July 27, 2016
Plattsburgh, New York
Ten
years ago today, when I was toasting my mother for her 90th
birthday, I said with all sincerity that I was certain the entire group present
would be gathered once again ten years hence, on her 100th
That
would be today. July 27, 2016. Had she lived, and at 90 it seemed quite
likely, she’d be 100 years old.
My
mother’s birth name was Anna Rita Boyer, but my mother told me just before she
died that because there were so many “Anna’s” going around in 1916, her parents
decided to use her middle name. She was
born in Saranac Lake, New York on July 27, 1916 to Homer Boyer, born Boyea in
the Malone, NY area, and Alice Hamel Boyer from Redford. There was an older brother, Larry, and a younger
sister would come nine years later. She
was loved and nurtured and grew into a Saranac Lake that was culturally rich
and more than a small town should have been in the 1930’s, largely due to the
influence of TB patients who flooded into the village’s “cure cottages” for
almost fifty years.
She
finished high school in 1936, a year later than she should have. In fifth grade she’d’ been diagnosed with a
hearing impairment that would dominate her life until the day she died. All of us who grew up with her lived in a
world of a handicapped person—a skill that paid off over the years in our
patience with other handicapped persons.
Rita
went to Plattsburgh, NY to study business and worked for several years at
Montgomery Wards as a bookkeeper. She
didn’t make much money and would often put things on lay away and pay for them
over a period of time. Each Christmas
the Nativity set she bought that way adorns our Christmas world.
It
was at Montgomery Wards that she met a young delivery man, Howard Ladue, and in
time they got engaged. This was all
prior to December 7, 1941. My father
enlisted in the Army and my mother, upon the advice of her mother, broke off
the engagement. Fortunately, Howard came
home and they were married on September 15, 1945.
Four
years later I was born and three years after that my brother, Richard, was
born. By then we were living on Grace
Avenue in Plattsburgh, but my father, who’d been comfortably stationed in
Honolulu during the War, wanted nothing to do with winter and moved the family
to Lakeland, Florida, and move that would affect my mother, and the rest of us,
for the remainder of her life. It was
not a good move, and they returned to Plattsburgh less than three years later.
In
one of my earliest memories, my mother, still in her 30’s, is making a picnic
lunch for my brother and me. It was the
late 1950’s and Grace Avenue was still not fully developed. There were still large swaths of undeveloped
land that was once a quarry. Small
streams and rivulets ran through large flat plates of granite. She’d make egg salad sandwiches and lemonade
that she’d pour into old vinegar bottles.
She’d pack a blanket, we’d walk north, find a place on one of the flat
rocks, and my brother and I would explore the polliwogs and wonders found in
the small pools that seemed to be everywhere.
Life
settled into normal routine. We went to
school, my father work on the railroad until layoffs forced him to find other
work. In 1961 my parents bought a business they would own until
1976—Plattsburgh Telephone Answering Service.
At first the switchboard was in our kitchen, then moved within a short
period of time to a new addition in the back of the house.
The
Service was a 24/7 operation and it’s what my brother and I knew as reality for
much of our growing up years.
Once
my brother and I were in school, my mother found part time work as a Welcome
Wagon Hostess, welcoming many new young Air Force families into the
community. In time, after we were both
out of the home, she worked for Catholic Charities for a number of years.
My
mother was energetic and blessed with good health, a health that stayed with
her well into her 90’s. She liked people
and entertaining. She liked nice pieces
of antique glass and very old and very expensive tea cups. She loved to go berrying and some of my
fondest memories of my mother are the days we’d pile into the car, drive to
Onchiota or Blueberry Hill in Keeseville.
There, she’d get lost in the act of berrying, an act that could consume
hours of her time. Many times,
especially if I knew she was going to Keeseville, I go along for the ride and
sit on rock ledges overlooking Lake Champlain and spend hours reading a book.
She
was a great gardener and her flowerbeds on Grace Avenue and then in her condo
were always lovely. Her skill in
gardening was surpassed only by her skill arranging flowers.
She
had a passion for “sailing,”—mapping out a rummage sale route on a Saturday
morning and spending hours scouring Plattsburgh and Sarasota, Florida,
neighborhoods in search of bargains.
She
loved all things Catholic and was Catholic to a fault, often putting the church
before anything else. One of her
greatest passions was the Retreat League that she’d joined in the early 1960’s
and was an active member of until it disbanded in the early 2000’s. For years, she and her friend Louise would
coordinate the annual Retreat League bazaar held in mid-November.
