Playing Catch with my Dad

It was just a small round object of white, with a core made of cork or rubber, wrapped in yarn and covered with leather. When I was young you could buy one for 50¢ at the local department store or you just took a used one home from the ball bag of the team you played for. But in the hands of a young man it was worth a million dollars and later became the vehicle for communication when there was none.

I struggle to remember at what age baseball caught my fancy, but every memory I conjure up from my youth seems to somehow end up with images of a baseball cap, a glove and a ball. In reality my very first ball and bat was not wood and horsehide, but made of plastic (both ball and bat) and were purchased to ensure my safety and that of the windows in our small Mosby home. But most every night it was my older brother Randy and I pretending we were big-time Major Leaguers with one pitching the plastic ball to the other brother who had bat in hand swatting “home runs” into the next driveway.

When we got big enough, and our aim a little more true my Father convinced our Mom it was safe and they invested in leather gloves and a baseball for us to play with. While it wasn’t safe to add a wooden bat to the mix, Dad knew that by giving us the gloves we could play catch and for the time we would be happy. And with that he continued a tradition still handed down every day in some front yard or back yard….playing catch with your Dad.

For my brother and me it began after Dad got home from work. While Mom was cooking dinner, Dad would stand at the driveway in front of the car, defending it like a catcher defending home plate from the errant throws of 2 young boys still getting the feel of a heavier ball. And with it he would talk…back then it was nothing major or earth-shattering, just normal father-son talk about the players we all loved and the hapless Kansas City Athletics.

And so it grew from there. I remember waiting impatiently to see my Father’s car pull up to the Stop sign down the street and then turn right onto South Road to come to the house. We would be there, gloves in hand. And each night, even after a tough day of driving a truck, he would stop and play catch.

With those games of catch my Father instilled in me a love for the game of baseball, but he also started what would be our best way to talk to each other. Playing catch became the sedative for calming us as we discussed events both positive and negative. I think the first time I realized that my Father was using the psychology of the “game of catch” was after a particularly disappointing Saturday morning church league game. You see, my Dad loved Coaching and when we were kids he volunteered to be the coach for our local church team. I know it couldn’t be easy for him, with 2 sons on the team, to be fair and impartial but he still treated everyone the same. I got just as many reminders as the next player and many times he expected more of me.

That particular day not only had I struck out 2 times, but I had booted a couple of easy grounders and in frustration I threw my glove to the ground. Bad move! My Father had one particular rule when you were on the baseball diamond….”Never lose your cool”….and I really violated it that day. He stopped the game, walked out to my position and calmly told me to take a seat on the bench. I know I looked absolutely astonished that MY DAD, of all people would pull me out of the ballgame. But there he was, arm around my shoulder walking me off the field and sitting down with me on the bench. We said nothing…..he coached from the bench and I sat there with tears running down my cheek. I didn’t know till many years later that inside he was crying as much as me.

Normally after a Saturday morning game the ritual was to go home, grab a bath and wash off all the dirt and sweat from the ballgame and prepare for lunch. But that day my Father grabbed my brother’s glove and said to me “grab the ball and let’s play catch”. I was still pouting and wasn’t really in the mood, but he insisted. We stood out in the front yard just simply playing catch for a few minutes until he decided to speak. That was the first of the “Father-Son” lectures that seemed so effective because it was over a game of catch.

My Father was our Coach for 4 years from the time I was 8 till I was 12. By the age of 13 I had grown too old for our town church team and was playing elsewhere, and my parent’s divorce had made getting to the ballgames a little tougher for Dad. But Sundays became the day we would visit with my Father at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house just outside of Mosby. And that day would be what I would label in my teen years, “lecture day”.

But in hindsight it really wasn’t. You see, my Father with all his imperfections, was still a man who required a sense of integrity and decency in his sons. Life had handed him a set of circumstances that had dictated some unfortunate choices on his part and he never wanted us to have to travel the road that he did. So, while struggling to bring his own life to a center of purpose, he gently guided all of us through our teens in our own special way. For me, it was with sports.

Trying to paint a picture of my Father as the perfect Dad would not be fair either to me or to his memory. Dad knew his own set of imperfections and he knew the boundaries of where he could best be my guide and what I would truly listen to his counsel about. When he knew it was out of his comfort level he would suggest people he knew in my life that he hoped would influence me. Dad, with the knowledge of my love for football, basketball and baseball always directed me to talk to my coaches because he knew of the admiration that I had for certain ones of them. He knew that I would listen to them because at that time in my life I had grown closer to them because of their proximity to my everyday events.

But even in those days we still had the Sunday game of catch. Somehow, even when I thought we were so far apart in our beliefs, we still managed to rekindle the bond of Father-Son magic. Even if just for those few moments it appeared we were cosmically transported back to the small front yard on South Road in our little town.

As cliché’ as it may seem to be to say, time marches on for us all. Graduation brought changes for us both and the normal Sunday games of catch drifted into memories. Only occasionally would I come back to town to visit in those first years away and most of that time would be spent seeing old friends and visiting old haunts. But every once in a while my Father would want to talk and we would drift outside with a ball and softly toss it to each other. Gloves were not necessary then because it wasn’t so much about throwing the ball as it was about “catching up” and my Father dispensing his wisdom. And it was in those years that I realized that playing the game of catch with my Dad would take on a different form as we grew older together.

The hardest part of growing up yourself is realizing as you become an adult your parents age too. And the frailties we all avoid talking about manifest themselves in our parents. The physical distance from each other also forces you to alter what was a time-honored experience to one that meets the need you both have. So, for my Dad and I, phone conversations became our “game of catch”. Just like the days when we would physically play catch, our conversations would be about the latest on the Royals or the Chiefs, but would somehow manage to morph into conversations about the grandkids, jobs and how life was going for myself and my family. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The last few years had been rough for Dad….lung cancer had been diagnosed several years back and his heart condition was getting worse, but being the strong-willed man that he was, he beat the odds each time. Several times I would rush from my home in Columbia, MO to Liberty Hospital with the fear that I was seeing his last days. But each time, with the resilience of Popeye after eating spinach, my Dad would slowly but surely beat back the foes of time and poor health.

But like all things physical you can only stand so much before the body is no longer strong enough to fight, or you decide the dignity of living outweighs the longevity. In April of this year my Father called me “just to talk”….he knew my wife and kids were going to be in KC for the Spring Break period and he wanted to make sure and ask me to come with them. He had some things he wanted to talk about and he felt they needed to be said in person. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but the sound of his voice made it obvious that this conversation would be much different than the others. So, I changed my plans and flew to KC to chat.

I woke that Friday morning to an overcast sky, a sign I should have noted as an ominous one. On my way over I mentally prepared myself for a conversation I knew was inevitable. But even with the fair warning from a prior night’s conversation with my sister, I wasn’t prepared for it. My Father had been to his Dr. the prior week and had been told that the cancer had spread enough that there was no longer anything that could be done that wasn’t extraordinary to prolong his life. So, with the firm resolve that quality of life is more dignified than quantity my Father said “No more”.

