Americans don't much like to talk about death. Which is odd, because it is both huge and universal. So I will write once more about my mother's dying. 

I went  to Oshkosh the morning of April 1st because my sister and I weren’t sure whether Mom, who had pneumonia, was getting any better. She’d also been having frequent episodes of cardiac arrhythmia that caused her implanted defibrillator to go off, shocking her, something she hated.

We’d asked her to give the powerful heart medication she also hated a month, and if she still wanted to, then she could stop it all.

When I arrived at the assisted living community where she lived, Mom was in her chair, very vacant. She’d fallen in the night, bruising her hip and elbow. She knew I was there and who I was but registered no emotion. Then her defibrillator went off (the second time that morning).

Her cardiologist had told her to call 911 next time it happened. We did, and I beat the ambulance, which wasn’t in a hurry, to the emergency department where my sister, Karen, was working.

The doctor asked what we were there for.

“We want you to turn off her defibrillator, stop her amioderone, and order home hospice for her.”

 I guess he thought I was a little direct, perhaps the merest bit bossy even. He checked with Mom, who was dozing.

 “What year is it?”

“Oh 8.”

“Who’s the president?”

Pause. Then, with a touch of distaste, the lifelong Republican said, “Bush.”

“Do you know what will happen if we turn off the defibrillator?”

“I will die.”

Karen called her son, Casey, to bring the new baby, William, so great-grandma Doris could meet him. Niece Molly came too, and Heather, Casey’s wife. Mom brightened with the baby, who’s named after my dad, the love of her life.

Karen and I sang some of the goofy songs mom used to sing when we were kids, Arthur Godfrey songs like Lonely Little Petunia and the Thousand Islands song. Mom smiled, while the kids listened in astonishment. I may be being a little generous in interpreting their reactions here.

The chaplain came, read some psalms and said the Lord’s prayer, which she repeated with him. “Thanks,” she said. I really needed that.” Then she asked, “What religion are you?”

“Catholic.”

“That’s okay. We won’t hold that against you.” Her last joke. You’ll just have to take my word for it that it wasn’t mean-spirited, and the chaplain laughed too.

There were many I love yous and kisses. When some who needed to leave left, we all pretended that the goodbyes were temporary.

The cardiac tech arrived and turned off the defibrillator. We took Mom back to her home, where hospice would be set up the next day. That was okay: I was staying overnight, and the assisted living aides would check in on her every hour.

Mom ate a little and seemed to enjoy it, especially the cream of tomato soup. Her brother called and they spoke a bit; so did my daughter Annie in Colorado.

Mom perked up some and was smiling, talking a little. We watched American Idol together. “I don’t like that Jason Castro,” she said.

 “He’s a weak singer, but he sure is pretty,” I said.

About ten to 8 she said, “I’m tired now.”

“Should I call the aide or can you wait until 8 when she’s planning on coming?”

“I can wait.”

The aides came, walked her to the bathroom, cleaned her up. She was smiling. Walked her to her bed. I put her favorite pajamas on her and was just laying her down to sleep when her heart went into ventricular fibrillation. The aide came in to help. I called Karen and told her to get over fast.

I was saying the Lord’s Prayer again, King James style,  when I heard Karen’s voice join in behind me: “Thy will be done. . .”  We finished, and moments later, around 8:30, Mom softened and took her last breath.

It was as good an end as you can hope for, I think.

Then the same paramedics who took her to the hospital earlier came—a legal thing. Their arms were loaded with equipment. I told them if they tried to resuscitate her I would jump them and wrestle them to the ground. They assured me they weren’t going to do any such thing. A young woman police officer arrived and ended up staying the rest of the evening, in a companionable way. Then the coroner showed up—a friend of my sister’s. He stuck around, too. The facility administrator came. The funeral home guy.

Everything that needed doing was done by 10:00.

I went to Karen’s house to toss and turn. I couldn’t stop wondering where all that love Mom had for us went. Then I realized it hadn’t disappeared: it was in me, in all of us, just getting bigger. Then I could sleep.

When it comes to political candidates, most of us are pretty clear about what we believe makes a good one. There's really not much variety in those beliefs. They fall into the pot labeled "conservative" or the one labeled "liberal," with a few variants and outliers. 

