Gifts of the Spirit

by Patricia Eilola

  Daniel grinned although tears were running down his face. “He sometimes let us win, just to make us feel better. But he could beat us easily, no matter what game we played.” He paused before continuing, “I’ll always remember seeing him up at the altar in church. His sermons were never dull. I understood the messages he wanted us to grasp. I remember one Saturday especially when he read us the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan.’ I vowed I would never forget that sermon or the talk he gave about its meaning.”

  Milma nodded. “I too remember his sermons, for he spent so much time working on them. Often he would get up in the middle of the night and sit down at his desk, polishing the wording or writing something new that just occurred to him.” She sighed. “I promise to spend just as much time and energy on my own sermons.” Then she sighed more deeply, “But I don’t think I shall ever be able to achieve the level of excellence all of us came to expect from him, Sunday after Sunday. He had a special way of making everyone listen carefully, and people told him as they left the church they were moved by his words.”

  Grandmother wiped away her tears as she added, “I truly loved him like a son, as if he had been born to me.” She looked straight at Milma. “I don’t think I ever told you that the first time you brought him home, I knew he was absolutely right for you. He had a way about him.” The sobs she had been holding back erupted, and I went to hold her tightly against me.

  I added my thoughts last… almost in an afterthought. “He was so good to me—from the time he caught me sneaking a glance at a book when I was supposed to be dusting to thanking me when I acted as a maid. He seemed to be grateful for what I offered to him and to the rest of you—some lessons (Tellervo and Risto blushed), some half-way decent meals (I looked at Grandmother and nodded my thanks), and most of all to be a small part of this very special family. I shall never forget him.”

  “Nor will we,” they chorused.

  And so—finally—we went on with our lives—the children returning to their play, Grandmother and I to our work, and Milma to the office, where she sat for hours at a time, writing either sermons or in her journal, often just sitting.

  It was soon after the move back to Virginia from Metsola that fall that she and I really had to come to terms with Grandmother’s condition. Increasingly, she was becoming forgetful. Occasionally she mistook Milma for her mother and spoke with her as if she were. I became in her mind her sister Sylvie, who died before she and Milma left Finland. The children did not fit into her perception of reality, so she by and large ignored then, which was hurtful, especially to Daniel, who, as the youngest, had always known his Grandmother to be ready to play, listen, talk.

  She slept more and more, joining us for meals but rarely participating in the preparation of them. It seemed obvious she thought her mother and her sister were working in the kitchen. Sometimes she became querulous, especially when the children became noisy, as children will. “Tell those children to be quiet,” she said to me. “I don’t know why they continue to spend so much time here. We simply do not have the time or energy for them.”

  One morning as we sat down for breakfast—I had made oatmeal, fresh blueberry muffins, and served milk and coffee—she simply stared at the food as if she had forgotten how to eat. I sat down next to her and began spooning oatmeal into her mouth. She opened her mouth and swallowed what I had put in but made no effort to hold the spoon herself. When I put the coffee cup to her lips, she drank, but she did not reach for it or try to hold it herself.

  Right after breakfast Milma called Dr. Raihala. “Something seems to be wrong with Mother,” she told him, asking if he would stop in during his morning rounds. He was one of those doctors who visited patients in their homes, staying as long as he was needed before going to his clinic to see more patients and to the hospital, where he helped to birth babies and to perform operations.

  I had seen him during the board meetings and appreciated his kind way with Milma and his obvious respect for Reverend Risto, but I had never sat in when he was consulted.

  He went into Grandmother’s room, where he spent a great deal of time, asking her questions like “What day is it?” and “Who are the members of your family?” and “Who is the president of the United States?”—simple questions to which she either mumbled a response or simply sat without offering any.

  When he came out of her room, he looked very grave. Taking MIlma’s hand in his, he moved her toward the sofa where they could both sit down. He nodded at me, as if including me in the results he was going to give us. The children had been sent upstairs to play the minute he came, but they were hanging on the railing of the stairway, waiting, too, to hear his prognosis: “I’m afraid you’re going to have another burden put upon you,” he began as kindly as he could. “Your mother seems to be suffering from a form of dementia,” he explained. “There doesn’t seem to be a cause—other than simply old age—and there is no cure. There is no medicine I can prescribe that will help her… or you.” He looked squarely at Milma, forcing her to meet his eyes.

  “I would recommend you consider putting her into one of the new mental health homes that have been built in Moose Lake,” he said. “As her mind is going, so will her body. Gradually she’ll return to childhood—even her babyhood—with all that entails.”

  It was clear he was trying not to tell us more than we needed to know, but what he was telling us was awful… horrible.

  Milma simply sat there for a moment, trying to get her breath. She had been so used to having her mother there to help her with the house and the children she had a very difficult time accepting the change that had happened. “How soon will all of this progress?” she asked.