With the Dr.’s prediction of a 30-60 day timetable my Father set out with the task of finishing things to him left undone. He wanted to make sure that the burden of tasks left to his children was minimal, and the plans for his wife of 37 years suffering from the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, were set in stone. But like so many times before my Father managed to stretch everyone’s timetable and make all of us believe he could be invincible. And that was why when the call came from my sister in late July that I should plan to come home I was still stunned.

I left my home in Kentucky that Wednesday morning for the 9 hour drive to KC. The worst part of a long trip like that is the worry that the phone would buzz and the caller at the other end would tell me I was too late. “Too Late” was something I did not want to be…for these would be important moments for me.

The next day I arrived at my sister’s house to meet them. We drove Dad first to NKC Hospital, and then checked him into NKC Hospice House where he would remain until his passing almost a week later. It was those few days that we spent together alone in his room that I will cherish. We talked about everything from the Royals to the Chiefs, to the Good Times gang and his Fantasy Football League, to his life as a trucker. But it was one special conversation that will stay with me forever.

I had never told him “thank you” for giving me the gift of the love of sports, but I needed to that day. I wanted him to know that the many lessons I learned in life came from the field of play and those people who I interacted with, played with or against. I wanted him to know that when he and I played catch I never felt closer to him, and somehow I wished that we had done it more. And that I appreciated all the time he had been there watching me play in High School. I wanted him to know that I would be OK, and that I wanted nothing between us unsaid or regrettably not done. And with no more words to be said and with nothing more than a squeeze of his hand my Father and I said our goodbyes.

My Father passed away quietly in his sleep 2 days after that conversation. On my plane trip back home I found myself not feeling regrets, but smiling over great memories we shared together.

But like the Kevin Costner character in Field of Dreams, I dreamed there was some way to magically go back to the old Mosby home I remember. I would stand on the edge of the property of 412 South Road and look down the street to the stop sign. I would watch for the old Blue Ford Galaxie to come down the road and pull into the driveway.

And just one more time I could play catch with my Dad.

A Thank You…..

On Tuesday of last week, after a long struggle with lung cancer, my Father quietly passed from this world free from the pain that had been his constant companion here in his last days. And the kindness and generosity that myself and my family have seen since then has been a bit overwhelming. To this end, I would like to take a few moments to say “thank you” to some people who have made this time of sorrow a bit less painful….

To the Nurses at the NKC Hospice House…..thank you for making the last week of my Father’s life free from pain and full of love. The kindness and consideration that you showed him, the care you gave him as if he was your very own family is a true reflection of your dedication to your craft. And the fact that you are able to do this for each and every patient that comes to your House shows a level of compassion and love most of us are not able to muster.

To Dad’s friends at the Good Times…..if I could for just one week, I would stand at the door and give a hug to each person who was in my Father’s circle of friends there. Since I do not live in town my Father and I would talk frequently over the phone. And in most every conversation we had, we discussed the great times and the joy he had there. Whether it was with his Fantasy Football league or just an afternoon spent with his many long-time friends regaling them with stories my Father had an undeniable joy when talking about his favorite haunt. I would be remiss if I didn’t humbly thank you for the impromptu surprise birthday party that you hosted for him. When I spoke with him later that day, the joy he had in being with friends and family that day was unmistakable. There was a bit of energy in his voice and for once I could hear the emotion in his voice that belied his gratitude.

Personally to Dad’s buddies at the Good Times….a Thank You for making yourself a part of his life, listening to his stories, sharing a few of your own, and being there for him. You made him feel like family and nothing was more important than family, whether by blood or chosen part of his close circle.

Personally to Denny at Good Times…..a big thank you for the food on Friday and the friendship you gave my Father all these years.

To my friends here on Facebook…..a simple and heartfelt “Thank You” for your prayers and well-wishes for my family and I. There are many of you that have reached out, both publicly and privately, that I am a bit overwhelmed. I do not take lightly that you took a few moments of your time to say a prayer, send a note, send flowers, call me or even come to the Visitation or Services.

To my Mosby friends…..thank you for the dinner on Friday afternoon for our family and friends. The food was wonderful, but more than anything seeing old friends warmed the heart. To be able to walk the halls of the Mosby school and relive the flood of loving memories surrounded by friends and family was overwhelming. To Sally, Betty, Sherry and Julie (if I left out anyone else please forgive me) we thank you for all your hard work planning and setting up the dining hall. A special “thank you” to Betty for letting the Kilgore Boys take a peek at our old church haunt….you’re lucky the ladder to the church bell was not working….otherwise one of the Kilgore boys might have snuck up and rang the church bell like he did in one of his misspent days of his youth.

To Billie, Sherry & Norman, Gary and Terry, Terri Dawn, and the rest of the Kilgore family……thank you for being there for us, and with us, during this time of grief. Your love and support for all of us at a time that you were also feeling the loss of your Uncle/Brother-in-Law is not forgotten.

I know that as I write this I am probably forgetting someone, and for that I apologize. But please know our family deeply appreciates all that you have done.

The House....That Built Me

"I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me”

The above lyrics are from the song “The House That Built Me“, a big hit for Country singer Miranda Lambert in 2010. The song is about a person who got completely lost in their success of their career and forgot who they really were…and has now decided to go back to their roots to discover who they really are.

The song achieved popularity because what it really did was touch on something we all go thru at one point in our lives….look at where we are and wonder how we got there. and if it’s not comfortable what can we do to get back to who we really are.

Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint any one thing that stops us dead in our tracks and makes us realize that we are a runaway train. For me the journey began last year after a conversation with a long time friend who called just to say hello. We had known each other for many years, followed each other from a distance, and occasionally touched base to reminisce. In the middle of the conversation, my friend asked how I was really doing, as if he almost sensed there was something amiss. What was initially intended to be a few minutes of catching up, turned into an hour of “friendly counsel”.

It was something that he had said in our conversation that had me wondering all day….who was I now and what had I become? Was the persona that people see in me every day, the real me, or one that I created to make sure I could reach the success I thought so important? And just how important had “success” become in my life? And it was the honest answer to that question which was the hardest pill to swallow. Looking in the mirror I didn’t truly like what I had become all in the name of “success”.

Funny how life can sometimes be such a smooth road, so much so that you put your “car” on Cruise Control only to be bumped back to reality by a set of giant personal potholes. Pretty soon you are going from a sleek cruiser to a rickety Pinto and wondering how you got there. You find the personal road map you are using is out of date and the left turn you took leads to an old abandoned road going nowhere.

Well…I found myself at the end of that abandoned road. And it was the small piece of imparted wisdom my friend gave me in that conversation that day which led me to where I am now. His comment? “Sometimes when you find you are on a Dead End Road, you turn around, go back to where you got lost and find the correct path.” And in the end…it was that bit of wisdom that spurred me on to create this blog “A Middle Childs Road”.

Like the person portrayed in the above song, I have often wanted to go back to the house where I grew up and look around. To touch the walls of every room, and let the memories come flooding back of the good times that made me laugh and the struggles that made me stronger. It may not have been, at times, the perfect domicile but for me it was home.

