Knowing Alice

We did not go to Brooks this afternoon. 

Two days before Mother's Day, Alice's three boys tenderly laid her earthly remains to rest.

She had lived a long life, and the three she loved the most were here, together, to honour that love.

Saying goodbye is never easy; but in the Age of Corona it is even harder. 

For the last few weeks of her life she was allowed no visitors, she who loved people and enjoyed nothing more than being with those she loved.

But on what turned out to be her last day we were permitted to go see her and those who were able, went.

The Good Rancher and I were so privileged to be with her into the night, keeping vigil over her, listening to her regular breathing, her occasional stirring.

As I sat and watched a son's love for his mother, I yearned once again to have really known Alice. 

She was already deep into the mists of dementia when I met her. I was never able to ask her what he was like as a baby, a tiny child, a teenager. How she felt when he went away to college, when he married his beautiful Debbie, when they moved north ... 

What it was like to be a wife and mother under very hard conditions - almost a pioneer woman ... 

To find out how her faith burned bright throughout, and how she instilled that faith into her youngest son ... 

To pick her brain on how to be a good wife to a rancher. How to be a good wife to the Good Rancher. 

And then I recollected the third time he took me to see his mom. It was kind of a sleepy day for her, but we had just become engaged and she was the one he wanted to tell. 

"Mom? I have some news."

She was sitting in her wheelchair directly in front of me, knee to knee, holding my hands and playing with my rings. She didn't look up. 

"I asked her to marry me and she said yes! Mom, we're getting married!" 

She continued to fiddle with my fingers. 

With a burst of anguish he leaned over her and gently grasped her forearm. "Oh Mom, I wish I knew if you understood me ..."

Suddenly she sat up straight, looked at him, looked at me. She took my hand and pushed it over to his on her arm. "Shouldn't you be playing with him now?" she asked, and giggled. 

She understood. 

And that would be the one clear sentence she ever spoke to me. 

We babbled together a lot in subsequent visits — I am quite a babbler, and in those days she was quite a babbler and somehow I think we connected. I like to think our spirits forged an understanding. 

The GR and I married on Valentine's Day; and on February 15th we drove to Brooks, to her home, carrying a layer of the wedding cake and some of the flowers, and wearing our wedding attire. 

When the wonderful caregivers at Sunrise heard what was going on, they put a pretty blouse on Alice and a swipe of lipstick and did her hair, threading it through with my wedding tiara. Then they took pictures of the three of us - which to my deep sorrow, I cannot find - and escorted us down to the dining hall. Everyone was given a slice of cake, and I played the piano while Sam, the cheerful, kindly caregiver on duty, had a "wedding dance" with anyone who wanted a wheelchair twirl around the floor! 

Wedding cake topper

Alice sat near me at the piano and kept time, smiling, the tiara fetchingly askew by now. And she loved the cake the GR fed her! 

She grew more and more silent as the years went by. I had my own quiet, blank years to contend with too; we would visit her as often as we could, and I would invariably say to her, sometimes with tears streaming down my face: "Tell me what to do. I wish you could tell me what to do..." Often she would grow still, cradling my hand in hers. On her more animated days she would do her best to tell me something I could do. She would hold my hand, look directly into my eyes with her smiling blue ones, and talk for a few minutes; she would invariably end with a chuckle. 

And though my mind couldn't comprehend, our hearts must have spoken to one another because I would leave feeling understood and consoled. I knew there was hope. 

There were two other "lasts," though of course we didn't know it at the time:

The first was her 95th birthday. I made a ground beef dish with mashed potatoes that she could easily eat; the GR's brother Max brought her favourite ice cream cake. We all sat in the gazebo in the courtyard and it was a beautiful evening. Just before she had to go to bed, we took a group picture or two. This one is my favourite — in this moment she is the sun around whom we all revolve :

The second is the last visit the GR and I had with her before lock-down. We went on a Saturday evening and everyone on the first floor was restless. Staff members were harried and residents were unnerved. 

Everyone except Alice. She smiled at both the GR and me and held our hands quietly as we talked with her. After about 20 minutes I could no longer bear the distress of one of the ladies who used to be able to sing with me, so I went to the piano.

I played for 2 1/4 hours. Music, as always, has far greater power than we anticipate. It can weave its way surefooted through tangled minds and anchor tumultuous brains. That night there was a new resident whose wife told me had been a musician. He had been immobile, silent, at his table; when he heard some of the tunes he used to play, he began unfurling from the pod of his wheelchair. He held her hand and with his other hand he started tapping his leg in time. Another lady's mom was the resident and the daughter asked me for some well-loved old hymns. Everyone enjoyed their evening snack and, when the time came, was able to depart the dining room at peace. 

As the group dwindled, the GR brought Alice to the piano. She sat right next to me and kept the beat. Her eyes were sparkling, and she was mouthing words as I sang to her. She smiled at me the whole time. 

"We don't know how long exactly, but I would say 24 to 48 hours," the charge nurse told us shortly after midnight as May 2 turned into May 3. "But if you have anything you want to say to her, I would say it tonight ..."

And so the youngest son of Alice stood by his mother's bed. He told her he loved her. He reminisced about their road trips for hockey. He told her that even when times were tough, she could always make them better. He thanked her for being a great mom. And he prayed that Jesus would look after his Mom and take her to be with Himself. 

I said to her what my Dad would have said: "I won't say good bye, Alice, because this is not goodbye. I will say 'Goodnight, I'll see you in the morning.' " Then I sang her the song our parents sang to us at bedtime:

Goodnight, our God is watching o'er you
Goodnight, His mercies go before you
Goodnight, and we'll be praying for you
So goodnight, may God bless you. 

We kissed her softly on her forehead and we crept out of her room. 

As we sat under an overcast sky, shivering in a wide semicircle around the grave of her husband where her ashes would soon also be buried, as we followed along to Alan Jackson and George Jones singing some of her favourite hymns on iTunes ... 

As her eldest son and her sole granddaughter gave the eulogy, and as we listened to the pastor who knew her so well talk about the verse that hung on her kitchen wall - and that because of this promise she never lost hope and she was always content - I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else than here for this occasion. Her last gift to her family was to bring them close together in the most peaceful setting, free from the distraction of the crowd that surely would have attended her funeral under normal circumstances. 

The family drew together. They murmured the words of the songs. They listened. They prayed along with the pastor.

And then, as the last words slipped into the atmosphere the sun blazed away the clouds. Sandwiches, all individually wrapped by the local hotel, were produced. Sweets were proferred, and hot coffee took off the slight remaining chill. 

And the people Alice loved most in the world talked. Not just the perfunctory noises normally heard at the reception following a funeral, where family members rarely even get to see each other much; but old stories, profound insights, loving gestures in place of hugs in this day of social distancing. Ties that had been all but unravelled started to be knit together again. She had ensured that the circle was, for this day, unbroken. 

Alice gave me a special gift. She died on her 62nd wedding anniversary - which also happened to be my birthday. She gave me one last link in our short but strong chain: May 3 was when I entered the world and when she left it. What a privilege to know that each year we will have that little moment of connection, this wordless celebration.

We got home that night and rushed out to feed the bottle babies - something she would have loved to do back in her day. The GR took a picture of me feeding Blind Bart; I still have on the strand of pearls I wore to the funeral. 

Somehow, looking at the picture on her funeral card, I think she would have understood. 

I am so privileged to have been a daughter-in-law of Alice.