The good, the bad and the ugly

Gen. Erastus B. Wolcott, in Lake Park

Well, I tried to load a video of the annual Jan. 1 old-folk's pingpong tournament. Maybe the file was too big. I am such a dunce.

I visited Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and today, Sunday. Ez and Julie have made additional visits. Her calls have continued, and it was, to be sure, a slow period at the place.

When I came yesterday I said, "I'm just gonna stay an hour, Mom."

"How come you'll only stay an hour?"

It was, though, not a bad hour. For lack of better entertainment, I found her bundle of old letters -- letters she'd written -- and read a few to her. Some are more than 60 years old, from her days at college, and they are long, searching, and evocative. She talks about Nels -- how he said he was not particularly social, didn't really seek out people to talk to, and this gave her pause, made her doubt whether he was the right guy. "I absolutely love people," she said.

There's another letter -- maybe the same one? -- where she talks about her goals for college. She chose a major she thought she could do -- music -- not because it was of any utility, which she saw, in herself, as a failing, that a major should be somehow more useful. And, in college, she was clearly "looking to meet a man" and start a family, and he would, obviously, support her, since she felt, not just that she didn't have skills, but that's how she wanted it.

This was probably pretty typical then. And that was true for some women even when I was at college, 25 years later.

Anyway, she got her wish. And here we still are, living out the longterm consequences. I'm still "my son Jon."

I'm impressed with the energy she poured into mothering. There was a day in the mid-1960s when she dolled up her daughters and went with her friend Elsie, six or seven kids between them, to watch President Lyndon Johnson arrive in a helicopter at UM to give a commencement address. She was just sure he was going to come over and kiss one of her girls.  Of course he just waved from a distance and went inside, and yet she didn't seem disappointed. Dressing them up, taking her "lambs" on a little outing -- sufficient pay-off.

*

We went to chapel, then lunch in the Bistro with Jack, Anne and Bev. We have started to gather our own little group of acolytes. Then back up, where Mom wanted to lie down. I read some more letters, and said I would be leaving.

She tried to sit up, her eyes wild.  "I don't like it, Jon. What will I do? What's going to happen? I won't know how to get home here tonight." She said we had to have a plan.

"I'll be back in a couple of days, Mom."

"Jon, a couple of hours is about all I can take."

I said goodbye and left, then lingered outside the door, worried that she'd try to get up. When it was quiet, I peeked back in, and there she was, propped up in bed, her crazy bug-eyes peering straight at me. I went back in, pulled her out of bed, put her in her chair. "I really don't like this mom, when you beg and plead and cry when I say I'm going to leave." She mewed not quite apologetically. I took her to the dining room, where some of her friends were sitting. I wheeled her to the table, put on the parking brakes, and left.



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