It wasn’t a very big house for a family of five, and many times it felt very crowded. But in that house is where some of my best memories were born. And the life lessons I learned while growing up there are still as relevant today as they were 45 years ago.

Our living room was the largest room in the house and it was there I would recall both celebrations and heartbreaks. It was in that room where we celebrated most birthdays and all of our Christmas’. It’s also where we watched the networks bring us Neil Armstrong’s Walk on the Moon, The KC Chiefs only Super Bowl Win, and sadly the news of the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. It’s where my Mom and Dad would inspect Report Cards, or sometimes dispense lectures to me after a day of mischievous behavior . It was in that room I experienced my first kiss and first broken heart. It was also a room of wooden floors sometimes laden with splinters which required the tender touch of a Mother to remove amidst all the tears.

I remember the kitchen and the formica table where my brothers and I would eat all our meals. Like all siblings it was either a place to discuss the “cool things” that happened that day, or the inevitable mini-DMZ where a Mom-prescribed truce seldom held up long. And the inevitable chore of washing the dishes of the day…..

There were only 2 bedrooms in our house, one for my Mom and Dad, and one for all 3 of us boys. And as you can imagine, it was all that you could picture in a boys bedroom. Hardly ever clean for more than 2 hours, it was full with 3 beds, one set a bunk bed and a single for the other. Most of the time my younger brother got the single bed because he was smaller and our parents were always afraid of him falling off the top bunk. My older brother and I took turns sleeping on the top bunk sometimes by choice and sometimes by parental selection. I remember one time being punished by my parents for kicking the bottom of the mattress so hard that my older brother flew off the top bunk and onto the floor. And I still remember vividly how hard it was for my Father to keep a straight face while lecturing me on how I could have hurt my older sibling, and how my younger brother Cody kept giggling and saying “do it again Mark, do it again”.

Our bedroom was also, like many young boys in my time, a repository for collected baseball cards and comic books. We would spend our allowance on cards trying to get a collection of the whole team and then store them away in a shoebox. We would memorize every player on every team and then picture them batting in old Municipal Stadium as we listened to the announcer call the game on our AM radios in our beds.

These are all good memories for me….but that is what they will always have to be for me. You see, the little house that my brothers and I grew up in no longer exists in actuality. I’m not sure if it was the wear and tear of time, or the many floods that hastened its demise, but at some point it was demolished. But the one day I drove thru my old hometown, I stopped and looked at where it used to be. And for a moment, just a moment, (like we sometimes see in a movie) I pictured the house with myself and my brothers running out to play with the voice of our parents telling us to be back in time for lunch/supper.

And then, in that same instant it faded into my distant memory…but the smile remained. You see, I learned the truth that we all come to know. That no matter what the ravages of time may foist upon the physical manifestations of our history, it can never erase the “house” that forever remains in our minds.

And it was that small revelation that led me to start this blog and reminisce with so many of you. And what started out as a simple homage to a small town I once knew, has also grown to include you, my old friends. It is your memories and mine of times growing up in Mosby and Excelsior Springs that, when I forget who I really am, bring me back to center. Each time I have written something I felt led to impart, so many of you have been kind enough to respond with encouragement and with stories of your own. And it is so many of those small memories that we share together that grounds me again…brings a happy tear to my eyes….and then makes me smile.

You see, for all the importance I tried to put on myself and what I think I have achieved in this life I remind myself that I’m still just a small town country boy at heart.

“You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am”

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me”

What really saddens me most of all about this journey I am making is that the friend who helped point my compass back in the right direction passed away a short couple of months after we talked. Now I won’t be able to share with him some of the things I have realized about myself and how a simple conversation reminded me that a facade only covers up the true person underneath it.

But instead I have you as companions….and I couldn’t be in better company.

Remembrances….

It’s 7 AM on a snowy Thursday morning, a vacation day where I should be sleeping in and relaxing, but for some reason, I am wide awake. For the first time in a long time, I feel the urge to write again.

Standing at the window, hot cup of Lipton’s Honey & Lemon Tea in my hand, I am looking at the beautiful snow that has fallen over Kentucky this morning. Today, for some reason I am reminded of the snowy days of my youth, especially those when the snow prevented the out-of-town teachers from making it to Mosby and we would have a Snow Day.

Unlike these days when snow days are common in the winter months, a snow day for a small town school like mine was very uncommon. Since 95% of the students of our small little school were within walking distance, there were no worries about the cars sliding all over the road or into the ditch. All you did was put on your snow boots, bundle up a little more, and trudge off thru the snow for the 1 or 2 block walk to school. Along the way, you stop and pick up snow, throw it at your brother, best friend, or your worst enemy. (If it was your worst enemy you made sure to add a little slush to the snowball to make it sting a little more)

Snow days at school were a mixed bag of treats….depending on whether you had your real teacher or a substitute the County School Board sent. And if your real teacher had a hard time getting to the school, you just never knew what to expect….more times than not though, they seemed to get into the spirit. Instead of hard-core school work, we would spend a couple of hours listening as they would read to the class from a carefully chosen book meant to reflect the time of the year. I remember having an abridged version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol read some many times, that by the time I reached 8th grade I could recite it by heart. If we were lucky and it was a Music Day, we would sing only Christmas Carols by request….most of them the old classics.

Those memories are fond ones….and ones I wish my children could enjoy themselves. Christmas doesn’t seem to carry the same naïve (and simple) enjoyment that it did long ago. Yes, it has become more commercialized and more about gifts than the true meaning of the season. But it’s more than that….when I was young it was always about family get-togethers and dinners meant to stuff you silly. Everyone forgot about what they fought about and grudges/annoyances were put aside, even if just for the moment. We reminded ourselves we were all human, and the frailties that made us do things to those we loved most were just silly events to be forgotten or forgiven.

But these days things are not so simple and we seem to be not so forgiving. To forgive someone means to let go of the wrong that may have been done and never to bring it to their attention. Maybe it’s just me, but we have seemed to have lost that character trait that is the most admirable of all. And it seems that we have taught our children to never forgive and never forget….because that wrong becomes useful in validating our anger we never want to let go of. But by doing that, we’ve seemed to have let a little of our humanity slip away.

How do we get back to being a little more human…..a little less angry……a little more forgiving? I wish I had the answer, because it would make me a wealthy man. But before I go about trying to fix the ills of others, a little self-reflection is definitely in order.

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This has been a very interesting year for me and my family…one filled with many ups and downs. For me, the year started out great….my daughter finally convinced me to join Facebook amidst all my grumbling about it’s popularity and I regret I didn’t do it sooner. I have connected with many of my former classmates, friends, and co-workers and it’s great to see what we have all become. But even better is that I have connected with cousins on both sides of my family that I had lost touch with at some point in our lives. It is painful to admit, but my family (both sides of it) will never be accused of being a close-knit group. When I was very young, the Christmas Eve gathering at Mamaw and Papaw’s was always something to look forward to. We would gather for dinner and once all was cleared and cleaned up, the gifts were opened. Each child could be assured that they would have plenty to open, and part of the joy was the anticipation of who got what gift that was under the tree. When it came time to open gifts, Papaw would position himself in his favorite chair, his rocker, which was a sign it was time to hand out presents. Usually one or two of the kids were appointed as the “gift hander-outer” as each person eagerly awaited to see what was theirs. I don’t ever remember a time I was disappointed in what I received…maybe it was because we were thankful for anything we received.

