a (mostly) true story
[Throwback Thursday excerpt from Life Begins When The Kids Leave Home And The Dog Dies]
When she turned fifty, my mother took up a new career: dying. It was a family tradition, she explained. “People in my family don’t make it out of their fifties. So we have to be ready to go.”
Each Christmas, she announced, would probably be her last—no point in a real tree or all that decorating. Her grandchildren would nod, and go right on dragging in and decorating a huge tree, around which our even more huge family would celebrate as usual, with Mother baking, making up beds, passing around Baileys Irish Cream, and loving every second of the noise and mess and confusion.
After pursuing dying for a few decades, it was time for her to think about retiring. But since there were really only two ways (ruling out vampires and/or zombies) to move on from that career choice—a coffin, or coming back three days after being nailed to a cross—she was naturally a bit hesitant.
Finally, though, we could all see that her big promotion was getting close. My father had moved to the fold-out sofa in the living room while Mother mostly stayed in the hospital bed that held pride of place in the family room. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren sat on the ends, dangling their feet and watching the large screen television, or wandering in and out from the backyard pool. After the little ones were asleep, the rest of us sat around her big bed, drinking pitchers of margaritas or tom collins, and playing pinochle/accusing each other of cheating, while Mother sucked down spoonfuls of Baileys and morphine.
One afternoon, the phone rang and it was my Mother’s banker, asking how she was doing. With all the yelling and laughing, one sister took the call into the other room. “She’s good. She’s drinking Baileys and cheating at pinochle.”
He cleared his throat a few times. “The thing is, we have a lady here wanting to cash a check for her granddaughter, who she says was your mother’s nurse. The check is drawn on your mother’s account for several thousand dollars.”
“Um, could you hold a minute please?”
One of my sisters looked up from the pile of limes she was slicing. She remembered a young aide who had come for a day, but left early when she got a call saying her grandmother had died. In collegial respect for a fellow dying professional, Mother had insisted that my brother give her a ride home. We got out my parents’ checkbook and looked at the register. Nothing had been written in quite a while. “What’s the check number?”
It was from the box of unused checks up in their study. He promised to notify the police and we said goodbye.
Cards forgotten, we all sat around discussing the special kind of cojones it would take to steal from a dying woman, even one who’d been at it for thirty-plus years. Mother felt sorry for the girl who had just lost her grandmother, until I told her Granny had miraculously come back from the grave to help cash the check. I think my mother was intrigued.
While Mother consoled herself with sips of Baileys, the rest of us decided this was a job for mojitos. The doorbell rang, and two polite young police officers introduced themselves. I asked if they wanted to come in, and they looked grave. “No, we heard about your mother and don’t want to disturb your family at a time like this. We can talk out here.”
I closed the door on a loud accusation of dastardly card-deeds and accompanying burst of laughter. “Yes?”
They explained that they needed us to file a complaint, and to provide details about our contact with the young woman. She had already told them that although she’d been sent by an agency, my mother was apparently so grateful for whatever services she’d provided in her few hours of aide work that she pressed the check into her reluctant hands. They showed me a copy of the check, and the illegible signature could have been Mother’s. It could also have been Ghengis Khan’s.
I explained that Mother was dying (I didn’t say for how long), and we’d all gathered to be at her bedside. She did have full-time health aides, but the agency sent over subs sometimes when one of the others couldn’t be there. This one hadn’t even been there a full day.
The older officer had a lot of questions for me. His younger companion was extremely polite, but his eyes kept flicking over to the big picture window whenever a particularly loud burst of guffaws and/or accusations rang out.
The door behind me swung open to reveal one of my sisters with a pitcher of mojitos and some glasses. A niece took her arm and whispered in her ear, as peals of mirth rang out behind them. I closed the door and met two impassive faces.
I returned their stares. What I wanted to say was that in listing her seven stages of grief—at least as it was practiced in our family—Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross left out the manic, inappropriate humor stage. And the mojitos.
I settled for an attempt at dignity. “Everyone grieves in their own way.” Then I closed the door and took the glass my sister held out. Best mojito ever.
That night, we all pitched in to help with the cooking. I made my special garlic roast chicken, forgetting that Mother never ate garlic. The smell spread through the house, and she surprised us by coming to the table for dinner. As usual, she was laughing and making death jokes—“Better have seconds now, because I’ll be dead broke later, if that girl cashed more checks. Or maybe just dead.”
Everyone marveled at the way she rallied, joked, and ate my chicken. That night, when it was my turn to sit with her, she asked about each of my children. After I filled her in, she sighed, “I think that’s good enough.”
Even Mother had to be right eventually. The next morning, after the funeral home’s hearse had taken her away, one of my sisters turned to me. “It was your garlic chicken. I think you killed her.”
