Things My Mom Lost

Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

Things My Mom Lost
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

We all lose things. 

Yesterday at church, at the noon service for Maundy Thursday, I wanted to look nice. I put on my diamond earrings that my husband gave me, my circle heart necklace, and my wedding rings. My skin is so sensitive, I can only wear my wedding rings sparingly, unfortunately. Then, I saw Mom's tennis bracelet that I got from her after she died. I saw it, put it on, and went to church. Funny, too, I kept looking at it kept thinking how neat it was to be wearing a part of my mom at the service.

After church, I had a post-op appointment with the surgeon and then home. Once home, I went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, since I was done for the day, and I love my PJs! I took the necklace off, the rings, the earrings - ouchy wouchy - even really good earrings make my ears red after a little while. And then, the bracelet. But the bracelet wasn't there. I looked in the closet where I keep my jewelry. Not there. I went outside to look in my Jeep Compass. Not there. I called the church. Not there. I called the surgeon's office. Not there. The bracelet was gone; I had lost it. And then I thought, well... that figures.

Growing up, I was always losing things that belonged to Mom. In 7th grade, my mom finally let me get my ears pierced. After, I asked Mom if I could wear her beautiful earrings to school and, totally unlike her, she said yes. I promised her I would take good care of them, and that I wouldn't lose them. You guessed it. I lost them. In hindsight, I wish she would've said that I should just wear them to church and then take them off afterward. And that's what I should've done yesterday. But I forgot about the bracelet after our beautiful Maundy Thursday service was over.

When I was in 2nd grade at Woodlawn Elementary in Monticello, Indiana, I wore one of my mom's gorgeous scarves to school.  It was a particularly windy day, and Betty Maxwell and I were together on the playground, using our scarves as kites. The wind hit my mom's scarf just right, and it went soaring away. I mean, it flew away like it was fleeing the doomsday machine.

Mom lost her childhood home to the 1937 flood of the Ohio River in Scuffletown, Kentucky. Her Uncle John Pfingston was her rescuer that night. Thank God for Uncle John Pfingston. He saved everyone who lived in Scuffletown using his ferry.  After that, mom moved with her family just across the river to rural Newburgh, Indiana, close to Cypress Beach and Vanada Station. Click on photos to enlarge

Uncle John Pfingston's Ferry
Around 1937
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

She went to high school at Yankeetown, and then her school burned down, so she lost that, because they didn't rebuild. After the fire, they bussed the Yankeetown kids to Pioneer School in Boonville, Indiana. Mom never got over her school burning down. Even after dementia began to set in, she would often tell the story of her school burning down.

Mom's Senior Photo
1951, Boonville, IN
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

After Mom married Dad, she lost her name. She loved her name, Mary McLean. She hated being Mary Howard. Today women just hang onto their maiden name if they want. Not so in the 1950s, especially in the religious family she married into. Mom's brother had married Mary Lott, who became Mary McLean. Mom always resented this, feeling as if her sister-in-law had somehow stolen her name.

Mom (L) with her brothers and sister
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

In 1963, I moved with my family to Monticello, Indiana, where we would live until 1977. We built quite a life at Monticello. My mother was the director of the highly reputable Monticello Day Care Center. Fourteen years later, my father got this itch to move to Evansville. An opening came up at a church, and he jumped at the chance, moving us to Evansville. Mom lost everything. She lost her friends, her job, her high station in life, her big house. She lost it all. Once to Evansville, she pivoted and became a successful artist, but she never recovered from the move, often speaking of Monticello with tears in her eyes.

Mom in her art studio about 1995
Taken by Ruth Kretchmar (1927-2011)
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Once her granddaughter was born, my mom soon began to teach her to sew. Together, they sewed a beautiful blanket. My mother loved that blanket, so Stephanie gave it to her. When Mom started talking about wanting to die somewhere around 2002, it got her into trouble. She also couldn't stop talking about the miscarriage she had in or around 1958. She would literally weep over this baby. She also couldn't stop talking about a family member who had been Catholic, who had married into the McLean family, and the McLean family shunned her for her Catholicism - I believe it might have been her paternal grandmother. My mother ended up in a mental ward at a hospital, and my father let her take the blanket that she and Stephanie had made together. You know the rest of the story. She lost the blanket. She came out of the mental ward, after shock treatment, not talking about her miscarriage or her family member. She was so angry about the blanket. She demanded that Stephanie make her a new one. And I told her, "Mom, I don't think she can, because I don't think she knows how to by herself."