But somewhere along the way our families drifted apart…..and as cousins we were no longer close. I hated that, because each and every one of my cousins brought something special into my life. You see, whenever my Mom was sick and had to be hospitalized, my brothers and I would sometimes spend time with Aunts and Uncles….Aunt Billie and Uncle Ernie on my Dad’s side, and Aunt Judy and Uncle Jay on my Mom’s side. Each visit with them would bring something special in it’s own way. And funny thing was….even though in some cases I was much younger than my older cousins, they always made me feel welcome and never a hindrance. For Sherry, Gary and Terri Dawn….you’ll never know how much it meant that you never made me feel out of place, even though our being there interrupted your normal life. For Terry and Chris….the memories are still fresh in my mind of your farm just outside of St. Joe and the times we spent in the Ranger’s Tower your Dad built there.

For all my cousins on Facebook….I am glad we reconnected, even if in just this simple way. I hope this is just a first small step towards getting to know each other again. We may never live as close as we once did, but I hope the distance doesn’t keep us from closing gap that our parents put between us.

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One of the more interesting aspects of Facebook is getting a glimpse into the lives of people we may never have had any communication with had it not been for the electronic age marvel. I am glad that I have connected with so many people who have been a part of my life at one time or another. Each of you enriched my life and helped me grow….so in the spirit of the season I am going to steal an original idea so many columnists have done and hand out “Christmas Wishes” for some of my friends:

To Ron, Nan, Braden & Brennan….much love and strength and success with Connor’s Song.

To Kevin M….may your voice be heard by politicians everywhere. Maybe next time the elections will be all about the issues, not the candidates mud-slinging.

To Shaun and Rachel P………many blessings in your life together. May your love grow greater every day and be as strong when you are 80 as it was when you began your life as husband and wife

To Coach Michael, Coach Bush and Coach Bonuchi….my eternal thanks for being there in a point in my life when I needed guidance. I would not be the person I am without the wisdom and strength you gave me when I was young.

To Terri W-W…..the gift of the eternal youth you seem to already have. How is it that you look the same as when you were younger?

To my friends who are Breast Cancer Survivors……a big Pink Ribbon…..and many more years of good health. May we someday soon find a cure.

To all my Mosby friends…may you have continued fond memories of our growing up in our small town.

To those who have lost a loved one this year…..love, comfort and healing to fill the hole in your heart that is always there when someone you love passes.

To those struggling with health issues…..may you gain strength to fight whatever you are struggling with and beat it.

To my Nieces and Nephews…..patience while you try to understand your Parents, Aunts and Uncles. Someday you will be just like us and your kids will look at you the same way you look at us.

To my Sisters….patience while you try to understand your brothers.

To my Father….strength to continue to fight. I know the struggle is tough and the temptation to quit is there, but resist it.

To my Brothers….my unconditional love. There is nothing greater I could give you and you deserve nothing less.

To my Son….a world that understands the illness that you live with daily. And love and compassion for those that can’t understand you.

To my daughter….all the dreams you have to come true. And the wisdom to prepare for life in case they don’t.

To my wife….patience to wait for your husband to grow up.

And to everyone else….may you be richly blessed with that which you desire most…but more than anything else, may you have love.

The Old Rock School- A Firm Foundation for a Solid Education

When I first started thinking about creating my own blog, I mulled many ideas for what I wanted it to be. To get people to read what you write it has to have feeling and must be something that catches the readers interests. What really led me to where I am now is the fascination that people had when I would tell them stories of growing up in small town Mid America. Some were interested because they too had grown up in small towns and others were interested because they had never known a life so simple.

But the one over-riding fascination seemed to be with the stories I would tell about growing up in Mosby and going to an old Rock School. You could see the smiles and the interest as each would listen attentively about learning in an environment that is foreign to many these days. And it is their fascination that drove me to bring back memories of a time gone by that was much simpler for us all. So today is the first article in what I hope to make a series of articles called “The Old Rock School-A Firm Foundation for a Solid Education”.

The Old Rock School and the Band of 14

It still stands in the middle of the town I grew up in, a monument to the work of the generation that built it. It’s the 2-room Rock School where my friends and I walked, or in some cases, rode the bus to each morning from 1st to 8th grade. It’s where we went to learn the 3 R’s of education Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic. And for me, it was where education mingled with friendships, puppy love, and scraped body parts from playing on the blacktop playground.

At times when I have been back home visiting my family I have driven by the school and wondered what it looked like on the inside…does it look the same as when I was there as a young student? Or has time, like it has done to many of our bodies, given it a worn and tired look? What would my mind’s eye see, that the physical eyes of another could not?

I fondly remember that little rock school, and I am confident the lessons that I learned in my formative years there are what made me the inquisitive and educated person I am to this day. And as I look around at the lives of many of my Mosby friends, I see the very same in all of you. You see, any school can teach what is in a book, it’s the ancillary lessons we learn while at school that really round out the complete person.

So…what would I see if I sat down in a desk just like the one that I occupied when I started 1st grade? I close my eyes even as I sit at this desk, and let my memory take over from here.

Looking around the room I see the old coat closet, where we came in each morning and took off our coats/jacket and hung them neatly on the hooks. At each end of the closet there was an opening and there were shelves where we put our lunches if we brought them. At the head of the rectangular room was the Teacher’s desk. On the left side of the room was the long blackboard where the Teacher would write the assignments for each day. The 1st Grade sat on the right side of the room while the 2nd Grade was on the left side of the room nearest to the chalkboard. Our class size was so small (and funds so limited) that each Teacher taught 2 different grade levels. The Teacher would teach one grade in a subject, then while the students worked on assignments, she would teach the other grade the same subject, different level. (I can confess now that I many times would listen to the Teacher as she taught the other class just so I could learn what the class ahead of me was learning).

Looking around the room yet again, I can see the faces of my classmates. Whenever I look back at my classmates I call us the Band of 14. We were probably the largest class to come out of Mosby for many years, and probably the most diverse. I can recall each and every name….myself, Bobby, Connie, Paul, Jack, Mona, Earnie, Doyal, Bea, Beth, Kim, Toni, Patty, Robin, Robin (Rose), Terry, Kyna, Cindy, Billy and Cathy. I know if you have used your Math skills you are probably scratching your head as to why I called us the Band of 14 when clearly you can count 20 names! Mostly because those were all the names of the classmates from 1st Grade to when we graduated in 8th Grade. No matter who moved in or out we seemed to remain at 14, other than one year we were actually 15 strong.