  “No one knows,” he answered. “Sometimes people stay in a semi-living state for several years. They are alive, but they remain unaware of what is happening around them. It’s as if they have…” he paused, “returned to the womb. Sometimes the regression is quick and thorough. You’ve already witnessed her increased sleeping and her inability to feed herself.” He was being blunt, but I realized he had to be. “Did this happen quickly? How long has it been since she has seemed like ‘herself’?”

  Milma looked at me, and I looked at her. We both remembered the change we had noticed when we returned from Hillsboro.

  “I think it began in July,” Milma said slowly. “We noticed when we returned from…” she paused, then remembered he knew the whole story, “Hillsboro. She was having a difficult time with the children, alternately ignoring them and getting angry at their noise and busy-ness and… their messes. Children do get dirty when they play,” she said, almost apologetically.

  “Of course,” he said. “That would have been an early indication something was going on. How did she handle the move from Metsola back to Virginia?”

  Milma looked at me. I said, “With difficulty. I did all of the packing and organizing she used to do, and sometimes she didn’t seem to understand why I was doing those things. I put it down to her being upset about Risto’s… death.” I too hesitated before I remembered too Dr. Raihala was on the Virginia Church Board, the members of which were aware of the whole situation. “Once we got here, I unpacked and put her things in her room. I put them just the way she likes them,” I said, almost apologetically.

  Milma was quick to take hold of my hand. “We would have been lost without you,” she said.

  “That was just a week or so ago,” I said, “and she hasn’t been out of her room very much at all. Since.” I added.

  “Then the drop has been quick.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Milma asked.

  “To her, good. To you, very bad,” he said. “Soon she’ll need twenty-four hour care. There’s no way you can keep her at home.”

  I disagreed vehemently. “Yes, there is.” Then I said to everyone, “I can take care of her.”

  “Young lady, you have no idea what you’re asking o
f yourself.” Dr. Raihala looked me up and down, as if he were appraising my strength.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes.” I decided that firmness was in order. Getting up from the chair, I said, “I won’t let her be sent to… some… place… where they don’t care about her. We love her. I love her. I shall take care of her no matter what it takes!”

  Milma started to cry. Dr. Raihala soothed her and looked me hard in the eyes. “Do you realize what you are in for, young lady?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, so be it then,” he said, standing up and picking up his black bag. “I’ll stop in every day or so to see how things are progressing. Otherwise,” he said, looking at me squarely, “I guess it’s up to you.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, vowing to do whatever it took.

  And it took a lot.

  It was not long before she began to soil her bedclothes. I fashioned a kind of diaper out of flannel cloth and knit what my mother would have called a “soaker” had the grandmother been a baby. The “soaker” did just that. It soaked up the excess urine so I didn’t have to change the bedding quite so often.

  Every morning I started out by cleaning her up after the night, changing her diaper and soaker, dropping them into a bucket I kept with me for that purpose, bathed her bottom, and replaced both the diaper and the soaker. Usually she was able to help me by lifting her hips. Sometimes I just had to roll her over and/or try to lift her.

  Then came breakfast. She loved Cream of Wheat with brown sugar so that became a staple. Then I washed her all over, giving her a sponge bath, and rolling her from side to side so I could get the sheet out from under her and replace it with a clean one. With her body clean, I combed out her hair, which was white and very fine, and braided it into two plaits, which hung down past her shoulders. By that time she was exhausted so I kissed her, covered her up, and hurried toward the laundry room where I put the sheets and the heavy pads to soak, pending time later in the day to run them through the washer.

  All the time I was with her, I kept chatting, meaningless words about what was going on that day with the children and Milma and what I was going to make for dinner and who was coming over.

  The “kerma kerros” did, I have to admit, do a good job of visiting her. One came about every other day, sat down by the side of her bed, held her hand, identified herself (sometimes Grandmother remembered and asked questions about her family), and visited for short while.

  That came to be the highlight of Grandmother’s day, and I blessed those ladies with all my heart. They might be Virginia’s “cream,” but they were showing me they hadn’t been made into butter. They stood by their friend in every possible way, bringing her some flowers, reading her a bit from the Bible, which she really enjoyed, sometimes just sitting with her.

  Of course, Milma too came and went, in and out, all through the day. And so did the children, who, when they were in Grandmother’s room, had been warned to be on their very best behavior.

  I think they came to accept what was happening more easily than many of the adults around us, taking it for granted Grandmother would be in bed all day and I would see to her needs. (I tried very hard to make the changing of the diaper and soaker as private as possible… for their benefit and for hers. She deserved that kind of privacy.)

  Thank God the Virginia Church Board invested in a gas-driven laundry tub with a wringer-washer. All I had to do was to rinse the diaper and soaker in the toilet, bring them into the cellar where they’d had the laundry tubs installed, fill the two wash tubs with water, fill the washer with hot water and soap, and put the sheets through the wringer as soon as they had been washed sufficiently. There was even a side container to hold a bluing solution. But after using that once on Grandmother’s underclothing and bedding, she developed a rash, and so I quickly stopped doing that, put them through the wringer from the washer into the first tub, from the first to the second, and from the second into the basket from which they emerged ready to be hung on the line if the day were nice or on the lines one of the board members had hired someone to hang downstairs if the weather were inclement. This whole process took a significant part of every day so I had to rely more and more on the children to keep the house neat and clean. I still did the bulk of the cooking, but we kind of arranged a schedule of foods I could put together early and set into the oven to bake while I caught up with the washing. Sometimes I had to change Grandmother’s bed after lunch or in the evening after dinner so the act of washing clothes took a longer and longer part of the day.