And lastly, in the nursing home, just a few years before she died, my dad became obsessed with Mom wearing her wedding rings. Mom had lost so much weight, her rings didn't fit anymore. So Dad hired a jeweler from Boonville to come into the nursing home and measure her finger. Then the jeweler took the rings and resized them and cleaned them. Dad was so happy that Mom was going to wear her rings again, even though I warned him time and again that this was not a good idea. Dad rarely listened to me. He was hell bent on her wearing her wedding rings. She didn't wear them for very long until they were gone. We don't know what happened to them, but I was very careful not to be accusatory. My father, not so much.

Mom at Newburgh Healthcare about 2020
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

I'm not big into jewelry and never have been. My skin didn't used to be so sensitive, so that's not it. I think it's because I lost those earrings way back in 7th grade. I have always been so afraid of losing jewelry. But, I am going to buy another tennis bracelet to honor the memory of my mother. It probably won't look like the one I lost yesterday, but it's going to have a good clasp so that I don't lose it. And I'm only going to wear it to church.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

My Mom and Her Clothes - Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

My Mom and Her Clothes
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

Click on photos to enlarge

Mom in our backyard in Monticello, IN
About 1974
Always well-dressed
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

 I have been thinking about clothes, because I need some. Target used to be my go-to for cute tops, until the pandemic somehow sunk the fashion world and sent it back to the 1800s.

Now, in 2022, it feels like they're trying to dig themselves out of the fashion hole, but I still didn't find any cute tops there yesterday. Instead, I found this:

It made for a good Facebook post, though, and my friends were discussing clothes. From this discussion, I remembered my parents once more and how they both were always dressed very well.

I don't know where or how my parents learned to dress. My mother was fantastic with colors. Me? Not at all. Nor was my dad, and so my mother would help him pick out what tie went with what suit, and he loved her for it.

Growing up in Monticello, Indiana, my father went to what was called a haberdasher. This was a person who dealt in men's clothes and helped businessmen dress well. Sure, my dad was a pastor, but make no mistake, he considered himself a businessman. Dad had a beautiful fedora that he kept in a hat box when he wasn't wearing it. Now that's saying something. If that man ever wore jeans in his life, I didn't know it. He was always dressed "to the nines," as they say. Suit slacks, button down shirt and tie on casual days, suit coat on not so casual day. When pastors started dressing casually for the church service, he lamented this. His reasoning was that because businessmen are always dressed well, then pastors should too. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Mom could sew really well, too, so she would help Dad with alterations if needed. And look at that beautiful dress and those shoes on the above 1948 picture of Mom and Dad.

Mom loved clothes, jewelry, shoes, make-up... all the things. She would spend hours sometimes getting herself ready to go somewhere. Everything had to be just right. Just going through pictures of my parents to share here on this blog post, every picture, they are dressed very well.

Mom, second to the left, with her siblings.

Around 1977

Around 2001

Unfortunately, growing up, my mother was very strict in what I could and could not wear. I hated being under the pressure. I was already anxious as it were, a bit on the chubby side, and with a total lack of self-confidence. If I found things to wear that I was comfortable with, she would say no. I remember once I had put on an orange pair of pants and an orange shirt to wear to our church's skating party, and she grabbed me and told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't leaving the house looking like that. We can laugh about it now.

When I was a young girl, she would spend what seemed like forever getting my bow tied on my dress just right for Sunday church. Standing still for however long it took her to get it perfect was harrowing, waiting for her to have it just right. And for what? A bow? Every time when she would untie the bow in exasperation, my spirits would fall.

