Strawberries

This was originally published on Authentic Writing Stories, an online collection of personal essays hand-selected by the moderators of a writing workshop I attended at the Omega Institute. 

I wanted strawberries. Frozen strawberries. Not the kind I buy today, individually quick frozen to maintain their perfect shapes and packaged in a convenient resealable bag. The strawberries I was longing for, whining for, were sugar-laden clumps of red, broken fruit, packed tightly into a rectangular cardboard container capped at both ends with metal that you had to pry off with a can opener.

My mother stood in her sewing room, which doubled as our laundry room, carefully transferring my dad’s undershirts and my summer tee shirts from our white Kenmore washer into the dryer. She was annoyed at me, irritated at my whiny behavior, wanted to be left alone with her work and her thoughts. I had never done this before. I was the model German child, always doing what I was told to do when I was told to do it and never acting outside of the accepted, stifled confines of our family. But somehow today was different.

The strawberries in question were always kept on hand in our freezer. They were an essential ingredient in what became my mother’s signature dessert. The strawberries were placed in the bottom of a large glass bowl, the frozen red brick remaining intact for several hours on our yellow Formica counter until finally morphing into what could have easily passed for strawberry soup. Next my mother cooked a box of Jell-O tapioca pudding mix, using slightly less milk than the side of the box recommended, resulting in a thick, sweet, gooey pudding. This steaming hot mixture was poured over the thawed strawberries but not mixed. The berries would caress the pudding in their own time, gradually seeping into the white, hot goodness, forming what looked like little red fiords. Eventually, the strawberries created a liquid cushion on which the pudding would ultimately float. This dessert was made and served every time we had company and I never saw anyone not take a second helping. And although I liked this dessert as well as anyone, I don’t know why, on this day, I was so intent on getting my mom to take out one of those frozen boxes of sweet berries just so I could have some.

Her annoyance, as always, was palpable. She ignored me, told me to stop, threatened to tell my father when he got home, but I persisted. When my whining finally turned into tears, she stopped moving the laundry and did something extraordinary. Without saying a word, she walked to the freezer and took out a box of strawberries. For me. To eat.

I realize this was probably an act of sheer exasperation or perhaps the only way to stop my emotional upheaval. But to me, in that moment, it was the most loving gesture I had ever received from my mother. It was no longer about the fruit, it was about her willingness to provide some nurturing to a little girl who felt lonely, sad, unloved.

The fact that this rare display of love was provided by food was probably the first sign of trouble I would not fully realize until I was well into my thirties. The nurturing I so desperately longed for, arriving as it did in the form of food, became inextricably linked to eating. Food began to equal nurturing. The love I could find nowhere else I could easily attain from a gooey, frosted brownie. A hug would emerge as an embrace from a log of chocolate-covered marzipan. And an “I love you?” Well, that required pizza after pizza after pizza.

I didn’t know where else to get these things. I couldn’t ask, wouldn’t ask, because even if I had, the answer would have been no. And food said yes.

Grief Grows Up

My father died 22 months ago and in that time, I have noticed that I am logging my grief much the same as new parents note how old their children are, using small developmental milestones.

I was not prepared for this birth. I was like one of those teenage girls one sees in the news who, at nine months along, claims to have no idea she is pregnant. Denial can be a wonderful form of escapism, until the truth comes forward to claim its rightful place. Giving birth to grief was the most painful experience of my life. Excruciating pain and raw emotion gripped my insides; contractions of my psyche that grew closer and closer together until the final push--the realization that this was real. My dad was never coming back. Then the screams, raw and loud and so foreign to my ears, even as I knew somehow that I was the source of these decibel-bursting sounds. 

As it reached two weeks old I was getting used to this new being in my life, but as my dad's birthday appeared before me, I began to experience post-griefshock syndrome, a sort of PTSD that occurs when a special date follows too closely to a birth. I took special care of my grief that day. I drew it close as if by holding it tightly I could will away the pain. I could not. My grief soon made room for post-partum depression. I knew it would. 

At seven months, Dadgrief had learned how to comfort itself, not with a thumb or a pacifier, but with food. As this was the age it could now feed itself, it did so with frightening frequency. This was so incredibly comforting. After every bite, the depression faded slightly as the food slid down. When the tears emerged anew, another bite would numb the feelings once more.

