“Behave Yourself”

I’m sitting here on an airplane writing this. On the airplane from returning my mom to her place of birth and the place her remains will stay.


I couldn’t get into reading this flight and decided to watch the movie that is playing, Secretariat, and about half way through the movie the owner of the horse has had a stroke and about to die and his daughter is sitting beside his hospital bed telling him all about the hours and all it was accomplishing.

It was at that moment that the tears started to fall. I started to replay the memories of my mother’s last days. The last conversations we had, the last thing she ate (my french-fries from McDonald I brought for my lunch). We both knew our time together would not last long and yet, we didn’t discuss it. It just was. A couple of week before we had taken care of the logistics, she told me exactly what she wanted. She knew.

I want to know why it is on an airplane that I can let the emotions and the tears fall?

I spent pretty much the 78 hours of her life here on earth at her bedside. The last time she spoke was when I was holding the phone to her ear and she was talking to my sister and niece and she told them both she loved them. The last time she tried to speak, she mouthed the words: I Love You, to me.

A day later the last thing I said as I kissed her forehead and prepared to go and take a much needed nap (that I never got) was our normal departing routine. What do you say to someone that is living in a nursing home? I would say, “I love you and behave yourself”. Her reply,’ Luv You Too’, never came.

She Led

My mother loved to dance. When I was in High School and College my parents used to go to Dinner Dances at the local Eagles Club. They would move around the dance floor with grace and elegance doing the Jitterbug, Waltz and other dances from their era. My mom also danced with others, her dance card was always full and I don’t think she ever turned anyone down. She could dance with anyone, even someone that absolutely had no right to be on the dance floor. She moved around the floor with ease and grace always enjoying every minute of it.


My mother was a born leader. She truly had a gift for leadership. She could get people to do things that they thought weren’t possible. She could assess any situation and come up with a plan, and a mighty good plan at that, with seemingly little effort.

My mom was a High School Graduate and started working for the State of Michigan as a switch board operator. Yes, the old style, plug the cord into a panel, switch board. When she retired after more than 30 years she was the District Manager responsible for 1/3 of the counties in the state. She had a few college classes under her belt, but never completed her Degree.

She served in the Eagles Organization on many levels and including serving on National Committees. She would have went farther except for the effects of Parkinson’s disease took its tool and limited her ability to more.

She moved into a nursing home, because of the Parkinson’s a couple of years ago and almost immediately started serving the Resident Council for that facility and on the State of Washington Council for Resident rights. Some of the Staff at the Nursing home called her Madame President.

This last Monday my mother passed away and even in her death she was a leader. In that last weeks of her life she made all the plans and arrangements and made sure everyone knew what her wishes were. She defied all the norms and died on her own terms. We were jokingly calling her Frank Sinatra because she did it her way.

Today she is doing the Jitterbug in Heaven, free to move without pain, her physical limitations no longer in the way.

It was funny to watch when my dad would dance with someone other than my mom. He always seemed stiff and awkward during those dances. Such a contrast to when he danced with my mom. You see, he really didn’t know how to dance. She Led!