Mom and me at Lincoln State Park
I'd say about 1965-66

It was such a fight all the time. Mom would drag me every year to Lafayette to shop for school clothes, and I can't stand to shop very long even to this day. We would hunt all morning for clothes to wear, and I hated everything she picked out, and she hated everything I picked out. Then we'd have lunch, and I'd be ready to go home, but I still didn't have any clothes. So, I gave in and let her buy the clothes she wanted me to have, and then I'd wear the same thing over and over again, even though I had perfectly good clothes in my closet. My body image, for one thing, was down the drain. That was a lot of it. But also, she never called me out for not wearing the clothes she had bought for me.

She finally one day took me to Miller's Department Store in Monticello and had a young lady there try to help me with things to wear. The thing about Miller's Department Store is that they didn't like their customers very much. I found a few things on that visit, but we only went once.

Finally at 16, she let me loose. We had just gotten a newfangled general merchandise retailer in our little town called Schultz Department Store - a fancy K-Mart. I was so happy. She gave me money and said "go buy your own clothes." And boy, did I ever. This is one of the first outfits I bought after being given my liberation. It's not so bad, right?

The first outfit I bought on my own
I've always loved cemeteries
My apologies to the Owens family

Even toward the end, my dad made sure my mom always had good clothes to wear at the nursing home. He would pick them out himself and take them down there, and tell the workers exactly what pants went with what shirt. He also made sure her hair was done by a beautician every week.

Mom at the nursing home, December 2020

 My father's impeccable dress may have done him some disservice at the end. I was trying my hardest to get people to see that he needed help, and no one would listen, including my dad. He still was able to dress well, and he was in denial that he needed help. Because he played everything off, so did everyone else, no matter how loud I was yelling to the contrary. It was too late by the time he realized he needed help. We were able to get him into the nursing home, but it was too late to make him well again.

In the end, Mom passed just months after Dad, so we decided to brand their funeral pics by using this one from 1976. I'm not sure why Dad is cut off a bit in this one. They are fully centered in the original. I loved that tree behind them - a sassafras that was in our front yard at Monticello. But this picture epitomizes my parents and their impeccable dress. A fitting tribute, I thought, to their end of life.

 

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

How to Successfully Live in a Nursing Home

How to Successfully Live in a Nursing Home

____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

I learned a lot about nursing home living since my mother was in one for the last 7 years of her life. As Pastor eulogized at her funeral, he couldn't imagine living 7 months in a nursing home, let alone 7 years. Cheers, yes. But if you must, here's how to make the most of it, even if you're there just to rehab-to-home.

Nursing Facility courtesy Pixabay

1. Accept your plight.

If you find yourself in a nursing facility, accept that this is now your home. Even if you are rehab-to-home, this should also be your attitude, as it will make your stay much more palatable. Literally the worst thing about being in a nursing facility is that, as of this writing, most people have a roommate. I feel like this will soon be changing and the sooner it does, the better. But until then, decorate your half of the room to make it feel like your home.

2. Stay mobile.

The nursing facility my mother was in did amazing things to help Mom stay mobile, even against her will. Her last 7 years were miserable, because she didn't accept her plight, nor did she try to stay mobile. If you're mobile, you have so much more freedom, and if you have a good attitude, family and friends will be able to take you for outings if you're mobile. If you need a walker, that's fine. But fight, fight, fight to stay out of a wheelchair. The Physical Therapy (PT) department will most likely allow you to use their exercise equipment, as long as they are there in the PT room and don't need it for another patient for whom PT has been ordered. So use that equipment, such as the stationery bike, to keep your legs strong. Somebody has said that a person needs 10,000 steps a day. You can do that easily in the nursing facility, walking up and down the hallways. Just stay out of the healthcare workers' way.

3. Don't let depressing thoughts weigh you down.

If you find yourself in a nursing facility, you have to keep depressing thoughts away from you. So do things to make yourself happy. Read books, watch TV, play on the computer. What things did you do to make yourself happy prior to finding yourself in a nursing home? I love doing genealogy, for example. Find a hobby that you can manage inside the nursing facility. If you're a reader, which I am not, but if you are, books were in abundance at Mom's facility.

