Sweeter Than Tea

by Deborah Grace Staley

  “No, you’re free birds,” Suzanne said. “Just like me. Where do you think I got it?”

  “Lord,” Janice said. “You are a free bird.” She nodded at Suzanne. “You spent that summer at Cape Cod all by yourself. Now I could never have done that.”

  “Me either.” I leaned over to pat Suzanne’s knee.

  I remembered that trip well. I was terrified of her driving there, of her living with people she didn’t know, working for an organization I wasn’t familiar with, soliciting for them door to door in an unfamiliar place. I was just terrified, but I tried my best not to show it because really I did want her to be free and indeed to be fearless.

  “That trip was the reason I finally gave in and bought a computer and got online so we could talk every day,” I said. “I think I bought you your first cell phone for that trip too. If a day had gone by that I didn’t talk to you, I’d have been on my way to Cape Cod.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Suzanne said.

  “Yes, and Mom and I would probably have been in the car with you,” Janice said.

  “Seriously, you all taught me a lot about being a strong woman,” she said. “Without even trying.”

  Mom continued to grow worse. She was agitated and would grimace and shake her head. Sometimes she seemed scared, and that just killed me inside. I couldn’t stand to think of her being afraid. Maybe she was in pain, but we just couldn’t tell. She’d been on comfort meds for quite a while, and now the doctor decided it was time to add pain and anxiety medication to relieve her fears or whatever suffering she was having.

  Janice and I both felt we should be there with her when she died. But it soon became clear that we couldn’t be there night and day. It was exhausting, and we both had family obligations.

  I lived ten miles away from the nursing home, and so when I was home, I felt like I was a thousand miles away. I went home one afternoon feeling completely worn out. But after a while I was agitated and sad. I couldn’t stop thinking that I needed to be back at the nursing home.

  It was long after dark when I told my husband, “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I just have to go back.”

  He was concerned and offered to go with me, but I said no. It was something I needed to do alone.

  When I got there around nine, Janice had gone home. I was surprised; she had more energy than me and seemed able to stay for hours at a time. But it was good that I had some time alone with Mom to say what I wanted to say.

  I sat by her; she was resting well. The medications were helping her. There was no more grimacing or moving about restlessly.

  She wasn’t one to express her emotions, even when we were children. I never heard her tell anyone she loved them, although she could express it in a card or letter. I am completely opposite and needed to tell her how I felt. I needed to put to rest the worry that I might not be with her when she died. I knew my restlessness at home was because I felt I would be letting her down if I went home, and she died during my absence. So I sat and held her hand and told her all the things I needed to say. I told her it was okay if she needed to go, and we weren’t there.

  Outside, as I was leaving, I looked up at a huge old live oak near the parking lot. I could see the light of the moon shining through the branches. The wind rustled the leaves softly, and the stars blinked silently in the dark sky. Suddenly I felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from me. I went home and slept peacefully for the first time in days.

  A week after Mom’s birthday, one of the nurses came and told us what we could look for physically as the end grew near. Janice told me that she had already begun to experience some of those physical markers.

  I called Suzanne and told her; she said she wanted to be there. Suzanne is a grown woman, but she’s still my baby girl. I would not have asked her to be there if she didn’t want to be. I knew how hard it was for me, and I didn’t want to put that burden on her. But I was so glad she made the decision to come.

  I’ve always been afraid of death, and even when my dad died, whom I adored, I could not touch him. Ironically only two weeks before, Mom’s last sibling, her sister Rose, passed away. She was my favorite aunt. I’d spent summers with her, and she’d always been so good and kind to me. Rose knew how much I loved her, and I knew that she dearly loved me. When I got to the funeral home and saw her in her casket, I hugged her without thinking and placed a little angel pin on the lapel of her pink suit.

  When Suzanne got to the nursing home that Saturday afternoon, we all sat talking about our families, our trips and about mom’s funeral.

  “I thought just graveside services,” Janice said. “A couple of hours visitation beforehand and then to the cemetery for services. What about music? I know you made a list of songs you liked when we planned this before.”

  “No sad songs,” I said.

  We all agreed to that.

  “I’d love to have a violin or a flute,” I said. “And that’s all. Something simple.”

  “Which one?” Janice asked. “I have a friend who plays a flute. I’m sure she’d be happy to do it.”

  “Remember the time we were at Shaker Village and saw the outdoor wedding?” I asked.

  “I remember that,” Suzanne said. “It was so pretty. The wedding was in a clearing between the houses, beneath some locust trees. It was very foggy and we stood back, watching from a distance.”

  “And we heard the clear beautiful sounds of a flute floating on the air, coming out of the fog,” I recalled.

  “Mom loved that,” Janice said. “It was something she talked about often.”

  “A flute it will be then,” I said.

  “But the casket will not be opened,” Janice said adamantly.

  I didn’t say anything, but I thought of our brother who had not seen Mom in years. Wouldn’t he want to see her one last time?

