I used to think that my life was too ordinary for fostering ideas for writing. But finally, I realized that the best story-telling is about human nature itself. That’s when I started looking for writing ideas everywhere and every day.
In this blog post, I share five ordinary life events that I turned into stories or posts.
The Pancake Contest
When I was five years old, I competed against my brother Don in a pancake contest. The contest happened at home at breakfast time. My mother made as many pancakes as we could eat. My brother lost the contest and I won by one pancake.
Fifty years later, I turned this ordinary childhood event into a funny story with descriptions of my brother groaning in pain and of me raising my arms in victory.
A Picture of a Road Bike
One day at 5 p.m., my son sent me a picture of the handlebars of his new trail bike. By 6 p.m., it was dark outside, and I started to wonder if he was biking out in the hills in darkness. Luckily, he wasn’t.
I wondered what it would be like if a bicyclist did get caught in the middle of the hills in the dark. I wrote a story about a girl who starts her bike ride at dusk and gets distracted when she finds a tarantula. She ends up in a valley at nightfall and has to find her way back to the deserted parking lot while the night wildlife threatens her safety.
Taking a Stuffed Bear to a Cemetery
A week after my mother died, my brother texted me and my siblings to tell me that he took a stuffed bear with him to visit her grave. The bear was created from clothes that my mother once wore.
I invented a story about this visit, which I titled Rain. The story describes a man driving a truck to the cemetery to see his mother as it rains. When he arrives, the rain stops. He thinks about how his siblings have connected via text messages since his mother died. He puts the bear next to her tombstone and says a prayer. As he drives away, the rain starts again.
A Hike in San Francisco
A few years ago, I joined a Meetup group that hosted walks all over San Francisco. One walk started at the Embarcadero and crossed the city from east to west for seven miles until we reached Land’s End. Another hike circled the exclusive neighborhoods of Twin Peaks and climbed up to the Sutro Tower, one of the highest points in the city.
When I was writing my novel Whistle, I used these hiking experiences in one chapter to help my protagonist escape the sorrow of her home after her mother dies. She walks along the ocean to Golden Gate Park.
Filbert Street Steps and Graffiti
When my friend came to town, I met her in San Francisco to climb the Filbert Street Steps. This staircase covers three ascending blocks from Sansome Street to Coit Tower and includes well over two hundred steps. On my way to the city in Oakland, I saw some graffiti on an overpass that said “Resist Authority.”
I turned the staircase and graffiti experiences into a short commentary about how I like to read graffiti so I can hear what the needs of people are. This post received a lot of attention on my blog. It seems like many people identified with it.
Now, I have a fertile writing attitude. My whole life is a garden of ideas, waiting for my creativity to take them from a personal experience into the world.
I sat down on the wooden bench in Sycamore Park and pulled Sadie’s leash toward me.
Sadie was an English Settler that I had rescued from the San Francisco Animal Rescue Foundation five years ago. The therapist said that she had been flown from Turkey where she lived on the street for several years. When I adopted her, she was only thirty pounds, so skinny that I could see her ribs.
Sadie turned away from the concrete path and sat down in the grass at my feet. She was always looking for a reason to sit down since she was getting old. After five years of good food and snacks, however, she had gained fifteen pounds and was in good shape for her age. Sadie arched her neck to look up at me, showing her crooked grin of contentment.
I sighed loudly, feeling my breath exiting through my teeth. It’s good I had a dog. Otherwise, I’d be completely alone.
Two years ago, I left my husband, Arsen, of five years. Really, I shouldn’t have married him. I was twenty-five and didn’t even know what my values were, much less his. I met him in Greece while I was living there for a year. He moved to San Francisco when we got married, but he brought his Greek values with him. We didn’t think about work the same way. He missed his family and forgot that I was his new family. What a mess we both made of it all. We were still waiting for the final divorce papers.
Since then, I’ve had two jobs. But now I’m unemployed. My boss said I did good work, but the company had to cut me anyway. I could hardly afford to pay my overpriced rent, much less have enough money for food. I thought my mom and dad would give me some money when they found out that I lost my job. But no. Seems like I was on my own.
I spent every day looking for a new job. Application after application. A few interviews and then . . . nothing. Even my friends were losing their jobs. Cali’s husband had just lost his job, and Cali was having a baby the next month. Whoa.
I looked down a Sadie who was now flat on her side with her legs sticking out. She looked comfortable.
My phone buzzed. It was Mom. I let it buzz on.
“Why does Mom keep calling me, Sadie? I don’t want to explain that I spend every single day trying to get a job.” Sadie tilted her head off the ground at the sound of my voice and looked into my eyes.
“She’ll tell me to budget better. I know that.” Sadie tipped her chin up and barked so slightly that it sounded like a cough. “Yeah, you agree with me. Good girl.”
I had met a lot of guys since I left Arsen. First, there was Colin, who was immature and acted like a clown. Then came Philip, a scientist, who soon moved to Boston for a new job. After Philip was Anders. He was smart, but oh-so-boring. And now I was dating Amir, who was born in San Diego, but whose parents immigrated to the United States from Iran.
My friends really liked Amir. They thought he was considerate and stable, something that Arsen never was. They invited him to all their parties and sought him out to talk to him. I was happy about that. They didn’t like Arsen that much.
But sometimes, Amir made me so angry. He was so jealous of Arsen, and never said anything good about him. Arsen always said nice things about Amir. I reached down and rubbed the side of Sadie’s belly. She groaned in appreciation.
“Does that mean that Amir isn’t a nice guy?” I asked Sadie, who closed her eyes as I continued to rub her belly.
I had once asked my mom if it was a mistake that I had left Arsen. She said, “No.” I told her that Arsen had always been excited about asking me about my life. Amir didn’t ask me those questions.
“That’s not what you said when you were married to him, Dani,” she said. “You complained that he wouldn’t eat dinner with you, and he didn’t want to hear about your job. Instead, he’d sit in front of the television until late at night, long after you went to bed.”
I just want life to be the way it was with Arsen when we had good times. I feel so alone.
The room was large, windowless, and sterile. Blinding florescent lights. Beige linoleum floors. Twelve green reclining chairs placed with their backs against the walls around the room. Each chair accompanied by a metal stand hung with bags of fluid and tubes.
