The Sisterhood

It is time to share with you about my mother, Mary Jo, who has always been an inspiration to me.  She is a woman of mixed emotions because she could be volatile and lash out, then supportive and loving at any given time.  She represented strength to me, a woman I would want to be as I grew up and out in the world on my own.

The last of five children, Mary Jo was the baby of her family.  Fern was four years old when she was born.  Mary Jo started life in her mother’s womb being tossed by one of history’s most tragic of tornado’s in Hamilton County, Illinois in 1925.  In 1938 during the Great Depression she lost her father, who was a coal miner, to a car accident when she was 13 years old.  With just her mother and two older sisters still at home on the farm, they put their lives back together during what was surely a difficult time.  Of all her childhood stories, I gathered she was something of a solitary soul.  To this day, I would describe my mom as someone with something buried deep within her that no one in this lifetime will ever know but you can sense something there.  As a child, I sensed it in her quiet moments on the back porch growing up, smoking a last cigarette in the dark, with her back to the house and an unspoken barrier that said – “do not disturb.”

I always grew up thinking we were a well to do family.  I always had great food to eat.  I was dressed to the nines because my mom was a master seamstress.  We would take trips as a family every year for vacation to the beaches of Florida or Maryland; outings on the weekends burning off energy and enjoying the great outdoors.  I have no memory of wanting for anything.  To this day I have engrained in my mind’s eye my mother in the kitchen because she was an excellent cook.  I see her in the basement at the sewing machine making clothing with me sitting on a chair next to her relaying my entire day in a single breath while she sewed and nodded as she listened.  I see the craftsmanship of her sewing talent in my wedding dress I have safeguarded like the most precious of jewels, and in the quilts she made and won awards for in quilt shows.  She was not just domestic she was also competitive and loved sports.  I still see her on the tennis court and winning the Colorado Senior Gold in her sixties and going on to play the nationals in New York.  She golfed with a passion until her early 80s when her arthritis made the game too painful to play.  I see my mom tending her garden of spectacular flowers in the Colorado summers.  She was the most accomplished and versatile woman I had ever known.  It is important that you understand the depth and breadth of my mother, Mary Jo, as I share this Alzheimer’s journey; not because Fern’s back story is any less important but, because Alzheimer’s has robbed Mary Jo most of all.

Mom and Fern were insistent that they wanted to live out their days together.  The sisterly bond between them was inextricable.  After taking down Fern’s house in St. Louis, it was to Mary Jo’s house in Aurora, Colorado where that wish would come true.

As Fern, Davie dog and I boarded the plane in St. Louis, I couldn’t believe my luck that the dog didn’t bark a single time since I’d stuffed him in the carrier.  I anticipated his incessant barking all the way to Colorado and dreaded the experience we would have on the plane but he didn’t make a peep.  I suspect he sensed a significant change for which he couldn’t control the outcome.

On the plane ride, Fern was giddy with everyone around her.  You would never know she just closed the door on 60 years of a life well live in St. Louis; leaving behind her husband of 48 years in the military cemetery of Jefferson Barracks where someday she would return.  For the moment, she was excited for the trip and the prospect of living with her sister.

I was anxious and couldn’t shake the tension in my gut.  While things seemed fine, there was something inside me that didn’t trust the ease of it all and my mind couldn’t label what exactly was causing me to feel so stressed.  I felt maternal towards my aunt and tried to stave off the feeling of unease by planning what needed to be done next when we arrived in Denver to set her up in her new life.  As the plane touched down, I told Fern she was home now and my mom would be waiting for us when we got off the plane.  Davie was still silent and Fern suddenly shifted from giddy to quiet.  That is when I knew the enormity of the transition and all she had given up was becoming a reality.  This wasn’t just a vacation trip she was taking to Colorado.