Mary, Christmas

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This is Denise's mother, Mary Desens, sometime around 1993.

She was perennially cheerful, methodical and organized, energetic. She struggled with arthritis most of her life, but still exercised regularly in the warm water pool at the Y, attended Bible studies and Sunday services at Church, visited her hairdresser, Kathy, twice a week. Living alone at age 84, she had systems in place for her safety: a phone at the bottom of the basement stairs, with the neighbor's phone numbers next to it. A desk chair to read in while doing laundry, so she only had to traverse the stairs once, backwards so she could rest the basket on each step. After a lifetime of backing down their long driveway, she saw me doing a Y-turn with the rental car to go down frontwards and immediately adopted the technique.

A seamstress for years, until her arthritis interfered, she appreciated and supported me in my pottery craft. She hated cooking, lived on frozen dinners, fruit and Ensure. And baked goods; "tea and treats" was a daily afternoon ritual. She loved it when we came to visit, and I loved cooking for her. I tried to make some simple, manageable dishes that she could try, and she did, a few. She liked apple pie, so I mailed her one for her birthday in September, made two more when we visited in October, one the night before we left that she could share with her Bible group. Though she initially felt tied down by the house after her husband Del died, as Denise and I continued to clear out the basement and help her organize the ground floor, she felt better able to manage it. She looked at assisted living situations, but decided she'd rather stay at home until she couldn't anymore, or until they took her out, toes first.

She died Christmas morning, fifteen months after Del.

We're still shocked. She was in good health and good spirits the day before, drove to Christmas Eve service at church. She was excited to ring the bells on Christmas, a Brookfield Lutheran tradition, and then ride with her nephew Jim down to Chicago for family dinner at his brother Bill's house.

It was Jim who found her in the morning when he came to get her for church. She took notes of health and habits, and so we know she got up at 12:03 am to use the bathroom, and never came back to bed. The medical examiner said it was quick and painless, and nobody could have done anything for her. Denise thinks Jesus asked, "Mary, are you ready?" and she answered "Yes."

Denise and I went back the day after New Years to make arrangements; she's still there, dealing with the estate. Mary helped: she'd told her pastor what music she'd like at her funeral, and talked to me about what she wanted painted on her urn. Cardinals, from the back yard, and the grey squirrel that used to visit the birdbath by her front window. She and Del had set up a family trust nearly twenty years ago, but she made sure everything was included, everything was in order, to make things simple for her only daughter.

I'm going to miss her; I'll miss the reports from the weekly phone calls to Denise, miss making her pie, miss being able to do little things that she appreciated so much. Hanging a curtain rod. Putting pavers on the front porch, to make each step shorter. Getting a new TV for her when the old Trinitron bit it, then figuring out how to connect the antenna and wiring so she could watch it. She loved the old westerns of her younger days, and had a regular date with Chuck Connors--The Rifleman--and her tea and treats.

I made her a teddy bear, years ago, in blue and silver grizzly fur--her favorite colors. Boo Bear had pride of place on the sofa until just this Tuesday, when I brought her back to Oregon to be with the rest of her bear family. Didn't want her to be lonely.

I think I need to go give her a hug now.