The woman sitting in one of the chairs wore a scarf around her head. I looked for wisps of hair, but couldn’t see any. Her body filled up the chair like of sack of potatoes, lumps everywhere. She wasn’t smiling like the nurse who stood next to her, hooking up a tube to a port embedded in her upper chest.
A man whose body disappeared within his baggy shirt and trousers sat in a recliner in a corner. His scrawny hands hung over the chair’s arms like shriveled leaves caught on the edge of a forgotten lawn chair in the fall. His bald head shone in the florescent lights like a bare bulb. His face was gaunt, lined, and dry, and his eyes were closed. A young woman sat in a chair in front of him reading the Bible.
I watched the room’s activity with a lump in my throat as I stood behind my mother and brother by the door. A woman with a cane was led to another recliner in the room. The male nurse helped her sit into the chair, gently pushed her back, and lifted the foot rest. The nurse lifted a matching green blanket from a small chair nearby and laid it over the woman’s body, tucking the edges around her snugly. Then he efficiently began hanging the bags of chemicals on a metal stand and hooking up the bags with the tubes.
This was my mother’s chemotherapy room. Mom’s last chemotherapy session was scheduled for December 24, Christmas Eve. She had asked my brother Zach and me to accompany her to the appointment. My brother had flown home from college in Southern California for Christmas, and I was home from college too. The only thing my mother wanted for Christmas was to finish chemotherapy with her children around her.
A female nurse wearing an ugly, plain, blue smock and pants led my mother to a chair on the emptier side of the room. Zach helped Mom take off her coat and climb into the chair. She looked small, dressed in her pink cotton beanie, pink V-neck sweater, and jeans. How pale her pretty face was. Mom nodded when the nurse asked if she wanted a blanket, and Zach took it from the nurse and covered her gently like he was placing a precious jewel into a new setting.
This was not how I wanted to spend my Christmas. Wasn’t college supposed to be one of the happiest times of my life? I was too young to worry about my mother dying or even being too sick to visit me at school.
The nurse pulled two straight-back chairs close to my mother’s recliner, and invited us to sit down. I took the chair farther away and leaned back as if my mother was contagious. My brother pulled his chair closer to Mom and took hold of her left hand. When she smiled at him, her eyes watered like green pearls.
Before long, Mom was hooked up to the tubes that would feed chemicals into her body. I could tell that she was putting on a brave face because, underneath her smile, she looked tired and weak.
I didn’t want to think about her being that way. Instead, I wanted her to jump out of her chair, hug me tight around the waist, and ask me about college. I wanted to tell her about Jasmine’s new boyfriend, Sara’s job offers, and David’s article in the college newspaper.
Her smile withered away as the chemicals dripped into her veins. She gave up trying to hold a conversation with my brother, who was bent towards her in his chair, his chocolate eyes full of concern. She looked at me several times, but I retreated away from her with a grimace on my face. I didn’t want to be here.
Once in a while, Mom opened her eyes and looked up at the bag hanging beside her as if gaging how long she had to endure the procedure, but, for the most part, she kept her eyes closed, and we sat in front of her fidgeting in our chairs, biting our lips, and staring at each other with worried eyes.
Three hours later, the nurse in the blue smock and pants pulled the catheter out of my mother’s port, gathered up the tubes, and rolled away the metal stand with the empty bags.
A young woman with brunette hair and rosy cheeks pushed a wheel chair up to our station. She asked my brother to move his chair, then maneuvered the wheel chair as close to my mother’s chair as she could.
“I’ll help you,” she said kindly. She took ahold of my mother’s upper arm and guided her from the recliner into the wheel chair.
My mother let out a whimper as she moved. Zach helped her put on her coat as she sat in the wheel chair, wrapped her pink scarf around her neck, and gave her a wool cap to pull over her pink beanie. Still, she shivered when the nurse wheeled her outside to the car.
Zach drove us home, and the next day was Christmas.
In 1966 when I was nine, my family moved to England. My father was in the United States Air Force and he was stationed at Mildenhall Air Force Base in Suffolk County, about one hundred miles north of London. Queen Elizabeth II had already been queen of England for fourteen years.
My parents sent my siblings and me to an English Catholic school named St. Edmund’s in Bury St. Edmund’s. I started in Junior 2, and every day I had to dress in a blue uniform and tie a blue tie around the collar of my blouse.
By the time I entered Junior 3, I had developed some strong friendships with girls in my class. Elizabeth invited Ann and me to spend weekends at her historical English home in the countryside where we slept together in her late grandfather’s bed and heard the grandfather’s clock chime every fifteen minutes during the dark night.
Ann invited me to spend weekends at her house as well, where I learned the English custom of having tea each afternoon. We also walked for miles around the town of Bury St. Edmund’s exploring the 11th century, ancient ruins of the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral and the dark nave of St. Mary’s Church. We visited Moyses Hall and found ancient instruments of torture that had been used by former leaders of East Anglia. In Bury, I learned that history was a long story about the human race and its complicated nature. I learned about selfishness, arrogance, faith, power, tactics, and greatness.
In class, beside studying math and English, we memorized famous English poems and old songs that had enriched the English culture for years. In fact, the first tune that I ever played on the recorder was “Greensleeves,” an old English ballad first recorded in 1580 by Richard Jones. This unforgettable tune was mentioned in Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Winsor, and also serves as a favorite Christmas hymn in England “What Child is This?” that I sang in church. Thinking about how I was exposed to ancient English ballads and Shakespeare at such a young age, it’s no wonder that I later became a college English professor who specialized in the Early Modern Literature of writers such as Shakespeare.
Since I attended English school during my elementary school years, I never learned American history until I went to college. Instead, I developed a deep interest in English history, all the way from the Anglos and Saxons who brought rudimentary English to the island, to William the Conqueror who established French as the language of English politics, to Henry VIII with his six wives, to Elizabeth I with her fierce independence which I admired, to Elizabeth II who I saw on television night after night shaking hands, breaking bottles on the hulls of ships, and opening parliament, dressed in regalia. I grew to know even more about her than John F. Kennedy who had been assassinated when I was in first grade.