From my pot, your pot doesn't make any sense at all. You can say the same about me. So we argue back and forth the same old predictable arguments and stay firmly planted wherever we were in the first place.

I'd rather hear how you came to believe what you believe. I'm not talking about books you read or philosophical arguments but the moments that seized your gut and told you "this is true, this is how things should be."

One of my deep beliefs: question everything with courtesy, curiosity, and deep skepticism until you are completely satisfied. Some people call this "negativity," and it makes them wild. I see it as looking for ways to make things better--a positive trait.

I certainly didn't get that idea at home. Mom hated controversy and wanted everything calm and nice. Dad was a dogmatic German--and I welcome you to apply the stereotype liberally in imagining him. His way was the only way, at least until he got old and was blessed with a blossoming of the heart and an opening of the mind.

It was the pastor of our church, William Downey, who set me on that path. He was a charismatic, brilliant man, and no one dared sleep during his sermons. Some resented that, believing that church was a good place to be lulled and soothed. A Lutheran, he'd been raised Catholic, and that complicated his viewpoint considerably. Even as a kid, I sat on the edge of my seat as he afflicted the comfortable in Fox Point.

But never in the front row. When he got brimstoney, you'd be showered with real spittle and metaphorical sparks if you sat there.

He had also been an army chaplain. If you collect WWII memorabilia, you may have heard his prayer for the crew just before the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima.

As my father's daughter, I carry the authoritarian gene, which comes into full expression in adolescence. Church was my first experience with someone who both let you turn things upside down and held you accountable for what fell out. If you were going to dissent, you'd better be able to back up your eccentric positions, and you'd better be prepared to be called on any claims that grew from only hot air and an elastic imagination.

I'm quite sure it was not Bill Downey's intention to raise up little hard-headed liberals who refused to walk the party line. But that was the effect he had on me. I was supposed to learn the catechism. Instead I learned to love questioning, argument, and the rhetoric of shaking things up.

Like too many ministers, this one went down in a sex scandal. Like many churches, ours put considerable effort into vilifying the woman involved. Unlike most ministers, however, this one took full responsibility for his actions. He'd never backed down from truths and right actions that weren't pretty or easy. He kept his family and atoned in a smaller, distant church. I don't know what happened to the woman. We almost never do.

My spiritual meanderings have moved me far from the beautiful Federalist church in North Shore, but never far at all from believing that the Word is supposed to wake you up, not put you to sleep.

Now it's your turn. Tell me one of your core beliefs and how you got there. Please.

 

Sometimes, if you eavesdrop on the hunters in my family, you'll discover the hidden reason for their trips: awe in the face of beauty.

If you've ever experienced wonder and the mystery of the northland, don't miss the last few days of the Tom Uttech exhibition at the Tory Folliard Gallery, 233 N. Milwaukee Street.

Nature art isn't usually my cup of tea. But this work belongs in a different category entirely. 

The paintings don't reproduce well. Go and experience them. The show ends Saturday, December 29.

We have the media to thank for a heavenly day precipitated by a big dose of hysteria.

If you got stuck in a drift or dinged in a skid-on collision, my condolences. But for the rest of us, it just wasn't that bad.

Although the streets are slick and the hills tough to climb, there's nothing much in today's weather that couldn't be dealt with by driving slowly and keeping a prudent distance. The shoveling's heavy, but you can still do it that way as fast as with a snowblower. Particularly if you set a fit 17-year-old to the task. Still, if you're older, go slow: thar be heart attacks and back injuries ahead.

Whether the weather justified the school-out slow-down day or not, I'm glad it happened. 

If you weren't rushing somewhere, most of the day was a shaken snow globe kind of day. The kids, almost grown, went sledding in the big wet snow at Curry Park. A pot of root vegetables and beef cooked slowly for hours alongside loaves of chocolate chip pumpkin bread. Idgy and I wore ourselves out breaking trails in the knee-high snow along the creek. There were naps in the afternoon.

Now, two dark haired girls are bending over the fire, adjusting logs, disputing and laughing.  There's no homework to be done, nothing to do but feed the fire and drink tea. Read. Dream.