I smile as the memories come back so easily, mostly those memories that left indelible etchings in my mind because of their nature. I remember my 1st and 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Shannon, a gray haired lady short in stature but firm in nature. She was a strict, by-the-book, no-nonsense person who tolerated very little in the way of precocious behavior. She demanded strict attention in her class, and if you violated this code, she was quick to call you down or even call you to the front of the class. (To this day I can still picture her chasing Bobby around the room with her long ruler after he did something to upset her.) She demanded complete attention in her direction while she was teaching, and any daydreamer and ne-er do-well was quickly brought back in line. But she also had a soft side that she tried hard to not let people see and I was lucky to witness.


I remember Mrs. Usher who was quite the opposite of Mrs. Shannon in that she was a statuesque lady, with a booming voice and gentle heart. Well, gentle only if you didn’t try to cross her or show a lack of respect. (Anyone remember when Bobby called her by her given first name and got a weeks worth of cleaning the chalkboard and dusting the erasers?) I also remember her because it was her love of Social Studies/History and the way that she made it interesting in an almost storybook manner that led me to my love of History.

I remember Mrs. Graves, the Music Teacher who came only 2 days a week. (Her husband, Bill, was the History Teacher at ESHS and a character in his own right). I remember all the songs that she would teach us in preparing for the Winter and Spring Programs that were such a staple in our small little town. And then the occasional plays that she would help put on such as Johnny Appleseed and the farcical version of Romeo & Juliet that my older brother and I starred in.

But more than anything I remember my classmates.

We were a rather unique group of people, almost in a Breakfast Club sort of way.

We had our class jock in Bobby, the guy in grade school that no one would be athletically better than. Things seem to always be easy for him in Grade School, almost like he had the Owner’s Manual on the how-to-look cool bus.

We had the class clown in Paul, always the one to play a practical joke. Paul and Bobby were best buds, even though Bobby lived in town and Paul was a “bus rider”. They were partners in crime (remember the suspension) and where one was the other was surely close by. I remember Paul having to go to the hospital once when we were young because of a Heart Murmur, our first brush with physical human frailties.

We had the vocally talented Beth, who was part of a sister’s quartet dubbed the “DREAM Sisters” because of the first initials of each sisters first name. (Debbie, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Amy, Millie). While highly studious, very intelligent and talented, she like the rest of us struggled to gain acceptance, while feigning not needing it.

We had Jack, another of Bobby’s sidekicks, who always seemed to find a way to get blamed for something someone else did. Jack was always one of the bigger kids in class but never quite warmed up to the thought of being a bully.

There was Doyal and Earnie, brothers although not twins, that just seemed to be a magnet for trouble. Earnie was always in trouble for trying to emulate Paul as the class clown and never quite succeeding. Doyal was always in trouble because (rightfully so) he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder because everyone made fun of his physical struggles. For me, that is something in my past that I am disappointed in myself about. As a Father of a Special Needs child I see visions of myself as a child in those who would make fun of my own child.

Each person I can picture in my mind brought something nice and simple into my life. To all the guys, (Bobby, Jack, Paul, Earnie, Doyal, Kim or Billy)whether it was being my best friend or running mate, my biggest “foe” or first black eye, you helped shape me. Whether you were a confidant when things got rough at my home (Connie), my first love (Cathy), or my first kiss (Mona) you helped shape me. Whether you were the first to, well you know what it was and you know who you are, you helped me grow and learn.

We all learned together in a time and place that is rarely duplicated these days. Instead of calculators and computers, we had worksheets and erasable pencils. Instead of movies and the constant blur of hundreds of channels, we had our books and our imaginations. I say we have lost a bit of our imagination with the passing of our times and the ability to creatively use our minds. But then again, we were a generation of change from our parent’s time also and what we did changed the world no differently than the invention of the electronic age.

As a sad part of what is our physical nature, a few of my old classmates are no longer with us, and for that I am sad. Others we have lost track of and sometimes wonder where they are and how they are doing. It was, at one time, a small dream of mine to hold a Class Reunion at the old school, just to see where everyone is, and how they have done.
But for now, I enjoy the fact that many of my old classmates are friends with me on Facebook and chat with me occasionally so we can reminisce and trade stories.

I hope as you have read this, you have chuckled or smiled at my view of my little school. Or maybe as you read this you began to think of your days in grade school and your old classmates. And I hope your memories are as fond as mine

Turning Points and Second Chances

It seemed like an oddly warmer night than usual in October as the HS Football Team started to board the bus for the 2 hours ride to the out of town football game. This was an important game for the team boarding the bus that afternoon as it was against an old arch rival. A great deal depended on the outcome of that game for both schools, as both were highly ranked in the state in their classes, but even more so, because for the past several years the game had ended in a tie. Neither team wanted that outcome again that year, least of all the visitors who were boarding that bus.

As one young man got ready to hop on the bus the Head Coach lightly tapped him on the shoulder and said…” I want to be able to reach out my arm in any direction and grab you at a moments notice tonight, so stay close by. If I can’t reach you I’ll have you running wind sprints in practice next week”. He smiled a smile that told the young man he was joking but sending a message that was well understood.

The bus ride seemed eerily quiet that early evening. Usually the bus was raucous with noise as players talked about assignments or opposing players, strategies or plays, each meant to utilize strengths and maximize the opponent’s weaknesses. But on this trip there was only a scattering of chatter. Mostly hushed conversations talking about the week’s practice and new plays installed especially for this game.

Halfway thru the ride one of the Assistant Coaches came over and sat down next to the young man whom the head Coach had spoken to and began to chat with him. It was small talk to begin with, mostly about what they had practiced that week….attention to detail…eye on the ball…don’t let anything distract you. But then the conversation turned as the Assistant Coach said…”Son, I’m no fortune-teller, but something in me says that tonight all that you have practiced on doing all year, will suddenly become more important to this team. Just remember, focus on what you do best, and everything else will fall into place.” And with that he stood up and walked back to the front of the bus to sit with the other coaches.

As the Assistant Coach walked away the young man realized, for once, someone had truly believed in him. His mind drifted back to a couple of months earlier when High School football practices had started and all the young men had gathered to try out for the team. The Head Coach brought all the young men together and gave the same speech he did every year about football being a team sport and building character. Then the process of separating young men into what positions best suited their talents began, and depth charts were formed. The young man tried several spots, none of which seemed to suit his particular talent. As luck would have it he landed at Split End, way down the depth charts. But somehow he had found his way onto the Team, in an altogether different position…one that he, along with guidance from the Assistant Coach, had found a particular knack for.

As the bus arrived at its destination at the small college stadium where the game would be played, and the team headed to the locker room, it still remained a quiet group. The team went to the field to do their normal pre-game warm up and then filed back in to get into their game uniforms. It seemed as if, once the team started getting dressed, the mood changed and the player’s game face took shape. The Senior Class members, the appointed leaders of the football team, took charge and began the task of firing up the team. As game time arrived, the Head Coach gave his small speech, and they all gathered for a prayer before taking the field.

True to form, the game was a battle that was hard-fought with neither team getting more than a 7 point lead before being tied again. Going into the last minutes of the 4th Quarter the scored was tied 22-22 and it seemed that, like the years before, the game could end in a tie as neither team gained ground. But with just 2 minutes left in the game, a series of events happened forever changing the life of that particular young man.