Perhaps I was so attracted to Elizabeth II because she reminded me of my own mother, who was also calm and dignified. They both wore a fluffy, curled hairstyle, red lipstick, and pastel clothing. My mother liked to wear rings and she loved flowers and hats. If Queen Elizabeth needed a double, you could adorn my mother in her royal robes and priceless jewelry and put a scepter in her hand and no one would know the difference.
But their real similarity was their endurance and generosity. I watched my mother give love to my father for over fifty years as a consistent and reliable spouse. I watched her endure the deaths of her friends and her sister with tenderness and strength. I admired the way she loved all of her ten children regardless of their talents, mistakes, and weaknesses. She lived until she was 92 years old, and the last year of her life, she called each of her children once a week and told them that she loved them. I couldn’t believe she could die.
I never believed Elizabeth would die either. I had felt her in my life like a steady light for so long. My parents loved her, and I loved her.
I don’t have any qualms about loving a monarch that represented a country once involved in colonialism. Elizabeth didn’t represent her country’s history. She represented its last 70 years, a time when Canada achieved full independence of Britain, a time when I grew up from an innocent, little girl to an independent woman who now possesses some of the characteristics of my mother. She ruled with grace at all times, during sadness, amidst anguish, and throughout the joyful times.
But most of all, Elizabeth represented a woman who accepted her role of service to her country. She served England with love and generosity; if everyone could lead with the commitment and humility that she demonstrated, our world would be a happier land.
Today, I’m English again, eagerly basking in her influence.
My relationship with food started with a tummy ache.
When I was born, my parents soon learned I was allergic to cow’s milk. My mother had grown up on a farm in Wisconsin where her father milked his cows to provide milk on the table. My father loved cow’s milk so much that he scooped the cream off the top of pasteurized milk with a spoon and put it in his mouth, right over the bottle. So my allergy to milk was unusual for them. To solve the problem, they bought a goat, milked it, and put the goat’s milk into my bottle.
Our family was large—two parents and ten children to feed. This meant that the preparation of food required a major effort, not just by my mother but the whole family. Since my father grew up on a farm, our first home was a rented farmhouse on top of a barn on a two-acre property in Fair Oaks, California. My dad’s day job was in the military, but before he went to work and after he got home, he milked the goat and cow, fed the chickens and ducks, collected their eggs, gave lettuce to the rabbits, sheered the sheep, picked fruit from the fruit trees, and planted, weeded, and harvested the vegetable garden.
When I was three, my parents bought a house right down the street on a half-acre lot, and it was the most prolific half-acre I’ve ever known. We didn’t keep a cow there, but we still had sheep, ducks, chickens, fruit trees, and a year-round vegetable garden. Radishes, carrots, lettuce, and green onions in the spring. Zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers in the summer. Pumpkins and acorn squash in autumn, and potatoes in the winter. I remember running bare-foot under the plum trees over fallen, ripe plums that were magnets for the honey bees. Before I went to Kindergarten, I had been stung dozens and dozens of times each summer.
We weren’t legally allowed to work when we were kids, except as harvesters in my father’s garden. Under the blazing summer sun, I stooped between the rows of tomato plants and picked tomatoes until my arms itched with rashes. When I complained, I was switched over to the rows of green beans where the purple dragon flies terrified me as they flitted among the bean plants’ twirling tendrils. I hated the hot sun, the rashes, the dragon flies, and the repetition of picking.
One day at the dinner table, I came up with the incredible idea that I didn’t like green beans, and, if I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t have to pick them anymore. With this inventive scheme in mind, I looked down at the green beans on my plate and said out loud, “I don’t like green beans.” As fast as lightening, my brother stuck his fork in my green beans and lifted them over to his plate. All I had left were fish sticks and mashed potatoes, and the serving dishes on the table were all empty. Nevertheless, I spent my whole childhood hating green beans. It wasn’t until I was around thirty that I tried them again and discovered they were delicious.
Cow’s milk and green beans weren’t the only foods that traumatized me. My mother was a decent cook, but she often lost track of the vegetables cooking on the stove. By the time she remembered to turn off the zucchini, it had turned into a gelatinous mass of green sludge, and she made us eat it anyway.
My mother employed her daughters as helpers in the kitchen as soon as we could reach over the counter. When we had French fries for dinner, I had to peel ten pounds of russet potatoes and slice them into French fry fingers. Then, Mom deep-fried them in oil and we cooled them on racks placed over cookie sheets.
I never complained about not liking French fries. I loved them as much as everyone did. In fact, if I didn’t protect the fries on my plate, one of my siblings would snitch them when I wasn’t looking. The best course of action was to eat the French fries on your plate first, get another helping, then eat the rest of your food. To this day, I don’t dip my French fries in catsup while I’m eating them. When I was a kid, I didn’t have time.
Some of my food trauma also stems from the creative ways that my father punished us when he caught us committing food crimes. I think my dad could have earned a PhD in psychology if he had the notion to get more than a two-year college degree. He was thoughtful, and, because his sentences were so inventive, they were effective. One time after dinner, he caught me popping a large marshmallow into my mouth. “You still hungry?” he asked. “Next time you eat when you’re at the dinner table.” He made me sit at the table and finish eating the leftover pork and beans. That was a “tooty” experience that I never forgot. Today I don’t even like marshmallows.
From ancient times, trees have symbolized physical and spiritual nourishment, transformation and liberation.
Chapter 1 – Oak
One more week and she was done. Graduated with a double major. College over. More educated than most of the people on earth.
And you know what? She wasn’t going back home, even when this class was over. Her father had paid for a round trip ticket to Buenos Aires, but she was going to cash it in and stay.
This was her chance to really be independent, to find out what her values were without her father’s advice about this job or that apartment, this guy or that outfit.
She missed her mother though, but her mother wasn’t at home anyway. When Leonie was supposed to be having the time of her life in college, her mother had contracted breast cancer. After three surgeries, six months of chemotherapy that sapped her effervescent energy, and twelve weeks of radiation that burned her skin red, the cancer came back.
Just before she passed away, Leonie and her mother had sat under the oak tree in the back yard, the shadows of its branches spreading like arms across the grass.
