Caring for Mom

 I am caring for Mom at home following a hospitalization.  Here's our selfie along with a note she wrote on August 2, a few days before going to the hospital. 

 

 

Her helper Alma often reads aloud to Mom from the stories that she wrote.  You can see by her expression that it really takes her back to fond memories.

 

We never know how much time we have left.  She came home from the hospital on August 5, 2020, and I am staying with her 24/7 for a few days until she can stay alone (or not).  In the morning when she woke up, she told me about a dream.  She said (with a big smile),   

            "I just had a dream, and it was so real.  In my dream I knew I was going to Heaven today.  But I woke up, and you're here.  So I guess I am having another day!"   

I love my Mommy.    

 

 

 

 

           

New Potatoes

Delicious new potatoes and beans in cream sauce.  One of my Dad's favorites.

Another Gorgeous Sunrise

Weeding and Cultivating

It is weeding season, and Louie likes to keep his gardens looking perfect.  Here he is weeding on the way down to the farm.

And here is cultivating for one of the last times before the plants get too big. 

Lunch in the Orchard With Eileen

Eileen came to Racine and we took a walk down to the lake (with masks of course, because we are still in the Pandemic).  Then we had lunch in the orchard (socially distanced).  We split a bottle of wine and talked all afternoon.

A few weeks later we did it again.  It was so fun to see her, and have some company IN PERSON! 

Jolie's Visit

Jolie came for a very brief visit and we spent some time with Grandma.  She was in her glory, of course! 

Masks down for pictures.

Jessie and Paul

This is such a great picture of Jessie and Paul! 

Hank's Birthday

Shelly brought ice cream cake for Hank's birthday, and we had it outside at the picnic table.  He is always so thrilled to see his kids and grandkids.

My 2020 in 20

Osher is the lifelong learning program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the members were given the assignment of writing in 20 words what changes the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic has created for us.  The year 2020 in 20 words.  Here's mine.

Fourth of July

During the Pandemic we were very careful to only be with members of our immediate households.  So no Easter dinner, and no birthday parties.  But when Fourth of July came and we were able to be outside, socially distanced, with masks and lots of hand sanitizer, we had a cookout and fireworks in the yard.

  
The kids had sparklers and poppers, but the adults had bigger ones.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but Louie and Hank would light one of the fireworks and then RUN back!

We were really all a bunch of young boys blowing stuff up!

There were an unusual number of fireworks displays going on all around us in the neighborhoods (probably because there wasn't a city-wide display).

The moon was full, but my camera couldn't figure out what to focus on.  Still very pretty.

Brick Garden Edging

I am using our old antique paving bricks we got years ago when they redid Barker Street (Louie) and College Avenue (me).  They each weigh 8-10 pounds apiece, and the sod has to be removed, so it's a lot of work.  But Louie will be able to mow the grass cleanly without running a trimmer afterward, and I love the tidy look.

Helping Mom

Many times over the years Mom told a story of coming home from college for Christmas, and her mom asking her to help wrap presents.  So she gave her the gifts, with notes about who they were for, and the wrapping paper and supplies.  One of the gifts was for Mom, so she had to wrap her own present with instructions NOT TO PEEK!  

Today I helped Mom (now 92 and almost blind) prepare some birthday cards for all her July friends and ME!  So I had to help with my own card.  History repeated itself, and she enjoyed reminiscing about that other day 70-some years ago.

(Shirley's is already in the mail.)

Mom is still living at home alone, but she's needing some help from me.  Recently she confided that her breakfast was too putzy to make, and she was forgetting parts of it, so I started setting it out the night before, and that helps.  It reminds me of those desperate days when I had very young children and not enough sleep, so I set out their cereal for them the night before. 

My Flower Bed

I have not been able to get a Coreopsis to grow here in the 4-5 years I have had this garden bed, so this year I am trying a Blanket Flower to get a yellow, medium-height plant right here.  Hope it survives!

And in this one you can see how my Ajuga (Bugle Weed ground cover that Sandi recommended) really took off.

The house looks so good when the front flower bed is at its peak!

And the hydrangeas on the north side came so late this year.

I often see a little yellow finch at the bird bath, but today it was a robin.  Wish I could filter out the window screen.

Mom's Haircut

During the Coronavirus Pandemic, we couldn't go to our salon for a haircut, so I started cutting Mom's hair at home.  It wasn't too difficult, and it usually turned out okay.  Here we are with our "cape" (dish towels) and our masks.  She actually enjoyed it.

Eileen and Me

Eileen and I went for a walk Friday, after 3 months of staying "Safer at Home" during the Coronavirus Pandemic.  It was so wonderful to see her.  Courtenay came for the walk too.  We wore our masks and were properly socially distanced.  Then Eileen and I talked for 4 hours.  It was wonderful! 

Louie Planting Squash

Louie marked off an area of the field and then planted squash and pumpkins. Here's the clean field, worked up ("fluffed up") and ready to go. 

 
I took this video to show how hard he works, how much of the work is done by hand, and what a huge area he planted! In the video you can see he's wearing gloves, because that day he planted so many the skin was coming off his fingers, just like sand paper.

Bouquets

I love my flowers.  Today the lily of the valley are in bloom.  Tomorrow it will be lilacs, and the next day there will be millions of iris.  They all make such pretty bouquets.  And they smell so good!

