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Two weeks have gone by since I wrote a tongue in cheek version of a spiritual experience I had at a Zendo in Surry.
I characterized myself as a spiritual seeker.
The rubber hit the road a few days later as we came home to find my mother in law had another stroke. She passed away, with her family surrounding her 3 days later, in her home with us.
She was 89 years old.
Her passing was the completion of her journey, and I was fortunate to have known her. Mary and I have been together for 12 years and Polly has lived with Mary for 19.
I've told some of you her story, but it bears repeating. She was born in Maine, she lived most of her life in Maine. She raised 4 daughters, who had 7 children of their own. The grandchildren grew up and fell in love and now there are a bazillion great grandchildren. Perhaps not that many, feels that way at holiday time though.
My spiritual journey is of little importance in the face of the life of this one woman. We each experience life through our eyes. Recognizing how it looks through someone elses can be an unexpected gift.
The loss of Polly has made me think a lot of the impact of a person over their lifetime.
Polly was born one of 7 children in Madison, Maine. Her father was a farmer. Her mother was a farm woman. All the kids were farm children. There were hard times, loss of a child, several early losses of life in her immediate family.
She met Mary's Dad when she was a teenager. He was a little older. They were married soon after and had 4 girls. Judson was his name and he served in the air force. He went to school to be a chemical engineer, but when he got chlorine poisoning he went to law school to become an attorney. Mary's Dad was an attorney in the old style. Sometimes he was paid in chickens. Always he had an easy going nature and toward the end of his life was a judge. Polly always called him Juddie. I never met him, but I've always been drawn to his legacy. For her birthday one year I made her a slideshow of old pictures of her and the love her her life. He died tragically at 51 when Mary was 13.
Polly was a stay at home mom before the term was coined. Because fact is, it was a different time.
But at 44 she was faced with no husband, no income and 2 children left to leave the nest.
She got a job working with a dermatologist.
She liked it a lot. She was the office manager for Dr. Barrett in Bangor. When he retired he told Polly she had earned him a million dollars. She was always proud to tell that story. She didn't get the million dollars though.
She never married again, although she had a few man friends. She was a hopeless flirt and even the week before she died was flirting on the phone with a long time beau.
When I brought down food, especially in the last 6 months she would say "There is my handsome man".
She also flirted with a French neighbor whom she loved very much named Marcel. He was way better at it though because he had the french accent. He would say Madame Poll ee and kiss her hand.
I mainly smelled of cat fur. She always made me feel as sexy as the french guy.
She was also stubborn though and would sometimes refuse the simplest request from Mary or the rest of the family. Until last February when she had a second stroke, she still drove.
We worried a little, but she loved the independence. The second to the last stroke made the decision to stop her driving easier. She still snuck the keys and drove to the mailbox.
Our mailbox is about 30 feet from where we park the car.
As she became more dependent and less able to take care of herself or the details of life, it was difficult to have the extra load. She never let go of her toughness though.
My best memory of Polly was a few weeks ago I was struggling to find something to feed her for dinner. I decided on grilled cheese and tomato soup. She had read in the Enquirer that you should add Thyme to the tomato soup to make it more savory.
So I shook some (ground) thyme in her Campbells tomato soup. I added some half and half, I gave her about 1/2 cup...she was eating so little.
She mimed and aaaed in every spoonful. She rolled her eyes back when she tasted it and commented how amazing it was. I was a little afraid she was having the big one.
She was just expressing her appreciation in the only way she could. I paid attention to making the grilled cheese just perfect.
She loved that too. She ate the entire thing (unusual) as we talked about her husband. There was a picture of him on a dock eating something. She told me it was a steak that they had on a grill they brought for a picnic they had when he was on leave from the service.
She went back to the tomato soup with Thyme. She made "this is unbelievable" noises.
I think back to the far away look in her eyes when she told about the steak her husband had grilled 60 years earlier. It looked like she could still remember the taste.
I thought about what all had happened between the steak and the tomato soup.
4 kids, 7 grandkids, billions of great grandkids.
A ton of sunrises and sunsets, most of them unrecognized because she was juggling so much.