“I can’t lose you, Mom.” She had wept beside her mom, the shade of the giant tree darkening her tears like black pearls.
“You won’t feel the same, but you’ll never lose me. You’ll just have to learn how to live with me differently.”
Leonie had felt so confused. She stared at her mother’s face so that she could remember it—her gray-blue eyes, silky skin, a mouth that always held the hint of a smile. She stared deep into her eyes, holding on, wishing for more time.
“I’ll be with you,” said her mother. “I’ll guide you from a new place, a place you cannot see, but that is nevertheless powerful. You’ll feel me.”
Leonie clutched her mother’s hand.
“I want you to find your inner strength. Emulate this oak tree. Every time you feel weak or lost, visualize yourself as an oak tree, rising strong, spreading wide, enduring challenge and finding the sun. You won’t be alone because I’ll be beside you, breathing my love into your heart.”
“But I won’t see you. You’re my inspiration. I’ll be lost without you.”
“My love will remain here. When you can no longer physically see me, you can find other women to inspire you. Choose many, in fact. One to follow for leadership skills, another to learn the art of love, and another to learn how to live with joy. She may be one of your professors, a co-worker, a girl friend, a friend’s mother, or a woman you meet only one time in your life. Whatever you wish to be, you can find a woman to inspire you.”
“How can you be so strong? You’re dying!”
“I’m content because I know that I will continue my life in another form. My spirit is not dying. My soul will continue, and I’ll grow from its future experiences. I have many things to look forward to.”
Leonie remembered this conversation as she held her mother’s ashes six months later, secured in a pearlescent urn shaped like a heart. Leonie kissed the top of the urn before placing it in the niche at the cemetery. “Enjoy your journey, Mom,” she whispered.
Later, as she sat in the back yard next to her mother’s chair, Leonie thought she heard her mother’s voice. No, maybe it was the breeze rustling the limbs of the oak tree instead.
“My journey will be right alongside you,” said the breeze.
Staying focused on her studies was impossible after her mother’s death, but her girl friends had helped, and then Leonie decided to go overseas for a change of scenery—a much needed distraction that she needed to survive.
So now, she was in Buenos Aires and hungry. She lived in a shabby dorm room in the basement of the university and tutored students in English to make money, but it wasn’t enough.
Leonie searched through her backpack for something to eat: an empty plastic juice bottle, a paper envelope from the bocadillo she had for lunch. She poked her fingers deeper. Something waxy. She grabbed at it and pulled out an apple, a little bruised, but it was food.
The next morning, Leonie woke up with a growling stomach and the sound of traffic. Engines racing, horns blaring, and brakes squealing invaded her tiny room through the high window that wasn’t even big enough for her to crawl through. Leonie grabbed her shampoo and towel, opened the door, and paced to the single shower room.
Whew! It was empty. The water felt refreshing on her wet head, rinsing off the humidity and sweat of her body from the sweltering night.
Today, she was going to meet a friend that she had met in her Spanish class. Clarissa was a native Argentinian and Leonie wanted to ask her about traveling throughout the country.
Upstairs in the dormitory lobby, a canister of coffee stood on a table next to a large blue box of sweet pastries. Leonie poured the thick, viscous liquid into her own mug, stuck a pastry between her teeth, and whisked out the door.
Clarissa was sitting at a table in the corner of the café with her laptop open when she arrived. A cup of mate steamed to the right of her computer, Clarissa wildly typing on the keyboard.
“Hey, how’s it going?” asked Leonie, grabbing the back of the chair opposite her, scraping it across the floor, flinging her backpack over a post, and sitting down.
“Hey,” murmured Clarissa, finishing a sentence.
“You know, this Spanish class is my last college class, and I’ve got to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I feel lost without my mother, and I don’t want to go home without a plan. I don’t even know if I want to live there anymore.”
Clarissa picked up her mate, sipped it, and looked up at Leonie. “I suggest that you travel and meet as many people as possible. They’ll give you new ideas, and you’ll learn that you have endless options,” said Clarissa.
“That does sound good,” said Leonie. “How should I start?”
“Just go,” said Clarissa. “Don’t think too much. Don’t plan too much, but be ready to make your trip work each step of the way. I’m emailing my sister. She works at the Belmond Hotel, a few miles from Iguazu Falls. Maybe she can get you a free room. Iguazu Falls is one place you should go!”
“Oh, I’m so nervous about traveling by myself. Maybe I’ll just stay here,” responded Leonie.
“Oh, no you won’t,” said Clarissa. “You’re going, and that’s that.”
“We’ll see,” said Leonie. I have a whole week of classes left.”
“Yes, a whole week to build up your courage and begin your new life.”
She was worried about her mother who seemed to struggle to stay present, something pulling her focus away or inward. Some days she sat in the arm chair by the window, staring straight ahead, her gray-blue eyes lost in deep thoughts.
When Sestina tried to talk to her, her mother struggled to respond. “Wait a minute,” she would say, then, with a determined set to her mouth, she’d squeeze her eyes shut for a brief moment, open them wide, and glare at Sestina while she slowly made a lucid response.
Her mother woke up early every morning, took a spit-bath at the sink in her bathroom, put on her clothes, and combed her golden white curls until she looked neat and ready for an outing. After breakfast—not a big one mind you—just a piece of bacon and half a piece of toast with butter and strawberry jam—she sat down in the chair by the window and disappeared into her private thoughts. Her breathing was labored, and she raised her shoulders every time she inhaled, her chest rising slowly, and she exhaled by opening her mouth and releasing a small burst of air.
On Wednesday, while her mother was sitting in her arm chair, Sestina went out to prune the old roses off the rose bushes. She knew her mother not only loved flowers, but she loved roses most of all, and Sestina wanted the roses to look perfect when her mother looked out the window. Eight tea rose bushes grew in the redwood planter, a raised bed so that the roses bloomed at the same height as the window. The planter was about six feet from the window so when her mother looked out, she could see the stems wave gently in the breeze and glow in the sun.
The yellow rose bush was the heartiest with big blossoms that bloomed like cabbages. One bush grew lavender roses, medium in size with delicate petals and a hue that took Sestina’s breath away. Four of the bushes bloomed with various versions of red flowers, each a unique shade of red and shaped petals. The two white bushes bloomed with the most flowers, always producing plenty of blossoms so that Sestina could cut some and bring them in the house.
