The Written Word The Journal by Betty Rose

THE JOURNAL
by Betty Rose
1997

April 10, 1994

What the hell does she mean? “I’m dying!” Well excuse me doctor, but if I’m dying, what were all of those radiation and chemotherapy treatments for? Did I just choose to go bald? Was I trying to break the world vomit record or something? I did everything I was supposed to do. Every treatment they wanted me to do, I did. I’m sorry, but there has been a huge mistake made and I don’t think it’s very funny.

I know they’ve made a mistake. I just wonder how long it will take them to discover it. They are going to feel so incredibly stupid when they realize it. They’ll probably panic that I might sue them. They get things wrong all the time. They’ll figure it out. All I have to do is to stay patient and it’ll be okay.

I’m not even going to think about it anymore. I’m too busy to sit around and waste my time worrying about a mistake that someone else has made. Maybe their MRI machine needs adjusting or perhaps they’ve mistakenly read someone else’s tests results for mine. Whatever, I just don’t have time for this right now. I refuse to even write about it any more tonight.

Instead I want to write about one of my favorite subjects, my family, my children, Phil and Molly, and my husband, Karl. Phil’s wife should be having their baby very soon. He’s a good husband and a wonderful son. I know he’ll make a terrific father. He’s gentle and strong, just like his dad. How can he help but be a fabulous father?

When Phil was little, he wanted to do everything that he heard about. He wanted to be a rock climber, a pizza maker, you name it, he wanted to do it. Once, when he was five, he even told me he wanted to be pregnant. This was after we returned from a visit with my then eight-months pregnant, sister. “I want to be ‘pegnet,’ mommy. I want my belly to be big and fat, like Auntie Lou’s.” That was the day that Karl and I had our first “facts of life” talk, with Phil.

He was a good kid, and he’s turned out to be a good adult. I’m proud of my son.

Then there’s Molly. I remember when she was sixteen and felt she hated me. Sometimes I even wondered if I hated her.

“You only had me so you’d have someone to rule,” she told me more than once.

One Saturday night she stayed out until five in the morning. Karl and I were frantic with worry. We even called the police.

When she finally got home, I didn’t know what to do first, hug her tight or slap her like nobody had ever been slapped before. I didn’t slap her, but it took everything I had not to. We grounded her for six weeks. One week for every hour past her curfew.

A week later, when she started to speak to me again, she said that when she had a sixteen-year-old daughter she would allow her to stay out all night. When I disagreed with her, she said “I bet you five hundred dollars that I will.” I told her that I bet her five hundred dollars that she wouldn’t. We ended up putting that bet down in writing and we each signed it.

She’s only twenty-three right now, but I know someday we’ll get a great laugh out of it when her daughter is sixteen and I show her our bet. I still have it, I keep it in my jewelry box.

Somehow, the family lived through Molly’s teenage years. We found each other again when she turned nineteen. She graduated high school with honors. She got her undergrad in Criminal Justice and next year she’ll start her first year of law school. She calls me every day just to say “Hi.” I am so very proud of her and I love her so much. So much in fact that sometimes I feel I will burst.

I have so many memories of my children. I can’t wait to share those memories with my grandchildren someday. That’s why I know that the doctors are wrong. I can’t die yet, I’m not finished living.

Then there’s Karl, my rock. I have spent over half of my life, loving this gentle man. He’s still the best looking guy I know. Even though we’ve been married for twenty-nine years, there are still times I find myself looking at him and thinking, wow! I can’t believe we’re dating. I remember when he asked me to marry him. We were sitting in our favorite chili place, when he simply asked, “Julie, don’t you think we should get married?” That’s the way Karl is, just a simple guy with a big heart. I hope he knows how much I love him.

The kids are gone now and it’s just Karl and me. We talk about traveling. We’ve always wanted to go on a trip to another country. About ten years ago we started our “trip to another country” savings, that’s what we call it. We figure that in about three more years we should have enough saved to pick a country and go. I can hardly wait.

“Take what you want, Molly, and we can donate the rest,” he told her.

She didn’t find the book right away. First she sorted through her mother’s dresses. She had always loved the way her mother dressed. She had a classy style that was all her own. When she came to her mother’s jewelry box, she tenderly opened the first drawer and took out her mother’s watch. Actually, the watch had belonged to her Grandmother. Molly loved the old time elegance of the watch. As she put it around her slender wrist, she remembered the many times her mother had allowed her to try it on when she was just a little girl.

