1. One year ago today, on August 16, 2017, Mom died shortly after 10 p.m. at the nursing home across the street. I had been with her that day until around 9:00 and, as I left, I talked for a few minutes with one of the nurses, Dawn, who had worked for many years as a hospice nurse. She told me that Mom had probably lost all of her sense except for her hearing. Fluids were gathering inside Mom, swelling her arms and wrists and hands. Mom had been asleep for several days and, that day she died, we all agreed it would help her to have her dentures removed, but as a last stand against her helplessness, Mom clinched her jaws whenever someone tried to take her dentures out. Finally, though, a CNA who had a special denture removing skill slipped Mom's dentures out and told us how she'd learned to do this so well when her grandfather (I think) had died. Carol and Paul came to Mom's room that evening and sang hymns to her until about 10:00. Soon after they left, she died. We all returned to bear witness to her death until the pastor came from the funeral home to take her away.
I remember what a gorgeous August evening that was. The days were shortening. It was hot during the day, but as the Deke and I made our way over to the nursing home, I remember how comforting the cool air felt and how clear it felt outside. I remember being comforted by the slight shift going on from summer to autumn and somehow I was reassured by the fact that even as Mom's life was impermanent, the cycles of the seasons remained undaunted and continued.
Tonight, the evening air in Kellogg was very similar to what I experienced a year ago. The Deke and I arrived home from Eugene and joined Carol, Paul, Christy, and Everett in Christy and Everett's back yard and we raised our glasses of gin and tonic in a toast to Mom's life and, I suppose, to the way we have all lived our lives as a family in the year since Mom died. We have remained true to Mom's commitment to the unity of our family by having weekly family dinners and helping each other out in any number of ways.
Mom was the center of our family life for over twenty years after Dad died. Before that, the two of them were the center of our family. With Mom's death, the center continues to hold. The three of us siblings, all together, are the center now and we do all we can to be faithful to the legacy of togetherness Mom and Dad put into place many, many years ago.
2. Our day ended in Kellogg, but it began in Eugene. The Deke checked out a couple of apartments in a triplex this morning, I tidied up the cottage we had stayed in, and the two of us had a 9:30 coffee at Pam and Michael Dane's house before we hit the road. We grabbed a snack at Starbucks on our way out of town and were on the road sometime around 11:00.
We made pretty good time driving from Eugene to Kellogg in large part because the traffic was moving steadily through Portland. We didn't experience any long slow downs or stoppages and the driving conditions from Portland all the way to Kellogg were ideal.
3. We stopped in Boardman at the C & D Drive In, home of the Bozo Burger. I wasn't feeling particularly Bozo-ish, nor was the Deke, so we passed on the Bozo Burger and settled into a simple meal. The Deke ate a hot dog and I ate a regular burger and small order of fries. It was a stop along the way beautiful only in how unremarkable it was and it gave us chance to stretch our legs and a sit somewhere other than the Sube.
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