Sestina held the kitchen shears in her right hand and pulled back a single stem from a rose bush, looking for the perfect compound leaf of five leaflets so she could prune the dead rose at just the right angle and place to encourage more growth.
As she made the cut, the daylight intensified into a blaze of light all around her. Insects’ voices grew loud into a hum like a Gregorian chant, and she heard the wind rush under the wings of a swallowtail butterfly who hovered over a rosebush nearby. The butterfly glided toward her, waved its wings close to her nose, and she thought that she heard it whisper, it’s time for her, time for her. Its black face smiled, and its eyes looked deep into hers, speaking wordlessly of love. She heard the breath of the breeze travel through the petals of each rose, and the scissors snapped the rose’s stem like a clap of thunder. She heard the leaves of the lemon tree give birth to new cells and buds of fruit. Then, suddenly, the breaths of the insects and flying creatures, echoes of the growing plants, and pneuma of the wind were silent, and the garden was still.
When Sestina got back to the cottage, she found that her mother had died. Her face was turned toward the open window and her hands were folded over each other like a final prayer.
She was like the black sheep of the family, but that didn’t mean there was anything wrong with her. On the contrary. Ever since she was a little girl, she walked like she was floating on air—her feet swishing out from beneath her, her body gliding like a spirit, her head held up and her eyes cast high like she was watching a movie in the sky.
Little Beth had a heart-shaped face, her blue eyes spaced perfectly apart and framed with blonde eyebrows, her pale rosy cheeks glowing like pink pearls, her plump cherub mouth, and soft chin. But she was a shy creature and shunned the limelight, so most people didn’t notice her as she peeked into the room around a wall, hid in a corner on a stool, or swung on the swing outside, alone, when the rest of the kids were in the house.
After Beth turned seven and received her Holy Communion, I walked up behind her to Communion at one Sunday Mass. When Beth reached the priest, his eyes opened wide as he looked into her face, his hand paused with the wafer above the chalice. After a frozen moment in time, he said, “The face of God.”
What did he mean?
My daughter stood there with her hands joined together, her fingers pointing to the ceiling like dove wings. Finally, the priest fluttered his eyes, seeming to compose himself and said, “The body of Christ.”
“Amen,” said Beth, her voice rising like a musical whisper. She stuck out her tongue and the priest placed the wafer there, then she circled around so I could see her.
And then I knew. A spotlight from the ceiling lit up her face, and I saw a glow in her eyes like the sun breaking through the clouds after a rain, radiant globes of love. A warmth filled my body as she passed me, and I knew from then on that I was extraordinarily blessed to have her in my life.
The priest’s eyes followed her as she left, and, because he was preoccupied, I also turned around and watched her glide down the aisle like a sail on the breeze. Quickly, I faced the altar again, but still had to wait for him to recover and remember that more people waited in line for Holy Communion.
***
My husband and I asked Beth to be the executor of our will. We asked her because she studied finances in college and we thought she’d be qualified to deal with the mechanics of disbursing our assets.
Peter died young so he wasn’t around when I started to go blind and I couldn’t write checks, cook on the stove, or drive my car anymore.
Beth told me that it was time that she took care of me. She helped me move into an assisted living place where three of my friends already lived. She helped me sort through the sixty years of belongings in my house, found charities to pick up unwanted furniture, hired a gardener to keep the lawn cut until the house could be sold, worked with my realtor, accepted a great offer on the house, and filled my bank account with the money.
“You have enough money to live for 35 more years,” she told me. “You saved and scrimped, and now, I’m going to make sure you are treated like a queen.”
I couldn’t see very well, but Beth knew that I could still smell the roses, so every time she came to visit, she brought a dozen roses, a chrysanthemum plant, Easter lilies, Gerber daisies, or an African violet to put on my windowsill.
I died on a December morning instead of a January afternoon because Beth was beside me in the hospital, making sure that the medical professionals didn’t exceed their zeal in pointlessly extending my life with hoses down my throat, catheters in my neck, and countless blood transfusions.
She ordered a giant spray of red roses to cover my coffin at the viewing and to decorate my grave after I was buried. Red roses signify eternal love.
Rosie was leaning on the dining room table in her house, sitting with her daughter Claire. As she asked this question, she leaned her elbow on the table and rested her hand under one cheek.
“Mom, you did,” responded Claire. Rosie thought Claire looked sad, but determined. “You and Dad asked me to take care of your trust, and, now, you need someone to take care of you.”
“I’m fine,” Rosie insisted.
“Every day you ask one of your children to come over here to help you with something. You drop your pills and can’t see to pick them up. This is a big house. You need someone to dust, wash floors, vacuum, and even cook for you. You can’t live here alone anymore. It’s too dangerous.”
“They can help me. That’s O.K.”
“Mom, they all have families to take care of. You said that you didn’t want to be a burden to your children.”
Rosie didn’t answer. She looked down at the table silently.
“Asking them to come over every day is too much. This house is big. Your yard is huge.”
“It doesn’t hurt them to help out,” Rosie responded.
“Mom, now you’re being selfish. You can move into Sunrise Assisted Living just a mile away. Three of your good friends live there.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s time, Mom. Think about it and when you want to move.” Claire wiped her cheek as she turned away, then pursed her mouth into a smile as she turned to look back at her mother.
One year later, Rosie was sitting at the dining room table again, this time with her grand-daughter Leonie.
“I’m sure your apartment will be nice, Grandma. Don’t worry.”
Claire and her sister were packing clothes into boxes. Her brothers—Joe, Don, and Ron—were carrying furniture out the door and into the back of Ron’s truck: a double bed, the new red recliner, a dresser, a tiny desk, the T.V. and its stand.
A few months before, Claire and Rosie had gone to Sunrise Assisted Living and filled out a lease for Rosie’s apartment. They had lunch, too, and Claire thought it was good.
