My mother moved to Billings, MT five years ago after taking care of my two great aunts Gladys and Helen in Duxbury, MA for their last twenty years of life; both lived to be 96yrs old. She took very good care of them. Mom always wanted to be a nurse and between the age of 60yrs and 80yrs she had the opportunity for family home care. She tried to apply to be a nurse in the US Army at age 42 and was refused with a letter saying she was too old. In high school her report card of all A's would have gotten her into nursing school young but, she didn't have the money to attend college. And, then again she had me at age twenty.
I hated her selling the house I loved at 205 Surplus St. She inherited an antique half cape house from Aunt Gladys. It was a house I visited a few miles from the home I grew up in. It had a large yard and backroom off the garage where I had pajama parties with my high school friends. Later I made an art studio out of it. I loved that house and so did Mom. Age made her do it. She felt she had to be near one her daughters and she chose Donna who lived in Billings. So at age 81yrs she moved to a new place never having lived outside of a 30mile radius of her birth town Plymouth, MA .
We found a beautiful one level home in Briarwood for her, only a mile and a half from Donna. Most of her furniture was moved with her and she did her magic in decorating with a Western flair now incorporting her antiques with red leather couchs and grey stone fireplaces. It was a hard transition for her but a necessary one. She visited her home at the Camp in Plymouth, MA once a year in the summer with the whole family reuniting. Sitting on the porch overlooking the pond was her favorite time there last summer. As my cousin, Morton, reminded me she didn't want to leave. He is feeling guilty about that, but, she couldn't have stayed. She needed Donna and her new home to survive happily and she knew it.
I started visiting her when needed and at Thanksgiving time, I really liked her new home and the lifestyle she enjoyed with Donna and Ralph in the Prarie. Montana is really a wonderful place and a good second home for her. I am now here with my two sisters planning her funeral arrangements. When I got off the plane from Honolulu I went with Donna and Gayle to Smith's funeral home to pay a last visit to Mom. It was good, I started with the Lord's Prayer and ended with Goodbye and aloha as I walked through the doorway of the visiting room.
The news of my mother's death hit me like a lead balloon. I was having lunch with my three friends in Honolulu, when I got the call from my sister Donna who was visiting. In the parking garage I returned Donna's phone message. She asked me if I was driving, I said no, she told me she had some awful news, "Mom was dead." I asked how and she didn't answer, saying instead she and her son Peter would meet me at my house ten minutes away. I sat in my car and wailed at the news of losing my mother. I called my friend on the third floor who came downstairs and took me back upstairs to calm down.
When Sylvia embraced me I said my mother was everything to me; she was my mother and my father. She did everything she could to make my life better. I felt like a bomb had hit my soul. I felt all alone and so far away from Mom. The next day I took a flight to Billings to meet both Gayle from Texas and Donna to help with the arrangements. I was surprised to find a calmness in being in Mom's house and surrounded by her clothes and furniture.
I took a nap on her bed yesterday as we covered mine with clothing she had that is to be given away. I opted to sleep in her room so that Gayle and Ella wouldn't have to. Last night I slept in her beach coverup in her bed in her sheets. I slept well and felt okay again if just for a night.
I will miss my mother terribly, she always talked to me when I called. I don't remember her ever being too busy to talk. I bounced problems off of her and she tried to help. My mother was generous to me and I have grown in to the woman she wanted. I am a happy adult, successful in business, friends and family. What more could she ask for?
A devoted daughter. Coral
