RITE OF PASSAGE--In Retrospect

That fateful day, I became a senior citizen.

No, I didn’t turn 62—or even 55. That came later. The change, while unofficial, was much more fundamentally significant than mere age.

I bought a luxury car.

Yes, it’s true. No longer would you see that gumball red sports car zipping around town, careening around corners, leaping away from stop signs at the head of the pack as I plotted the next chapter of my novel.

At the height of my mid-life crisis, after I’d cast aside the practical economy cars of my youth, I was often heard telling people I’d drive a sports car until I couldn’t find room in it for my wheel chair. But I failed to consider that irresistible and inevitable force brought to bear on those of us of a certain age and familial persuasion. I became a grandmother.

At first it wasn’t so bad. An infant seat could be wedged into the anatomically shaped, albeit nearly nonexistent, back seat of the turbo-charged, five-on-the-floor bomb, and an infant needs almost no legroom.

True, when I wanted to take my husband and daughter along on my outings with the grandbaby, one of them had to more-or-less curl up into a ball to fit into the other back seat. But it was only for short distances. They could handle it.

But babies grow. And this one grew and grew, until, at age six, she could barely walk under my outstretched arm. My back seat still had enough room for her lanky legs as long as I didn’t have to move the driver’s seat to get in and out. But I could see my fate staring me in the face from a year or two in the future. I couldn’t let my granddaughter be uncomfortable, no matter how short the trip.

Then fell the final blow. She became a big sister.

Talk about fate staring me in the face. The little guy was built like a fullback from day one. And now we had to use two cars for a family outing. The logistics were beginning to get unwieldy. I had to give up and admit I needed the dreaded “nana-mobile.”

I set out on a search to find something of adequate size that wasn’t too much of an affront to my self image, firmly believing no such thing existed. I must have looked at every van, mini-van, SUV, and sedan in town before I heaved a heavy sign, patted the hood of my sports car, and bid it a fond farewell. I had selected a sleek, black two-door with room in the back seat for three adults abreast. My grandchildren would be comfortable even after they outgrew me (by the time they were 10 years old).

What sold me on that particular car? Well, it wasn’t really the prestigious maker and model. It wasn’t really the roominess or living room comfort. It wasn’t even really the somewhat ominous look of it.

I think it might have been a comment the salesman, unaware that I’m a writer of horror/mystery novels, made while showing me how spacious the car was.

“Wow,” he said. “I wonder how many bodies you could stuff into that trunk.”

note: The granddaughter in the essay now drives her own car. The grandson is looking forward to driver's training later this year. Theoretically, Hubby and I could be back into a sports car in less than three years, provided the crack about the wheelchair remains only a joke. That'll be another rite of passage--into second childhood. : - ) We'll see...

Captain Marvel and the Seven Deadly Sins

Does anyone else remember reading Captain Marvel comic books, or am I the oldest codger in the group?

I LOVED comic books when I was a kid. Spent HOURS reading them and more hours with those I was tired of reading in the basket of my bicycle, riding around the neighborhood, trading with my friends for comics I hadn’t read yet.

And the adults all said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. What are these kids nowadays coming to? Those comic books are eating their brains and morals.” Well, except my parents. Not sure what they thought of comics, but they realized that I read ALL THE TIME, and was reading real books at least as much as I read comic books. They just wanted to get me outside in the sun so people would quit asking them if I was anemic. (Now I pay the price for their good parenting by having occasional skin cancers. It’s OK—they aren’t the scary kind. Just leave my face with white polka dots when they're removed.)

Anyway, the Captain Marvel comic books were my introduction to the seven deadly sins, though according to Wikipedia, I don’t have it quite right. First, they say Captain Marvel had lost most of his popularity by the time I was old enough to read. Then, though I remember greed, gluttony, envy, sloth, hubris, wrath and lust, they list a slightly cleaned up version they call the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man: greed, envy, laziness, pride, hatred, selfishness and injustice. (Wouldn’t want to expose the kiddies to the word lust, right?)

I also remember Billy being a crippled newsboy. Wikipedia says he was homeless, but doesn’t show him with one crutch as I remember.

The one thing Wikipedia and my memory agree on is the origin of the word SHAZAM. It’s an acronym for six legendary heroes who grant attributes to Billy to turn him into Captain Marvel: Solomon for wisdom, Hercules for strength, Atlas for stamina, Zeus for power, Achilles for courage, and Mercury for speed. When Billy says the word, a bolt of lightning transforms him into Captain Marvel. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way for me or Gomer Pyle. (Actually, Gomer Pyle pronounced it SHAZAYUM, but I pronounced it correctly, and it still didn’t work.)

So most of my childhood memories have been rent asunder by research into the seven deadly sins. Man, I just KNEW I learned the word hubris from Captain Marvel. It’s such a cool word.

They Say It Skips a Generation

You can fill in the “it” blank with any number of things. Let’s use—oh, say—dancing.

My mother, I’m told, was a heck of a jitterbug dancer as a teenager. My younger daughter took every kind of dance class she could find and excelled in all of them. Guess where that leaves me?

Yep. Middle generation. Two left feet.

Back in the dark ages when I was in middle school (they called it junior high back then) ballroom dancing was part of the PE curriculum. The only requirement was that I learn to move my feet according to pages the teacher handed out. On the pages were pictures of feet connected by dotted lines with numbers showing position one, position two, etc. I can close my eyes and still see those patterns. What I had trouble with were the numbers. This led to some interesting moves on my part and some very unhappy, wounded partners.

There was also this thing about leading that I just didn’t get. If we both memorized those pictures, why would one person have to lead? And why did they call it leading when the “leader” usually was actually pushing. And, by the way, what’s with the leader being the guy, anyway? Why didn’t we at least take turns? That seemed fair, though I knew without a doubt we’d both do much better if girls led. Eventually I learned, though, and developed enough grace to earn a firm C on my report card.

I justified my clumsiness by telling myself I just took after my dad, who had never danced a day in his life. Then, as he and my mother neared retirement age, she finally talked him into taking ballroom dance lessons. My memory of my father from my childhood was of him in khakis and ankle-high work boots, resisting dance classes with every bone in his body. Now in his 50s, he bought dress shoes with leather soles to slide over wood and brightly colored dress clothes to go dancing. He got so good, in fact, that other couples would stand aside to watch him and my ex-jitterbugging mother sweep over the floor to the tune of “Dance Across Texas,” which became “their” song.  I was orphaned, left-feet-wise.

Still, I wasn’t really bothered. I hadn’t needed to dance so far and probably never would. Then, as I approached middle age and had given birth to two kids, I started putting on weight. I knew it was time to put aside my distaste for sweat and find that life-long exercise program I had so carefully ignored to this point. And the studio where my daughter took dance was offering belly dancing…oops…make that “Middle Eastern tribal dance” lessons. Sounded like fun, and at least nobody had to lead.

We learned hip movements first: vertical figure 8, horizontal figure 8, around the world… No problem. I could even roll my stomach and shimmy. I’d finally found a form of dance I could do! Then we learned arm movements. Nothing too complicated: arms in kind of a hula position, arms in front, click those little finger cymbals. Cool!

Ok, now move the hips and arms at the same time... Say what? The lessons ended and I still could dance with my hips or dance with my arms, but I could not dance with both at the same time. For years I looked back at that experience with some bemusement. An anomaly, surely. After all, I can pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time—even rub my head and pat my stomach. Although—that is just hands…

Then, a year or two ago, I tried my hand at tai-chi….

Yeah, it definitely skips a generation.

My Mother's Mirrors

When my mother started talking about “that family in the next room,” I knew we had a problem. The “next room” she was referring to was the mirrored closet door in her bedroom.

            My mother had Lewy body dementia. Lewy bodies are the abnormal round structures that are deposited in the brain when people have Parkinson’s disease. Although people with Lewy body dementia sometimes develop physical symptoms similar to Parkinson’s, the first symptom is usually an inability to separate reality from—what? Dreams? Misinterpretation of sensory stimuli? It’s the second most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s, yet most people have never heard of it.

            My mother had been diagnosed only a few months earlier because she called me while I was on my way home from church.

            “Where are you?”

            I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. “What’s going on?”

            “Well, I might need your help later. I just wanted to be sure you were around in case they didn’t leave.”

            “In case who didn’t leave?”

            “Oh, there’s a man and a woman. I guess she’s his wife. An older man—her father, I think. And some kids.”

            “What are they doing?”

            “Just looking around. They pick up stuff and look at it and put it back down. I asked them what they want, but they won’t talk to me.”

            I wasn’t more than fifteen minutes away, and I wasted no time getting to her condo.  When I arrived, she seemed a little frightened. Her eyes darted nervously around the room—which looked exactly as it had the last time I visited her—nobody there but her, and nothing out of place.

            “Did they leave?”

            “I don’t know where the others went, but the older man went into the bathroom. He must be sick, because it really stinks now.”

            The bathroom door was nearly closed. Half afraid of what I might find when I pushed it open, I was nevertheless emboldened by my inability to smell anything more than my mother’s favorite air freshener. Cautiously, I peeked in.

            The bathroom was empty.

            I spent the next two hours trying to convince my mother to go with me to the emergency room. Worst case, I feared she’d had a stroke; best case, I knew she’d suffered hallucinations several years ago when she had low blood sugar.

            And I did convince her. But four hours in the emergency room produced no explanation for her Sunday “visitors.” In fact, she was surprisingly healthy for her 84 years—her blood pressure and cholesterol were better than mine!

            “I must have dozed off and had a dream,” she said, by way of explanation.

            I didn’t buy it. She’d been awake when I arrived, yet she was convinced one of them was still around. And I discovered later that another of them, a boy about eight years old, stayed behind and kept her company. She named him Peanut. She enjoyed his company, but she wasn’t as sure about the rest of the family, especially the father. She didn’t trust him.

            When my brother-in-law and his family came to visit at Christmas, they covered the mirrors with pretty stick-on paper, thinking that maybe if she couldn’t see the reflections, she’d realize they were simply closet doors instead of a portal into another world where people lived that only she could see. 

             For a while, it seemed to work. But the hallucinations started being triggered by the bathroom mirrors, and they became more frightening. Because she seemed to fare fairly well during the day, I started spending the night with her, but soon realized she needed someone with her who was awake and alert 24 hours a day. The complex she lived in included a section for assisted living, so she moved from her condo into an apartment.

            There, too, she was convinced she was seeing people in another room through her mirrors, but they didn’t come into her quarters as often as they had. For a time, she would buzz for help or walk down to the dining room and help the staff fold napkins if she became frightened at night. Then one afternoon she called me to come get her because she wanted “to go home.” I found her outside the building, waiting for me at the curb. Usually that wasn’t a problem. Residents came and went as they pleased, and she had often met me outside when we were going out to eat, which we did at least a couple of times a week. But this time she was outside because my father, who had died three years ago, was working in the attic, and he and his crew were making so much noise it was giving her a headache. She wanted to go home, meaning my childhood home, which they had left when I started college. If she had started out to try to find it before I’d arrived, she could easily have wound up on a busy highway. We had to move her into the memory unit.

            The memory unit had fewer mirrors. Although she had fewer visits from the family—even Peanut was absent—she started having visits from relatives: my niece of 15 years earlier, a cousin of 30 years earlier. They always needed her help—help she was unable to give. Then one night she was convinced that she was a visitor in someone’s home, and while the attendant stepped out to let her change into her pajamas, she decided to shower in order to free up the bathroom—her private bathroom—for those who needed to shower in the morning. Unattended, she flooded the bathroom floor, then slipped and fell when she stepped out. Her spine, like chalk from osteoporosis, crumbled, leaving her nearly paralyzed below the waist.

            Her room in the nursing home had no mirrors, and she had no invisible visitors during the week she was there. The day she died, she was more alert and lucid than she had been for months. Then she just drifted away, staring into space. At almost exactly midnight, a week after her 86th birthday, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and just—stopped.

            Going through her things, which had accumulated in my garage as she moved to progressively smaller quarters, I found a small looking glass set in a carved wooden frame. It now lies on the vanity in my bathroom.