Meeting Our Mortality

Sickness

All of us are living on borrowed time. But that is no more acute than in an aging parent who has been diagnosed with an illness from which he or she will never recover. What can you do for an aging parent in this situation?

"Dr. McKenna, Dr. McKenna. Please go to a white courtesy phone for an emergency call." Imagine being greeted with this message from an overhead speaker just as you stepped off the airplane in a distant airport. A myriad of morbid thoughts tumbled through my mind as I scanned the concourse for a white phone. The sign of one on a far wall brought me to the edge of panic. Was my wife in an accident? Was one of our children killed? Or was it a disaster at the university? I readied myself for the worst news but didn't expect to hear the choked and teary voice of my only sister. "Mother just came back from the doctor's," she reported as calmly as she could. "The diagnosis is leukemia — chronic now, but the kind that advances rapidly to the acute stage. She has nine months to live."

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   How did I respond? Denial is the usual reaction to news that we cannot comprehend. As if to doubt her words, I asked, "Are you sure?" Before she could answer I corrected myself and shifted my doubt to the diagnosis. "Is the doctor  sure? Should we get a second opinion?" My sister quickly convinced me that a team of doctors had conferred on the test results and concurred in the diagnosis. I went on, "How is Mom taking it?"

   "You know her," my sister answered. "She has faith for healing."

   Our conversation closed with the agreement that I would soon come home to see Mother, but not on an emergency schedule that could make death seem imminent.

   Life took a new turn for mother and for us. I lived in Seattle, Washington, twenty-five hundred miles away from Ypsilanti, Michigan. My sister lived in Detroit, just thirty miles away from Mom. The burden for care, of course, fell upon her. Still, as the only son and eldest child, I sensed both the weight of giving support and the guilt of having moved so far away. I recalled Mom's puzzled comment to my sister after she had visited us in Seattle. "When is Dave going to settle down and come home?" Although she had a childlike faith that could not be broken, she never fully understood the call of God that took her son to Seattle — a distant mission field would have made more sense.

Grace and Grit

Mom's singleness following divorce multiplied the complexity of the problem caused by the diagnosis of leukemia. After the divorce in 1962, she had lived alone in the family home and survived on the low wages of a food handler on the cafeteria line at the local university. Her Finnish ancestry added a stubborn edge of independence to her existence. She lived within her meager salary, traveled far and wide with a woman friend, never missed church, and found high adventure in pageants, parades, religious concerts, theme parks, and evangelistic services. In the next nine months, however, everything would

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change. Frequent trips to the doctor to monitor her blood count would keep her close to home. Anemic symptoms would weaken her body until new blood could be transfused. With the weakening would come other breakdowns that would hospitalize her or require extensive therapy. Then, without a miracle, the inevitable would happen. One of the tests would show a jump on the leukemic scale from "chronic" to "acute." The higher the mark on the scale, the shorter the time until Mom would die — most likely from secondary causes brought on by a weakened body that could fight no more.

   What do you do for an aging parent who is living on borrowed time? Immediately, you do nothing but build the hope and foster the faith for healing. Mom became our first priority for daily prayer and the object of our commitment to spare no medical means for her to beat the statistics. Then we encouraged her to keep working as long as she could, and take the vacation time due her for a trip to Seattle and a visit with her grandchildren. The memory of that visit is bittersweet. Mom wanted to do everything that she had always done — walking two miles around Queen Anne Hill, stopping for doughnuts, shopping for the grandchildren, and attending University functions with us. Although she acted as if her introduction as "President McKenna's mother" meant nothing to her, deep down we all knew that the woman who dropped out of school after the eighth grade basked in the glory of her role as the "First Mother of the University."

   Early in her last Seattle visit, she announced a lifetime desire to climb at Mt. Rainer. Her wish became my command. Cancelling all appointments on the first clear day, and gathering the two youngest of our four children, we drove up the mountain as far as we could. After lunch in the lodge at Paradise, Mom wanted to test the trails leading up the mountain to Camp Muir. A very short hike brought the excursion to an end. When we arrived back at the lodge, Mom had developed a discernible limp. Although she rejected any help, my wife and I cast a knowing glance at each other. The first symptom of a weakening body had appeared.

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   By the time Mom got home, the right leg had lost all strength. Hours of therapy followed in which she had to reverse the habit of a lifetime and learn to walk upstairs leading with the strength of the left leg. During this time, she never lost her sense of humor. "To think that these legs used to dance," she said, as she dragged her useless foot up one step at a time.

   When Mom mentioned dancing, she lifted the curtain on the drama of her personal history that only the grace of God can explain. Born Ilmi Elvira Matson in a Finnish colony in Hibbing, Minnesota, she moved with her parents to an equally sheltered Finnish colony in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where she spoke only Finnish until she went to school. Except for funerals and weddings in the transplanted state church of Finland, her religious training was nil. Her boiler-making, good-natured, and alcoholic father stumbled home after hours in the local pub. Except for his hatred of the godless Bolsheviks who had raped his homeland, Grandpa Matson prided himself in agnosticism.

