Miss Mary Moments

  If I had to choose one thing that Mom valued above all else it would be books. When she was well we’d go to the library, sometimes two, several days a week. She was a voracious reader and her greatest joy was bringing home a new book from the library. We first went to the library when I was a child. I am amazed that she never went as a child because the place became instantly important to her. We’d go to the Carnegie library in Miamisburg. Up the steps to the adult library or down a flight to the children’s library. I, too, found it intoxicating. I couldn’t believe I could read any book in the place, actually take it home for a few weeks. It was as though I owned the book … for a while anyway. Mom, too, would bring home an armload, surely more than she could read in the allotted time. But that stack of books on the living room floor had potential and how did either of us know what we’d like before we’d read a few pages? Dad wasn’t as enamored with books, though a few ...

  Dad left us in 2011. It was somewhat unexpected … though is death ever expected? He was declining at home and yet neither Mom nor I realized his condition was serious. It was a home nurse who apparently notified our doctor that something was up and Dad was soon hospitalized. Cancer was mentioned – lung cancer to be exact – but I never saw signs of it. He never smoked cigarettes and his occasional use of a pipe was given up many decades before. In any case, once hospitalized the decline became even more steep. Soon enough, with him no longer conscious, it was decided that he should be moved to a nursing home. Mom and I made inquiries at one in New Lebanon – though Mom was not happy with the choice, it was at least close. He was scheduled to be transported there in a day or so. But before that could happen, a doctor called us and explained that he thought hospice was a better choice. We had no idea he was in that terminal a state. Nevertheless, we made plans and he...

  Here then are the Miss Mary Moments as posted on Facebook in chronological order. I started posting them in  2012 and ended with her death in 2017. No doubt she was feisty and able to have a quick come-back but every one carries a nuance of love, too. 01-24-2012 Mom told me this morning that she had washed the dishes, dried them and put them away. Trouble is, she said she forgot to rinse them. So if I’m foaming at the mouth you know what happened. “I hope they don’t taste soapy,” she told me. 03-08-2012 I was upstairs and I heard a call. “Can you come help me?” I hesitated. “Quick! Can you come right away?” she said. While opening a carton of soda – with a sharp pair of scissors – she cut into a can. It was spewing pop all over the kitchen carpet. I grabbed the carton and paper towels (which she had already grabbed to slow the flow) and ran to the sink with the carton. Egad! “Mom, quit opening soda cartons with scissors,” I suggested. 03-13-2012 Mom is sitting in...