4. Get outside.

Most nursing facilities have courtyards or chairs at the front door. When its nice outside, get out there! Watch the birds, watch the squirrels. Breathe the air!

5. Be nice to everyone.

You don't have to be friends with anyone, but be nice to everyone. You are all in the same boat! And being nice helps to keep everyone's spirits up. Don't get involved in petty disagreements.

6. IMPORTANT - Eat in the dining room.

So many residents eat in their room. This is a mistake for several reasons. Countless rehab-to-home patients - maybe in an effort to make "going home" as their main goal - eat in their rooms. Do not do this. Eat in the dining room. Why? Because it gets you out of your room, and it helps to break up the day. Also, if you need help with your food, that's where the workers are. You can raise your hand, and they will help you. If you're in your room, and you need help, the workers are busy and may not be able to get to you right away. Don't like what you're being served? There are usually alternatives, but these alternatives are available to those who are eating in the dining room. At the facility where my mom was at, there was always chicken noodle soup, and it was pretty good. Also, your food is going to be hotter and fresher.

I noticed that a lot of carbs and sweets were served to the residents in Mom's particular nursing home. Try to stay away from these. First of all, you'll want to watch your weight. Its so easy to gain weight while in the nursing facility. This is bad, because it will help to make you immobile, which is the worst thing that could happen to you.

There are always healthy options. Go for those.

7. Drink your water.

In Mom's nursing facility, there was always coffee, tea, and water available in the dining room. Take advantage of these benefits. The staff always made sure Mom had a glass of water available close by her bed.

8. Participate in the activities.

This will help you to keep your mood up and keep your hands busy. It will also provide you with the fellowship of the other residents. You don't have to get close to anyone if you don't want to, but do have fun with the others who are there and with the workers.

9. Keep up with current events. 

10. Keep your mind busy. 

Do puzzles or play computer games. Play cards. Don't let your mind be idle. Again, read books! What's something you enjoy? Do that.

11. Don't guilt trip your visitors. I dreaded visits with my mother, because she guilt tripped us every visit, and it's so disheartening to go visit someone who has so much spite because of their situation. She came up with countless conspiracy theories on why she was in the nursing home and begged us to take her home, even though none of us could give her the care she needed. She let her situation get the best of her, and it did not serve her well. So don't do it, because you want your visitors to look forward to seeing you. And, maybe they'll take you out for lunch!

12. Take advantage of special things.

Some nursing facilities take their residents out on a bus for field trips. At the nursing facility where my mother lived, they had restaurant day once a month, where they would order to go food from any restaurant you wanted.

__________

Nursing facilities are not what they were when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's. I understand why my pastor doesn't want to go into one, and, I don't want to go either! But I know of people who really should go to a nursing facility who absolutely refuse. But at the nursing facility, there are people there to help you should you get up in the middle of the night with a racing heartbeat. Or if you fall down while trying to get to the restroom. And also, they provide things to do so you're not sitting immobile watching TV all day. Or calling your children in the middle of the night asking them to take you to the ER.

Don't think you can afford a nursing home? A good elder law attorney can get you on Medicaid for less than $10,000. I know that's a lot, but at my mom's facility, it cost less to get her onto Medicaid than for one month of skilled care.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

Thoughts About My Mother and Her Dying

 Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

Thoughts About My Mother and Her Dying
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

I didn't cry much when Dad died in October of this year (2021). I was half-mad, but I didn't cry. Half-mad, because I couldn't get him to accept the care he needed until it was too late. If I could've gotten him into Hamilton Pointe when I wanted to earlier this year, he might still be with us. So yeah, half-mad, but I didn't cry. Just a few days before his death, we were able to get an emergency admission into Newburgh Healthcare, thanks to the amazing caregivers at Heart to Heart Hospice and, of course, the staff of Newburgh Healthcare. But Dad rarely listened to me or sought my counsel.