This is what we live for. Did you forget?

 It's a day to remember.

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday, the yard was a half acre of leaves burying long grass, my lawnmower was broken, and the storm windows--the big old heavy wooden ones--were still hanging in the garage. My resident staff had managed to de-glob the gutters, but otherwise have been busy attending to high school work (some of which seems to have involved chasing orbs around a haunted mansion downtown, but that's another story).

So when Idgy dragged me out on our morning walk, I was cranky. Instead of enjoying the breathtakingly beautiful if odd weather, I was plotting a trip down North Avenue, lawnmower in trunk, and wondering how long I had to sneak the leaves out to the curb.

But miracles happen. Near the corner, an industrious trio was taking control of a neighbor's yard. I approached the guy with the leafblower, figuring that the one with the power tool was probably the crew leader. Could they do my yard, too?

Yes, they could, and yes, they did. And yes, they were a bargain.

The male half of my resident staff was both impressed and challenged when he saw the transformation. So by the time I got home from work, the storms were up, too.

Now the house is cozy, the yard neater than it's been all year. I'm grateful for the kindness and hard work of strangers and my children. 

Thanksgiving, all around.

Yesterday daughter Liz and I spent a couple hours on the lakefront. But we weren't there to watch the kites. We were there to join an interfaith community's silent demonstration against the violence and repression in Myanmar.

Joining the Buddhist Peace Fellowship of Milwaukee were Quakers, Unitarian Universalists, the whole gamut of Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox Jews, believers in peace but not God -- and a few Tosans, too.

It was an unusual event: a couple hundred people walking silently in single file procession from the marina toward the War Memorial. Some carried signs with pictures of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Buddhist monks, Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar opposition leader), simple words. Many in the procession wore red, as had the Buddhist monks who protested peacefully in Burma and were met with violence by the military junta.

We were met by smiles, curious stares, ignoring. But no weapons or even rude remarks.

The wind blew warm and hard, the sky and lake were brilliant, and inline skaters kept rolling by.

You won't find any coverage of this event in the Milwaukee media. I guess it's not as newsworthy as a local women's fantasy football league.

But what's not interesting here, where we often take for granted the great freedoms we have of speech and assembly, is interesting in Myanmar/Burma. Images of the Milwaukee march are being smuggled into that country. Just knowing that people in such distant places are watching and caring might give a little strength to the people there. And a little discomfort to the junta: repression thrives where no one's watching.

We may not be as important as the UN, finally calling for the release of political prisoners, or Japan, beginning to impose economic pressure. But the power of witness is great, and political action doesn't happen without it.

Witnessing and telling what you've seen. . .sounds like a good job for a journalist. . .

 

Yesterday, September 11, was a day of remembering a terrible thing that was done to us.

And today, beginning at sunset, is a day of remembering what we may have done to others, in order to set things straight again.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. It's a holiday in which the observant remember with awe the power of the divine and acknowledge that human beings are responsible for our actions. It's the beginning of a ten-day period of reflection, soul searching, and atonement--very different from the New Year celebration most of us offer up.

The story of Rosh Hashanah is that God holds in his hands a book of life, and in that book is a page for each of us. What appears on that page is what we write with our own hand, our own lives. And on the basis of what he reads there, on this day God judges us.

Actually, the words are more like "decides who will live and who will die." But it's not about being perfect or being doomed, it's about being as good as we can be, about remembering to keep trying.

I've loved this holiday, which isn't mine, since I learned about it as a Norwegian Lutheran girl living in a Sicilian neighborhood and having mainly Jewish friends.

These ten days challenge believers to discern where they are not in right relationship--with loved ones, coworkers, the community, the world, with themselves. Find their own stuck places, what they have done to feed the problem, and then try to unstick it, make it right.

Of course, you also get to eat kugel and apples and sweet golden bread, challah, dipped in honey. You put little pieces of the bread into your pockets and walk to a place where the water flows, a creek or a river that's alive enough for fish to swim in it. Then you empty your pockets into the waters, casting off your sins in the process.