Molly went through the drawers one at a time. Each held a memory of her mother. When she opened the bottom drawer, she saw a small folded piece of paper. Something about the paper seemed to stir a memory, but she couldn’t quite place it. She took the paper out and unfolded it. She looked down at the words on the paper and immediately she remembered. She could hardly see it, because of the tears that began to cloud her eyes. But she didn’t need to see the words to know what was written on the paper. “I, Molly Tanner, bet my mother, Julie Tanner, five hundred dollars, that I will allow my sixteen-year-old daughter to stay out all night if she wants to.” Under that was written, “I, Julie Tanner, bet my daughter, Molly Tanner, five hundred dollars, that she will not allow her sixteen-year-old daughter to stay out all night if she wants to.” At the bottom of the paper, Molly knew she would find her and her mother’s signatures.

Molly held the paper in both hands against her chest and as she cried, she rocked back and forth. The pain of missing her mother washed over her.

A few hours later, Molly began to go though her mother’s things again. That’s when she found the journals, a stack of different colors and sizes. Molly knew her mother kept journals, but she had never read them. Even now, after her mother had been dead for eight months, Molly didn’t feel comfortable even holding them. A blue one sat on top. It looked newer than the rest. Molly held the book in her left hand and took the front cover between the index finger and thumb of her right hand. She opened the book gently, almost as if it were made of tissue paper.

As she read her mother’s words of denial, Molly remembered back to her own denial of her mother’s illness. She, too, kept waiting for the doctors to realize their mistake. She once asked her dad, “Have you and Mom decided what country you’re going to travel to yet?” He looked at her with a deep sadness, kissed her forehead and said, “No, baby girl, we haven’t.” As she watched him walk away, she noticed that he looked shorter.

As I lay here dying I find myself thinking about that woman I heard about, a few years back. She talked about death and dying, and the stages that a person is supposed to go through. I don’t remember them all right now, but they were something about denial, acceptance, anger, yada, yada, yada.

Well, let me tell you, denial lasted for about ten minutes. And acceptance . . . Well hell, what’s not to accept. I accept the fact that I am dying and there is not one damn thing I can do about it. I don’t even remember what yada, yada, yada, was. But as I write this, I can sure as hell tell you about the “anger” part of dying. Hell, yes! I’m angry and I’m not sure, but was jealousy one of the yada’s? Well let me tell you I’m jealous damn it, damn jealous.

I’m jealous that everyone I know can jump in their cars and go where they want. “Go where they want!” Hell, I can’t even jump out of bed and go to the bathroom. Getting out of bed means maneuvering the bags that hang from both sides of me. These bags are attached to tubes and these tubes go into my back and then into my kidneys. Around my neck hangs a bag of morphine and it’s also attached to a tube and that tube goes into my chest where a catheter has been placed into a vein. Once I get to the bathroom, who knows what will happen. When I’m not constipated, I have diarrhea.

My husband is growing old before my eyes, as he waits for me to die. Come to think of it, so are my children.

I was in a Hospice program for about six months, both at home and then as an inpatient. That was about a year and a half ago. They kicked me out. Can you believe that?! Did they say, “Congratulations, Mrs. Tanner, you’re going to live!”

Oh no, that wasn’t quite the send-off I got. Mine was more along the line of “We’re sorry, Mrs. Tanner, but you see, you’re not dying fast enough, and we are going to have to ask you to leave the program.”

I had become an inpatient at Hospice because I was no longer able to take care of myself at home and my family could not do all the necessary things that I required. Hospice nurses showed the family what needed to be done and how to do it. But the nurses couldn’t be there twenty-four hours a day. Home health aides came twice a week for an hour or two to help me with my bath, but they also couldn’t be there twenty-four hours a day. As my illness progressed, I needed twenty-four hour-a-day care.

“Leave the program? What do you mean leave the program?” I asked. “Where will I go? When do I have to leave?” I could hardly believe that I was being asked to leave.

“Now, now, Mrs. Tanner, try to stay calm and let us help you understand. You see, Mrs. Tanner, to qualify for Hospice you need to have six months or less to live. After six months your doctor needs to requalify you. At this time Dr. Hickson does not feel that she can honestly state that you have six months or less to live. As for the matter of where you will go, we, of course, will assist you in anyway we can in finding you a skilled care facility placement. And as for when you need to leave our program and this facility? We don’t want you to feel rushed, we can try and stretch it and allow you to stay until the end of next week.”

