy.

Over time, mom stopped communicating altogether with Aunt Charlotte, feeling acutely the sting of her critical spirit. Often she would regale me with tales of all of the slights, and an unforgiving spirit settled into her.

One day, exasperated, I just tried to set her right.

Someday you will both be gone, and you will have lived all this time without the one person who shares a history with you.

She took the counsel reluctantly to heart and reached out, a gesture which reunited them after a long absence and kept them in communication until my mom’s death at 95.

Towards the end of her life, mom would often recount how she and her sister had talked about their reunification in heaven, a thought that seemed to give her great joy.

Today, my brother let me know that Aunt Charlotte had passed at the age of almost 98. Though she and I never had a relationship, she was our last connection to my mother’s homeland…our last living relative of that generation, and it filled me with deep sadness at the loss.

When I called one of my daughters to let her know, after expressing her sympathy, she said,

You are the matriarch of the family now.

And that is a statement that will take awhile to assimilate.

In time I will perhaps grasp the significance of that mantle and assume it gracefully, but at the moment, it comes wrapped with some uncertainty for me.

But also in this moment, I am certain of this one thing: for years, my mom looked forward to spending eternity with her sister, Charlotte, and today she is doing just that.

And someday, so will I.

The lesson in dirty dishes

Someday I will no longer have to worry about how the dishwasher is loaded. Being just a tad bit OCD, loading it up in "perfect order" has been one of the few joys of housekeeping.

Like a master puzzle maker, everything sorted according to its size and shape, the goal has always been to use every square inch of space, in an orderly fashion of course.

I tell myself that it is to "save water" and the planet in the process, but really, in a world spinning out of control, it is one of the few tasks that brings peace and order to a chaotic world.

I lost that job when my 95 year old mom moved in. I did not lose it right away, but in tiny increments as her dementia deepened. Though it was her decision to move in, for the first four months she "raged against the machine", which in this case was me. Hurtful things came out of her mouth, reminiscent of the less than affectionate barbs slipped into conversation throughout my life.

But in those hard times, I made a conscious choice to just love her, regardless of the emotional climate. Whether it was that determination or the progress of her disease, something in her turned, and she began a transformation into a loving, gracious person…someone I had not experienced most of my life.

I think, though, that probably it was the dishes that turned the tide. Your see, she wanted to be helpful, and washing dishes was a joy from her childhood, so I agreed she could "pre-wash" them. She would get up from our shared table each morning after breakfast and totter as though intoxicated, carrying our dishes to the sink. Like a new mom, I would hover to make sure things did not get dropped.

Then I remembered that broken dishes can be replaced, but stolen dignity could not. It was a lesson I would have to learn over and again.

What started out as a quick rinse, as she progressed in her decline, became a ritual that grew each day. "I am going to do the dishes now," she would announce, and I would remove myself to let her do it all by herself. Many mornings, I sat and watched her stare out the window lost in thought, and I would wait for inspiration to return for the task at hand. Then an inner light would switch on and she would shuffle over to the sink, dishes shaking like small buildings in an earthquake, her slow almost crablike walk creating an arrhythmic thump on the tile floor.

Then the water would be turned on and I would hear the dishes being washed one at a time and set on the sink floor. A few moments would pass, and then she would turn the water on and wash them again, not out of cleanliness but forgetfulness. Over time, my teeth would no longer grind as I listened.

It is just water. And she is happy.

Every day when finished, she would come in and proudly announce the dishes were done. Often she would take my hand and lead me into the kitchen, unaware that I had been surveying her work from a distance, watching her glide like a manta ray on the ocean floor over the counters looking for things to wash and organize.

"I don't know what we would do without you,” I would tell her every time. Her face would shine like a schoolgirl who had just passed an important exam. Doing the dishes had given meaning to her life.

The newest wrinkle developed over time. A towel would get placed on the counter, and she would create a little pocket to put the silverware in and then place the washed dishes on the remaining towel. One day I opened up the cupboard and found the "washed dishes" - traces of breakfast still intact on the sides, neatly stacked.