Mom stopped eating after Dad died, but that also wasn't a surprise. My mother was the Queen of No. No to me having Power of Attorney. Thankfully, the social worker at Newburgh Healthcare talked her out of saying no to that. No to needing to eat. No to the Covid booster. No to getting her diabetes finger prick, and no to insulin. And, the last time I saw my mother lucid, it was no to the brownie that was on her plate. As my daughter, Stephanie, recalls, "She chucked that brownie across the table. It's now my favorite memory." And then, the other resident sitting at the table with us said, "I want my brownie, though. Can you push it closer to me?" Which the answer was, Absolutely!

Dad could always talk Mom out of saying "no." Always. Every time. One of the workers told me that once when Dad came in to pick up Mom for church on a Sunday morning, he was upset that Mom wasn't dressed and ready to go. The worker told him that she had refused to get up that morning. Dad went into the room, she said, and he came out a few minutes later and said, "She's ready now." Dad would've been able to talk Mom into eating, or into taking the Covid booster, or anything else she needed to be talked into. As with my Dad, I never had that power with my Mom. To be fair, I'm pretty stubborn myself.

The day before Mom died, 19 Dec 2021, hospice called to say she had gone down hill very quickly that Sunday. The next morning, while in the bath, the nurse at Newburgh Healthcare called to say that she wasn't expected to make it. Well, I've heard that one before. There were quite a few times the last 20 years when I have seen Mom so ill that I didn't expect her to make it. One of those times was when she was admitted to Newburgh Healthcare in 2014. I didn't think she'd be in there for more than a couple of days. She stayed 7 years.

So I was in the bath, and they called and wanted me to come in as quickly as I could. I kind of thought that maybe this was going to be it. But, I didn't expect it to be that very day. I got to the nursing home before the hour was up, met with the hospice nurse and the facility nurse, and then the chaplain came in. Mom was on morphine and comfortable. Remembering how I lost all my pictures because I was complacent in getting them out of my dad's house, I picked up a few things I knew I wanted from my mother. Memories. Two pieces of the last nativity set that she didn't finish. (She handmade many nativity sets in her lifetime.) Her Bible. A couple of photo albums she had that was of her McLean family. And then, I rushed out, heading to go to work, leaving her behind with the chaplain. Click on photos to enlarge

 As I was leaving, the business personnel, who were having lunch together in the break room, asked me if she had passed. I said, "no, not yet." But I had to go to work. I had piano lessons scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of that week, having then the rest of the year to myself. I would be back tomorrow, I reasoned, and this is what I told the workers. And I would be off after that to give Mom all the time in the world.

I got the call while I was teaching that afternoon, and since I didn't answer, Stephanie was the second person they called to tell her Mom had passed. I still didn't cry. Stephanie did.

I didn't cry as we were cleaning out her room at Newburgh Healthcare. I didn't cry when talking with the pastor who was to give her eulogy. I didn't cry at the visitation. I didn't cry during her eulogy. Death is so natural to me. As a pastor's daughter, I grew up with death. My first marriage, which lasted 29 years, was to a man who worked maintenance at a funeral home and whose best friends were funeral directors. We hung out a lot at the funeral home. I saw a lot of death. And, I have been a church musician practically my whole life and have played countless funerals. Death doesn't bother me.

After the funeral service, Kenny drove Stephanie and I in our Jeep Compass behind the hearse all the way from Washington Avenue in Evansville, Indiana, to Yankeetown, Indiana, if not on the grounds of Alcoa, pretty close, to Bates Hill Cemetery. We had just been there a few months ago for my father's burial, and Stephanie and I had visited later for a picture of the stone for Find-A-Grave. It was familiar.

Pastor said a few words and had a prayer. And then that was it. It was time to go. But... but... I couldn't leave her here. Everyone had started walking to their cars. I grabbed Stephanie's hand to try to stop myself from crying. We can't leave her here, I thought. Are we just going to leave her here? I decided I wouldn't leave. I'd sit there forever, fighting back tears. I didn't care how long it would take; I was just going to sit there and wait. I could see in the corner of my eye that Pastor was waiting for me to be okay enough to get up from the chair I was sitting in. Stephanie coaxed me up. I knew I had to leave. I knew I couldn't sit there, but why couldn't I? We can't just leave her here!

