![\"Betty\"](\"http:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Untitled-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBefore I bought my first house, I asked my father if he could \u201chelp\u201d with the mortgage. We met in the house I was considering. It was bright daylight outside, but you\u2019d never know it from where we stood\u2026inside, looking out the living room window. The porch was under an overhang and hadn\u2019t seen the sun since the early 1930s. It was a dark little house. Made darker by no electricity. It had been turned off. Actually it had been condemned but I didn\u2019t know it and the real estate agent didn\u2019t disclose.<\/p>\n
The conversation at the window \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve not been the kind of father\u2026that\u2026mumble, mumble\u2026 In my day you went to work, you came home\u2026mumble\u2026you were gone all day.\u201d But given the times, Eric was a very good father. He took me to work on the cottage while my sister stayed home with my mother. I accompanied him to cricket practices where other players also brought their kids. He let me drive alone as soon as I had my licence at 16-years-and-maybe-a-day. <\/p>\n
One time, when Eric was in the car, he told me not to worry that I wasn\u2019t going to university. \u201cYour mother had to quit school during the depression, but she never stopped learning.\u201d Betty my mother, returned to school when my younger sister went off to kindergarten. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Betty became a librarian and until she died, read three newspapers a day, mysteries, non-fiction, stacks of cookbooks and, ok, so she watched Coronation Street too. Her life ended with arthritis and alcohol–her own AA. But she is still remembered in the local library. And yes, that\u2019s a beer in her hand. This was taken the day of the village festival.<\/p>\n
A quick aside. Recently, I lost all of my ID. That was the day I went to my own local library and tried to pick up a book I\u2019d ordered. No ID? No book. Holding back visible tears, I asked the woman at the desk to get the head librarian. Again, I explained why I didn\u2019t have ID. And then (I have to confess), I brought the ghost of my dead mother into it. \u201cI don\u2019t have ID, but my mother was a librarian and I know how a library works from your side of the desk.\u201d The lovely head librarian allowed me to take the book. \u201cI won\u2019t tell anyone and thank you\u2026and my mother thanks you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric, my father, was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s when he was about 85. When he was 92, he fell in my parents\u2019 apartment and ended in hospital. A nurse there told me how Alzheimer\u2019s would eventually stop Eric\u2019s swallowing reflex and he would starve to death. It would be horrible. The nurse also told me that soon my father wouldn\u2019t recognize me and I should stop coming to the hospital every day.
\n![\"eric\"](\"http:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/eric.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
My husband and I found a nursing home near our house. We took turns visiting daily. At first, the staff encouraged me NOT to visit. <\/p>\n
For Jon and I, visiting was a gift. I took in Eric\u2019s childhood and cricketing photos and pinned them on the wall. Eric talked about his childhood, his mother, building the cottage and other of life\u2019s idiosyncratic bits. Eric remembered every cricket game and score when he talked with the cricket-obsessed staff from the Caribbean, Philippians and India. And we all laughed\u2014long and loud. Alzheimer\u2019s could not kill my father’s cricket scores. <\/p>\n
And yes, with Alzheimer\u2019s he was a different person–yet with shadows and flashes of his former (real?) self. My head knitted my two fathers together. It was probably the deep, dark, gooey chocolate cakes I smuggled into his room. They made the epoxy. We were all sticky and chocolaty but no one reported us. I\u2019m grateful I had that extra time of being a rebellious teenager with the help of my father. Why don\u2019t nursing homes realize there are some people who want, no, need, to visit? And people who want to be visited. I believe that\u2019s what keeps their few memories of their mother and their cricket scores alive.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tooooooooooo<\/p>\n
My best friend Annette died sixteen years ago. We shared a worldview. We were writing partners. We bounced every emotional and life experience off each other. Annette\u2019s mother had died young and some of Annette\u2019s mothering came from her mother\u2019s sister, Aunt Gert.<\/p>\n
Aunt Gert and her daughter Deni, spent two years together, on and off, as Gert aged. One evening while watching TV, Gert turned to Deni and said:
\n\u201cI\u2019ve loved being your mother.\u201d \u201cAnd I\u2019ve loved being your daughter,\u201d Deni replied.<\/p>\n
Like Aunt Gert, my mother Betty, also had fine points. But unlike Gert, and my father, Betty\u2019s inner self was always under lock and key and in spite of being \u201cwell oiled\u201d as the saying goes, the lock rusted shut.<\/p>\n
At Annette\u2019s funeral, the Rabbi talked of the gift of knowing another person\u2019s inner life. I was an inconsolable wreck but I held it together. Then the Cantor began to sing. That\u2019s when I understood all those photos of women in other cultures throwing themselves onto the coffin and pounding it with their fists. I understood but I didn\u2019t do it. I really wanted to.<\/p>\n
In the Jewish faith, a year after the burial, there\u2019s an unveiling at the cemetery when the headstone is revealed (unveiled) and family and friends join in prayers. Annette\u2019s unveiling was only six months after her death. Too soon. After, I sat in my car, parked near the grave. Everyone else slowly drove off. Then I heard a long ungodly howl. It was me. That howl took me by surprise\u2014it was primordial. I didn\u2019t know I was that person.<\/p>\n
I thought I could only look back because forward was gone.
\nNot true. There\u2019s still that eternal talking in my head. <\/p>\n
Annette kept journals. On January 20th, 2001, this is what Annette wrote:
\nThe soul\u2026The soul lives on in memory, in affection.
\nTo sleep in peace, to rest in peace, with one’s ancestors,
\nThat is a transaction of the soul.
\nAnnette knew she was dying and very soon after, she did.<\/p>\n
For a few years, all of the souls of my many \u201cresting\u201d, ghostly friends took up a lot of room. Now I smile to myself when I dream of them, think of them and mention them. They are all easily accessible for questions, advice, bits of gossip. I know where to look.<\/p>\n
And Annette was, and still is, my perfect confident. That sounds a bit woo-woo but after all these years, I\u2019m still talking to her, just not out loud.<\/p>\n
![\"annette\"](\"http:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/annette.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
**I paid back Eric\u2019s mortgage loan .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before I bought my first house, I asked my father if he could \u201chelp\u201d with the mortgage. We met in the house I was considering. It was bright daylight outside, but you\u2019d never know it from where we stood\u2026inside, looking out the living room window. The porch was under an overhang and hadn\u2019t seen the sun since the early 1930s. It was a dark little house. Made darker by no electricity. It had been turned off. Actually it had been condemned but I didn\u2019t know it and the real estate agent didn\u2019t disclose.<\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraboyden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}