The Meaning of It All
by ANN ULRICH MILLER
© 2015 (all rights reserved)
An article from the February 2015 issue of THE STAR BEACON.
Pecking Away at the Membrane
The
cruel world is back again.
Why do I always have to embarrass myself? There isn’t an hour at school when I’m
not embarrassed.
Sometimes I really wonder
what I’m doing there. I look around me in my seat and I suddenly have this
craving to escape. I’m afraid that one of these days I’m going to yell, “Lemme
go!! Get me out of here!!”
-- Wednesday, January 3, 1968
Forty-seven years ago, a 15-year-old girl penned those words in her
diary. It was winter in Wisconsin and she struggled to manage her issues of
insecurity, feeling overwhelmed with the problems of adolescence and
particularly how others saw her.
Her creative juices were brewing, waiting for expression, but too
young and too fragile to survive on her own in a turbulent world that is
remembered for its rebellious youth, war protests, changing racial and sexual
views, and the feminist movement.
That girl in 1968 was ... me.
Since I am writing this in January, I can't help but reflect on an
important January in my past -- the time of my grandmother's passing:
Grandma Clara's Passing
The hospital room was dim. A dark, faint, orange light came from a
nearby lamp. An oxygen bottle fed a clear plastic tube from its place on the
wall to a mask that covered the mouth and nose of the woman lying in the bed,
unaware of our presence.
I stood near the foot of my grandmother's deathbed, in shock. How
could this be the woman I knew as my Grandma Clara? This woman was shriveled and
pale, her eyes closed. Did she even know I was standing here with my mom --
her oldest daughter?
For a fearful moment, I looked over at my mom with a question in my
eyes. Was she ...?
My mother edged closer to the bedridden woman and stretched out her
hand to Grandma's. My mom sighed with relief, but I noticed the worry on her
face, the hopelessness she felt, as did I.
Grandma moaned a little, but she didn't open her eyes. Mom tried to
talk to her -- to let her know that we were there. Grandma Clara did not
respond. I think she wanted to. I believe she knew we had come. But she was too
exhausted to respond to anything around her. It didn't matter to her that it was
Wednesday, January 10, or even 7:05 PM. For her, the long, lingering road was
finally coming to an end.
Grandma Clara Hughes had been in the hospital since New Year's Eve.
She had pneumonia and had asked Grandpa to take her. She had suffered for a
decade with Lou Gehrig's Disease. I had grown up mostly knowing a grandmother
who was unable to use her arms or hands, who eventually could not walk or hold
up her head. As her muscles deteriorated, she depended on everyone else for her
basic needs. It was extremely sad and she suffered as her life dwindled down to
the final days.
My mother dropped me off at home around 8:30 after our visit to the
hospital. She had to go to a church meeting, and my dad was at a library board
meeting. My brother Paul had gone ice skating.
My sisters, Laurie Beth and Alice, appeared unusually glad to see me
when I stepped through the front door. The neighbor girl, Teresa Kudrna, was at
our house, and all three of them wore frightened faces.
"What's wrong?" I asked as I took off my jacket and gloves, and hung
them in the coat closet.
Alice, who was 7, began to tell the story. "About 7:05, I was watching
TV in the family room," she told me. "Laurie was in the kitchen, feeding the
cats at the stove."
"That's when I heard your typewriter clicking away like mad downstairs
in the basement," Laurie broke in. "I thought that was odd, because I knew you
weren't home."
"We were scared," resumed Alice. "No one was supposed to be here
except the two of us."
"Go on," I urged.
"Well," said Laurie, who would turn 11 in a couple of months, "I
approached the basement stairs real loud ... I figured it would alert anyone who
was down there."
I felt a shiver up my spine. "Then what happened?" Laurie's eyes grew
wide. "Well, the typing stopped, so I called your name ..."
"And then we went down together," said Alice.
"The television was on," cried Laurie. "After you and Mom left to go
to the hospital, I made sure to turn it off. But it was on ... and it was
blaring!"
"And all the lights were on in the basement," said Alice.
"No one was in sight," said Laurie. "I went over to your typing chair
and felt it ... and it was warm!" Then she added, "And the keys were wet!"
"So we called Kudrnas'," said Alice, "and Teresa came over, and we sat
and watched TV upstairs until you came home."
I thought a moment as I puzzled over their story. "Well ... what about
Toto? Did she react to any of this?" Certainly if an intruder had gotten into
our house, the dog would have known.
The girls insisted that Toto had not barked or acted as if anything
strange was going on. "But it really did happen, Ann. You've got to believe us!"
I did believe them. It was very disturbing, for sure, and I puzzled
over it. Other strange things had happened that we couldn't explain. I don't
recall whether we told our parents or not. One thing I did do, however, was
record the incident in my diary, noting in particular the time -- 7:05.
What I can't understand is my
mother. She's always scampering around, fussing over the funeral plans, and
what's going to be done with all my grandmother's possessions and what will
happen to Lady, my grandma's dog.
-- Wednesday, January 10, 1968
Every time my mother left the house for some reason, she would say to
me, "If the call should come ..."
