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Note: {I could write a book about my mother (�Moo�). The bottom line was that she was a "survivor". She had been the apple of her mother's eye until her mother died when she was one month short of 4 years old. She had a nurse maid, Riquitte, who stayed with her til she was 5 when her aunt, under pressure from her newly aquired mother-in-law, ended her employment. My mother remembers following Riquitte to the 3d floor, where her room was, and hearing Riquette say, "poor little Marie, what will become of you." Taken at 14 to visit her mother's relatives in Germany (two great Aunts had married Germans in Brazil) the family was caught there and spent WWI in Weisbaden. Mother said the war was terrible and that there was no food. She returned with her sister Ethel, in 1920 (she had separated from her aunt's family) and joined her Aunt Sessa in NYC. "There was nothing there for me." She was invited to visit the "Clarkstown Country Club" a Yoga Colony at Nyack, N.Y. by friends she had made at a Music School ( my mother was teaching piano to support and suppliment her income and living in a boarding house with Aunt Sessa when she returned from Germany. She felt, at 26-27 that her life was going nowhere.), Elizabeth, Mrs. Semore of "The 3d Street Settlement" in NYC. { 5/28/98 on her death bed, my mother troubled by some memories, told me, �She sent me there for sex�. In retrospect my mother likens it to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her Uncle Bob. I gather that Mrs. Semore, analysed my mother�s post traumatic stress syndrome from her family and the war in Germany, as �sex starved� behavior, and sent her to the Yoga colony as a place where sex would be availble to her. I gather that Dr. P. A. Barnard obliged the women sent from NYC by Mrs. Semore. Peter Gillingham alluded to his mother�s having been one of P. A.�s � harem� which raised a flag some where in my psyche. If Aunt Mildred could have been is such a possition perhaps my mother? My mother, alluding to this said, �It was awful� I married your father, I didn�t know how else to get out of it.� I told my Mom, �it wasn�t your fault. You were exploited and abused. Mrs. Semore was a �procuress��. �Yes, she was, but she thought she was doing the right thing�, said my Mom.}
She desided to stay in Nyack and met my father there. He had retired to Nyack and was involved in the "Club". He divorced his wife and married my mother. I was born in 1932, when their ecomomic fortunes were declining.
The Sweater as Metaphor for Life
by
Sara W. Hale
My mother taught me to knit, at my request, when I was 8 years old. I wanted to make myself a sweater. " What color?" she said. "Red" I said, for that suited my 8 year old vision. We got the wool. I think we went together to buy it, enough for a pullover with long sleeves. I worked diligently. I got through the ribbing, knit two, pearl two, and was well in to the body. It was a challenge to know which direction I was going in if I stopped in the middle of a row. At the ends I would hold it at arm's length and survey my work. There were a couple of "funny" spots but I had faith that when this wonder was complete they would somehow disappear. When I got up about 4 inches into the "stockinet" stitch my progress slowed. I thought I was spending as much time as ever but it just didn't seem to get any longer! I began to loose heart, returning to it after longer and longer intervals. Finally my Mother said, "Would you like me to finish it for you." "yes" I said. I can still remember the feeling of gratitude. No remonstrations. No hanging my ego out to dry. My mother did finish the sweater and I wore it a few times but it had lost it's luster.
My mother, in her 100th year, said. "I want to knit a sweater for Charlotte Petty. She has outgrown the one you made her. She needs a size 8" I want to make a cardigan and I want it to be pale rose." "OK, I'll get you the wool and a pattern." I said.
The yarn store had a dismaying array of "rose" yarns. Would she like this one? Or did she mean something like this? I finally settled on one. About 3 1/2 balls, the pattern said. Knitting worsted weight, machine washable. I took it all to my mother. "That's not rose. It's lavender." Fortunately Charlotte's grandparents were there when I submitted it for approval. They voted for Rose, definitely Rose.
"Just cast on the stitches and get me started. I want to do Knit 2 Pearl 2."
"Why don't you do the back first." I said.
