Sometimes, when Glory pulled into the driveway after work, she had to sit in the car for a minute or two and cry. Finally, she’d take a deep breath, struggling to pull herself together just to walk in the front door.
Michael called Glory constantly at work, petrified of doing or not doing the right thing in caring for his mother.
“She hasn’t eaten today! She hasn’t moved all day. What should I do?” He sounded so scared and helpless. The look on his face; one of relief-- and guilt for feeling such a thing was evident when she walked in the door.
“It’s okay to be scared, Michael. You take care of me an’ the kids all the time. You’ve helped me through some of the worst times in my life. Now, let me do that for you, please.”
“She wants a bath, but she won’t let me do it. I would, but she just won’t let me.”
“Michael, she’s your mother and she’s a lady. She doesn’t want you to do that for her. I wouldn’t want Mickey to do it for me. Look, go take a ride with Mickey. I’ll take care of it.”
“’Kay.”
Glory was well aware that Joan would only let either her or the home health care aide that came in twice a week do it. After all, they were all women. Glory always laid a large towel over Joan to preserve her dignity and washed her underneath it. Lastly, she washed what was left of her hair. That was the worst of it, as large strands and later, entire clumps of hair came off in her soapy hands.
In the sixth month of her illness, Joan looked much better and felt good. She was in remission. Of course, Glory and Michael hoped against hope that the doctors were wrong after all.
Michael, Glory and the children took her to all the places that she loved. They spent hours at the beautiful Maine beaches, sitting peacefully on a bench, watching the seagulls and smelling the salty air.
One night, as they all sat at the dining room table playing cards and talking of about what they’d do for Thanksgiving, she could not seem to complete a sentence. Her words were garbled and her face twisted. When she went to stand up, she fell to one side. Mickey was able to catch her before she fell all the way to the floor.
“Call nine-one-one. Now!” Glory yelled to Olivia, who sat motionless with eyes as wide as a deer caught in the headlights.
At the hospital, they learned that the cancer had slowed in the lungs, but had worked its way to the brain, causing disruptions to the signals given to the muscles, as well as the speech center.
Radiation treatment came next. Michael and Glory knew the end was coming soon. They were all too familiar with the treatment. They were painfully aware that it killed off the immune system, at which point, she’d deteriorate rapidly.
They’d both been witness to this undeniable fact. They’d seen both of their fathers lose their battle with the fierce enemy of cancer. They’d seen the undignified burns all over the body from this last ditch effort to delay the inevitable.
They had yet another consult with her oncologist, Dr. Belin.
“Will she make it to Thanksgiving? Christmas?” Michael asked hopefully.
“She’ll most likely make it through Thanksgiving. But Christmas? It’s…doubtful. I’m sorry.”
Joan’s last days were spent in the hospital. At twelve midnight on December the eighth, Dr. Belin called Michael to come down immediately. Joan was extremely agitated and wouldn’t settle down. She insisted that her son come to the hospital; no one else, just Michael.
Glory stood at the back door and watched him go as a light snow began to fall. He did not return to the house that night. But the dreams did, the burning chamber, the mocking laughter of the Grim Reaper. Thankfully, he’d only been present in her dreams this time!
In the early morning, the light snow had given way to another full blown Nor’easter. It took Glory over an hour to get to the hospital, even with her four wheel drive Jeep.
Michael was waiting for her, looking gaunt, pale and miserable.
“What did she want to tell you, Michael?” Why was she so upset last night?” Glory’s heart was breaking, for Michael as well as Joan.
“She…she asked me if she was going to die now,” he replied, struggling to get the words out.
“I told her yes, she was going to die very soon…and she cried and held my hand until she finally fell asleep. She told me that she didn’t care what the doctors told her about when she would go. She knew I’d tell her the truth. Tell her…what she already knew. Glory, I had to tell my mother she’s going to die.” He sobbed like a hurt child, as if he couldn’t stop now that he’d started. For all the months since the original diagnosis, he’d been anxious, but kept from crying. He’d leaned on Glory for strength and she’d provided it. Now, he let out all of his pent up emotions, as if he’d been holding his breath and could finally exhale. Glory held him tight. He buried his face in her shoulder. She wordlessly stroked his hair, wanting to console him.
Just then, Mickey and Olivia came in and sat on each side of their parents.
“If you wanna say you’re goodbyes, you beddah do it now, Glory. Dr. Belin said that Mom’s breathing like a fish out of water and that’s the final stage before…before death.” He sounded defeated.
Wordlessly, Glory got up and went into the hospital room. Sitting on the bed beside Joan, she felt sick knowing that this would probably be the last conversation they ever shared
“Joan.” Glory shook her arm lightly and, as she did, she noticed that her skin color had a cold, bluish hue to it. Her eyes were wide and wild, looking about the room until finally focusing on her.
“Glory.” Joan smiled. Glory knew and loved that smile. The whole of her heart was in it. Taking Glory’s hand in hers, she spoke tenderly, lovingly to her. “I love you; you’ll always be my daughter. I’m so sorry for leaving you. I know how frightened you are of death, but you needn’t be. I’ve lived a good life and I’m not afraid to die.”