With the young mans team driving down the field for what appeared could be the winning score, a pass was intercepted by the opposing team, pretty much appearing to stop the momentum. But the opposing team, knowing that a tie would hurt their chances at a state title (and probably wanting a tie even less than the young mans team) hurried their offense onto the field to try to mount their own scoring drive. As the opposing teams Quarterback dropped back for a pass he was hurried into a throw by a fierce rush of the defense. His errant pass fell right into the hands of the Linebacker who promptly ran it back several yards before getting out of bounds to stop the clock. What had just a few moments before seemed like a deflated team, suddenly the young mans team had new life.

There were but 11 seconds left in the game…

The Head Coach hurriedly called a play, a pass over the middle that just missed its target. The Coaching Staff on the sideline quickly mulled over a running play meant to move the ball to the middle of the field but quickly dismissed that idea because the team had no more timeouts.

There were but 7 seconds left in the game…

Then,as if to wake the young man from the dream that he was witness to unfolding before him,the Head Coach turned to the Assistant Coach and said “It’s time…send him out there.” After some final words of encouragement from the Assistant Coach , the young man trotted onto the field. Already nervous as he reached the middle of the field, the same Senior Linebacker that had moments before intercepted the errant pass stopped the young man and said, “do it man…you know you can do this”

The young man reached the huddle and looked around at the faces, most of them Seniors who wanted nothing more than to win…just win…this hard fought game. The Holder called the play, set the formation, and the team broke the huddle. The players from both teams lined up, and the referee placed the ball down. Each team got set…the Snapper gripped the ball tightly….the Holder started the snap count, and the ball was snapped.


As the young man stepped forward he could feel something wasn’t right…the whole motion just didn’t seem as it always had when all went right. As he swung thru the ball and watched as it went soaring towards the goal his heart dropped and he saw that the ball was headed wide right.”No Good” was the signal he could see from the official under the goal post. Dejectedly the young man bowed his head, and slowly headed to the sideline. Fearing that he had let down those people who had believed in him, he truly wanted to head to the locker room instead of the sideline. He couldn’t bear to look up, for fear he would see the disappointment in the faces of his teammates who had struggled mightily for the win.

After a few steps, a hand from behind stopped his forward motion, and he heard from nowhere…” a penalty….there’s a penalty flag over there….someone jumped offside …don’t go anywhere man” the Holder said. The young man looked up to see a bright yellow flag laying to the left of where the formation was and the officials gathered around to discuss the call. Relief set in briefly for him, but was immediately replaced with anxiety as he looked to the sideline and saw the Head Coach and Assistant Coach discussing what appeared to be the next move. For what appeared to be an eternity for the young man, he stared at the conversation at the sideline, worried what was being said. In what could only be described as waiting for the Jury Foreman to read the verdict the young man watched as a player trotted from the sidelines with a message from the Coach. Fearing the worst the young man prepared for what he would hear upon the arrival of his team mate.

As the player from the sideline joined the loosely huddled group of players on the field, he looked to the Kicker, then looked to the Wide Receiver, and said… “Coach says I am in for you…we’re going to try the field goal again”. The Kicker breathed a sigh of relief and the team huddled up, prepping for the next play. As the officials marked off the penalty yards that moved the ball closer to the goal post, the Holder took the young Kicker aside and said…”we both know what we did wrong last time…my hold wasn’t right and your steps weren’t right…you looked up and I looked away. I’ll do mine right, and you do yours right and we’ll both be celebrating”. The Kicker looked at the Holder, a Senior who had been his constant support all year and realized what he was doing. The Holder had done nothing wrong with the previous kick, all the errors were made by the Kicker, not him. But the Holder was teaching him a lesson not lost, even to this day, for the Kicker.

There were but 3 Seconds left in the game...

The Teams gathered once more at the line of scrimmage, and the Referee placed the ball down. The Center grabbed the ball firmly and prepared to make the snap…..the Holder got himself placed firmly in the line of sight for the Center/Snapper….and the Kicker took his 2 steps back and to the right, eyes firmly fixed on the spot where the holder would place the ball. The snap count started and the ball was snapped…..

It was a deafening silence that fell upon the ears of the Kicker as he started his motion….and this time it all felt right…mechanical…head down…foot placed firmly next to the spot where the ball would be placed by the Holder…kick the ball…follow through….and never look up.

As he had done many times before on extra points, the Kicker listened for the reaction of his Holder before showing any emotion. What happened in those next few moments to this day still stays as fresh in his memory as if they happened just yesterday. The ball sailed cleanly thru the middle of the uprights and the Kickers team ran onto the field to celebrate.

As most of you who know me are already aware, that young man was me. And for me, that moment in time was what I call a pivotal point in my life. But not just for the glory or exhilaration I felt at that time, and still feel today when I listen to the broadcast of that game. (My Mother made a cassette copy of the game for me when they replayed the broadcast the next morning) It was a pivotal point because for me it taught me about what I call in my life, Turning Points and Second Chances.

The Turning Point for me was 2 months prior when, thinking I had no shot at making the Team, I wandered over to the practice field to kick field goals out of frustration. As I practiced kicking, like I always had when doing that same exercise in the empty lot next to the Parsonage in my small town, one of the Assistant Coaches, Ed Bush noticed me. It was Coach Bush’s guidance and support of me that led me to my career as the Kicker in High School that jumped started my participation in athletics at that level and helped me come out of the shadow of my older brother. (He also unwittingly pinned both of my nicknames on me that stuck with me all thru High School and even to this very day.)

As for Second Chances…to this day, I still do not know what was said between Coach Bush and Head Coach Vic Bonuchi after that first miss. I have heard bits and pieces from different people, and when I asked Coach Bush later, all he would ever tell me was there was no hesitation on Coach Bonuchi’s part to go for the field goal again. I can’t help but think that somewhere in his mind, with an All-State Running Back and All Conference players at Quarterback, Tight End and Offensive Line that he wasn’t tempted to go for a running or pass play. But what I want to believe, and what played out, was the both men decided that not only did they believe in me, but they believed in the very philosophy that they taught us while teaching us the game of football. Sometimes in life we succeed and sometimes we fail…it’s how we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and handle the “second chances” we are given that makes us the men we are.

I don’t know if either of those men truly know how they positively affected my life, and I feel a bit embarrassed that I never have told them. But knowing both of them, I would guess each would have said…..”you always had it in you, I just helped you bring it out”.

To Absent Friends and Family, (Part 2)

In part one of this article I talked about the fact that recent events had made me stop and ponder on 2 people who were very important in my life, each of whose presence I miss but both for distinctively different reasons. I spoke about the fact that each had left an indelible mark, either for the dignity with which they lived their life or the ability to live with the struggles that they faced. It was their kindness and their struggles in life that taught me some very valuable lessons. In Part 1 I spoke of my late Father-In-Law, Bill Kinder, who became the very role model for being a Husband and Father to my children. In Part 2, I want to relate to you the second person whom I miss dearly and the real impetus for this 2-part blog.