EPILOGUE: The night of her funeral, I woke up to find Mother sitting on the end of my bed. I asked her if she was okay, and she said she was just waiting for my father, who was always late. “Maybe you should make him some of that chicken.”
She was still laughing as I drifted back to sleep.
ksbeth said:
i ❤ this!
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barbtaub said:
Thanks!
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Zoe the Fabulous Feline said:
Sis! Seriously, your mother could have been mine, the family holidays/dinners, ours. Wonderful experience on so many levels, thank you for sharing it! This is Emily, by the way. Having nine lives, Zoe would find this ho-hum.
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barbtaub said:
Hi, Emily: Are you saying you are similarly matricidal?
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Murphy's Law said:
I’m laughing ’til I’m crying! Wait! What?? I think some of those tears are running down my legs! 😂😂😂
🔹 Ginger 🔹
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barbtaub said:
Oh no Ginger! I’m so SO sorry about the er…tears…on your legs.
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jenanita01 said:
Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
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barbtaub said:
Thank you so much for the reblog!
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jenanita01 said:
I have one of those, so I’m off to buy some garlic!
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barbtaub said:
Matricidal much?
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jenanita01 said:
Too much!
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stevetanham said:
Reblogged this on Sun in Gemini and commented:
From Barb Taub. Just had to… so funny.
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barbtaub said:
Thank you SO much for reblog!
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stevetanham said:
Most welcome, Barb. Loved it…
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tric said:
Hahaha. Great post. This is quite an Irish way to see someone off. We do dying well here.
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barbtaub said:
Haha! You would have LOVED the wake. Many bottles of Baileys gave their all for it.
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rumasdairies said:
Loved it.. Lost my Mother a few months back. For years she went on about ‘when I am gone’ thing.. Can truly comprehend your days
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barbtaub said:
So so sorry for your loss. Although I can recall the funny bits now, it took several years before I was able to write about it.
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Rhino House said:
Perfect!
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barbtaub said:
Thanks so much!
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Pingback: The Day I Killed Mom #humor from Barb Taub | Sue Vincent's Daily Echo
tidalscribe said:
What a wonderful family you alll are. It reminds me of my best forgotten two years in the police in my twenties. I was sent to a death at home, nervous as I had never seen a dead body. When I got there the little front room was full of relatives in party mood, the family doctor was also there. They showed me granny curled up peacefully in bed like a child. a wonderful way to go. I think they felt sorry for me, obviously having no idea what I was doing and gave me a cup of tea.
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Dorinda Duclos said:
You all had the right idea! Celebrate life! ❤️
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Smorgasbord - Variety is the Spice of Life. said:
My mother was having her lunchtime whisky and water nearly to the end.. a double and if the doctor said anything she told him to mind his own business.. she was the one who had lived to 95! Entertaining and your mother went in a way we all should.. Baileys.. my favourite… xx
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Pingback: Smorgasbord Blogger Daily – Monday July 9th 2018 – Jean Lee, Marjorie Mallon and Barb Taub | Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life
willowdot21 said:
My Mum was convinced she would die at 60. When she was 59 she went to see our GP and told him she was going to die within the year. The Dr asked her why she believed this. She told him that both her brothers had died at 60 . He asked what they had died of, she told him serosis of the liver. ” Did they both drink ?”Joan he enquired, “yes “she replied, “a lot”. “How much do you drink Joan?” the Dr asked.. Mum replied , ” I don’t drink at all”, well said the Dr ” you are not going to die of serosis of the liver then are you? ” Bless her Mum lived to 81.
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Marilyn Armstrong said:
Okay, you got me with that one. Garlic chicken indeed!
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Jennie said:
This is hilarious! One of the best pieces of humor I have read. 😅
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amreade said:
My grandfather started saying he expected to die any day for twenty-five years before he actually died. He was not able to eat garlic chicken at the end, but that may have hastened things along. Who knows? I loved this post. 🙂
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robbiecheadle said:
A lovely post, Barb. We do all deal with grief in our own way. Not sure about that ending though, not sure I would be up for that.
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barbtaub said:
Hey, that’s my one and only ghost story. As such, I much prefer to believe it actually happened and wasn’t just the result of a bad dream and unwise Baileys Irish Creme consumption…
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patriciaruthsusan said:
This was great. I think my mother was disappointed she outlived my father by about fourteen years. It was supposed to be the other way around. 🙂 — Suzanne
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barbtaub said:
It sometimes seemed that my parents were hanging in there together because each was convinced the other needed to be looked after. And indeed, they ended up passing away very close to each other.
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patriciaruthsusan said:
That was better for them but I imagine sad for the rest of the family. —- Suzanne
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