" Yes, that's a good idea. 80 stitches, remember, 80. I'll count. I won't talk to you."
" 80?"
"Yes, 80"
"Just do a few rows so that I can see the pattern."
"There are 5 rows."
"Fine, I'll be able to do it now."
When I returned a week later, "I had to start over," she said. "I think you can save the yarn. Just rewind it."
Out of her bedside table came a little tangle of what was left of the "start", a knit, a couple of pearls, a dropped stitch, a few extra stitches, the yarn split in places from many redos.
"I think I have 80. You count."
If you count the yarn overs and the odd stitch picked up from something below I got roughly 81.
"Oh well, that's easy to fix. Just knit two together. I counted it over and over."
"I think we had better start it again." I said; and to myself , "You are patient. Just keep doing this till she finally says, 'I think you better do it'."
Now we are into the 5th or 6th start. I have 3 tangles to rewind. Some look easier than others. We had extra yarn at the start. Now I'm wondering if I can match the dye lot.
I started it again today. I got up above the ribbing and into the stockinet for the second time. "They won't give me time to finish the row. They are always in a hurry. They have other people to bathe and dress. So I get mixed up."
" I want you to cancel my paper for the summer. I don't want to fill my head with all that election stuff. I'll just concentrate on getting this sweater done."
In some way this sweater is my mother's life line. "I knit, therefor I am worthy." I understand that. We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out. We're both in uncharted water.
MARIE 1917
Mother; Your picture came to me over the internet from a distant cousin in Utah. It is the closest experience of time travel this girl has ever had. "Marie 1917 " it said. I see you sitting there, and open book in your lap, your hands folded over it. The sun of that year and day shines on you hair an face transfixing the pale blondness and sad countenance.
You sit there drawn into yourself, grouped with your younger cousins yet separate. A picture is worth a thousand words, the old �saw� goes. I experience the emotional impact of all the painful stories; exiled to Germany with a dysfunctional alcoholic family, trying to allude the persistent pursuit of a drunken Uncle, loving Gigi, your Aunt but being impotent to help her set the limits she needed in her life. This is the year your beloved Grandmother died and "Left me with a crazy sister". What you mean is, being forced to Mother when you had never been mothered yourself.
Now I know the gut feelings you had when you used to accuse me of not defending you in what ever neurotic personal struggle with some other person you were engaged; the neighbors, the landlord, my in-laws.
What we didn't realize was that I came too late. You really needed me in 1917 and before. That is the sad part. I matured strong and healthy and I can feel my self girding for battle when I see you then. It is a time problem.
March 8, 1998.
Today I spent 2 hours with my mother asking her questions. I managed to get quite a bit of information.
How she and the Williams got to Germany in about 1912. �Grandmother used to come over to visit her brother, Charlie�, and she found Gigi ( her daughter) very unhappy and thinking about leaving her husband. Grandmother said, �Come to Germany�. Then she did go to Germany and brought her husband along! �When we got there the two Aunts, Libby (Elizabeth Moran Tappenbeck) and Sarah (Brambeer) gave dinners for Aunt Ethel. She got herself all done up with a big ribbon around her head with a bow. I laughed at the way she looked and she said, � You�re no spring chicken your self.� but I was, I was only 17. That was when I first realized that you could stop being a child and as you grew older you could be a threat to older people!�
Aunt Libby Moran Tappenbeck was a Typhoid carrier. �She used to say, come sit near me dear Child�. �She wanted to give it to others�. (My mother�s analysis ). She, Aunt Libby had a companion, Frauline Raba, and a butler, who wore white gloves, and a swallow tail coat in the afternoon. He told one of Libby�s friends that she was the most �genteel� of all of Mrs. Tappenbeck�s guests. They, the friend and the butler were fast friends after that.
I said, �The german relatives must have been appalled by all the drunkenness.� �Oh no,�said my mother, �They had drunks of their own.� ( Nene� (Frederick) Brambeer was one ).