The ideas inform the Christian tradition, too. During a weeklong workshop on the Lord's Prayer, a friend of a friend learned to say not "forgive us our sins/tresspasses/debts," but "forgive us our forgetting." In that prayer, we ask for God's help to be who we can be as we write our lives in this world.

It's good to have a day of holy remembering, especially the day after September 11. Especially if we remember what we ourselves have done or failed to do to heal and transform the world.

It's all in the book.

If you Google Labor Day, you’ll find tags like “Some great value-priced wines from the south of France.” The article’s about celebration, and the writer seems oblivious to the headline irony. “Value priced” usually means someone’s working cheap somewhere. A good deal for the vintner, a good deal for those of us who stopped at Ray’s to stock up for a long weekend’s libations.

Not so good for the worker, though.

Okay: so beaujolais isn't from the south of France. It scans better, so sue me.

Labor Day, a holiday since the 1880s, was about getting fair wages and working conditions long before it was about summer’s last guzzle.

If you work a 5 day week, have vacation and sick time, and your working conditions are marginally safe and humane, you can thank trade unions for it.

Raise a glass of that cheap French wine, or a pricier Californian, to the men and women who died to improve working conditions.

Or raise a bottle or can, beer of your preference, to the generation that sent you or your parents to college on decent living wages unions helped them get.

Not many of us belong to unions these days. But that may change as “workers,” whatever color our collars, make less money with fewer benefits in a time of increasing costs – and increasing wealth for those at the very top of the heap.

There’s not much about Labor Day in the Journal Sentinel: a tribute to an African-American trade unionist, though that term is buried in the article; a guest editorial.

And a tiny blurb about Labor Fest.

Parade at 11, marching from Zeidler Park to the Summerfest Grounds, where the festival will go on from noon to 5.

Seems worth remembering that the productivity on which our economy depends is a product of not individual but collective labor. Besides, there’s a party to be had with folks who’ve earned it and who know how to play as well as to work!

Tonight is full of the sounds of summer critter symphony: cicada, cricket, and tree frog. The closer you are to places thick with trees, the louder the concert, and the more instruments playing it. It almost masks the constant whine of traffic on the freeway.

I was listening so intently while walking Idgy tonight that I almost didn’t see the couple lying side-by-side on the hood of the pick-up truck.

“Fireworks tonight?” I asked.

“No, just stars,” they said.

I looked up, something I’d forgotten to do.

There’s too much light from the city, from our houses and streets, to see much. You have to go to Wildcat Mountain to really see the night sky.

But even on 116th Street, above the last of the fireflies, you can see the moon starting to bulge, Jupiter with his steady shine, and Antares, a little red and twinkling.

Antares means “Against Ares,” the war god. That seems appropriate in the peaceful cool of the evening. Seems like the proper work of people at the end of the day is stargazing. Making love, not war.

Over the cicada tympany, an old song runs through my head. I sing it, even though there’s no one around to hear.

Are the stars out tonight?
I don’t know if it’s cloudy or bright
I only have eyes for you, dear.

If you have eyes to see, look up. There's plenty to love all about you.

I’m not normally a very superstitious person, but when a message falls out of the sky at your feet, well, you read it with a little extra attention.

Saturday morning around 11, the dog and I were walking our usual route when there was a loud bang. I didn’t think much of it: this is the season of fireworks and ceremonial cannon firings, after all.

My lungs started getting twitchy as they do when there’s smoke in the air, and there was an astringent feel in my mouth. But I didn’t realize this was from smoke until neighbor Dorothy asked why her deck was covered with ash.

I looked up, and two pieces of paper fluttered down from the sky. One was a postcard with a heart holding a telephone and the words “Let’s talk about me for a sec.” Handwritten carefully in the margins on the other side, around the advertising copy for St. Joseph aspirin, were the words “Honesty, integrity & fair play.”

The card was addressed to L Gaulke, 10915 W. Wisconsin Avenue.

At the time, I was a mile from the explosion that destroyed Lorraine Gaulke’s house and took her life.

The other sheet of paper was from an order of service or a prayer book. If this too came from Mrs. Gaulke’s house, I’ll assume that the words were important to her and pass them along.

Jesus, Savior, pilot me
Just as I am, without one plea
Take my life and let it be
O Master let me walk with Thee.