Twelve months came quickly and my grief learned to walk and run without help and how to greet other people. As these milestones were reached, I could more easily ask my grief to communicate with me. But all it could do was remind me of what was gone, what was missing, how this loss was a permanent fixture in my life, an unwanted chandelier illuminating nothing but pain.

At eighteen months, I gave birth again, this time to grief for my mother. The morning sickness was far worse this time, but the birth was less painful. All of the pain for this griefchild, it seemed, came before the birth as I cried heaving sobs that this grief was coming. My body was more prepared for the actual arrival of this being and though the screams may have been less intense, the raw emotion was in full control of my body. 

So now I have two beings to raise. Two distinct entities who will have to coexist in my house, in my body, and in my head. 

Momgrief will have to go through the same stages as Dadgrief but, when Momgrief is around three years old, they will be able to play together. They can run and jump and hide from me, but surely they will only play hide and seek, and I will have no alternative but to find them. They are, after all, beings that cannot exist on their own. 

At some point they will want the car keys and drive off, giving me time away from them. Eventually they will both get their own homes or apartments, returning only for birthdays and holidays. But because they are mine, born of love and nurtured by memories, they will remain mine until I die. These beings I have borne will not cease to exist until I do, because this love inside me will never die. 

The Fabric of a Life

Piles of clothing tumble through my fingers as if they are in a tremendous dryer set on slow motion. Work-worn flannel, silky polyester, toasty warm fleece, rough canvas. I touch each one gently and feel the fabric between my fingers, holding tight to both the living and the dead. In each bit of cloth memory is embedded; tiny moments in time I attempt to relive.

In the buttons on a plaid flannel shirt, I see my dad walking toward his garden to tend to the rows of potatoes that my mom will boil for dinner every night. I feel my mom's anxiety as I touch the neckline of the dark pink dress she wore to our wedding, her tense energy palpable as she entered into a frightening world of New Jersey, a place as foreign to her as America once was. My dad's denim overalls are stained with sweat and still covered in sawdust from the last time he wore them. There are an abundance of mostly blue polyester blouses because my mother hated to iron but loathed wrinkles even more. A camouflage jacket holds tight to gunshot residue from the last time my dad fired a gun while wearing it. Maybe it was the last time he ever fired a gun. I’ll never know. I find my dad's burgundy knit hat that he always wore when plowing snow. I hold it to my face and breathe in the pain of his loss. 

These are the clothes of two lives. My parents’ lives. They have left this earth; their clothes are being washed and carefully folded to be donated to charity. My brother and I have both chosen to keep items so that we may continue to feel them near us. My dad's closet was that of a working man: work clothes, plaid shirts for going out, one barely worn suit. My mother had so many clothes, yet giving any of them away seems so wrong to me. I do it anyway. These are only clothes, worn by the hard-working parents who raised me, yet every seam and each sleeve carries with it part of them. 

Only memories remain now. Between each tiny thread, no matter how ripped or well-preserved, there remains a part of their lives and a part of my life as well. I sort through those memories as the clothes continue their sad tumble; I file each memory away carefully as the clothes are folded, then hide the thoughts in a corner of my heart. The clothes will be gone, but my memories are packed away like the clothes, neat piles of my past woven together like thread, entangling me with the sadness of lives become dust. 

The Day I Became an Adult

The day I truly became an adult I was 51 years old, walking with crutches as a bulky, heavily Velcoed boot covered my left foot. I was sitting with my father in Room 206 of a nursing facility in Liberty, New York on an icy-cold January day. One generally thinks of adulthood as arriving with something tangible, perhaps the conferring of a degree, the purchase of a first home, or receiving a job in one’s chosen career. And while these life events have all happened to me and were, indeed, opportunities for growth, they did not force me into adulthood. No, the one who held those cards was sitting in front of me on that January day, tethered to a wheelchair, desperately trying to get up and walk out of that place — both in mind and in body — and go home.