But this one is going to be a little different for me, because it will involve the more emotional part of telling you the story of my relationship with a person who, at times, was very enigmatic. This person was my mother, Connie Kilgore….

Connie Kilgore

As a young boy growing up in the small town of Mosby, I remember from my first vivid recollections of my parents as always at odds with each other. Each carried their own emotional baggage that only further solidified the eventual split that came when I was just 9. I still remember the day my Father moved out of our rented home, and left to live in another town. The divorce was pretty much like all, contentious to the points of who was better suited to raise all 3 boys in a stable (or what passed for stable then) environment.

From that point on was when I believe my Mother earnestly began her life of emotional isolation. While she did everything she could for providing a home for my brothers and I, she was prepared neither physically nor emotionally for what it took to raise 3 boys. We each grew into teenage years with our own set of issues, and she was struggling mightily to figure out just who she was as a person. There were periods where she struggled with depression to the point of needing to be hospitalized…and there were periods where she seemed to almost be ready to fight past the demons that haunted her for so many years.

There is one thing that I remember most about my Mom from my youth....you see, my Mom had a special gift, a gift of free-hand artistry that was breath-taking. My Mother had not a single day of art classes (save for one year in High School) but yet had the artistic talent of her peers who had spent years honing their craft. And her artistic talent was not just in drawing…she also had the gift of poetry. Her poetry, for the most part, was light and meant to poke fun at herself and the obstacles she faced. To this day I can still quote one of her more significant pieces…one that would make you laugh, and also see inside yourself. It was called “Mirror” and the first part goes like this:

“Mirror…what a funny face you have…the things you say can make me laugh,
You’re cold and brittle and say not a word…but what you say can cut like a sword”

(Mom once sent in one of her poems to Reader’s Digest, but I never remember if it was ever published. But I know that the very thought that she never got a rejection letter gave her pride.)

But the thing that my Mom was most remembered for in our little town was her chalk drawings at church. For her, it was her homage to God for giving her the talent she saw as a bridge to sanity. I remember Betty Cazzell, the woman with the most beautiful voice I heard in my youth, would sing a song as my Mom would do the drawing. I distinctly remember 2 different drawings that she did during Revival Week at our little church in Mosby. The first was a picture of a sailboat calmly floating on a lake between 2 mountains, much like the scene that you see at the end of The Lord of The Rings. (I cannot remember what song Betty sang, I just remember feeling the calm as Mom drew and Betty sang) The second one, and the one most vivid in my mind, was her haunting chalk drawing of the Cross on Calvary as Betty sang “The Old Rugged Cross”. Mom loved that one…kept it carefully tucked away and rarely brought it out for viewing.

But it was also in these crafted talents that she would also express her darker sides. I remember once seeing her draw furiously on a tablet, her anger and force evident with each stroke. After finishing and looking at it she ripped the page from the tablet, threw it into the trash and retreated to her room. When I peeked into the trash, all I saw was a caricature of an angry person screaming at the world, saying “please listen, can’t you hear me crying”. During these times, Mom’s poetry would take a dark tone…..with thoughts that belied the inner struggle that was her demon all her life.

At some point during my High School years, Mom struggled less and less with her emotional well-being and focused more on what she would do once my older brother and I graduated. So all during my High School, when my brothers and I would be at school, my Mother was taking Nursing classes in Kansas City. She would ride the bus from Mosby to KC and then back home. By the time I graduated, Mom had graduated Nursing School and announced that she was moving to Kansas City to take a position working at a hospital. The decision had been made that she would move to an apartment near to her work, and my younger brother would live with my Dad. (He actually finished 8th grade there in Mosby then went to live with my dad)

I think Mom moving to KC and both her older sons moving respectively in their own directions out of town was the first step in her emotional and physical independence….and her first step into isolation. In those years Mom was at times caring and at time emotionally disconnected. In her mind she had nudged her children from the nest, and it was time for them to fly on their own. But she still wanted us at “arm’s reach” as she used to call it. If we did not immediately come when she called, she found ways to remind us she could be emotionally cold and unfeeling. For her, our inability to drop what we were doing in our lives was akin to rejection, and she would dive deeper into emotional isolation. And that is what finally drove a wedge between her and her children.

So....over the years each of us grew emotionally detached from her. Going our separate ways, we fashioned our own set of excuses why we could justify distancing ourselves emotionally from her. And the more excuses we made, the easier it was to not answer a phone call, not send a card, or stop by to see her. And pretty soon it became easier for her to rationalize in her mind that she was all alone…left to her world with no one for emotional support except her close circle of friends she had made that lived in her apartment building on the corner of Broadway and Armour in Kansas City.

For me, the turning point in my relationship with my Mother came when I starting dating my wife. She had come from a strong Christian family, and the very thought that a person could emotionally detach themselves from a parent was a foreign thought to her. She would engage me occasionally in conversation about my Mom and I would try to dismiss it, telling her that she could never understand because she never had to worry about her parents showing love and support. But, like all good women who take the rough clay that is their spouse and mold them into the adult they become, she gently nursed me back to understanding that my Mom was a creature of God,faults and all,and deserved to be respected and shown love. And as time grew, she came to help me understand my Mom, bring her back into my life and be patient with her during the ups and downs of her emotional struggles.

So thru the years, when Debbie and I lived in Kansas City, we would invite her over for birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas….sometimes she would come and other times she declined. It was still the emotional roller coaster it had always been, but at least we had come to a common ground and had come to respect each others “idea” of a perfect Mother-Son relationship. And more than anything…she got to see her grandchildren. She seemed like such a different person with her grandchild, almost like the light in her eyes had returned. And I think, that, more than anything softened my heart.

It was in 1993 that Mom, after suffering an attack by one of her patients, started having seizures and strokes. One of her Dr’s diagnosed that the attack had left her vulnerable to more strokes and seizures, so she decided to leave the nursing profession, move out of her apartment she had for so many years and move to North Carolina to be near her sisters. It was a move that would once again, put space between us both physically and emotionally.

Mom loved living in North Carolina and it seemed that the little town she lived in loved her. It took her several years to find the living arrangement she truly liked, but she never had problems making friends. And she found solace in her church, East Taylorsville Baptist Church, and a home (in her heart) when she volunteered at the Hiddenite Center. There she was able to re-energize her artistic talents and seemed to find peace that had eluded her for so many years.

In 1995 I was offered a job in South Carolina and accepted it. It was my thought that being closer to Mom would help to regenerate our bond, and allow her more access to her grandchildren, including her newborn granddaughter Emily. But sometimes distance between 2 people is not about physical location and more about the desires and directions their lives are taking.

With a new job, new location, and 2 young children I let my focus drift to building a family unit I had never had. Visits to Mom that we had planned took a back seat to illnesses in my wife’s family and a job that seemed to want to demand all my time. I would call her on the phone, talking for 15 to 20 minutes at a time before politely excusing myself and saying that Debbie needed help with the kids. What I was really doing was unintentionally driving a wedge between us because of a fear she might not live up to the expectations of a Grandma that I had set for her.

And so, once again, she retreated to the comfort of her emotional isolation.