I thought to myself, "It is time to teach her how to load the dishwasher."

We all worry so much about legacy, or maybe it is just me, wanting it to be something deep and meaningful. But this, after 95 years, was hers: She washed dishes....with great tenderness and great love. It was her act of sacrifice, done for me, the daughter she has come to love openly as we wander through this journey to the end of her life.

Someday, I will be efficient and save water and do my little organizing task with great planning and orderliness, and the sound of her shuffling across the floor and the rattle of dishes will be only a memory that haunts this house. But today, I will teach her how to load the dishwasher. It will be messy and chaotic and will, in all likelihood, turn a five minute task into an hour long ordeal. But in the end, what we will have together is something better than order...

We will have love made visible in the chaos... (Note: My mom died two days after I wrote this draft. On her last day on earth, she loaded the dishwasher and raked leaves...what she would have called a perfect day

I wanna hold your hand…

I wish I could recall the name of the harmonica player, but the truth is, he slipped into our lives one day without an introduction and slipped away just as quickly.

At my 83 year old mom's urging, we had agreed to play a concert for an adult day care program located in the basement of a moss covered local church tucked under a tangle of trees. As we descended the steps into the musty basement, we were greeted warmly not just by the volunteers, but also by a small group of differently-abled adults who were assisting them in serving meals to several of the seniors also in attendance.

Since we had anticipated only seniors, we had prepared an hour's worth of oldies but goodies, including the closing sing-a-long "Good Night Irene" in honor of my mom. As we began our set, one of these differently-abled adult helpers pulled out his harmonica. In a child like voice, he yelled out a request to play along, a request we quickly granted in the casual environment of our basement lunch concert.

He jumped out of his chair and bounded over next to me. As we led the group in some Pete Seeger song, he began to robustly play along, his harmonica in a completely different key and his skills somewhat less than stellar. But as the song ended, he looked up at me, his eyes shining, and he announced with a wide, toothless grin, his voice heavy with a lisp,

…rock and roll...we did that really good...rock and roll..

For the rest of our time, he bounced between his role as lead harmonica player in the band and lead dancer for any unpartnered lunch guest. He worked the room like a seasoned Vegas showman, and when it was all over, he sidled up one last time as we were packing up.

There was a swagger in his step as he took my guitar from my hand. "I want to carry your guitar," he said, smiling his toothless grin. "I will help you with the equipment." We walked out a side door and down a small concrete path wide enough for only one person at a time. He led.

"See the gray van towards the end?" I called up to him. "That's mine." I expected him to cross the gravel lot and meet me at the van, but he stopped cold at the end of the sidewalk and waited. When I caught up, I stepped off the curb, expecting him to follow.

But the only footsteps on the gravel were mine.

A host of thoughts crowded into my mind. Perhaps he liked my guitar. How would I let him know that he couldn't take it home? What if he dropped it? As I walked back to him, I noticed his face had changed. It seemed younger, less confident. I stood next to him awaiting his declaration. Suddenly I felt his touch. He had reached down and taken my hand in his.

I can't cross the street unless I hold someone's hand….

We walked across the lot and loaded the guitar, and then, holding his hand, I walked him back to the safety of the concrete sidewalk. Back on solid ground, he resumed his rock star demeanor and reclaimed his confidence.

"We need to play music again," he called out, " rock and roll..." As I looked back from the car, he was flashing the universal rock star sign.

I want to be like him, I thought, full of life and confidence, able to dance and sing unconcerned about my lack of coordination or my inability to carry a tune. I want to launch into good deeds with strangers and help carry the burdens of others.

But more than anything, when I face any obstacle, any fear, I want to simply reach out and take the hand of a fellow human being and trust with all my heart that I will be kept safe from the dangers that lurk beyond the safety of the well kept path.

The harmonica player gets it.

Someday, I hope to follow in his steps.