As was our usual routine in the three months my dad had been at the facility, my husband Bill had dropped me off so I could have some alone time with my dad while Bill went to pick up my mom. I never knew what to expect during this precious private time before my dad’s lunch was served. My dad was always very awake, but his lucidity ranged from totally, 100% my dad, to a person I had never met before, to somewhere in between. Many times, especially during those first, terrifying weeks in the facility, he was filled with paranoia. He was certain my mom had left him and found someone new, he was sure his identity had been stolen, and he thought that Bill had taken all of his money and was raising chickens in a cabin somewhere in the Adirondacks.

​But that cold day in January was a good day. A really good day. My dad was extremely lucid, asking relevant questions about my mom and the bills, the upkeep of the house, and if the driveway was getting plowed. Completely normal stuff. He kept trying to get up, because he just could not comprehend that getting up most likely equaled falling. Over and over again, when he attempted to get up, I would gently put my hand on his arm and say, “Don’t try to get up. I don’t want you to fall.” He would sit back down. Try to get up, hand on arm, sit back down. Repeat. Over and over again.

At one point, he tried to get up but before I could reach out and touch his arm, he realized it was pointless and sat back down. That’s when it happened. He looked me squarely in the eye and said, “Are you disappointed in me?” I barely squeaked out the word “no” before my eyes were flooded with tears and I could no longer talk, or think, or breathe. This was my dad. This was the man whose praise was worth more to me than currency. I had spent my entire life trying to make him proud of me. And now he was asking if I was disappointed in him?

In that moment, with that one innocent question, the solar system of my life completely rearranged itself. As a child, I was always revolving around my parents, desperately searching for their sunlight to shine on me, trying anything I could for their pride to warm me. This was not always an easy task. My mother and father were not quick with praise and, since my brother was someone to whom academic and athletic success came more easily, I was always trying to accomplish anything that would equal his achievements. Then I would rotate my little planetary self faster and faster, trying in vain to grab any bit of sunlight I could to earn my parents’ approval. In my eyes, at least, I could never measure up. But I had tried, hard, from the time I was young and eager for praise until that cold January day.

Then my dad, so intently wanting to know if I was disappointed in him, shifted my personal cosmos. I suddenly felt that I was his sun. I wanted to warm him, to shine light on his fading memory, to let him know that it doesn’t matter if he can’t stand up, it’s okay that he can’t remember important dates, and things will be fine if he has a hard time buttoning his shirt. There will be good days when our conversations will be something I can hold onto and file away in my heart beside the lifetime of memories he has already given me.

My dad passed away on August 4, 2015. There were days when he was unaware of my presence, when all I could do was sit with him, be with him, and try not to let the sadness overwhelm me. As his dementia continued to take more things from him, things I could not even imagine, he was  always the dad I respected completely, looked up to with wide-eyed awe, and loved without limit. Because I knew that of all the things he lost, the gentle soul of the man who raised me with the finest of values — honesty, loyalty, and patience — remained whole and undiminished.

And that could never disappoint me.

Welcome to Lewyville

Travel is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Getting into a car or boarding a plane and being whisked away to another city, state, or country to explore its wonders always creates a sense of adventure, great memories, and the ability to understand how others live their lives. But the most important trip of my life did not involve a plane ticket or a car packed with luggage, yet it completely changed the way I saw my life and, more importantly, my father’s life with Lewy.

When my dad began his journey with Lewy Body Dementia, most of my emotions were, not surprisingly, sad ones. His mind was growing further and further away from me, and I desperately wanted to stop its inevitable departure. I was like a child whose balloon had escaped her tiny grip, reaching out to get it back but having to watch helplessly as the distance between us grew ever wider. I was powerless over Lewy.

One day I put my sadness into a little box and set it aside for a few hours. Then I did something radical. Because he was no longer able to travel to where I was, I took a trip to Lewyville with my dad. I put my hand in his, closed my eyes, and suddenly I was transported to a land that only existed in my father's mind. It wasn't a long trip, but it was one I will never forget. 

As I began to let go and shake off the last remnants of life as I knew it, my father's reality slowly came into focus. In it were vivid sights and sounds and smells and tastes I had seen my dad reacting to for months. But here in Lewyville, they were real.