Over the next few years it seemed our only contact was whenever Mom would have one of her many strokes and would be hospitalized. My Aunt would always call me, let me know she was back in the hospital, and give me a status. I would get in the car, drive from South Carolina to North Carolina, and spend time with her in the hospital. And each time I would promise myself I would reconnect, only to slip back into old habits.

It was on one of those visits that she was diagnosed with late in life diabetes, which only further exacerbated her otherwise weak physical condition. The many strokes had left her unable to truly allow us to let her live alone in her little apartment, so we moved her to a care facility in Hickory, North Carolina. The Walden House, her new place of residence, seemed to be just the tonic for her. The people there were her family, watched over her like she was their own and kept in touch with me. And for Mom and I it seemed like just what we wanted,a point where we came to realize that physical distance was what would make always make us closer.

Over time, the physical stress of getting older,the ravages of diabetes,and the effects of the now more constant series of strokes took away the one thing that was my Mom’s love, the ability to draw. And with it took away her will to fight. One day I got the call from the Director of the Walden house that Mom had had another stroke that had left her debilitated on her left side....and with tears in her eyes, and a visible weakness in her voice she told me that because of that, my Mom would have to go to a full-time Nursing Home. It was devastating....both to me and to my Mom because it meant the end of her independence.

While in North Carolina at the Hospital with her I arranged with help to have her moved to a Nursing home that was near, not only to my Aunt, but to my Mom’s old Church. There she could have friends come by, could get therapy she needed, and hopefully spend the last few years of her life living comfortably. The transition was a little rocky at first, but Mom settled in,finally getting a roommate that was perfect for her.

It was in the spring of 2008 that I got a call that Mom had another series of strokes, and that this one had left her incapable of speaking for a short time. With therapy she would be able to communicate on a limited basis, but her motor skills were forever affected. Debbie and I chatted and decided that we needed to make a trip down as a family and let the kids see Mom before another stroke took away her ability to speak forever.

We arrived that Saturday in North Carolina, got our hotel room and headed off to see Mom. I was dreading what we might find,worried that the children might not be able to handle that their Grandmother being in a state where she could not talk to them. But my worries were unfounded. My Mom, although no longer able to walk, was still able to talk and we had a great time. We wheeled her to the lobby and took some pictures of her with the kids and I. And the kids would ask her all kinds of questions about me as a child....what was I like, was I a “good boy” and did she ever have to spank me. And we all laughed as she communicated in her own way that I was a hand full.

That was to be the last “good day” I would see of my Mom.

It was a hot August morning when I got the call....Mom had just had another series of strokes which now left her virtually unable to communicate. Her body was physically shutting down a little at a time, and she was losing her battle with the ravages of diabetes. I spent an hour on the phone with the Nursing Supervisor of the Home discussing our options…no matter how hard I tried to see it otherwise, these were going to be my Mother’s last days. The Supervisor recommended that we call in Hospice and they would make sure that my Mother’s last days would be comfortable ones, with people at her side watching over her.

I spoke with the assigned Hospice worker for 30 minutes,asking all the questions, needing all the answers. She explained all the Hospice would do for Mom, how they would visit her regularly during the first stages then stay with her round the clock at the end. They would make sure that she felt little pain and that her comfort would be their goal. They would be there to answer any questions I had and were only a phone call away. And all the time all I could feel was the little boy in me crying,realizing that something I had taken for granted was slowly going to slip away.

I made one last trip to see my Mom. I had gotten a call from Hospice telling me that Mom was getting worse, that gangrene had set into her legs and that her vital organs were slowly shutting down. They needed me to be there for several reasons, not the least of which was to make certain decisions that only I could make.

I arrived there on a Saturday at the Nursing Home fully expecting to see Mom in a comatose state, but was surprised to see she was sitting up. But my hopes were immediately brought back to reality when the Hospice worker explained that it was very common for people in their latter stages to appear to have “gotten better”. And it didn’t take long to see what she meant. By mid afternoon my Mother had slipped back into her semi-conscious state, only occasionally waking up when her medication wore off or if some noise from the hall would disturb her.

For the next few days I spent my time in her room, chatting with her roommate Louise, and trying to communicate with her. She never really recognized me, but seemed to open her eyes when my Aunt would come in. Each day she would seem to be OK in the morning and fade quickly as the day wore on. But each day she would slip a little farther into a less conscious state. By the end of day Friday the Hospice worker let me know that Mom seemed to be holding on…like she was waiting for something or someone…a call or a visit. She suggested that it was probably time for me to call anyone else who might want to speak with her one last time, and then for me to say my goodbyes. I told the Hospice worker that there was no one left who would call, and that all her close family in close proximity had come to see her already. So she arranged to allow me to be alone in the room to say my personal goodbye.

It’s really hard, at the end of a life, to know what to say. What comfort can you bring to someone whose life was a struggle daily both physically and mentally? What do you tell them that can make them at peace with what they face? And how can you tell them that you will miss them terribly, that no matter how estranged your relationship might have been at time, your heart will have a hole that nothing will fill? I sat there crying…thinking about what we had missed…choking as I tried to say something. Finally I looked at her laying there peacefully and told her it was OK to let go, that we all loved her and would miss her terribly. But we wanted no more pain for her, we wanted her to be where the landscapes were pretty and the sunsets were beautiful...a place where she was free to draw to her heart's content.

With that I left the room. Because I could not be away from work any longer and because the Hospice Team told me that Mom could stay in this conditions for weeks, I decided to head home the next morning. They promised that they would give me daily reports and let me know of any turns, plus my Aunt lived there in town and could keep me apprised also.

It’s barely been but 2 years this September that my Mother, silently alone in her room in a Nursing Home in North Carolina, quietly slipped away to leave a world of physical pain and suffering behind her. It still pains me horribly that I was not there to hold her hand, tell her how much I loved her and how I would miss her, and comfort her before the Angels came. But in my heart, I knew it was the way that my Mom wanted to pass from this world. You see, that was the enigmatic part of my Mother…she loved you and needed you to be near her, but was fiercely independent and wanted nothing of constant closeness because it smothered her. And that is the way it always was....as long as I can remember.

Mom left little to this world, except a notebook of her poetry that hadn’t been lost in her moves or removed by a less than scrupulous family member. Her many paintings and drawings, all cherished by those of us who loved her, gone. Mom’s clothes I donated to the Nursing home, just like she would have liked it, and any art supplies still there remained in their care for the other residents. Her wheelchair was donated to the Kentucky Horse Park for use at their facility for the Riding For Hope Program. The only thing left were her picture albums she had of all the boys and their children. Or so at least that is what I thought.

While I was in Taylorsville making arrangements for my Mom’s cremation I stayed with my Uncle David and Aunt Susie. It was there that we made a discovery that touched us all….
While in his basement looking at a model train set my Uncle had put together, we came across some old drawings. They had been in the basement of his house after one of my other Aunt’s had passed away just weeks before. They were rolled up and held in place by a rubber band. We took off the rubber band and I was startled with what we had found. It was 2 old chalk drawings that my Mother had done many years before.

I guess they were her little gift to me…