Tears were streaming down Glory’s face. She didn’t wipe them away. Instead, she pleaded with her not to go and with God not to take her. The one person who knew her better sometimes than she knew herself would be gone. Of course, she thanked God she had Michael and her children, but Joan was her confidant, her touchstone, always had been. There were certain things that passed between two women that were uniquely special, a gap a man simply could not fill.
“I’ve learned so much from you,” Glory said. “How to be a loving person after feeling so cold and empty for so long. I want to…thank you for being a mother to me. I will always hold a special place in my heart reserved only for you.”
“You had to be hard to survive what you went through growing up, but your heart and your soul have always been good and loving. I knew it, just as Michael did. When I’m gone, it will be up to you to be the heart of this family. I’m…proud of you, Glory, and always have been. I’ll never be farther away than your own heart, remember that.”
Her eyes grew wild again as Michael, Mickey and Olivia walked into the room.
“See them,” she said in a mere wisp of words, her eyes wide. She was looking into a corner where there was nothing except a chair. “They’ve been whispering all day. They won’t stop. I can’t…understand what they’re saying. It’s all…mixed up and now they’re here. Not just the voices anymore…I see…them!”
Michael and Glory saw nothing. A chill ran up Glory’s spine. Was she seeing that thing, the Reaper that had been plaguing her off and on for years? This was no human opponent after all; she felt like a pawn on a chessboard. She never knew when it would appear, but she remembered when her mother had passed away. The smoke, the horrid face, and of course, that night—the thing polluting her very bed!
“I can’t…what are they saying? The whispering, don’t you hear…?”
“Are they scary, Nana?” Mickey asked. He didn’t want her to be afraid.
“No, dear.” She smiled and put her hand to his cheek. “They’re not.”
Her eyes closed; breathing slowed as she slipped into a peaceful sleep. Michael and Glory prayed
each time she took a breath that she would continue to keep breathing.
At one o’clock p.m. she inhaled a breath and never exhaled it. She was gone.
Where she went, no one really knew, did they? Glory had been raised to believe in God, but her faith was shaky at best. She knew that Joan saw something in the moments before death took her, but she’d never know…until it was her turn.
There was no black mist rising from Joan and passing through the window pane. All was peaceful. Only the glittering white of the new falling snow appeared at the window.
As they were leaving the hospital, the front desk staff wished them a Merry Christmas. They walked through the lobby strewn with pine; the smell of it, one of Glory and Joan’s favorite scents of the holidays, went unappreciated. As did the white twinkling lights hanging above them on the ceilings.
Once outside, they drew a deep breath of the cold, crisp December air. Trudging through the snow, which still fell steadily and quietly, Glory spotted a group of teenagers laughing and throwing snowballs at one another, sliding along the slippery parking lot. The scene seemed strange, surreal somehow. In the midst of their sorrow, life went on. Death had not yet touched these young souls. She was envious of their frivolous youth.
Glory and Michael’s son went with them to the funeral home, picking out the casket for his beloved grandmother. He chose one made of brushed steel in the most delicate olive green with elegant pale pink roses inlaid around its sides. “Nana loved roses,” he said.
Michael and Glory told him how proud they were of him for doing this last, loving thing for her.
He nodded, but didn’t look up as his hand touched the cold, steel casket lovingly, two small tears coming to rest on the top of it.
“She’s…my Nana,” he mumbled, walking away, wiping at his eyes with his shirtsleeve.
Although Joan passed away on December eighth, she couldn’t be buried until April. Again, they had to wait, the same as with Glory’s mother, who’d also passed away in the winter months.
The Maine ground was hard and unforgiving and could not be moved until the snow had melted and the ground softened. The dead were kept in holding until such time that burial was possible.
This caused Glory’s family many nights of pain, not just from the grief they shared, but from knowing Joan was in a refrigeration compartment at the funeral home, a place they avoided like the plague. It hurt to know she was right there, although forever unreachable. For some unknown reason, there were no visits from the Reaper during that time. Perhaps, in her great sorrow, the Reaper was unimportant and he knew it.
Her body was in limbo for those months and, of course, in April, they had to re-live their loss all over again when it was finally time to put her to rest.
Chapter 10
Finally, after the bleak winter days, which brought the death of the last of their parents, spring came to Maine.
Spring in Maine was special simply because it was the shortest of the seasons.
A touch of snow still lingered on the ground where the first flowers of spring, the Crocus, pushed their way upward toward the sun.
For Glory, the best part of spring was when the lilacs bloomed. The most beautiful smell in the world emanated from these tiny flowers, sweeter smelling than any perfume created by man.
She picked plumb, heavily laden branches from her lilac shrub out back, spreading them in vases throughout the house each spring. Oh, how Joan had loved them as well. She filled a vase and brought them down to place on her grave.
As always, Glory took her dog, Haley. He’d sniff and chuff at the grave, lie down, and softly whine. That dog was always there for her. Faithful and loving unconditionally as only the canine species seemed genuinely capable of.
In the bright spring sunlight, she noticed that his snout was now completely gray. He was getting old at a mere ten human years.