My dad was a carpenter, so the first thing I noticed about this land was that there were tools everywhere. There were hammers and screwdrivers and nails and screws. Some were on tables and workbenches but most were floating around freely, available whenever my dad needed them. When my dad reached out for what appeared to be air outside of Lewyville, I could now clearly see the hammer he was grasping and the nail he was reaching out to grab. Then he wheeled himself closer to the wall. Before we were in Lewyville, the wall appeared normal; now I could see the repair my dad had been called on the make. The wall was in serious need of a carpenter; clearly, my dad was the man for the job.

My dad turned his head to respond to someone asking him a question about a measurement. Before this journey, he appeared to be speaking to no one. Now I could see the other carpenters working with him. 

When it was time for lunch, I saw a man seated at a table. As I walked closer, I saw that it was my grandfather. Soon my dad joined him and they sat together eating lunch, father and son laughing and chatting in German, my dad's face so luminously happy I began to cry.

I looked out of the window and saw the 40 rabbits my dad had told my mom he saw out on the grass. It had seemed like an impossibility but there they were, a cluster of 40 rabbits that seemed, well, normal. One of the 20 men who were shoveling snow in the hallway outside my father’s nursing home room tipped his hat to me. I waved shyly, embarrassed that I had ever believed they weren’t truly out there, clearing the snow. I could hear the shovels as they scraped the surface of the floor.

And then there was this: everywhere I looked there were images. I saw scenes of my dad as a child, my parents when they were a young married couple, my brother and me as kids, my dad working. These vivid images would appear for a moment. My dad would acknowledge each with a comment, then the image  would fade away. As I watched these images come and go, I realized these were my dad's memories coming into and out of his awareness. It was distressing to me when an image faded away; I wanted to hold tight to these images and the memories attached to them. But to my dad, they were just that: images that come and go like cottony white clouds, his attachment to them as elusive as to those clouds. 

Everything in this land seemed normal because I was in Lewyville. I was in my dad's new home and nothing that I saw or heard or tasted or smelled was unusual because this was as things were in Lewyville. This was my dad’s reality. This was home to him now. Soon it was time for me to leave and reenter my own reality. Before I left I told my dad how much I love him and he looked up at me, smiled, then reached for a wrench. 

I opened my eyes and I was still in his room, in the nursing home, surrounded by the sounds of caring aides carrying on their loving tasks. I had never left his room except in my mind. But traveling to Lewyville, even briefly in my imagination, enabled me to understand my dad with so much more depth and empathy.

Travel is typically fueled by a desire for adventure or relaxation. My journey to Lewyville, however, was taken for one reason: love. Understanding what he was experiencing in Lewyville gave me more compassion, more patience, and more love for the man who gave me so much all my life. I continued this journey with my dad and we walked this road together, step by step, until he passed over into another realm as death took him away from this earth. But the next time he reached into the air, I handed him the tool he needed because I knew just where to find it. 

Fatherless Day

This is my first Father's Day without a father. As the day gets closer and my inbox becomes a repository for all of the wonderful gifts one can purchase for one's dad, my mind begins to think irrationally. Can Amazon Prime really get my order to heaven in two days? Closer still and the emails become more insistent: it's the last day to get my order to my intended destination in time for Father's Day. Can FedEx really make it to the pearly gates on time? And if I wait any longer, how much will the additional shipping costs be? At two days before Father's Day the emails become even more frantic. "Don't forget Dad!" one screams out at me. Forget Dad? How could I ever forget my dad? The email goes on to tell me the gifts I can purchase if I rush to their store as soon as possible. I begin to put their address into my GPS...

Of course, these thoughts are not rational. These are the thoughts of a disordered mind and a still-grieving heart. The most evil place of all is, of course, the Hallmark store. I try to avoid it for as long as I can but I need a card for Casey and Toby to give to Bill. I find what I am looking for and sprint past the father cards like I used to run past the stone wall outside of my childhood home because I was so afraid of the snakes that were hiding in the wall just waiting to reach out and attack me. Or so I thought. I would gather all of my energy and run past that wall like my life depended on it. So I run past those father cards as if one of them will reach out and wrap itself around me like a serpent, squeezing out even more sorrow than the past ten months have summoned forth as it taunts me with the knowledge that I have no father I can buy a card for. No dad to whom I can deliver a gift. No face that will light up with pure joy simply because I baked him his favorite raisin cake.   

