Homework

Word problem: How long does it take to move 125 pounds of 83 year-old, moving at approximately .0018 miles per hour, with an opposing wind speed of 10 knots, across a polished wood surface?

If you’re in your mid-to-late 40s, or (ahem) 50, this is a question to ponder.

Mom and I spend a lot of time staring into each others’ eyes: She clenches my shoulders in a vice-grip, concentrating on lifting a foot. I say, “shift your weight.” Her brow creases as she comes up on tiptoe. I sway her back to regain center, then tilt side-to-side, mimicking a walking gait, and she moves toward me. I’ve learned that for the best support, I place her hands on my shoulders and rest my own along her bra line.

When it comes to sitting though, her grip often shifts upward. 

“Mom, you’re hurting me,” I tell her as her hands slip up to my neck. 

The trick is not to rush, which is the challenge. Mom and I move through the world at a different speed now.  The past four years have taught me that much.

Two years ago we graduated from walker to wheelchair. It was not graceful or painless. Mom's spine twists a bit more every year and walking unassisted is no longer possible for her.

We make many clumsy public appearances. Before I expose my ignorance, you must understand the steep learning curve daughters and mothers endure at this juncture in life. Learning to navigate the unfamiliar climate changes of an aging parent is, metaphorically speaking, the Himalaya of life lessons: wrought with crevasses, frostbite and an oxygen-depleted atmosphere caused not by altitude, but from holding one’s breath in frustration. 

On this day four years ago, my sister Sue, mom and I were in front of Bread and Deli in Kukui Grove Shopping Center, with mom at her walker. Sue was behind, (cattle prodding) and I was in front saying, “here girl!” For a moment Sue and I both were distracted and mom slid forward with the walker but without moving her feet. Suddenly she was a plank at 30 degrees, white knuckling the handles with her toes nailed to the concrete. I panicked and pushed the walker toward her to catch the fall. Her eyes were wide, her mouth a tight seam of irritation.

Sue and I stared at each other a moment, then broke into fits of laughter at how close we came to face-planting our mother on cement. 

“You two are idiots,” Mom growled. And rightly so.

Of course this scene could not go unwitnessed. In the window seat of the deli sat a young couple and their baby looking wide-eyed with horror.

Sue and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was the hysteria of those who’ve dealt with a lot of stress and finally a pressure valve had blown.

For those who’ve not lived with an aging parent this may sound like elder abuse. Until you’ve looked under your mother’s hood (and by hood I mean Depends) to change the oil (and by oil I mean, well, you know what I mean), then please suspend judgment.

My dad flew off the planet fast; one week he was peddling his bike to church, the next he was dying in a hospital with a brain tumor. Mom on the other hand, is taking her time. It’s hard and funny; traumatic and utterly intimate. She is falling to pieces with her mind in tact and we are all doing our best to bring compassion to the fore. 

With compassion comes the rigorous care required when dealing with a body shutting down.

In March mom moved in with my husband and I. She’ll be here for four months, then cycle back to the Mainland to live with another daughter. Sitting at the foot of her bed one morning in April as she slowly woke, she looked down the length of the bed at me and said, “I wonder how I could have done this differently.”

I asked, “What?”

“This,” she said. “So I’m not such a burden to you kids.”

I reminded her of all the healing that had occurred in her relationship with one of my sisters.

“And it’s because of taking care of you mom,” I said. “Healing is not all “Kumbaya” and let’s hug it out. Sometimes it’s messy. We wouldn’t be where we are today if you’d done it differently. Thank you."

My sisters and I are enrolled in life’s oldest assignment; one with no course description or syllabus and no instructors. This homework is unique to every individual. We all arrive on Earth through the same channel, but in death there are many exit strategies. I only hope to meet it with a measure of courage and grace.

Meanwhile, there is work to be done.

Sailor's Daughter

Military brat is a term I grew up with, having a father who served as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy for 30 years. My four siblings and I used to visit Dad on “his” Destroyer, where we’d devour platefuls of Oreo cookies in the officer’s mess, then race wild on the ship playing hide-n-seek. This was the 60s – long before homeland security.

I grew up in a Navy town, with parents who sang us sea shanties at bedtime. Outside of military functions, where we had to eat with one hand in the lap and ask politely to pass the butter or risk a knife across the knuckles, we ran like a band of outlaws barefoot and tangled hair with unleashed dogs. Family vacations were out of a camper parked in the mountains where the only rule was to return by 5 for dinner. 

Scrappy is a common adjective used to describe my sisters and me, even today.  

After college I wound up working as a waitress in a pub owned by a Vietnam veteran in a community bleached in military presence. From 1987 to 1996 I worked for Greg McPartlin, owner of McP’s Irish Pub in Coronado, California. To some, Greg’s style of management appeared non-existent. 

The McP’s bar ran the full length of one wall. Above the bar, a hundred glass beer mugs hung by sturdy handles that jingled with key chains that identified the regular who drank from them. Greg sat at the corner most afternoons, chatting up customers, with a cigarette in one hand and a Bud Lite in the other. Behind him on the wall hung a framed 30-inch black and white photo taken in Vietnam, of he and a buddy in camouflage gripping massive automatic weapons.

He served multiple tours in Vietnam as a Navy medic and Frogman (predecessors of the SEAL team), where he survived two helicopter crashes and was a member of the Team that assisted in the sea recovery of NASA’s Apollo 11. He was a decorated veteran.

After his military service he moved to Coronado where he made enough money in Real Estate to afford beachfront property. He didn’t exactly fit into the khaki clad population with his baggy shorts, sockless topsiders and big belly peeking through the buttons of an untucked shirt, but trust me, his haphazard demeanor was merely a cloaking device. 

In nearly 10 years of studying Greg, I assure you, he didn’t miss a beat. He was sharp, knew how to manage people, and was generous to his staff. Not only did he offer medical insurance to employees at a time when it was unheard of, he rewarded hard work by carting the staff off to the horse races at Del Mar and Padre games every summer. At Christmas, he threw us a huge party in the pub. His generosity was unparalleled, but it was his read on people that impressed me most. 

McP’s Irish Pub sits at the southwestern end of Coronado Island, just a mile east of the Navy SEAL training base and three miles west of the Naval Air Station. A testosterone saturated community, the bar scene on Coronado could get pretty intense.

Greg’s man-at-the-bar style of management worked for two reasons: One was his accessibility to guests and employees; the other, his hands-off style of management. He saw everything that was going on and I only recall one time in nine years when he actually rose from his bar stool to tell me what to do.

During a busy lunch rush, three Navy SEALs sat down to order. When I said I’d be with them in a moment, one responded, “Take my order now b****.”

Before sassing a busy waitress, a wise man would have made sure her hands were empty. The five-inch stack of plastic menus flew from my hand across the table to catch him square in the chest. Using the vocabulary of a sailor’s daughter, I told him he should consider eating elsewhere, and stormed into the kitchen. 

A few minutes passed before Greg sauntered through the swinging door. Never one to rush or raise his voice, he said, “Hey Pam, will you come into the dining room? There’s someone who’d like to make an apology.”

These are the stories my retired sailor of a father loved – of me busting chops on cocky sailors. He was a terrible influence that way. But what girl, young or old, doesn’t live to hear her father laugh? I knew he took great pride in raising daughters who could hold their ground, and I think Greg McPartlin was in the same camp.

Dad used to ride his bike 20 miles to visit me at the pub, where I’d serve him a Rueben and a Guinness, and if he was lucky, a tall tale where I always came out victor.