Before I went into the hospice program I felt as if I had been rejected by the living and that no one truly understood the loneliness I felt. When I became a hospice patient, I was greeted with, what I felt to be, genuine warmth and acceptance. I was comfortable that my care would no longer be a burden on my family. Then, wham, I was being asked to leave. Was I now being rejected by the dying?

I apologized to the nice lady that I wasn’t dying fast enough and promised that I wouldn’t darken their door any longer than I had to.

That’s how I ended up in Westside Hill Nursing Home. It’s a good nursing home, but it is a nursing home, damn it! I’m only fifty-six years old and I’m in a nursing home, dying.

She hated it whenever anyone asked her how her mother was doing. Her usual answer was always, “She about the same, thanks for asking.” However, what she really wanted to answer was “She’s dying, and how is your mother doing?”

There were times when Molly felt ashamed of her anger, because sometimes she was angry at her mother. Sometimes she even blamed her mother. Why didn’t she take better care of herself? Why didn’t she go to the doctor sooner? She prayed for forgiveness and for release from that anger. But sometimes praying didn’t come easy because there were many times that she was angry at God. Why was He letting this happen?

One day her brother, Phil, tried to give one of his big brother, “hang in there” lectures. “God,” he told Molly, “never gives us more than we can bear.”

She regretted it later, but at that moment all of the anger that had welled up inside her came out. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Am I supposed to thank God for this experience? Oh, thank you dear Lord for not giving me more than I can bear. Gee, thanks, Phil for making me realize that it could be worse, it’s only our mother who’s dying. Well, Phil maybe I am weak, because guess what, the fact that our mother is dying is more, much, much, more than I can bear.”

Phil never said a word to Molly during her outburst. He stood still and waited for the storm to pass. When she finished Molly also stood silent. Long minutes passed as brother and sister stood silently staring at each other. Phil was the first to break the silence. He walked the short distance between them and put his arms around her.

“Thanks, Molly, for putting into words exactly what I’ve been feeling. I don’t know if God gave us this to bear, but I do know that he gave us each other so we don’t have to bear it alone.” Molly and Phil continued to hold on to each other as their tears flowed. Molly thanked God for her brother.

I’ve been talking to God a lot lately. I hope he’s listening. I’ve not always made the right choices in life, but I know I can do better. I just need the opportunity to show God that I can do better. Dear God, please hear me. I promise to do your work if I’m allowed to live. I’ll spread your name to whomever will listen. I know I have more to give Lord, but I can’t continue to give if I’m not allowed to live.

You know I don’t think that I’ve been approaching this thing the right way. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. God’s testing me, He wants me to prove how strong my faith is. I’m glad He’s given me the opportunity to show Him how strong my faith really is.

Phil’s son, Al, was born on June 10, 1994. He’s only a year and a half. He’ll never remember me if I die now. And what about my Molly, she hasn’t even had a child yet. If I can’t grow old and die, then I just want to live long enough to meet my grandchildren and to have them remember me.

What about Karl. He’s a good man, a strong man, but he needs me. Without each other we are just halves of a whole. It wouldn’t be fair to him to have to be here without me.

If only I could make the Lord listen! I’m not trying to deny the fact that I’m dying nor am I angry. I just want to be a better person Lord. Please give me the time I need to do it all right this time.

Molly thought back to her pleas and bargains with God during her mother’s illness, she loved her mom so much. “Please Lord, she would plead, don’t take her yet.” Molly thought back to her teenage years and recalled that she was not the easiest teenager in the world to deal with. There were times when she put her mom through hell, but her mom never gave up on Molly even though there must have been times when her mom wanted to. To Molly, her mother was the strongest woman on earth. Too strong to die.

After the storm of her teenage years, Molly and her mom had gotten closer than Molly had ever thought possible. Couldn’t God see how unfair it would be if He took her now? Molly still needed more time to make up for those teenage years.

Molly’s nighttime prayer was always the same “I still need my mom Lord, please you can’t take her now. I still have so much to learn from her. She and my dad have been together forever. I still need to learn how to find that kind of a relationship.”