I used to tell people I was not a crier. This was not a source of pride or a badge of stoic honor, it was simply the truth. It took a great deal of raw emotion to get me to form those droplets of water I saw falling from other people's eyes. To the typical human, I may have appeared cold and unfeeling. That's just the way I was built. But after my dad passed away, I realized I was wrong. It's not that I was a non-crier. It's just that the room that held my tears was locked so securely it was impenetrable.

My dad, being the carpenter that he was, knew just how to unlock that door. As he passed into the next world, his kind, gentle soul gathered itself into a swirling ball of energy and blew that door wide open. And in doing so, he unlocked a tidal wave of emotion more than fifty years in the making. So now, I cry. I have shed more tears in the past ten months than in my previous years on earth combined. Time has not lessened my grief, it has merely altered it. That tidal wave has been reduced to the kind of wild and unpredictable wave that surfers seek and risk their lives for. But I don't know how to surf and I'm a poor swimmer, so the waves of grief rush against me and knock me over with their unrelenting force. Before last August I wouldn't even have felt these waves. Now I have no power over them. And so I cry. And Father's Day? Father's Day is one hell of a tsunami. 

But beyond the tears, though, and beyond the cards and gifts and cake-baking that are no longer part of this Fatherless Day for me, I believe there is more. Because beyond what we can see and touch and understand, I believe what remains is love. And maybe, just maybe, this love can be felt beyond the realms of existence we are able to comprehend. Perhaps if I love deeply enough, my dad will be able to feel that love. Even now. Even in death. 

And that would be the greatest gift of all. For both of us. 

Time and Time and Time...Again

All of my life I have been surrounded by too much time. To be clear, it isn't that the universe gave me extra hours in my days or added a few more years to my life; sadly, none of us will be granted these gifts. More precisely, I have always been surrounded by time's inevitable march as I rushed through a childhood that should have been carefree. Mine was ensnared in time. Time was all around me. Everywhere I gazed around my parents' house, there appeared a clock to cast its judgmental eyes upon me. All around me there were reminders that time was ticking away, letting me know that there was always something to do, somewhere to be, some task to be accomplished by a particular time. Is it any wonder that I was an anxious, frightened child who grew into an anxious, insecure adult? My entire life was been one cosmic race against the clock. 




My parents were German immigrants and I can say with absolute certainty that the stereotype of the uber-punctual German is, indeed, no stereotype. Google the phrase "Germans and time" as I just did and you will be met with a delightful selection of articles that basically describe my family. To be sure, I believe punctuality is extremely important. I was raised to believe that early equals on time and on time is equivalent to late. Consequently, I have serious issues with those who do not hold timeliness with such high regard, particularly those who are chronically late. 

Time has been marked by so much in my mom’s long life. Time passed merrily as she walked home from school with her friends, laughing and stopping to tell stories. Then time stopped in its tracks as she and her family hid in the bomb shelter night after night during World War II. Time ebbed and flowed with the ocean tide as she, my dad, and my seven-month-old brother crossed the Atlantic on the Gripsholm to begin a new life in America. Time passed quickly as her son grew, then a daughter — me — was added to the family.

Today I sit with my mom in her assisted living facility. During the two hours I have been here, she has asked me five times when dinner is. "Five o'clock," I say. She checks the clock above the TV, the one with the giant face so her glaucoma-affected eyes can see it better. It is three o’clock. She has asked me seven times, "So what do I have to do now?" It is all I can do not to say to her, "You are 90 years old. There is absolutely nothing you have to do!" But I don't. I can't. She is ruled by that clock and if she has nothing to do she feels she has no purpose. 

As we sit here together my mother thinks only of time in the sense of her next deadline, where she has to be, her next task to be done. I think of time as it moves my mom along in her life so quickly. As my mom sits and stares at the clock as it counts down to dinner, I gaze up at this same clock and ponder time as it counts down the moments in her life. Time stopped for my dad a mere seven months ago. I am still processing this loss, still so sad, still grieving his absence in my life. When time will cease for my mom, I do not know. She will turn 91 in three weeks and she is certainly strong-willed, but who knows,

But while my mind frets over life's larger questions, my mother is content to stare at the clock as it counts down to dinner. At this point in her life, perhaps marking time in this manner is truly a gift. I turn and we watch the clock together, each lost in our own thoughts.