Nearing the end

It was hard to know how to conclude.

I guess it would have to be.

I have been listening to a lot and reading and writing a lot. I know that things work together, but sometimes there are specific parts that stick out.

Reading in The Myth of Closure by Pauline Boss, there was a part about making meaning and coming to terms. Sometimes maybe the answer is just a life well-lived, and that can be enough.

That actually fits.

My mother was was working class, not particularly educated, and certainly not rich or famous. She was not perfect, but she was good. She kept going when things were hard, she cared about people, and she lived according to her values. 

That's pretty good.

That led to two of the last songs: 

1/29 “Hourglass” by Mary J. Blige
1/30 “Je Ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf

If time is running out and there is a reckoning, are you going to be okay with your choices?

I loved "Hourglass" from the first time I heard it, closing out a documentary about Mary J. Blige.(That was My Life from 2011, but I watched it in 2021.)

"Je Ne Regrette Rien" has been around a lot longer, but I don't think I had heard it before the Dove commercial. 

That depicts a more adventurous life than Mom's, but it's still true. She doesn't have to regret anything.

As I was thinking about that, it became true for me as well.

Caring for her has been emotionally, physically, and financially hard. I always knew it was the right thing to do, so that's what I did. 

That may be the ways in which we are most alike; we had a lot of differences. Most of our conflicts came because of those differences, but we are also alike. 

I wouldn't have regretted it anyway, but I feel like the burnout is finally clearing up, and I am in school and getting closer to graduation... there is a new sense of possibility.

Yeah, there's going to be pain along the path; what's new? But there's going to be joy and good things too. 

That made the right choice for closing obvious. 

1/31 “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair” by Debussy, performed by Walter Morse Rummel

Well, obvious to me. 

The title indicates one thing, but the image that music evokes for me is something like floating down a canyon. The end of the gorge is approaching and the view is going to open up, but for right now all you know is that there is light ahead, but not what the light will show.

I am feeling more ready for what's next.

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/08/my-mother-my-talk.html  

Into the home stretch

Those first traces of memory loss were present as we were working out details with the knee surgery, but it was easy to brush them aside.

She was only not taking in details about the surgery, which was stressful and scary. She had not lost any past memories yet. 

That was only the beginning.

The chronological order doesn't work as well here, because things become more disjointed.

1/24 “The Long Walk Home” by Glen Campbell*
1/25 “Won’t Give In” by The Finn Brothers
1/26 “Time To Say Goodbye” by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli
1/27 “Torna a Surriento” by Luciano Pavarotti
1/28 “A Better Place” by Glen Campbell

Let's start with the two songs that use Italian, "Torno a Surriento" and "Time To Say Goodbye" (which is partially in English).

One of Mom's cleaning customers was always influencing her music tastes, which was how Mom ended up with The Phantom of the Opera with Sarah Brightman and with Andrea Bocelli. (Also Il Divo and Yanni Live at the Acropolis. I bought her the Three Tenors.)

When I hoped singing practice would be a good way to fend off the decline, these were both songs I tried. I had better luck with "O Sole Mio" but the journey aspect of these songs works for me for representing when I became her full-time caregiver in 2016 and when I took her to Italy one last time in 2017. 

I am also using two songs by Glen Campbell; that doesn't sound like me.

On the other hand, reading about the Wrecking Crew and then watching the documentary -- including the documentary extras -- sounds a lot like me. 

There were some interview segments with Campbell in the extras, and there was a familiarity to the way he was talking... I was not surprised later to find out that he had dementia too.

I later found a documentary about him and a memoir from his wife that dealt with the disease, as well as new music. 

The first song I heard was "I'm Not Gonna Miss You." It resonated with me and I understood the approach, but it's a little too raw for my personal soundtrack. The other two songs work better, especially as they indicate a journey and something after.

Notice that asterisk with "The Long Walk Home"? Both of the songs are from the album I'll Be Me, which I appreciated a lot. 

After he died (7 years after!) there was another release, Duets, where different artists sang "with" him. I am not sure that he had any input into it, but there are some really good musicians participating and I guess it's a nice idea.

However, the original version of "The Long Walk Home" with only Glen Campbell is not available on Youtube except to premium members. It looks like someone else had tried to post it and it was taken down. You can only get the version with Hope Sandoval. 

Look, if I had any interest in that curiously flat and grating version of the song, I would hide better versions too. I listened to it, trying to see if I could bear to share it. I shared a link to Spotify instead.

I guess I am just lucky that he'd actually shot a music video for "A Better Place." 

I have written about "Won't Give In" before, and a lot of those feelings still apply.

I'll link to that, adding the context that it was after I'd had one really hard time and couldn't write anymore, or really enjoy anything. 

As things started to get better, new music sparked creativity and joy. I was writing a lot, and I needed that, but also there was a lot of death (and fighting against tyranny) in the work. 

Ultimately, how it worked for me was helping me to be okay with death and loss, that there was still value, and it was really important to cherish people and the time you have with them.  

Good thing I had worked that out already.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-aberration.html  

Ghostly middle reader books, old school

Remember how I wanted to find some ghost stories that I remembered from my youth? 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/04/spooky-season-hodgepodge-and-hereafter.html 

There were mainly two that I remembered. 

In the April post, I thought I had identified them as The Ghost Next Door by Wylly Folk St. John and Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn. 

I was half right. 

I ended up with an abundance of proof that the one with the malevolent gazing ball in the garden was not Wait Till Helen Comes. While a single version of the book was not available through our library system, they did have a graphic novel based on it and it was in a collection of three ghost stories by Hahn. The other two were Deep and Dark and Dangerous and All the Lovely Bad Ones.

What about that gazing ball?

A different search pointed me in the direction of Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp.

