An Exit...

The phone is ringing.  It is after midnight.
Where is the damn thing?!  I'm in a hotel room and it takes me awhile to find it.
It's my brother.  He has been trying my cell but, as usual, I have it on mute.
"What's up?"
"Mom died", he says.  This takes a minute to register as I clear my head.  We have been watching her steel cage death match with cancer for the past few days and, I think, both of us are relieved to know she has left the pain and humiliation of that battle behind.
Tomorrow we will meet with the undertaker and plan for her memorial service.

Yesterday and the day before as we sat and stood by her bedside there was ample opportunity for thoughts and observation and, naturally, I have a few:  First of all, why must all nursing homes smell like that?  We spared no expense in finding a really nice place for mom when she no longer was able to care for herself and yet this beautiful facility still manages to smell vaguely of vitamins and pee.  Why?  And why must the staff talk to these now enfeebled members of our greatest generation as if they were kindergartners?  There may be a good reason, but as a very infrequent visitor, it strikes me as unnecessary and insulting.  It makes me wonder how they behave when family is not around.  I don't want to think about it.

As I look around mom's room and check out the family photos we have placed there,  I'm struck by the fact that Steve and I are now older than our parents were in most of these pictures.  Also odd is the knowledge that mom no longer recognizes the image of the man she was married to for fifty-two years.  Dad is a stranger to her.  Sad.

Late yesterday afternoon it occurs to me that the 60's and 70's rock n' roll oldies I have been hearing quietly in my head are not in my head at all but in the hallways and common areas of the nursing home.  Some nitwit has decided that this bubblegum crap that was the soundtrack of my generation, (and most of my broadcast career), is appropriate for folks who loved the big bands, Sinatra and Tony Bennett.  Somebody needs firing.

 After meeting with the hospice nurse, we take some comfort in her assurance that mom had enough morphine to mute the pain of the cancer that rages unabated inside her.  As my brother's family, my wife and I make our way to the door, in the background K.C. and the Sunshine Band wail, "That's the way I like it uh uh huh...that's the way I like it uh huh uh huh".  I think to myself, NO--no it isn't, and go  looking for someone or something to slug.

Eleanor Copper would have been 90 on August 3, 2011.  She was a great mom.


"Riches are what money cannot purchase and death cannot take away."  --anonymous