Mary believes she could never do enough for her mom and had a great relationship with Polly, To start with Polly was feisty, and as time went on her feisty-ness could be a handful. Mary was very critical of when she lost her patience with Polly.
I only see a saint when I look at the job that Mary did. But I do know the regret of losing your temper when dealing with an aging person. A few months ago Polly's dryer broke. She was very agitated that it tumbled, but did not dry. We bought the dryer long ago and it was a Maytag, although there was no model number anywhere to be found. I told her we would have someone take a look at it. In the meantime, the socks and capri's and shirt she wore (1 each day) if she left in a basket we could do it in the dryer upstairs. I was pretty sure that it was a heating element, but without a model number I couldn't figure out what element to get. Plus, I might have mentioned to you all that although I can spay a cat, when it comes to doing stuff like changing a heating element in a dryer, I always end up swearing with bent metal from the sledge hammer that I eventually use when I can't figure out how to get to the piece I need to replace.
Several days later, Mary saw Polly with her head in the dryer trying to figure out how to fix it. I called our regular guy who was on vacation. His wife gave us the number of another Maytag repairman. Turns out there are Maytag repairmen after all.
But without a model number, he wouldn't come out. I decided to wait until our regular dryer guy came back from vacation.
Almost two weeks from the original time it broke I heard Polly open the door between our two houses.
Now I have to say...Two things were difficult for me living with Polly. One is that she would open the door between our houses and call up and usually have a relatively small issue that needed dealing with in her mind very soon.
Sometimes I felt like that Genie in the Bugs Bunny cartoon that keeps getting the lamp rubbed when he is doing other things...taking a bath, vacuuming, smooching, cleaning dog pee..
Anyway, the second issue that was difficult for me is that she would be waiting on the porch when I got home sometimes with the same kind of problem. I couldn't get into the house without walking onto the porch. Usually I was carrying an animal, or groceries, or coming home from work with a pile of notes.
That day she opened the door.
"Maaarrrkk"
"Yes Polly"
"Mark, the dryer still isn't fixed. Is that man coming? I have been without a dryer for a long time now. "
I told her she would have to wait.
But I left the house angry. Why couldn't she just let us dry her freaking clothes in our dryer?
I drove to Lowes. I walked quickly to the dryer part and found another one. I pointed at it and asked the guy if I could bring it home right now, this minute.
He said he could deliver it the next day.
Which is good, because I drive a Honda Civic. I had actually decided on the way there that I was going to put a dryer on the roof rack and drive it home, lug it into her house and hook it up that night.
They delivered it the next day.
I was so frustrated that it was days before I could talk to Polly. I have no idea why I was so mad about the dryer.
But I do know that she was as frustrated as I was. Her loss of independence meant she couldn't get up the stairs to do her own laundry at our place and didn't want us to be put out. She couldn't drive it to the laundrymat. She couldn't call the repairman because she had a stroke and had trouble finishing sentences. She couldn't go to Lowes herself because she couldn't drive anymore.
She passed away with a 2 month old dryer.
...and one huge regret from her son in law, who couldn't see out of his own eyes for a minute to see the deeper need of a great woman.
So yesterday we had the service to remember Polly. We told the good stories of a woman with a rich life and a large family that loved her. Polly always said "I love you" at the end of every interaction with those she loved. Someone in the crowd said that she told her 40 years ago that she did that because she had lost a brother and hadn't said I love you the last time she had seen him and always regretted that.
Polly came from a time that had less stuff and more human interaction. I could see that in the words of the people who shared stories.
I loved her.
And fortunately, I did tell her that.
Today we put up some of the Christmas decorations at the clinic. As most of you know, I have a tradition of hanging ornaments made by you all for pets that you have lost through the years. Each year I invite those who have lost a pet to hang an ornament.
The invitation is open and each of you who have had a loss of loved pet this year will get an invitation this week.
But one thing will be different.
I'm not hanging the ornaments from pets lost during the last 5 years.
I just don't have it in me this year. Each of your pets have touched me through the years, and I have to admit that losing my patients is the hardest part for me personally. Rehanging the ornaments is an awesome remembrance, but also has an emotional price to pay for me.
Polly said I can do anything I want this year.
Or at least that is what I see her saying when I close my eyes and think about her.
Because she loved me | 