Today, Claire and her siblings left Rosie at home with Leonie while they set up Rosie’s new apartment. Minnie was busy arranging Rosie’s clothes in the closet. Claire made the bed once it was moved in. Ron hung pictures. Joe unpacked dishes and put them into the two cupboards in the tiny kitchen. Don hung up shelves and arranged Rosie’s collection of egg cups on them. Nobody was smiling. Everyone had a furrowed forehead and looked as if they were going to cry.
“I’ve got a joke,” said Ron, all of a sudden.
“No jokes today, Ron. I’m not in the mood,” Claire said.
“No, seriously, you’ll appreciate it.”
“No, we won’t,” said Minnie.
“Come on, I know you will. It’ll be O.K.”
“Go ahead, Ron, but don’t be surprised if we don’t laugh,” said Claire leaning over a corner of the double bed which she had just covered with a flowered bedspread.
“I found this on the Internet. One day, a famous man went to a nursing home to see all of his friends again and see how they were doing. When he got there EVERYBODY greeted him [because, of course, everybody knew him]. One man he noticed didn’t come up to him or say anything to him, so, later, he walked up to the man and asked him ‘Do you know who I am?’ and the old man replied “No, but you can go to the front desk and they’ll tell you.’”
Claire was sitting on the floor next to the bed. She rolled over and held her stomach as her laughter erupted. Minnie stopped sorting the clothes in the closet, turned to look at Ron, and made a loud, long musical chuckle. Joe stopped unpacking dishes and guffawed. Don stopped arranging egg cups, smirked, and exploded into a happy groan.
But Ron laughed most of all. His big frame started jiggling first. He opened his mouth wide, showing his perfect white teeth, and a deep, cascading huh-huh-huh-huh-huh sprang into the room, reverberating off the four walls and enveloping his sibling audience.
Everyone expelled their laughter like a long exhale, then grew silent and looked at each other.
“O.K. That was funny,” said Claire. “You’re so good at bringing out the humor, Ron.”
They worked for three hours, setting up picture frames on the wide window sill, arranging a bouquet of flowers on the dresser, placing the T.V. remote next to the tiny side table beside the recliner. They plugged the beside lamps into the outlets, set the digital clock with the huge numbers, hung the towels in the bathroom, and arranged the soap and lotion on the bathroom counter.
Soon the studio was perfectly arranged in its décor of pinks and greens. The blinds of the window let in the afternoon sunshine, and the window was open to allow the autumn breeze to filter into the room.
Claire and Minnie drove back to Rosie’s house to pick her up. When they got there, Leonie and Rosie were still sitting at the dining room table. Rosie fidgeted with her hands and Leonie looked up with worry in her eyes.
“Your beautiful studio is ready, Mom,” said Minnie, putting on a smile.
The three girls drove Rosie to Sunrise. They guided her through the front lounge. On one side, other residents watched T.V. in a common room. The lounge had an autumn wreath over the front arch. They pushed the button on the elevator while talking to the assistant at the front desk. They took her arm and guided her down the hall to her studio, and then opened the door.
Rosie stepped into the room. She walked through the tiny kitchen, past the bathroom, and into the conjoined bedroom and living area. Her head swiveled from side to side, surveying the bed and its bedspread, the digital clock, the lamps, the recliner, the window sill with all its pictures, the dresser with the vase of chrysanthemums, the T.V. stand, and the tiny desk with its statue of Mary and cup of pens. Then her head swiveled up and back to inspect the egg cup shelves, the collection of spoons, the large family picture of her and her children, the trees through the window, her wedding photo, and the metal picture of The Last Supper. Finally, a small, almost imperceptible sound escaped from her lips—a cross between approval and satisfaction.
Her children and grand-daughter guided her to the recliner and helped her sit down Claire sat down on the floor to her left. Minnie knelt down right in front of her. Ron sat on the bed and stretched his tree trunk legs out in front of him. Leonie sat next to her mother Claire, and Joe and Don sat on the floor on Rosie’s right and leaned their backs against the wall under the window. Rosie looked down at them all and her eyes shone as blue as a California sky.
When my mother was rested and happy, her eyes were the color of bluebells. During late March in England, bluebells carpeted the forest and unfarmed hillsides. Each blossom was a bell, a delicate invested cup the color of a late summer sky, rolling over acres of mature cornfields. A sky on a day after the rains have stopped, unadorned and simple in beauty. Their petals are the color of periwinkle, like cold water lapping over a pool of shallow rocks beside a shore of snow. The blue of smooth silk dresses and spring tablecloths. In full bloom, these blue cups tilt toward the sky hiding the earth with a shimmer of sapphire sheen.
When I was eleven, I stood at the edge of the bluebell meadows, feasting on their color. Running back to the house, I grabbed the bucket used for scrubbing to carry the bluebells that I wanted to take home.
My mother’s home was lacking in softness; beauty took a back seat to the basic necessities involved in caring for her ten children.
Then, in my mother’s life, the day included no time for picking and arranging flowers. She woke up children, fried bacon and eggs, supervised the wearing of school uniforms, matching socks, coats, and hats. In the mornings, she gathered piles of laundry, washed it, ironed shirts, smoothed tablecloths, swept floors, and made beds. Dinner was such a tremendous feat to accomplish that its beginnings were initiated right after breakfast. My mother’s daily crowning achievement was sending her children to school with clean hands and clothes and feeding them a hearty dinner each night.
The bluebells started at the edge of the trees. As I entered the woods, my legs became tangled in the cluster of their stalks. Crouching into the sea of blue, I found the base of each flower, gently bent its stalk, and twisted it loose. Milky nectar oozed over my fingers and down my forearms like pancake syrup, sticky and viscous. I held the flowers close to my face to inspect the little bells as they shook in the breeze like bells around the necks of cows walking through a pasture. Then, carefully to prevent crushing them, I placed each long stem into the bucket so the blossoms poked out of the top.
On the way to a full bucket, I examined the hairy moss on the barks of trees and the other gifts that the woods offered. In-between picking the bluebells, I cradled fallen chestnuts from under the greening trees, cracking their hulls and rubbing the shiny boot-brown nut underneath with my sticky hands. In the hollows between the trees, I found walls built with old dead tree branches, scattered rocks, and other debris from the forest floor.
Eventually, the bucket was full, and I skipped home with it swinging from my arm like the milk maids that I read about in fairy tales who carried pails full of milk from the barn to the house every morning.