  “She would absolutely hate for anyone to see her like this,” Janice said. “Her hair is awful; she long ago hid her partials, and they’ve never been found. You know she would hate it. I’m going to get her a nice soft nightgown and some house slippers, and that’s going to be it.”

  “Okay.” I shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  It was late in the day when we saw a beautiful hummingbird come to the tall pink phlox just outside the window. It lingered there for several minutes, and we remarked on how Mom loved flowers and hummingbirds.

  None of us said anything. But there was an acute sense of what we were waiting for and a definite sense of resignation and dread.

  Suzanne and I decided to get a drink and walk outside for a break. We sat on a bench close to the doors of the nursing home. In a few minutes, the hummingbird appeared again, right in front of us, flitting over the shrubs and flowers. Suzanne and I, both believers in signs, looked at one another, got up and hurried back into the nursing home and down the hallway.

  Janice was standing on one side of the bed, and I came to stand on the other. Janice held Mom’s hand. I took her other hand, and within moments she sighed heavily, different than anything we’d heard before. I held my breath and leaned toward her, watching for her next breath. It didn’t come.

  I turned and asked Suzanne if she would go get the nurse. When she came, Suzanne and I stepped to the foot of the bed with our arms around each other. Janice was still beside Mom.

  The nurses listened for a heartbeat, and as we waited, I thought of what my Aunt Rose’s pastor had said at her funeral only two weeks ago. “When a baby is born, we laugh, and when a person dies, we cry. It should be the other way around.” I tried to think hard about those words as the nurse told us Mom was gone. Janice had been telling me for days that this would be a happy day, but somehow, even though I understood what she meant, I couldn’t seem to get it through my mind.

  I had never seen a person die before. Had never heard their last breath leave thei
r body or felt their hand grow cold in mine. Surprisingly, I didn’t find it scary—it was truly a profoundly moving moment much like when a child is born. It was part of the miracle of life, and grieving though I was, I felt lucky to have shared such a deep emotional moment with my mother and sister and my sweet daughter.

  The next morning Suzanne, Janice and I met at the funeral home. Our director was a man a guy Fats, someone I’d gone to high school with. In our small town, everyone knows everyone. He was a kind, down to earth man whose only purpose seemed to be to help us through this in any way he could.

  We sat around a table, arranging pictures of Mom throughout her life. We described what we wanted for her service. When Janice said she wanted a closed casket, Fats protested.

  He picked up one of the pictures of mom when she was younger. “Your mother was a beautiful woman. We can make her beautiful again.”

  “No, that’s not necessary,” Janice insisted. “She wouldn’t want anyone seeing her this way, and I’m not going to have it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But let’s do this. Let us fix her hair and her teeth, give her a little makeup, and then if you still want a closed casket, that’s what we’ll do. But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  Neither Suzanne nor I offered an opinion one way or another. Janice had been the main caregiver for Mom. They were extremely close, and whatever she wanted was okay with me. Janice seemed lost in thought and perhaps for the first time a little doubtful.

  “I’m going to go right now and buy her a soft nightgown,” Janice told Fats.

  “And hose,” he said. “I can’t bury a self-respecting southern lady with no hose. It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “I was just going to get house slippers,” Janice said.

  “House slippers are okay. But hose too,” he insisted, looking at her over his glasses.

  “Okay, hose.” She rolled her eyes.

  For the first time we all laughed.

  Janice went to buy the gown while Suzanne and I went shopping to buy my husband a new white shirt. Suzie and I were happy to be out, away from funeral homes and nursing homes, away from the ever-present reality that my mom and her grandmother was gone.

  “You know,” she said, “I wish we could find something that the four of us could wear—kind of a commemorative.”

  “The four of us? You mean Mom too?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s so sweet,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A pin or bracelet . . . I’ll know it when I see it.”

  We looked in several stores, walked though the mall and treated ourselves to a cookie, trying to pretend a little normalcy. Then we continued looking.

  As soon as we approached the jewelry counter of the next store we saw some bracelets on a table. Suzanne went straight to them. “Oh, I think this is it.”

  There were some black knotted cord bracelets with sterling silver pendants. There were several different sentiments expressed, but the one Suzanne reached for had a beautiful Family Tree in a silver oval. It looked a lot like the Shaker Tree of Life symbol that we all knew so well. The writing in the box said Family, and beneath that a short verse: Family is a link to our past and a bridge to our future.

  “It’s perfect,” we both said.

  Suzanne began looking through the bracelets. “Let there be four, please let there be four,” she said. Then she lifted her hand, holding up four bracelets with a triumphant smile.

  “Four!”

  “Yay,” I said, laughing.

  After leaving the mall, our first stop was the funeral home where we asked them to put one of the bracelets on Mom’s wrist. We were about to text Janice when she called and asked where we were.

  “The funeral home,” I said.

  “Good. Wait for me. I have something to show you. I’ll be right there.”

  I assumed she was bringing the nightgown for us to see. But when she got out of her car she was carrying a long flowing dress of pale yellows, pinks and greens.

