Kathleen Ann

Last week my mom fell at her care facility which has been a regular occurrence lately. It was balance problems and falls two years ago that were the reason she couldn’t live alone anymore, as well as age related dementia which has progressed. This latest fall was more serious with other issues as well, and so she was admitted to the hospital. After a couple of days of her sleeping most of the time and not eating or drinking, I decided that I needed to go home before it was too late. An hour before I was supposed to leave for the airport, my brother called to say that she was being released and returned to the care facility, the care facility that was still closed to visitors due to active Covid cases. I was too far along in the process of getting there to cancel and so I got on a plane to Chicago.

My nephew picked me up at the airport and took me to her facility where I could not see her. My brother and sister were finishing up paperwork and meeting with hospice and the best I could do was look in her window where she was sleeping.

The next day my sister and I went to see Mom for a window visit where she was up and looking like she’d been on the losing end of a boxing match. “Oh,” she said smiling as she looked through the glass, “you brought Kathleen with you.” My mom has never called me Kathleen and I didn’t quite know what to make of that, but we chatted for a few minutes then went inside for a scheduled meeting with the staff regarding her care. After the meeting, I was able to gown and mask up and see her in her room where she was laying down. I laid down next to her and held her hand. She was really worried about “the merchandise” and kept saying her sister needed to take care of it. Her one and only sister who is no longer alive. “Mom,” I said, “Let me handle it. I’ll call her and tell her she needs to get that done. Will that work?” “Oh yes,” my mom said, “you need to call her,” and then her dark brown eyes intently stared at me for the longest time as if she’d never seen me before. She started dozing off and I told her I’d let her sleep and then it was me who intently stared at her before I left.

Two days later my sister and I went to the cemetery where our dad is buried. We got way off course trying to find his marker, there were fifty mile per hour wind gusts, and we were freezing. We gave up and went into the office to get more information and trekked back out there. After more wandering around I said, “Dad, it’s your daughters. One of us couldn’t find her way out of her underwear and I think you know which one it is so help me out because I’m not made for this Chicago weather anymore.” A few minutes later we found his final resting place under a tree where Mom wanted to be buried because she hated being in the sun. We told him he needed to come and get his wife, that she’s been ready for awhile but her body hasn’t given up the fight, and that he needed to intervene in this for his favorite girl.

A stone’s throw from where Dad is buried, and where one day soon Mom will be next to him, is the children’s cemetery. When picking out their grave sites, my parents wanted to be in close proximity to the children they lost, three girls who lived nine months inside my mom and not a single day outside. I share something in common with the oldest of the three, in block #31 grave #12 and born two years before me.

We are both Kathleen Ann.