I took out my mother’s two empty vases and filled them with flowers for the dining room table and the bookcase in the living room. After these were arranged, I stooped down to the cupboard where my mother kept empty jars, jars used for everything from leftover dinner vegetables to fish bowls for the brown fish we caught in the pond on the other side of the woods. I picked fat jars with large openings. When I tucked the bluebells inside them, they were transformed into wide-mouthed jars of crystal. The stalks showed straight and strong through the sides of the jars, and the bursts of bell blossoms sprayed over the ridges, bursting with profusions of blue so intense that, as I admired them, I felt like my feet rose off the floor and my heart fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird.
Once the bucket was emptied, every room in the house was accented by a bouquet of bluebells . . . on a dresser here, table there, or a windowsill.
My mother passed me as I stood back to appreciate their beauty. Her eyes creased into jewels, and, at that moment, her irises were the same hue as the petals of the bluebells, even though she wasn’t rested and had a whole list of things to do that day.
Some women have a favorite perfume brand, like Chanel. Other women have a favorite fashion designer, like Gucci. My mother Rose Marie, though, has a favorite brand of chocolate, See’s Candies.
I remember the days when my parents would buy a variety of chocolates—Cadbury, Lindt, Godiva, Ferrero Rocher, and See’s; they covered their wooden coffee table with boxes filled with little paper cups of assorted chocolates. One by one, they sampled chocolates from each box, evaluating each one for the best texture, sweetness, richness, creaminess, and chocolate quality. The winner, hands down and every time, was See’s Candies.
My mother was born on September 1, in 1928 on a farm in Pine Creek, a little hamlet in Southern Wisconsin. Her mother was Florence Jereczek, a tiny woman with big opinions. Her father was August Jereczek, a not-too-tall man, lean and truly in love with his wife. After Florence died, he used to reminisce about how her hair was fluffy, kinda like a Brillo Pad. Then he’d smile and look up at the clouds.
My mom had three sisters with whom she clucked like hens whenever they got together and over the phone on a regular basis. She had one brother who sported red hair and an Irish temper, but they were close anyway.
Mom graduated from high school with a practical attitude. She didn’t think she was smart enough to be a nurse, and she loved to count and think about money, so she became a bookkeeper. She met my father, Paul, at a dance in the nearest town across the state line, Winona, and they dated for seven years before getting married. You see, he was a farmhand for his grandfather, and my mother didn’t want to marry a farmer. Finally, my dad joined the Air Force in the spring, and they got married the coming September.
Paul’s dream was to have nine kids, like one of his uncles. From Alabama to Minnesota to California to England, they pumped out babies one by one until they reached ten.
* * *
Now that my mother is 92 and I am a senior citizen myself, I am reflecting more than ever on how much I appreciate her. I am grateful for so many things:
My mother visited me when I was two and in the hospital for an eye operation. When she left, she kissed me on the cheek and told me she loved me. I thought that was generous of her, considering that she still had more kids at home to love;
My mother felt sad when President Kennedy and Elvis Presley died;
My mom danced the polka like a top with my lanky father around a dance hall;
She introduced me to my dozens and dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins who mostly look like a different version of me;
She bought a goat to milk when I was born because I was lactose intolerant;
She showed me how to make butter and ice cream by hand, and how to skim the cream off the top of pasteurized milk and eat it from the same spoon;
My mother taught me the names of numerous flowers and home-gown fruits and vegetables;
She allowed me to decorate every room in the house with Mason jars filled with wild flowers;
She worked on the school board of my high school;
My mom convinced me that I was a good clothes folder and ironer so I could stay in the laundry room folding mountains of clothes and getting some alone time. (I’m still good at folding and ironing. Hire me;
My mother at first resisted, but finally smiled when my dad sang “Smile a little smile for me, Rose Marie:”
She demonstrated to me what commitment and loyalty mean;
She gave me her fur coat so I can pretend that I’m as pretty as she is;
My mom loved my two children as much as she loved her children;
She treated motherhood like the greatest profession that ever was or will ever exist because raising children is building a community;
She illustrated how to develop both male and female friendships;
She showed me that forgiveness may be hard, but it can also lead to future love and happiness;
She loved money and slot machines even though my father hated gambling;
She loved each and every one of her children even though we are as different as color crayons stuck in the same box;
She can talk to my husband Bob about golf even though she’s never played it herself;
Her white hair is as pretty as cotton candy and her skin as lovely as fresh bread from the oven;
She didn’t try to understand the Bible too well because “that’s what priests are for.”
My mother didn’t think she was smart, but, in her view, average intelligence provided more options. She didn’t think she was beautiful, but in my eyes, she was a lovelier Polish version of Sophia Loren. She wasn’t a great cook, but she canned enough tomatoes and pickles to feed an army. She filled enough jelly jars to supply every church bazaar and Catholic summer camp. My mother wasn’t extravagant, but she played slot machines like they were on the endangered list.
What my mother was is sweet—the See’s Candy kind of sweet—rich in flavor, a little funny with not too much sugar. She didn’t require special treatment like refrigeration. You could put my mother on a dark shelf and, in no time at all, her shelf would become your favorite place to find comfort and unconditional love.
I asked my 91-year-old mother if the Corona Virus Pandemic was as bad as World War II.
“It’s worse” she said. “During World War II, we could go outside. We worked. We played. We walked in the sun.”
She was in eighth grade when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and a junior in high school on May 8, 1945, the day the Axis powers surrendered.
“When we heard the war ended, everybody ran outside and celebrated. We partied all night,” she remembers. “I don’t think that’s going to happen this time.”
What I heard in my mother’s voice was hopelessness. As we talked on the phone, she sighed over and over again, anxiety filling each breath with fear.
During the last six months, I’ve been on a clear journey of trying to develop my own cultural humility so that I can become a stronger college professor and help my marginalized students better succeed. When I heard my mother’s sighs, however, I recognized that I could work on developing some cultural humility within my own family relationships.