I did not remember as many details from this this as The Ghost Next Door. For example, I did not remember that it was set in the early 20th century. 

That made it a good companion for The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck, source material for Child of Glass.  

The Ghost Belonged to Me was published in 1975, and then the movie aired in 1978. The movie was contemporary, but the book was historical fiction.

(There were a lot of changes, and I liked the book better. It's part of a series, so I could try hunting down more, but I am not committed to anything yet.)

Jane-Emily was written in 1969, The Ghost Next Door in 1971, and Wait Till Helen Comes in 1986.

I guess I didn't read it then because it was too new.

Oddly, Deep and Dark and Dangerous and All the Lovely Bad Ones were published in 2007 and 2008, respectively. 

I had read something else of Hahn's, Daphne's Book from 1983, but there is nothing supernatural about that. 

(Hahn has a lot of ghost books and a lot of not-ghost books.)  

The graphic novel was from 2022, so I know I am not the only person with old ghost stories sticking with them for year.

I liked them all pretty well. 

For what I remembered, you notice different things as an adult. 

There are a lot of issues with blended families, which seems appropriate for the time period. Obviously there is death -- the ghosts have to come from somewhere -- but divorce is an issue in the "modern" ones, and then not.

What I mean by that is that there are no divorces in Jane-Emily or The Ghost Belonged to Me, and there are none in Deep and Dark and Dangerous and All the Lovely Bad Ones. For The Ghost Next Door and Wait Till Helen Comes, divorce is integral to the plot. Then you have missing information on family tragedies, and sources of information that can act as wild cards.

I think that plot point reflected the times and was on people's minds, but then if they were turning to the past they would not write it in.

Drowning was the most common cause of death, followed by fire, but there were some outliers. 

Secrets were the biggest problem complicating the hauntings. 

That tracks.

The second biggest problem was the refusal of some people to take it seriously. Even if you don't believe in ghosts, if you have someone who does and is worried, telling them it's just their imagination is not going to help. 

That's something I really appreciated about Joe Morton (Dr. Drayton) in What Lies Beneath. 

I also appreciated that in Hahn's books, kindness to the ghosts mattered. That is important, because some of them start out pretty dangerous and looking for permanent company, if not revenge. 

On the other hand, Emily needs a firm refusal and the smashing of the gazing ball.  

Not ghostly at all, but this made me smile: in Wait Till Helen Comes, when Helen destroys a lot of property and it is blamed on vandals, law enforcement insists they couldn't be local. They are probably from Adelphia. 

There's a similar reference in Daphne's Book. As it is, you get the impression of someplace with more money and worse people, but if you lived in Maryland in the '80s, it probably takes on new meaning. 

From 1995 to 2011

Three of the songs already mentioned cross over multiple periods:

1/16 “She Works Hard For The Money” by Donna Summer
1/17 “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi
1/18 “You’re A Friend of Mine” by Clarence Clemons & Jackson Browne

Mom started working and earning money in 1981 or 1982. Friends were a part of her church experience and working experience and greyhound adoption experience. Her volunteering built up gradually, but she had definitely already made friends through it by 1996.

Me feeling too much responsibility? Somewhat in 1994, growing exponentially in 1996, after I graduated, eight months after he left for good.

Well, I guess "I Can't Make You Love Me" stretched out over all of that too.

Sometimes I wonder why a loss doesn't get easier when it has been hurting you over and over again for so long. 

Toward the end, it was not uncommon that Dad would leave around 6 in the morning and not get back until around 9 at night, whether or not he was working. 

There had been suspicions, but Mom definitely knew there was someone else by at least 1994, even without knowing the full extent. 

She still found the final walkout devastating, but I think the recovery was quicker.

1/19 "I Will Survive" by Donna Summer

Maybe cheesy, but relevant (and also one of the songs on the Disco Sweat workout we used to do).

He left in October 1995. I flew to Los Angeles for my first Jeopardy! tryout in November. (Note: it only took me 16 years to get on.) 

When the plane was taking off (my fourth plane ride ever), I suddenly felt how badly we needed a getaway. When I got home for Thanksgiving I said that we needed to go to Disneyland.

Was that an irresponsible luxury? Perhaps, but we needed it.

1/20 “Vacation” by The Go-Go’s

My younger sisters took over planning, so we went on their spring break, which started a week before mine. I typed furiously overnight and mailed a paper from the airport. 

It was a boost, but it was also an important milestone in the four of us relating to each other as adults and working together.

There were definitely hard times, but there were good times too. Our relationships grew stronger.

1/21 “Joy and Pain” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock

There were more flights, though never the four of us again. As the quartet we usually took day trips, and spent comfortable time at home.

1/22 “The Big Bang Theory Theme Song” by Barenaked Ladies

Yes, some of that included television. The Big Bang Theory was not the only show we watched together, but it was one we quoted a lot. Some of the quotes still worked to make her laugh as other memories started to fade.

Plus it had a good theme song.

1/23 “Howlin’ For You” by the Black Keys

I have written about this one before, long ago.

I said I would get back to Mom's arthritis. The years of cleaning probably did not help; she needed both knees replaced.

The first surgery had a much harder recovery for various reasons. It had taken longer, it was cold weather, and she still had one bad knee. The second one went better than we could have anticipated. 

The song came on one night as she was feeling better. Mom was still using a cane, but she felt pretty good. She started banging her cane to the music. 

That is still a fun, warm memory, but there's a sad side.

It was during the preparations for the surgery that Mom's fading memory first became really noticeable. Maybe there had been some earlier hints, but now it was very clear.

Looking back now, there were a lot of things I never imagined.

That night we really didn't know. 

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/04/favorite-music-memories-not.html