   Dropping out of school after the eighth grade, Mom, her sister, and two cousins left the Finnish colony and sought work in the "land of opportunity." To cover her ethnic ancestry, Mom changed her name from Ilmi to Helen. Then, after being shunted from menial job to job in Fitchburg, she and her sister and cousins took their chances in the glamour of the city — beginning in Boston and ending in Detroit. Dancing and breathing went together for these young women. In Boston they auditioned for the Ziegfield Follies and, when this failed, began to work as "taxi dancers" in the dime-a-dance palaces of Boston. Taxi dancing also paid their bills when they migrated to Detroit.

   Mom never told us the story of dating Dad and getting married. We only knew that a taxi dancer and a Greyhound bus driver met in a dance hall and were hastily married by a justice of the peace on an unknown date. Not until my father announced his plans for divorce and remarriage thirty-two years later did I know that my conception led to their wedding.

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   Six months after my birth I also led them to Christian conversion. The doctor told my mother that my life hung in the balance of a twelve-hour overnight period. If a blood clot went to my heart, I would die. If it traveled past the heart during the night, I had a chance to live. With Dad on the road driving his bus, my mother called in desperation to Grandma McKenna. Although she had no faith herself, Mother knew that Grandma prayed. Later, Grandma told me how she stayed on her knees all night long, praying for me, dedicating me to the work of the Lord, and receiving the promise of my healing. All of her prayers were answered, and Mom became a believer. Dad soon followed, and together they gave my sister and me a Christian home throughout most of our growing years.

   Tension between our parents intensified as my sister and I passed through our high school and college years. Once we were married and gone, nothing remained to hold our parents together. Separation followed by divorce left Mother alone to fend for herself. A house, a small alimony, and a cafeteria job made her a survivor. You can see why the diagnosis of leukemia put an ironic touch upon Mom's later years. At the age of sixty-five she deserved the joys of home, husband, family, and church. But she never screamed at God, "Unfair." I, her son, did it for her.

   Seven months after Mom's initial diagnosis, she rode a physical roller coaster from transfusion to transfusion. Her employer had granted her a medical leave, and trips out of the house became less and less frequent. Only once did I see the evidence of desperation in her faith. On one of the visits that I planned when traveling across the country, I found the form letter from a faith-healer thanking her for her ten-dollar gift and assuring her that God had heard his prayers on her behalf. Healing was guaranteed. At first I rebelled against the thought of my mother being duped by a faith healer. But the wise Spirit of God stopped me from scolding her. Mom had the right to grasp for spiritual straws. If I had been her, I might have done the same thing — or worse. My anger shifted to televangelists who perpetrate the scam that bleeds desperately ill

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people of their subsistence dollars. In my mind they should be targets of the same rage that caused Jesus to condemn the scribes who "devour widows' houses."

   When I last visited Mom, she could barely walk. I suggested that we could go out for dinner, but she insisted that my sister and I go without her. "No way," I persisted. "We want you to be our special guest for Alaskan crab legs, your favorite dinner." That did it. Mom laboriously got dressed and appeared as well as she could with the black and blue bruises of leukemia showing on her arms and legs. When we arrived at the restaurant, she protested my ordering a full dinner for her. "Oh, I can never eat that much," she said. But when the dinner came, she didn't stop until every shred of meat had been picked from the shells.

   "How about dessert, Mom?" I suggested after the entree had been devoured.

   "Oh no, I can't eat another bite."

   "But Mom, this place has the best reputation for apple strudel in the whole state of Michigan."

   "Well, if you put it that way. You get dessert and I'll take a taste"

   When the dessert came, I put the apple strudel in front of Mom and watched it disappear. I didn't get a bite and couldn't have been more satisfied. Mom's last meal with her children is a memory that will last forever.

   The dreaded day arrived. Mom entered the hospital for a transfusion that didn't take. Instead she became weaker and weaker until consciousness faded. My sister called again with the news that life could be counted in hours — too few for me to reach her bedside from Seattle. So, with just a sigh, Mom died — exactly nine months from the date of her diagnosis.

Caregiving for Chronic Illness

What did we learn from the experience? What can we pass on to other sons and daughters whose parents are growing old? If chronic disease

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and its inevitable end become the burden that we must share with our parents, my advice is to:

   Speaking of a lasting legacy, Mom left us one that is written on a piece of paper no larger than a memo pad. I found it in her Bible after she died. Nine items are listed with a check mark beside six of them. It was her daily prayer list. At the top I found my name and the notation of a career decision that I had to make. Next came my sister's name along with the name of her husband. The single word marriage served as a reminder of marital difficulty. Our oldest son, Doug, got on the list as he left for graduate school in Minnesota. Other names appeared that I did not know. Most likely they were friends from work or church. One prayer reminder particularly tickled me. Mom had been praying for "Hazel's knee."

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   The check marks brought tears to my eyes because I realized that each of these prayers had been answered — my career decision, my sister's reconciliation with her husband, and Doug's graduate school adjustment. No check mark followed the prayer for "Hazel's knee," but knowing of Mom's faith, I told myself with utter confidence, Whoever Hazel is, her knee is healed.

   In a small way I tried to honor the legacy of faith she gave to me when I dedicated to Mom my book entitled The Whisper of His Grace. On the dedicatory page you will read,

To My Mother

A taxi dancer transformed

into

A saint of God.

Now you understand why.

Chapter Eleven  ||  Table of Contents