Molly remembered the story that her mom had once told her about how on her wedding day Molly’s grandmother shooed the maids-of-honor and the flower girl out of the room so she and the bride could have a few minutes to themselves before the ceremony. After the room was empty, the story went, her grandmother picked up the bridal veil and placed it on her mother’s head. As she gently arranged the layers of material around her shoulders she said “Julie, on the day you were born I pictured myself, someday placing your wedding veil on your head and telling you how much I love you. I do love you, Julie, and I thank God for you and this day.”

Molly didn’t know if she would ever get married, but if she did, she always fantasized that her mother would someday place her veil on her head. Couldn’t God see how unfair it would be to take that fantasy from her?

“God, when I do have my own children . . . who will I have to tell me the difference between an “I’m hungry” cry and an “I’m wet” cry? Please Lord,” she often prayed, “I promise I’ll find someone soon and get married and have a baby. Please, I need for my mom to be there.”

Today the kids and Karl surprised me with a small anniversary dinner. We’ve been married thirty years today. I know they were disappointed that I didn’t seem to have any fun. I really tried but I can’t help it. I don’t care that I’ve been married thirty years. I’m tired. I’m tired of being sick, I’m tired of living and but most of all I’m so tired of dying.

I tried to act pleased when Phil and Molly gave me that pink silk robe. I told Karl that I just loved his gift of my favorite cologne, but in reality I just wanted them to leave so I could get back into my bed and . . . die. That’s the only thing that I can still do really well.

It’s not that I don’t love them. Lord knows I do. What’s the use in celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, or whatever special day. They are all just days, and they all just blend in together after awhile. Don’t they realize that we celebrated more than mine and Karl’s thirtieth anniversary? We celebrated our last anniversary.

Oh well, at least it’s over, and they’ve all gone. I just want to lay here and be alone and wait.

It wasn’t that Molly didn’t want to shop for her mother’s gift. It was just that at the time, the idea of getting into a car and going to a store was more than Molly felt she could physically handle. She always seemed to be tired. She often wondered if perhaps she too was coming down with cancer. She never felt good, she could barely make it through the day without a nap.

Her doctor suggested vitamins. Her dad suggested a counselor. Molly did start to take the vitamins, but seeing a counselor, she felt, would take too much energy. What’s the use of seeing a counselor anyway, she thought? I’ll be expected to work through this and maybe I might even start to feel better. Then my dad will probably die or my brother or someone else I love, or me. Why, she wondered, are we even born if we just have to die? What good is life?

Molly remembered that during several months of her mother’s illness, her own life consisted of visiting her mom, going to work and school, naps and tears. The work and school part of her life, however, took a backseat to the visits with mom and the naps and tears. She remembered that period as the bleakest, loneliest period of her whole life. Her first thought every morning was of death, and so was her last thought every night. The death of her family.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about . . . afterwards. About Karl and the kids. I wish I could leave them something, that will help them to move on.

Last night, on his way home, Karl stopped by the nursing home for our nightly visit. He never misses a night. He can’t always stay long because of the long drive home. He gets up so early in the morning for work. I’ve told him he doesn’t have to come every night, but he always says, in his very simple Karl voice, “Yes, Julie, I do.”

Last night’s visit, however, was different. Karl, my man of few words, talked like . . . well like I had not heard him talk in a long time. He sat on the side of my bed and he picked up my hands, he kissed each of my finger tips and told me that he loves me, “ always has and always will.” I told him that I have always loved him too and I didn’t want to leave him, but I knew the time was coming.

With the tubes coming in and out of me it took a little maneuvering, but he laid down beside me and gathered me in his arms and said, “Julie you been fighting so hard for so long. I don’t want you to have to fight anymore. If you need to go I’ll understand. You go and save a place for me, for when it’s my turn.”

As Karl continued to cradle me, I felt as if a great peace had entered the room and engulfed both Karl and myself. I know that Phil will be okay. I know he’ll miss me and he’ll hurt, but he’s got his family. Karen and Al will be a great source of strength for him. About two weeks ago, we had a wonderful talk. He said he knew I didn’t want to leave, but he knew I had to. He said he wanted me to know it was okay if I couldn’t stay. He told me he was lucky to have had me as his mom.

I told him how proud I have always been of him and how much I love Karen and Al. I told him how lucky Al was to have him as his dad.