She bent down to rub his ears, which he loved so, and hugged him fiercely “It isn’t fair,” she murmured as he leaned his muscular form into her. How she loved this dog. He’d become her comfort while Michael worked nights and the kids were so busy with all their various activities.
Glory truly believed that there was one true soul mate animal for each human being, and Haley was hers. Surely, no evil could come to her or her family with Haley by their side. He wouldn’t allow it.
Riding home in a comfortable silence, Glory’s thoughts ran one over the other and she realized that everything she once thought she knew about life was wrong. She didn’t know more as she got older; she simply had more questions and less time to find the answers. If there even were any answers.
In the year that followed, the family began to recuperate from their loss. The world moved on, taking them along with it. Glory learned a few things in that time, most of what she’d learned from Joan. She tried hard to appreciate the little things, remembering Joan saying “the little things, when added up over a lifetime, are really quite large.”
Maybe that was what life was, a series of small things that were overlooked as people constantly strived for more; more of the big stuff, the material things that culture insisted humans needed to be fulfilled. Could it really be that simple? Glory thought.
As mankind struggled with its petty trials and tribulations, the seasons still changed, the beauty of each one of them always there whether they were noticed or not.
To smell the great Maine pines after a rain had kissed them, or listen to the songs of wind chimes on a really windy day. Seeing that perfect rainbow as the sun shone behind the clouds casting spears of light upward toward heaven. Sights that lasted for only a finite moment in time, and yet has the ability to uplift the soul each time it was remembered.
Or to watch one’s children grow and thrive, to sit in comfortable silence next to a husband with whom you are still in love with after many years of marriage.
Her childhood had taught her many things on how to survive in the flawed family dynamic she grew up in; however, it also taught her to surround herself with a hard shell so she’d be less vulnerable to hurt and pain at the hands of those who were supposed to love and care for her.
So determined not to be like them, she became cold and detached. Yet, Michael and her family had taught to give and accept love, to trust them.
Still, the crimes escalated in southern Maine as the United States began its slow but steady decline into a full blown depression. Thankfully, both Michael and Glory still had jobs, but many did not. As want became need, crime against property rose; theft, burglary and robbery. With those needs unfulfilled, the crimes became increasingly violent and disturbing. Not just confined to the cities, but spreading like a viscous web, reaching into the normally docile rural communities as well.
During this time, Glory had seen the Reaper only once, but in a dream. Was he done with her? She’d slept out on the couch for months after he’d first appeared in her bed. Michael suspected she was harboring a secret, but said nothing.
He was in harm’s way every night as a cop and his focus was now on survival and protecting his family. For the first time since coming to Cliff’s End, he was thankful he’d worked as a cop in a large city such as Boston. His skills were invaluable to the small town police force. So much so, he’d been promoted to Sergeant.
As is true with most people, as time went by, the kids now young adults, Glory and Michael became complacent, not seeing what was truly going on, not only in their country, but in their own home.
For one thing, Olivia was spending a lot of her time in Boston with her cousin, Sean. Glory had told her to stop going down there, but she insisted he was making progress with her help.
Mickey commented on a number of occasions that he suspected it was the other way around; that Olivia was gradually being pulled into Sean’s world of addiction.
“Just look at her eyes, Mom,” he’d say.
Glory looked, but she only saw what she wanted to see.
The nightly news was frightening. Events both scary and strange
appeared nightly. There was nothing supernatural about it. Unlike Glory’s encounters with the Reaper, these horrors were not from another realm; they were the reality of all.
The economy was eroding at a rapid pace. The stock market was on precarious ground indeed. Banks and insurance companies both were bailed out by the taxpayers, and still there were less and less jobs to be had.
Every day yet another American corporation was linked to scandal and dirty dealings, which affected everyone, but hit the American Middle Class hard. So, what else was new? And yet, this was somehow different, more ominous than the travesties of the past.
A slow, creeping paranoia gnawed at the edges of Glory’s mind, but she was unable to pinpoint the exact origin of the feeling. Each time the feeling came over her, she heard soft, sinister laughter echoing in her head. It was him! She knew it, though she dared not challenge the creature for fear it would materialize and take another loved one away. Or kill her.
Instead, she watched as evil unfolded across their great country. She feared for Michael’s safety out there on the front lines. She was afraid for her family, afraid of losing her job as so many others had. The innate will to survive was overriding the moral fiber of humanity. All species would always do whatever was necessary to preserve their lives. It was an instinct, and the most powerful motivator of all.
They had a state of the art security system installed in their home and Michael insisted Glory learn how to fire a hand gun. Mickey already knew how to use guns. Maine was big on hunting and fishing. The kids had grown up around guns and learned to respect them. An antique, locked gun cabinet contained the rifles and shotgun, as well as an antique rifle Michael’s father had left him. The key hung on the chain around Michael’s neck, along with his dog tags; the only jewelry he wore, other than his wedding band.
Glory’s hands tensed as he placed the .32 caliber automatic handgun in them. Out in the back woods, he’d set up target paper for her to shoot at. He showed her time and again how to release the safety, to hold the weapon hand over hand, arms straight, and elbows slightly bent, until he was sure she had command of the weapon.
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