My mother and I. We never were close. We never really saw anything eye-to-eye. And we were never going to no matter what either one of us did. But, in that moment, I understood that this was my mom and that she was gone. She didn't visit me after her death like my father did, but this was still my mom, and she still was gone.

But she's not really gone, is she? She's in her heavenly home with her sister, her mom, and my dad. When she and her sister put their heads together, there was no one else. Betty has been gone 9 long years now. And now, they're with each other again, with their heads together, no doubt, scheming their next project.

Mom with her younger sister, Betty
They were always close
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Uncle Rufus Jr., Mom, Uncle Eddie, Aunt Betty, Uncle Owen
Only the youngest, Owen, is left
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

 

Stephanie walked with me back to the car, but I asked my husband permission - who knows why in that moment - but I asked permission to go see my Aunt Robbin one last time before they drove back to their home near Indianapolis. Everyone else were in their cars, ready to go, but no one could leave until we did, because we had them blocked in. So Stephanie walked me down the procession of cars. I didn't know what vehicle they were in, but it didn't matter. Aunt Robbin jumped out of the vehicle, and we hugged one last time. I don't think Aunt Robbin really understood how much I have always loved her until after my parents died. She asked me to come see her soon, and I said, "I want to." And I do. And hopefully that's in the cards for 2022 - which I think is going to be a great year, by the way.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

Three Changes After Dad's Death

In memory of William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)

__________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

I've noticed three changes have occurred since I was able to finally get my dad into Newburgh Healthcare. Once he was safely in there, I could breathe again. I knew he'd either start to feel better, or he would die in peace. The latter is what occurred.

Sleep experts say your bedroom should be dark. To that end, I painted our bedroom "Ice Cave." Although internet swatches of this color show a lighter blue, its true color is actually very dark and deep. I bought a black comforter, pulled all the light wood furniture out and put black furniture in. It is very dark in there now, and I love it.

I have this weird feeling about other people's bedrooms. I'm sure it's something from my childhood, but I've always felt that bedrooms should be private, personal, and intimate. To that end, I've always kept this room dark, even in the day, so that no one visiting would be able to see it, even with the door open.

Oddly, after I got my father in Newburgh Healthcare, I couldn't stand to look into that dark room and not be able to see anything in it. I have lamps that I put in that also have dark shades when they're turned off. Now, I leave one of the lamps on during the day, so that when I look in, I can see the bedroom. Click on photos to enlarge

The stuffed animals are unapologetically mine

As a minimalist, (who has 6 stuffed animals in her bed) I have very little sentiment toward things. I have a few family bibles, but that's the genealogist in me. I have a few of my daughter's trinkets she made when in grade school. For whatever reason, having too much stuff makes me feel insecure. It's crushing. My daughter has inherited this trait from me.

So, when Dad gave me the quilt Mom had made for my daughter, but then decided to keep for herself instead, my daughter and I thought to sell the quilt. Neither of us wanted it or needed it. And it takes up so much room in my closet.

The shadowed area is my shadow

After Dad died, however, we have decided to keep the quilt. Just like that, the feelings toward it inverted. Even my attitude toward all the work my mother - a maximalist - did. This oil painting that Mom did many years ago is now proudly displayed above my piano.

The third thing for me that changed was my entire routine. For example, I used to love to watch The Drew Barrymore Show. I haven't watched a single one this new season and oddly, I no longer have the desire to. I have the tv off most of the time during the day now. While that used to be my modus operandi anyway, after living with Kenny these past 7 years, I had become comfortable with the TV blaring. I have lost that comfort. Give me quiet and let me read.

In a nutshell for me, after losing Dad:

1. Some things become bothersome - like my bedroom being dark during the day.

2. Things that meant nothing increase in value - like the quilt and the oil painting.

3. Routines change - I now have the TV off during the day.

My daughter adds a fourth bullet point: "Seeing someone lose their life leads you to reevaluate your own."

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC