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Home Sunday Morning

The girls had a very busy weekend. We’re still recovering.

There was a conference at Door of Hope this weekend (“Childcare provided”), and I went Friday night to check it out. The girls had such a good time in the “kid room” that we came back Saturday morning so they could play again. Then Mom and Dad took them back in the evening when I was too tired to go.

Elisha comes too, of course, and I ended up walking him most of both services. At least four hours of non-aerobic walking. I wasn’t looking forward to two more hours of that.

Then (that was Saturday) nobody slept well. I wasn’t in my bed for more than an hour at a time; half-an-hour the first half of the night. It was rough and nobody was rested in the morning. Melody was coughing and Natasha had a runny nose (she told me later she had a “pinch” in her throat earlier).

So Jay was the only one who went to church; he records the sermons and teaches Sunday school every week.

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Learning Contentment

Jay and I (you may know) have been “window shopping” for a bigger house. Specifically, one that is a little out of town with some land. And now we’ve officially stopped.

Between Jay’s latest step-increase and the (temporarily?) reduced cost of health insurance we have “loose” money for the first time since I can’t remember when, and Jay pointed out that getting a different (bigger/more expensive) house would eliminate that pretty quick. And we both enjoy the idea of a little cushion, so we decided we can decide to be settled here.

It is an interesting mindset (one we have rotated through periodically) of making this house the focus of our planning/future. Expecting to be here long-term. Long-term being defined as, “until the house is paid off.” (Boy, that makes me think of A Series of Unfortunate Events and all their specialized definitions.)

Anyway, we’re back to our initial plans of reflooring the front room and building an entryway on the front of the house. Jay would also like to build a shed for storing stuff currently in the garage (so he’d actually have “workshop” room), and I would like to add a gate and stretch of fence to our back-strip (being too small to be a backyard) to have a dog yard.

I told this to Jay and he said, “Why would you need a dog yard? You don’t have a dog.”

“I’d like one,” was my natural response.

That’s still under negotiation.

The dog-yard would be a must. The front yard (that we put in last summer) is looking gorgeous. Jay and Grandma were comparing notes all summer, and ours is really starting to look as good as hers. We are enjoying it.

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Change

I’ve begun to understand why those who have experienced a loss are told to not make any major decisions for X-amount of time. It’s only natural that one will not be thinking clearly for a time.

For example (this is a scenario we’ve talked about but placed it far down the road), I was imagining starting to look for property out-of-town, that we could buy, and build a totally different lifestyle than we have now (we’ve talked about someday getting a milk-goat and a couple of chickens for family use).

It’s ridiculous, of course. I’m just keeping my head above water as it is, and there’s no way I would enjoy moving and/or taking on new responsibilities at this time. But I realized that the reason I wanted this was to have a change I was in control of; because right now I am looking at a change I have no control over at all.

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Political calls, forgiveness, and a 400-degree door

Oh, and we have a 2-year-old who speaks in complete sentences. How often does that happen? I really don’t know, but it seems unique.

I mentioned this to mom and she said, “It only counts if she can be understood.”

“It can be understood,” I said. “Sarah’s the one who told the story.”

“Antee-tarah, my ponytayol come out. Can oo fih it, peas?” [Tell me that’s not the cutest thing you ever heard.] “Tank-oo.”

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Yesterday Rae Ann came over and cleaned my house while I worked on the longer Obit for tonight’s memorial service. While I was working it out the phone rang and it was one of those political telemarketing calls (can something be exponentialy annoying?); Concerned Alaskans for something or other was calling.

“Mrs. Helmericks, did you know that at this moment in the State Legislature–”

“Did you know,” I interrupted with a voice not-quite-steady, “that at this moment I am writing my grandmother’s obituary, and this is not a good time.”

A gratifying amount of awkwardness ensued.

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Last week Natasha came up to me while I was sitting in our big blue chair and asked in her gentle voice, “Mama, do you ever forgive me?” After a Do I ever! laugh, I answered, “Yes, I’ve forgiven you lots of times.”

She embraced my arm tenderly and said sincerely, “I forgive you lots of times too.”

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Today I had Jay drop me off at the DMV to renew my months-expired driver’s license. I wanted to be dropped off in case I was asked (with my 4-months expired license) how I’d gotten there.

When I called to ask Jay to pick me up he said something (over our poor cell-phone connection) that sounded like “oven door came off.” I could hear the stress in his voice.

“You can’t be serious!” I said.

“I am, and I’m on my way,” he said.

As soon as I was in the car I pumped him for the story. It seems Natasha had left one of her shoes in the kitchen, and Jay, stepping back as he checked on a pizza in the oven, felt it under his foot. He thought he’d stepped on Maestro or Melody and immediately picked up the foot again. His weight had already shifted, and so he hung on to the door, trying to catch his balance– and found himself holding a 400-degree door, looking at a half-baked pizza in the open oven.

Thankfully, the door wasn’t actually broken; it’s designed to lift straight up once opened, and the angle Jay pulled it at just lifted it straight out. Discovering this it was easy enough to fix, but didn’t entirely remove the panting moment of adrenaline.

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Grandma’s obituary

The full (for-the-service) version.
(I wrote this as well as the shorter one that was published in our local paper.)

Gladys Langley graduated to heaven Tuesday evening, August 1, 2006, surrounded by family. She was 87 years old.

Born in Brush Valley Township, Penn., on September 16, 1918, Gladys attended the schools of that area. After graduating from high school in ’38, she worked while attending bible school and college.
One of these jobs was as a waitress. Grandma identified this waitressing as the time she learned to say “Oh,” in such a variety of ways. It became her standard answer to the many things customers would say to her. She said it allowed her to respond and be polite without having to agree. Gladys was a peacemaker; she had an ability to wait, and looked for ways to ease any tension she found. Always a hard worker, Grandma was very proud of the fact that she could both support herself and maintain passing grades in her college work.

It was while attending Pasadena Nazarene College in California in 1949, that she met “Red” Langley. A year later they began their whirlwind courtship. They became engaged two weeks after they began dating, and every night of their engagement Grandpa brought her a milkshake.

She married him on August 31, 1950, knowing Alaska would be their home. She wore a borrowed wedding dress, a friend made a beautiful cake, and the only thing they splurged on was red roses for her bouquet. She was very pleased with how the wedding all came together.

Grandma was always practical like that; working within her means and choosing to enjoy where she was. In June of 1951, Red and Gladys drove north on the Alaska Highway.

Once in Fairbanks, Gladys immediately became active in her local church congregation and soon began making a home out of the house Red was starting to build. She kept house in the basement of that home for five years, while Grandpa worked to build the upper levels. She always had an unquenchable desire for order and cleanliness, which must have been especially challenging to maintain while running herd on the three children that arrived before the family could move upstairs.

Gladys frequently taught Sunday School. She was a clever teacher, and knew how to handle the inevitable “spunk” that came through her classroom. One story she liked to tell involved giving a small boy some paper, a pair of scissors, and asking him to fill the crayon tub with scraps. He went studiously to work and ended his disruptive behavior.

Gladys held a number of jobs in Fairbanks, including with the UAF food service, where she met and blessed many students, and bookkeeping at Air North. She also opened her home to a number of foster children over the years. Gladys was well-known for her hospitality. She felt no visitors should eat alone their first Sunday at the Nazarene church.

Before her death she asserted, “The joy of my life has been serving God, helping others, and caring for my family and my home.”

Gladys expressed her love of God through service to his church and his people. All of her life she was a giver and a server. When she saw a need it was only natural for her to assume that need was hers to fill. She had a generous heart and frequently gave of her time, talents and resources.

One of Gladys’s great loves was her family. She enjoyed three generations of family in town, and visited most of those “outside” last November. She never forgot a birthday, or an anniversary. Standing on her rights as a great-grandmother, Gladys frequently bragged on her family. She knew she had the best, and wanted everyone else to know it too—but only if they were interested. She was a very perceptive lady, and knew where her stories would be welcome.

She was very proud of her home, and started every Monday by writing a week-long list of tasks for the house and yard. Summer was her favorite time of year, when she could be outside daily, working in the yard and gardens she took such great pride in, and taking long walks.

Two years ago, in June of 2004, her best friend and husband of more-than 53 years was called home to Jesus. The lives of Red and Gladys were so entwined it’s hard to talk about one without the other. Grandma called Grandpa the love of her life, and together they shared a lifestyle of openness and service.

She thoroughly enjoyed her long-life, almost 88 years, and often attributed it to good choices and “right living.” When a doctor asked her how she felt about what she was facing, she said, “I’m okay. Spiritually, I’m ready to go, but I’m not in a hurry. I’m lovin life.” Her attitude, life and death were a testimony to all who knew her.

The immediate beneficiaries of her legacy of faith and service include children, Florie and David Wilcoxson, Arthur and Cynthia Langley, and Bill and Jana Langley; grandchildren Shawnie and Garry Shelden, Sarah and Nathan Arnold, Amy and Jay Helmericks, Benjamin and Alana Wilcoxson, and Adam Langley; along with 11 great-grandchildren.

Jay did the reading in front of the congregation.

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Well, it’s over now.

Or beginning. However you like to say it.

Mom tells the people on the phone that Grandma “graduated” last night. On the folder (what do you call the hand-out at a memorial service?) Her “passing” is written as the date she “ascended.”

I find all the words used instead of death interesting. Jay and I were talking about the common phrase passed away (with Elisha, who was being conversant at the time) and I said it sometimes makes me think of the big family dinners: I passed away the mashed potatoes. (You know I never eat that stuff).

Jay confided to Elisha that we would have to start making the potatoes now. I said, “What? Bring more potatoes into this house???”

I used Mom’s “graduated” at the beginning of the Obituary, and ‘death’ in the middle. I think it’s fine to use euphemisms– especially the first two add more meaning to the event, I believe– but I like to use the plain word too, if it doesn’t.

Passed away doesn’t add anything (that I’ve been able to figure out) and has always sounded mushy to me…

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What the Locusts Have Eaten–lyrics

The song I sung when I was alone with Grandma for the last time.

You are so good in your mercy
Taking what I cannot bear
Taking a heart that was wounded
And making it beautiful, beyond compare

(chorus)
And what the locust have eaten
My Lord can restore
And what the enemy’s taken
My Lord gives me more
And my Jesus will mend my heart
When my heart’s torn.

There’s nothing that my Jesus cannot restore.

You are so good in your mercy
You take all I don’t understand.
Taking a life that was wounded and broken
and bearing it up by your hand

(chorus)

(The way I sing Dennis Jernigan’s song)

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Family dinner

I made Angel Chicken (my standard crockpot meal) and strawberry yogurt muffins and brought those to the hospital along with plastic odds and ends to eat with/on and a kool-aid type stuff.

My main concern was that there wouldn’t be enough food. I needn’t have worried. Seems like the others aren’t much more interested in eating than I am. It was good to be together and at least act like a family. It wasn’t the same, of course, as sitting around one of the tables. And the uncles left at least three times in the hour I was there to go “warm their noses.” I sat by Grandma and tried to talk to her, and couldn’t say anything normal (in a normal voice).

She has an Oxygen mask now (with a bright blue tube that starts just below the chin), instead of just the nasal cannula, and she still coughs, but can’t spit the junk out. She responds (sometimes) it seems to some things said, or people that speak, but she hasn’t opened her eyes for a long time.

Sarah said Grandma smiled at her, and laughed at a story Uncle Bill told about his son, Adam.

This grief thing is surreal.

When I left Gma’s bedside the first time, I went back to Jay, who pulled me into his lap. I wilted, and whispered, “Don’t be too nice to me, I won’t be able to hold it together.”

“‘Don’t be too nice’?” he whispered back, pretended shock, and almost a rebuke. “I’ll be extra nice.” I just clung to his neck and nodded.

“Yes; that will hold me together.”

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The end is nearing.

How near is clarified day by day.

On the off-chance that anyone is still following this story, here is the update through today.

What’s the reverse of exponential? I can’t remember. But Grandma is declining that way. Benjamin is the only family member who hasn’t yet arrived. He comes in tonight.

Is it hugely depressing to have your family gather and share tearful good-byes with you? Mourning you while you are still alive? I think now I’d have a hard time with that; but I’m seeing now that what I think or feel currently may have little bearing on the last days.

Grandma said when she first got sick that Mom shouldn’t worry about her talking about death, or planning a memorial service, because there was nothing to be worried about– she wouldn’t be giving up on life, it was too precious to her.

And now (though I saw the internal war yesterday, through her words) she is tired enough to just be done. She’s ready to end this fight and go Home. Only it’s never up to us; up to her. So we’re just praying for perfect timing.

She’s pretty non-responsive now, and for me that’s the hardest thing. I mentioned earlier the value I felt, being allowed to see how she was thinking (being “let into her mind” was how I put it), and I don’t know how I’ll feel if that doesn’t happen again. Disappointed at least.

I’ve decided (though I haven’t been able to get a hold of Jay yet) that I want to do a family dinner in her room tonight. I want a fun together-time with all of us, and I want (though I suppose I don’t wholeheartedly expect) the familiar atmosphere will elicit a response from her.

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How disappointing…

That’s what Grandma said Friday when Mom told her she (Gma) probably has cancer in her blood.

The doctor has sent her bone-marrow samples off to a different lab to see why the cancer didn’t show up in the earlier test, and to confirm this diagnosis. (This is my understanding of things).

Doctor Carroll has said that if anyone wants to see her again they should make travel plans now, because this is a very fast-acting cancer. Mom has been tight-lipped about an actual time-frame, saying diagnosis kills as many people as diseases. She’s told Grandma that if she lives another six years people can come back then, but we want to be ready for anything, so we’re telling folks to come now. Only she doesn’t think it will be six years. She very concerned about the “dying from diagnosis” phynomenon.

Gma’s ready to go on living, and having a (more) finite life-span before her really is disappointing to her. She enjoys life.

I was very disappointed too. I had hoped that something about the hospital environment was oppressing her, holding her back. Because then taking her home would “fix” her. Now we’re told there’s nothing that will, and we are reduce to waiting and watching. And “comfort-measures.”

How do I watch my (2nd) best-friend die? I just do. Figure it out as I go along.