I asked him to please watch over his father and his sister after I’m gone. He said they would all watch over each other, and he knew I would be watching over them all.

Molly came by tonight. She’s been looking better lately. Awhile back I was concerned about her. She seemed so tired, almost as if putting one foot in front of the other was too much of an effort. For the last month, however, she seems to be looking more rested. A few days ago she even told me a joke she had heard. I’ve never been good at remembering jokes, but I remember it was funny. We both had a good laugh. It felt so good to laugh with Molly again.

During tonight’s visit, however, we didn’t do too much laughing, we talked. We talked like we hadn’t talked in a long time. She told me she was sorry about the bad years. She even thanked me for not giving up on her.

“Mom, I’ve always known that even when we would argue I could still ask you any question I wanted and you would do your best to answer me honestly and sincerely. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how important that was to me.”

“No Molly, you never did but I knew. You have something you want to ask me now, don’t you Molly?”

“Yes . . . Yes I do Mom. I want to know what’s it’s like to know you’re dying.”

Somehow, inside I knew this was the question she was going to ask. I had known for a long time that she was going to ask this question someday. I just didn’t know when. For several minutes there was silence in the room. This was possibly the hardest question my daughter had ever asked me.

Once again maneuvering my tubes and bags to one side. I patted the small empty space beside me, and Molly climbed in bed next to me. As we laid there, with her back to me and my arms wrapped around her slender shoulders I flashed back to the times when she was a little girl and she would crawl in bed with her father and me on Sunday mornings.

“It’s been like a ride on a roller coaster. Ups and downs and sometimes some really dark tunnels. But I haven’t been alone on this ride, Molly, you’ve all been on the same ride with me. Even when we didn’t know it.

I didn’t believe the doctors at first and then I became really angry. There were times when I was sure I could mediate my death with God and possibly we could work out a deal and He would let me have more time. Not long ago I was so depressed that I didn’t care one way or the other. That tunnel was a really dark one and lonely. I’m glad to be out of it.”

Molly and I continued to lay there quietly for several minutes. Finally she softly asked, “Where are you at on the ride now, Mom?”

“I don’t think I’m up nor down and I don’t think there are any more tunnels. Every ride comes to an end Molly, and I am coming to the end of my ride, that’s where I feel I’m at now. I hope it’s okay with all of you, if I have to leave the ride soon?”

“It’s okay, Mom. Whenever you have to leave, I’ll understand and I promise I’ll be okay,” she said.

I stroked her hair as we continued to lay silently, I closed my eyes and thanked God for this moment; I knew we were saying good-bye.

During the visits that followed, Molly and her mom not only talked about her mom’s approaching death, but also about the past and the future. They shared so much over the next two weeks. She even told her mom about her fantasy of the wedding veil and her concern over the baby cries.

When she arrived for her visit, on the afternoon before her mother’s death, she found her mother sitting, propped up in bed. She also noticed that her mom looked very pale and tired and her breathing seemed somewhat labored.

“Mom can I get you something? Should I call the nurse?”

“No Molly, I’m just a little tired today,” her mom answered. “What I really want is for you to go to the closet and bring me the box you’ll find there.”

Molly did as her mother asked. She returned to her mother’s bedside with a rectangled faded gold box.

“Sit in this chair next to me Molly and help me take the top off this box.”

Again Molly did as her mother asked. Once the box was opened, her mother started to slowly peel back layers of white tissue paper until at last she removed from the box a wedding veil. Molly recognized it, from old photographs, as her mom’s wedding veil. The photos, however, did not capture the true beauty and elegance of the veil’s small pearl headpiece.

“Mom it’s beautiful. I’ve never seen it, except in your wedding pictures. But . . . but I don’t understand what this is about.” “It’s about fantasies, Molly. Come closer.”

Molly moved in as close as possible to her mom. Her mother then placed the veil on top of Molly’s head. As she gently arranged the material around Molly’s shoulders both women had tears slowly and softly flowing from their eyes.

Molly knew she would never forget her mother’s words, nor would she ever forget the love that she felt flowing into her from her mom at that moment.

“Molly, about the baby cries, you’ll know the difference, I promise.” Then softly pressing Molly’s hand to her lips she said, “I love you Molly and I thank God for you and for this day.”

Early the next morning her mom died quietly in her sleep.

Copyright 1997 B. L. Rose