  “Mom made this for me when I was in high school,” she said. “It’s always been one of my favorite dresses, and I’ve had it hanging in the closet all these years. I’d kind of like Mom to wear it.” She held it out in her arms for us to see. “What do you think?” She seemed a little hesitant.

  I was surprised. Janice had become a little matter of fact over the years. This was the sentimental side of my sister I hadn’t seen in a while. She was quiet and subdued and very sweet.

  “I think it’s just perfect,” Suzanne said. “Granny made this? Wow, it’s really beautiful.”

  We stood there in the middle of the parking lot, the three of us touching the dress. The full skirt had several rows of decorative hemming around the bottom and on the bell sleeves. The material looked like fine muslin and was very soft and feminine. It wasn’t a dress Mom would have chosen to wear, but it had her in it. She had created it for her daughter with love and care, and the quality of the work showed that. She never did anything halfway.

  “It is perfect,” I said. “I can’t believe you’ve had it all these years.”

  “It was always one of my favorite dresses. But I have mixed feelings about it,” Janice said. “I hate to part with it, but then I think—what better way to use it, you know? So you think it will be all right?”

  “I really do,” I said.

  “I vote yes,” Suzanne said. “Definitely.”

  “What were you all doing here?” Janice asked.

  We explained about the bracelet, and Suzanne handed her a box. “This one is yours. Wear it to the funeral.”

  “You’ve already given them one for Mom?” she asked.

  We nodded as Janice took the bracelet out of its box and placed it on her wrist. Tears filled her eyes, and she reached out to us. We all hugged there in the parking lot with the beautiful dress between us and the bracelets on our arms.

  “People will think we’re nuts,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “Oh, they’ll just say—it’s those crazy Rogers girls—wonder what they’re up to now,” I said.

  When we arrived the next afternoon for the funeral I felt a little anxious. Fats had already told us that Mom looked beautiful, and we were going to be pleased. Still I felt a little apprehensive at seeing her, remembering how she looked before.

  When I saw her in the beautiful dress, her hair curled around her face, makeup perfect, lips and mouth perfect, I cried. She looked young and lovely. Janice, Suzanne and I just stood there, unable to speak, unable to stop looking at her. It was a truly amazing moment. In fact we said later she looked as if she could come back and would be perfectly normal. There was no sign of the frail, withered little woman with Alzheimer’s.

  When my brother and his family came in, I turned to Janice. “She looks so pretty. Do you think it would be all right if they see her?”

  “Sure,” she said, without hesitation. “Any of the family who wants to see her can come in. But we’re still having a closed casket during visitation. She still wouldn’t want people looking at her, or making remarks about how she looks.”

  Later the funeral procession made its way through town down the main street lined with huge old trees and beautiful antebellum homes. Cars pulled over and stopped as we passed; even joggers and walkers along the street stopped and stood silent. Policemen stood on each corner with their hats over their hearts. That showing of respect is one of the southern traditions I love most and I was touched and proud.

  It was nearing sunset when we stood on the hill at the cemetery where my mother would be laid to rest beside our dad. After a few words by the pastor, the sweet sound of the flute drifted over the quiet crowd, playing the old Shaker tune “Tis a Gift to Be Simple.” I had been the only one who didn’t want the dove release, feeling it was a little
corny. But when the white birds flew, and one lone dove flew up to join them in the air I could not hold back the tears.

  I’d heard my sons talking earlier, and one of them made the remark that his grandmother’s death had given him an odd feeling—as if he were stepping forward, as if he were moving up in the chain somehow. The other one agreed, and I knew exactly what they meant. I had felt it when Dad died.

  After the service, Janice, Suzanne and I stood together, arms entwined, the family bracelets on our wrists. As the three of us stood there in the waning light, saying goodbye to the fourth, I felt that sense of moving forward that my sons had spoken of, and I wanted to hold my family close. We were three women of different ages and life experiences, taking that next step forward, and our being together somehow made it easier.

  Life has its happy moments and its sad. It has a rhythm and a time that we can’t change. This was our own Circle of Life, our family’s affirmation that life and generations move on.

  We did so having seen our mom and grandmother restored to her true beauty and dignity. We had come together as a family to do our best for her.

  And I knew she would be pleased.

  Lessons On A Paper Napkin

  Kathleen Watson

  Prologue

  Mama says there are things that have always been a part of your life and there are things that just feel like they have always been a part of your life.

  For those things, there are beginnings.

  I traced the delicate lace on my dress while I stared at the photos grouped beneath the “Bride and Groom” banner, lost in so many thoughts I wanted to swat them away like mosquitoes buzzing around my head. The picture of Mama and Daddy caught my eye first, and I tried to find Daddy’s face in the blurred images of my memories. It had been so long since he’d died, but I could still feel his fingers on my cheek when he’d wiped away a tear and smell the lingering scent of his cologne when he’d kiss me before going off to work.

  My hand was almost to the picture when Mama walked over and snaked her arm around my waist, pulling me in close to her body. The heady fragrance of her orchid corsage swirled around us both and mingled with the softer scents of jasmine and roses clutched in my own hand.