She
loved all holidays. I can still see multiple
boxes in one of the storage closets in the back den, each box labeled with a
different holiday: Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving. She embraced each person’s birthday and the
night before the big day she’d set the table with one serving of her best
china, best silver and best glassware.
Balloons hung from the chandelier and gifts surrounded your plate. For your birthday you could have anything you
wanted to eat.
But
it was Christmas that was the centerpiece of the holiday year. She loved Christmas and all
things
Christmas. Sometimes, I think she
thought of it in one form or another all through the year. Certainly, there was no last minute shopping
in my mother’s Christmas world. Gifts
would be purchased and stored all year long.
In
November she’d scour the countryside and gather up her Christmas greens that
would be woven into wreathes for the front windows and ropes to grace the
mantle on the fireplace.
In
early December I’d come home from school to the rich, spicy smells of her
applesauce cake that she’d give to all relatives and neighbors.
Christmas
dinner she’d pull out corn cut off the cob in August and fiddle heads picked in
early May. We’d have summer treats to
celebrate her favorite day of the year.
Her
love of Christmas was infectious and I know it was one of the things she
mourned most as she aged. Decorating,
gift wrapping, and entertaining were all scaled back and I know that made her
sad.
She
was widowed at 78 and lived sixteen years after my dad died. She did a fine job creating a new life for
herself. She was an open and friendly person
and wanted to meet new people. Many of
those people never knew my dad.
Twelve
years after my father passed on, and five months after she turned 90, my mother
made another major life transition, leaving the condo she’d lived in for
nineteen years and moving into Lake Forest, Plattsburgh’s only independent
living facility. For me, it was a great relief
and I was grateful for the “event” that motivated her to move.
It
was a good move for her. While it wasn’t
perfect, it was much better than living alone without real neighbors. He social side needed the company Lake Forest
provided.
Three
years later, almost to the date, we had to move her out. It was horrible for all of us. Her fierce independence had to be sacrificed. “I want to move into a nursing home,” she’d
tell me. In the end that’s what
happened. In hindsight, we think she’d
been having a series of mini-strokes that had finally make her legally blind.
Less
than four months later, on a lovely early spring day in April, she died. It somehow seemed fitting for her to leave
the world in a season she loved so much.
She was just in time to tend the spring plantings in Heaven.
We
mourned, of course, but knew that is what she wanted. What she didn’t want was to live the way
she’d been living—she’d made that very clear to me for a very long time. There was never any need to second guess
decisions that would ultimately end her life.
Her blindness, on top of her profound deafness, was too much for her to
handle. I was never sorry to see her go,
knowing she would have hated living in this condition.
All
of this was happening while I was away.
Just after Christmas, with her settled into a new assisted living facility,
I left for Chile and was more than surprised when I called her to find out that
she was in the hospital. I lingered in
South America for a bit, but was drawn home.
She was waiting for me and once knew I was home to stay she stopped
eating. I fully realized she wanted to
die and I fully realized she was waiting for me to start the process. I had no problem accepting this.
She
left this world on April 9, 2010. The
last words she heard were “I love you” spoken to her by Vicki and myself.
She
had what Spaniards used to call “The Good Death.” We should all be so fortunate.
I
am both my mother and father, as all children are an amalgam of both
parents. Like my mother, I’m happiest
when I’m busy, when I create and when I’m doing things for other people. Like
my mother, I’m easily burned and like my mother have stopped doing some things
for some people because they have simply come to expect it.
We
are, it’s true, a bit of this and a bit of that. My mother’s this and that are who I am and I
can no more get rid of them then change the color of my eyes.
I
spent a career working with children and knew far too many dysfunctional
families. My parents were classic parents
from mid-century and far from dysfunctional and I am who I am because of who
they were.
I
am grateful for my mother’s moral compass, for the beautiful things she taught
me, for the encouragement she gave at so many levels.
If
she were here today I’d take her for a ride, drive to Rolf’s and help her pick
blueberries. At day’s end we’d stop at
Stewarts and indulge in ice cream—chocolate for Mom—then head to wherever home
would be.
I
can imagine her doing that today in God’s kingdom where I know she is.
Happy
Birthday, Mom.
Dan
Ladue
July
27, 2016