Two and a half years ago, when my mother became unable to care for herself at home, I and my siblings helped her move into an assisted living facility. Since we have a LARGE family, all of us have contributed to visiting her regularly, taking her shopping, driving her to her doctors and dentists, paying her bills, completing her tax returns, buying her supplies, taking her shopping, and planning family holidays and birthday parties for her to attend. From the perspective of being loved, she has been the luckiest mother and grandmother in the world.
My mother, however, has macular degeneration, can’t read small type, and finds it difficult to sign her name. Instead of engaging in activities such as reading, she has created a new life for herself at her assisted-living home by socializing with other 90+-year-old women, exercising, playing BINGO with giant BINGO cards, and participating in discussions about topics found on Google. I am impressed with her ability to form relationships with new neighbors and, also, with her caregivers. She keeps track of their lives and even gives them some of her firmly-expressed advice.
“Don’t go on walks by yourself, Miriam,” I saw her tell one of her new friends. “You could fall and break your hip.”
“Did you run that marathon last weekend, Sylvia?” she asked one of the waitresses at lunch when I was eating with her one day. I didn’t even know my mother knew what a marathon was and was even more surprised that she was interested in people who ran them.
My mother never was a strong reader. At one point during her retirement, she joined a Bible group at her church. She attended two of the meetings and then gave it up. “Why’d you stop going?” I asked.
“I didn’t understand anything,” she said. “That’s why we have priests.” Instead of thinking too much about spiritual values, my mother is comfortable just following rules and using already-prepared prayers to get her into heaven.
Clearly, she is not the philosophical type, but she’s excellent at belting out orders to her children or care-givers. If she had been born later in the twentieth century, she would have made a formidable general in the military; she knows how to command and expects complete compliance.
She’s strong at math as well and likes to think about how much money she has in the bank and plays Solitaire. She also loves to pull the handles on slot machines whenever she can manage to get a ride to a casino. A numbers gal, for sure.
Which means, when the Corona Virus Pandemic forced her assisted living facility to shelter-in-place, her strengths did not prepare her for staying in her apartment all day by herself. She’s a social animal, not a solitary thinker.
She’s endured the slowly-dwindling social activities at her facility. First, visitors had to use hand sanitizer, then they were locked out. The residents played BINGO while sitting six-feet apart, then they perched in chairs at the doorway of their apartments and followed their exercise leader while using their own personally-assigned exercise props. Now, all social activities are terminated, and, if residents want to talk to each other, they have to make a phone call.
The trouble is, unless my mother has your phone number programmed into her cell phone, she can’t phone you. She can’t see well enough to punch in a new number on her phone, and her children can’t visit her in order to program new numbers for her. This means she can only call people who are already in her phone, albeit, she has nine children, numerous relatives, and several friends already ready to dial.
But as we’re all finding out, a person can only spend so much time on the phone, watching movies, or doing whatever it is he or she has found to do during this shelter-in-place.
It’s hard being old, and harder being aged when you can’t even fill your days with pleasant activities. Being cooped up in an assisted-living facility might feel like being in prison. You’re probably not planning on going on a vacation the next summer or even buying a new home. The activities that you can look forward to—going out to lunch, visiting nearby lakes and theaters, or shopping at Raley’s once a week on the facility bus—all have been cancelled until further notice.
My siblings and I are sending letters to my mother in large type (48-point font) so she gets more mail that she can actually read. A few of us have sent her flowers, which she loves to watch bloom on the desk in her room.
Two of my sisters have created word puzzles for her; unfortunately, word puzzles are related to reading, and not one of her favorite things to do. She admitted to me that she tries to cheat on the puzzles by asking her care-givers to look over the puzzle and point out a word or two. I thought she taught me not to cheat, but I never experienced a pandemic during my childhood, so maybe there are exceptions.
This is why my mother is making heavy sighs over the phone. She has played too much Solitaire, watched too much news, listened to too many soap operas, and spent too much time waiting listlessly for the next meal.
My quest for more cultural humility seems to apply here. I might be able to help her weather this shelter-in-place.
Cultural humility encourages me to develop empathy for how my mother feels and what she is experiencing, not as I would, but as she does. I asked myself, what can a person do if she can’t see or talk to another person very often? In addition, what would help my mother attain a greater level of peace while she socially distances during this pandemic? Since my mother is a doer and socializer, not a solitary thinker, my ideas must keep that in mind.
Perhaps I can also consider what her life achievements have been; in my mother’s case, she grew up on a farm, worked as a bookkeeper, was married for 52 years, raised a brood of children, served on the school board and church council, worked in voter polling places, and practiced traditional Catholicism her whole life.
As I thought about ideas for her, I kept seeing that red recliner in her apartment, situated so perfectly in the corner of the room, so she can hear sounds from both outside her window and from all parts of the apartment. I also thought about how to help her decrease her anxiety.
Since she is a doer, I felt that short activities would be best, and, for the anxiety, I thought that I could suggest activities that encouraged a meditative state—because, on her own, she would never engage in meditation, thinking it was too foreign and too hard. This is a woman, remember, who wants fast results.
Also, my ideas would have to be typed in 48-point font, meaning that I can only list as many large-type activities as I can fit onto one or two pages.
So, at four o’clock in the morning, when my sleep was interrupted by my thoughts about her, I got up to type my suggestions. I set up my computer to 48-point font in a landscape layout and typed up “Corona Virus Shelter-in-Place Things to Do.” Here is a sample:
1. Pray the rosary for your own intentions.
2. Breathe slowly 5 times.
3. Stretch your fingers and toes, one at a time.
4. Picture flowers,one at a time, and name them out loud.
6. Think about people you love, one at a time.
7. Create math problems for your great-grandchildren, then call them and tell them to solve them.
8. Create a new prayer and say it out loud.
9. Compliment a care-giver.
10. Lift your arms 5 times.
11. Close your eyes and think about a candle burning.
12. Remember funny events, one at a time.
13. Tell a joke to a care-giver.
14. Watch a talk show on television.
I typed half of these suggestions on one page, put them in an envelope, and mailed them today. I put the other half in a second envelope to mail to her next week.
I’m not sure if my attempt at cultural humility toward my mother will help her navigate through this crisis. I’ll have to wait until she lets me know.
Oh, believe me, General Mom will be letting me know.
Tessa M. Perko's Blog 