  On Mondays we always had the leftovers from Sunday’s big dinner. I made chicken soup out of the left-over chicken, hot beef or pork sandwiches (the beef or pork sliced very thin and laid upon mashed potatoes, all of it covered with gravy), or turkey or chicken á la king, which the children loved so I tried to make it as often as I could. With ham I simply reheated what was leftover and made sure there were cheesy potatoes and some kind of green vegetable to serve with it. Desserts consisted mainly of cookies and ice cream, which the children loved to make. I tried very hard to keep the cookie jar filled so they could have a snack with milk when they got home from school.

  Once in a while on a good day I made a cake or brownies, which I frosted, or a pie. But sometimes I simply had to have help with the meal preparation. Risto learned quickly how to make a hamburger-based meat loaf, mixing in chopped onion and breadcrumbs and eggs, topping it with ketchup. Once in a while I had to rely on plain hamburgers (made of ground beef or turkey), but I almost always managed to put baked potatoes into the oven. Sweet potatoes and rutabaga also helped to give some variety to the menu.

  On Tuesday nights we either finished the leftovers from Sunday’s dinner or had meat loaf or hamburgers. By Wednesday it was time for me to spend some time in the kitchen cooking and baking again. I tried to get up early enough to get a bread dough rising before I fixed breakfast, and right after lunch while Grandmother was sleeping, I fried chicken or boiled spare ribs that went well with sauerkraut. Grandmother had canned enough sauerkraut so we still had several jars of it left. Once in a while I was able to start a pulla—the sweet Finnish cardamom bread that could be braided and topped with heavy sugar but could also be fixed into caramel rolls. They were a real treat for everyone. We ate one for breakfast, and the children loved to have another as a snack when they got home from school.

  At least a month went by with my following that schedule until a morning came when I couldn’t awaken Grandmother. Her hands and feet had turned blue during the night, and her breathing was labored.

  Milma called Dr. Raihala, who told us to prepare ourselves for her death —that it was very near. The children cried. Milma broke down. I sobbed. But we could feel good, I thought, that she had been able to stay at home.

  I noticed she passed very little urine that day and she seemed to have difficulty breathing. Dr. Raihala left us a bottle of laudanum. He suggested we give her a teaspoon at a time if she seemed to be in pain. We did, and her breathing eased.

  Milma took that day off. She sat by her mother’s side, holding her hand and speaking to her in a soft voice. I too took time to sit by her, telling her it was time for her to rest (for she was often upset by the fact she wasn’t cooking or baking or cleaning house).

  When the children came home from school, they were unusually quiet, as if they were aware a change was coming even if they didn’t know what.

  “What’s wrong with Grandmother?” little Daniel asked. “She doesn’t look as if she is feeling well.”

  Milma explained to him and to Tellervo and Risto that she was “passing away from us into another land, one which we cannot see but which she senses is there awaiting her.”

  That seemed to comfort Daniel, but Risto and Tellervo, neither of whom had had a great deal of contact with their grandmother as she was failing, did not understand. They cried and said, “We want our grandmother b
ack the way she was, not like this.”

  There was no comforting them. Nothing their mother said seemed to make any sense to them.

  So I tried blunt honesty. “Your grandmother is dying,” I told them. “If you want to say goodbye to her, you can go into her room, hold her hand, kiss her, and tell her that you love her. But no one—not even your mother or Dr. Raihala—can change the fact that we are gradually losing her.”

  That night we made do with pancakes and bacon, a breakfast meal at dinner time that seemed as right as anything could be on that difficult day.

  Instead of going to bed, I shooed Milma and the children out and toward their bedrooms, telling them I would sit with their grandmother until midnight. Then I’d awaken Milma to take the second shift. But it came to pass that was unnecessary.

  As her breathing became more labored, I relied more on the laudanum, which seemed to soothe her. Finally, about 10:30, I noticed there was more and more quiet time between breaths. I woke Milma, and both of us sat there holding Grandmother’s hands. Soon she slipped away. She was smiling as she left us, as if she knew where she was going and it was to a better place. There was none of the drama that had accompanied Risto’s death.

  She simply slipped away. Milma broke down, but I didn’t. I had taken care of her the very best way I knew how. I felt no regret, just a prevailing sorrow.

  I remembered the whole of a poem Milma had had us memorize during Confirmation: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace, taking as He did this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that He would make all things right if I surrendered to His will, that I could be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him in the life to come.”

  It seemed to me that, at the end, Grandmother was looking forward to being “supremely happy with Him in the life to come.”