�Gigi, seperated from him ( Bob ) for two years. I thought it was permanent. She was pumping me for what happened so finally I told her about him pursueing me. She asked Ada if she thought it could be true but Ada said she had no way of knowing. Then she took him back. She said that my sister and I were old enough to find our own way home from Germany and she went off and left us there.�
My mother�s beloved grandmother, Lizzy French Lewis Kretzschmar was dying in Dresden in 1917. My mother went to see her, probably with Gigi. �Don�t die Grandmother, I don�t want you to die.� my mother told her. �I�ve lived long enough.� she said.
Hi Carolyn, I hope you are alright. I worry when I don't hear from you.
You had asked me where the old Judge Williams house was, the one whose yard attached to Gigi and Uncle Bobs at the back. My mother dropped it in conversation today. The story she was telling was that when she and the Williams first moved to Paddock Street, the William's house was behind theirs fronting on Tenyke Street ( I'm not sure of the spelling it sounded like "Ten Ike". ) My mother said the elder Williams had a cook, Irish, who came from the "Sand flats" of Watertown. "She was kind of crazy, but she made wonderful donuts. I used to sit there in the kitchen and have one with everyone who came by, 4-5. Too many. I had terrible dreams, animals being killed---- thrown away----- It was those donuts." I said, "Maybe it was because your mother died." " No it was the donuts."
Letting Go Of Your Mom
by Sara Whitaker
I don't know what I expected. I know there was a lot of fear and anxiety involved.
I think it was that I would have to make a life and death decision by my self. That was overwhelming. I felt my self coming apart. Crying all the time, unable to stop. Exhausted.
I asked for help and time. Help came in the form of my sons and time was given by the decision to give Mother antibiotics. I slipped into the antibiotics, not sure what I was doing, but reassured by the charge nurse that Antibiotics were in the class of "comfort measure". I wasn't ready to withhold anything that might offer a little more life.
This is new ground for me. Just when you think you have lived enough not to be surprised by new experience, one comes along. I am the only child of an orphan. My father died when I was 11 years old and I've never felt able to deal with the death of a parent. All the unresolved fear and sadness returned and I felt 11 again. We are survivors, my mother and me. Bonded by life circumstance we share a microcosm that seems indivisible.
My sons came and offered their love and support. They reassured my mother of their love and said their good-byes.
Now I go each day for a visit. Mother has lost her appetite and her body is shrinking down to the essentials. She looks strangely beautiful. Spare in her essence. I keep thinking what a beautiful nose she has, so straight with fine nostrils and a chiseled tip.
She is not comfortable and she complains of being cold. There is nothing for her to do in either the chair or her bed but sleep. She holds on to small things, my promise to come tomorrow, Ezra's promise of a picture of his cat.
I feel guilty about keeping her alive for this troublesome time. Should I have said no to the antibiotics? Who did I do it for? Should I ask her what to do when that choice comes again?
Now I see that dying isn't the choice of a single person. It is more of a consensus, My Mother, Me, The Doctor, the Nursing Staff. We all need to come together to let one member of the circle leave.
This has been a hard time. Going to see my Mom each day, sometimes twice a day. My spirits rising and falling with her level of energy. Finally on Friday I was told she had lost her swallow reflex and that it was time to start and analgisac and sedative. We started with a shot of Morphine Friday night. She was rouseable on Saturday and managed a little smile when I was leaving in the evening. I had told her, �If you see Daddy, go with him. He will be your guide. There is nothing to fear. They will all be waiting for you, Grandmother, your mother, Gigi, Sessa, Ada. It will be a joyous reunion. When my time comes you can come for me. I�ll look for you. We�ll be together
again.� I prayed fervently to my father to please come and take her. Sunday when I went back she was non responsive. She no longer fought my attempts to moisten her mouth. By the evening her breathing was shallow and rapid. I didn�t know how long it would be so I left. At 11pm the home called to say that she had passed away. Ken and I went to spend some time with her body for which I am grateful. I hugged her, rested my head on her shoulder kissed her ran my hands over her limbs. She was still warm to the touch and It was hard to realize she wasn�t there. I am so sad and yet I feel that she is around me and I feel her happiness. That is reassuring.
4/21/98
"I love you I love you I love you I love you.
Don't cry mother, Don't cry daughter."
You look like you must have when you were young and slender, like in the 1917 picture. I didn't know you then. Wait. Wait. I want to get to know you as you were then, before I was born.
4/28/98
Your body is growing slimmer. Less of the flesh and more of the spirit. I tend you now, using my Nursing skills, turn you, rub your back, clear your mouth. I am more familiar with your body than ever before. I notice the color, alabaster, uniform. I meet with the bones for the first time, shoulder blades, knees, humerus, radius, ulna. They are thick, strong and heavy to lift. Your hands are bony, just metatarsals and tendons with the thin covering of soft warm skin. The Pads of the fingers are soft against mine. "I like it when you hold my hand." you say.
You ask me, "Am I where I should be?" Such a hard question. So many possible permutations. I decide to keep it simple. "You are in your room in Bedford, close to me." You say to me, "I'll try to be good while you're gone." Who did you say that to last? Your mother? 99 years ago?
Often you drop into sleep and then rouse yourself to see me. When your eyes meet mine you smile. I try to memorize that smile and your eyes, so large and so blue. I think about taking a picture. Would that be a trespass? It is a smile that is just a pure smile. It asks nothing of me. I've never felt that altruism from you before. I want the smile to be etched into my memory to help erase all the struggles we had that are already fading, fading, fading.
I brought you a new gown today. I made it quickly yesterday. ( Better get this done. You brought this fabric for her. She will like it). "Oh, I like it." you say. "Should I put it on now?" "Is my name in it". "No, just your room and number." "That's enough." you say.
The day before you died, Saturday, in the evening, I was sitting with you and I knew your time was near. I took your hand and spoke close to your ear. "If you see Daddy, go with him. He will be your guide." A look of fear briefly crossed your face and to join with you I said, "When my time comes I will look for you. It won't be long".
The nurse came in and we changed and turned you to the other side. I checked your pillows, legs and feet for padding. I covered you and said good night and that I would be back in the morning. Your eyes met mine and you gave me your last smile. How I cherish that smile, so brief but so precious.
The next day you were non responsive and you passed that evening at 11 PM. I had left you two hours before. I hope you saw Daddy and went with him.
August 24, 1998, You are gone now. I've started to tend your grave. Yesterday I cleared the brush and cleaned the headstones. I'll take care of everyone there, I don't mind. I talk to them. I played them Ezra's tape, LOUD. "This is Ezra." I say. " He dedicated it 'to the pianist Marie Louise Whitaker'." Maybe next time I'll play Mozart or Bach (for my Mom).
I look at your picture over my writing place. You were a living memorial for all those people from your childhood and young adulthood. The undervalued stepchild. They couldn't have known that you were their immortality, for your life time at least. I will try to remember, to honor your memory and what you valued but when I'm gone they will really be dead
For My Mother
We gather here to celebrate the life of Marie Louise Whitaker. She loved life and was always optimistic. She gave us her healthy strong body, her intelligence, love of music, memories of her family, her sense of social grace and behavior. For her most things were possible. You just had to decide how to do it and who could help.
Her life spanned a most incredible period from the introduction of the automobile to travel in space. She was born into luxury and lost her mother at aged 3. She survived trauma, rejection and poverty. She was a survivor and a fighter.
She explored a few systems of religious thought but toward the end of her life she seemed to loose interest in the issue. She said she wasn't afraid or worried about death, that what ever WAS, was alright.
For me, the good memories seem far more prominent now. I am grateful for her life. I am grateful that she desired my life and made the best plans and decisions available to her to lay the ground work for my life. That foundation has been a reliable ground on which to build my life and my family.
As my mother approached the end of her life she became more grateful, accepting. I thought, she is perfecting her soul. My hope is that the perfectibility continues, even after death and that she is now full of joy and at peace. Amen}
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