The call! That's why everybody
tenses up every time the telephone rings.
To be truthful, I was not worried about Grandma Clara dying. I knew
that when she passed on to the next level, she would be so happy to be free of
her body.
She will feel no more sickness
and agony, and she'll be able to watch her funeral and see all her friends and
loved one who come to pay their respects.
I didn't understand why people had to be sad at funerals. I could see
that it would be sad to have lost someone that you love ... but it wasn't
permanent. Even at age 15, I believed that the person is just as much alive as
when he or she was in the flesh.
I had been reading Ruth Montgomery's books. A Search For the Truth,
her first book on her experiences with automatic writing, impressed me,
especially with the philosophy that I could start each day of my life with a
"clean page."
Imagine trying to live one day
without blemishing it with hatred, lies, gossip and cheating, as if each day
were a fresh page in the book of your life on Earth, and what you say and do is
typed on it.
When you press the
wrong key in making a wrong decision, or you forget to space, like going by
another person who needs help, you have destroyed a perfect page of paper.
Then I felt let down.
I
really believe I almost had a perfect day without saying one unkind word or
thinking one selfish thought.
Then I came home from school, and my sisters and my brother
were fighting and I screamed at them to shut up. Then I cussed at the cat, who
scampered up my basement steps after emptying his bowels in my bedroom.
Then I uttered nasty things about my father when he came home
in his usual bad mood, and I thought only of myself when my mother asked for
help with the supper and I was too busy preparing for my piano lesson.
I had scarred another clean page in my life.
Is it really possible
for one person to live one perfect day? I think it is, and I'm going to try
again tomorrow. If I fail again, then I'll try the next day, until I'm able to
smile up at Christ without shame.
I never saw my grandmother alive again. She passed on to the
next world the evening of Wednesday, January 17, at exactly 7:05 PM. The
scenario turned out to have an interesting twist.
I was writing up my book report for English. While doing my
homework, I had one of my favorite TV shows, Lost in Space, on the TV in
the basement. At 7:15, Alice yelled down to me from upstairs, tears choking her
voice, "Ann ... did you know Grandma died ten minutes ago?"
I stared into space, open mouthed. The phone had been ringing
once every two minutes, it seemed, since the supper hour. I wasn't that tensed
up every time I heard it ring, so the news momentarily startled me.
I
didn't cry one bit. I didn't even feel sad at all. I was happy. So very happy
that she had finally been relieved of her suffering, and I imagine she must
really have received a warm welcome in the life hereafter.
I don't recall exactly when it dawned on me, but at some point
I remembered the strange incident that had happened with my sisters.
It had been one week -- to the exact hour and minute -- and I had been standing
over my grandmother's hospital bed while my sisters had heard the typing coming
from my room in the basement, with the television blaring and all the lights on.
That was just what I had been doing at the time
of Grandma Clara's moment of release!
And
doggone if I didn't think it would happen yesterday or today. I even told Kathy
yesterday morning. I said, "Kathy, Grandma's gonna die either the 17th or the
18th."
* * *
Sadly, a few days ago, I learned that my aunt passed. She died
on January 20, just three days after the anniversary of Grandma Clara's passing.
Aunt Hazel Breitenbach was my grandmother's youngest daughter
and the last older relative left on my mother's side of the family. Aunt Hazel
was 90, active and healthy -- she even still drove herself around in her
hometown of Columbia, Mo. She was a "believer," who supported my writing, always
buying my books when they came out, as well as subscribing to The Star Beacon
all these years.
On the day she passed, I found in my home mailbox a letter from
her. She had written a few days before, thanking me for her gift subscription to
Wisp. The unexpected gesture made me cry.
The episode that occurred at the time Grandma Clara passed had
its own meaning. I believe it was a sign, confirming to me that life continues.
I feel the timeliness of Aunt Hazel's letter was also confirmation of this. And
so was the "blue light" signal on the Directv receiver the night in Ohio, in
2008, when my late husband, Ethan, passed.
My aunt suffered a sudden aortic aneurysm the day before. She
died peacefully in her sleep after saying goodbye to her children, all three of
whom lived in different states. No suffering, no fuss ... it was the way she
wanted, and deserved, to go.
This winter I've seen a number of loved ones cross over to the
Other Side, including my sister-in-law in early December, my brother-in-law the
day after Christmas, and my uncle on my dad's side, who landed on the beach of
Normandy in 1944.
Although I feel sad when I first hear the news, I then envision
how happy they are on the Other Side. When it gets to be our time -- each of us
-- it will be a wonderful reunion seeing those loved ones again.
My memoir, Stepping Forth, An American Girl Coming of Age
in the '60s (from which this chapter is included), is still in
production, but should be out within a couple of months. You can read excerpts
that I am continually putting up on my Author Web site at annulrichmiller.com.
Ann Ulrich Miller, editor and publisher of The Star Beacon, also writes fiction, both romantic suspense and young adult, and is currently at work on her memoir, Stepping Forth, An American Girl Coming of Age in the 60s. annulrichmiller.com
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