Here are the gorgeous (and gorgeous-smelling) lilacs, some lavender, and some white.

More fantastic scents from the iris.  The bleeding hearts come at the same time.

I still pick the wild wood violets and put them in this little green vase just like I did when I was a little girl, and just like when my little girls brought them to me.

Peonies (heavenly!)

Much later in the summer we have sunflowers!

And of course my bouquets of roses from Louie.

Here are the roses brought by Alma when Mom passed away.

Some of the flowers don't lend themselves to bouquets, but stay in the garden.

More Deer

This girly wasn't afraid at all.  She looked at me and went on grazing as I got closer and closer.

Hawk Attack

Our new hatch of baby chicks are living in the green house for warmth with their two Mommas (yes, the biological Mom and her wannabe helper-Mom). The babies have apparently already learned the universal word from the roosters which translates to "QUICK! HIDE!" Yesterday a hawk came for an easy breakfast, and it all worked like clockwork: The rooster yelled the special warning-squawk, the Mom fought with the hawk, the babies all obeyed their Dad and hid, and Louie just happened to be close enough to break up the fight and chase away the hawk! (A little farm-drama.). Apparently chickens have the ability of language.  Here they are with both moms.

Story About My Grandparents' Resilience

This was Facebook post during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic:

"Many have lost their appreciation for how good we have it.  They have become selfish, egotistical, and ungrateful.  People of today could learn a lot from the greatest generation... if only they could, or would, listen.  For those people born between roughly 1901 to 1924, Tom Brokaw coined the term the Greatest Generation.  I truly feel sorry for people who have never had the opportunity (and probably never will) to interact with them.

There was the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, World War I, and the Great Depression.  They came of age when the unemployment rate was around 30%.  That continued for about 10 years.  Then, just as the economy was turning around, Pearl Harbor was attacked.  Food, gas... everything, was rationed or was just not available.  Millions of men went off to war; tens of thousands of them died.  The war time was as bad as the Depression.  After World War II, the economy improved, but then they went through the cold war, the polio epidemic, the social unrest of the 1960's and the gas lines and economic upheaval of the 1970's.  

Through all of that hardship, they not only won a world war, they practically rebuilt Europe and Japan, they cured polio, they put a man on the moon, and managed to pass the Civil Rights Act.  They did all of that (and a lot more) without endless lawsuits, without endless bitching about how "it's not fair," or "what about me," or "it's my right."  They faced the challenges with grace, dignity, and hard work.  They overcame and adapted.  They said to themselves, "Let's tackle this problem," and then they moved on to the next one.  They only asked for government help when it was truly needed, and they were willing to compromise.  Democrats and Republicans lived next door to each other and actually got along.  They just went out and did whatever it was that needed to be done.  

Were they perfect?  No, they weren't, and they'd be the first ones to tell you that.  However, if this lockdown happened to them, I bet they would handle it a hell of a lot better than we currently are.  Their attitude would have been, "If this is what we need to do to end the pandemic, then that's what we'll do."  Unlike today, they would not think they were actually smarter than the scientists who are studying the disease. 

The problem is, times have been too good for too long.  People of today have never lived through really tough times.  Our rough patches have been short and tame in comparison to those of the greatest generation... and they thrived.  We have lost their appreciation for how good we have it.  We have become selfish, egotistical, and ungrateful.  We have no idea how to handle real adversity.  People of today could learn a lot from the greatest generation... if only they could, or would, listen."

The above Facebook post prompted me to write this memory.  My grandparents were born between 1890 and 1898, so they almost fit into the time frame Tom Brokaw wrote about, and they certainly lived through all those events. 

My mom often described how her parents always encouraged an attitude of "roll with the punches, figure out what needs to be done and do it, hard work, and problem solving." Their attitude of self-reliance and confidence helped their children to not be afraid during tough times. 

My grandpa was drafted in WWII, and left for the west coast. My grandma stayed in Des Moines with two little girls, sold the car, house, and furniture, and brought the kids by train out to Oregon to set up housekeeping there, largely alone. This was all during a time when 1.) women didn't do that! 2.) food and gas were being rationed, and 3.) they were just coming out of the Depression. 

But both my mom and her sister remember it as a huge adventure! They trusted their parents to solve each problem as it arose, and they did. They learned to dig clams on the beach to supplement the meat rationing. They bought used clothing and sheets, remodeled them and dyed them black to comply with the nighttime blackout curtain rules of wartime. There were many more stories of teaching my mother by example what it means to live your life from a problem-solving outlook, and not letting the external circumstances affect your own personal attitude and happiness.  

Here's a picture of my mother Evelyn, about age 6, with her sister Geraldine, about age 4, with their mother, my grandmother, Doris Giebrich Kast.

This picture is five or six years earlier than the story above, but it's the closest one I could find.  As in many families, there aren't very many pictures of the mother, because they are always the one taking the picture!

My dad's parents struggled through the Great Depression as share-cropper farmers on rented farms in South Dakota. My grandpa came from Denmark at age 14 and made his way on his own.  There was hunger, danger, death, and bankruptcy.  But the family survived, and all the kids grew up and made their own way in the world.  There are no pictures of my dad's childhood.  Extreme poverty does not allow for a camera.