My mother left this planet and my life on October 4, 2012…so 11 years and 7 months ago. She was 91 years old — an amazing achievement when you consider how many Marlboros she smoked per day for most of those 91 years. They probably did not end her life too prematurely but they sure made the last dozen years torturous. She couldn't walk, she could barely see, she couldn't do almost anything without the assistance of one of her caregivers, two of whom robbed her.
In the Quality of Life Department, she was severely punished for all that smoking and for the last half-dozen years of that life, increasingly wanted it to end. A lot of that was because she knew how much she was costing me in terms of time, money, attention and emotion but she also would say things like "I'm so sick of myself" and "Why isn't there a way I can just push a button and painlessly end my life?"
She did have a button. It was on a chain around her neck whenever she was home and not in one of her constant visits to hospitals and their emergency rooms but it did not end her life. Quite the contrary, the button prolonged it, summoning paramedics and/or me. The last few times they and/or I were summoned to help her, she told me that she'd seriously considered not pushing the button. She pushed it, she said, not to save her life but to save her pain.
When I think about my mother — which I do, often — I try to think of the happier times. I think about how happy she was in her marriage to my father, who was equally happy to be with her. This would be the most wonderful of all possible Earths if everyone could connect with a Life Partner who was as supportive and loving as my parents were to each other. I also think (immodestly) about how happy she was to have had me and to see me turn out, at least from her POV, so right. In our house, the main way you showed love was to not cause your loved ones problems or grief and we did pretty good at that.
She had many days — no, make that decades of joy before the last few years of outliving her husband and her ability to do anything for herself or anything that brought her pleasure. Still, when I think of her, no matter what happy time period I start in, my mind can't help but wander over to those last, contrasting years. Writing about her now on Mother's Day of 2024, I'm going to try to keep my mind off the Last Act in the life of Dorothea Evanier and write about something that came before…
In past essays here, I don't think I've focused enough on her wonderful volunteerism. If there was something that had to be done — something which meant a lot of work with no tangible or monetary reward — you could count on my mother to put her hand up. And not only to tackle the task but to do it well and in an ingenious manner. The earliest example I can think of at the moment is when I was in the fifth grade (approximately) and my school had a big Halloween Festival one Saturday evening to raise money for…
…well, I don't know what for. But it must have been a good cause.
The event had been advertised by someone who promised a lot of things in the ads — music, dancing, a costume contest, games, prizes, etc. — without giving any real thought as to how they were going to make all those features materialize. The biggie was that there'd be a tour of a haunted house.
Somehow, a squadron of volunteer parents was assembled and one by one, the promises from the poster were distributed for fulfillment: This parent would arrange for music, this one would run some games, this one would organize the costume contest and so forth. Eventually, everything was assigned except for that danged haunted house. No one knew how to do that. No one wanted to have to make that happen, especially since there was no budget.
Guess who said, "I'll take a stab at it." And stab she did.
There was nothing resembling a haunted house on the campus of Westwood Elementary but there were a few bungalows in which classes were held. So the first part of the challenge would be to transform one of those classrooms — filled as it was with desks and books and learning supplies — into a haunted house. This would have to be done between the time class was dismissed at 3 PM on Friday afternoon and the time the Festival commenced at 6 PM Saturday evening. Then the haunted house would have to be transformed back into a classroom on Sunday so class could resume on Monday.
My mother had me draw a map of everything in the bungalow that would have to be moved in the makeover and later put back in its proper place. Then with not nearly enough manpower, desks and chairs were relocated so as to make a winding path through the classroom.
Those who dared to enter the Haunted House would line up at the north door into the bungalow, pay admission and then be blindfolded. My mother or one of the other volunteering parents would then lead the intrepid adventurer through that path as spooky music played. The record she found somewhere ran for twenty minutes so they'd take as many blindfolded kids as possible through the path in twenty minutes, then there'd be a brief pause to reset all the spooky things inside and restart the record.
The spooky things included being offered an eyeball to eat (it was a grape) and a bucket of brains to feel (it was cooked-but-unsauced spaghetti). When I've told this story in the past, I've said that my mother made spider webs out of Silly String, a chemical marvel that comes in a spray can. Online sources however tell me Silly String was invented or patented in 1972 and my mother's haunted house existed for one day around 1960 so I don't know what she used. But she made some sort of sticky web in which blindfolded kids would get tangled…and there were wet pieces of sponge dangling from the ceiling which, in concert with the webbing, sure felt for a shocking moment like spiders. One little girl almost passed out from stark terror.
There were many of these scary things along the path and it took maybe five minutes to get from the north door to the south one where, once outside, you could remove your blindfold having "survived" the haunted house. I watched as my friends all said it was hokey and they weren't scared for a minute. Then they would run around and get back in line to pay another dime (or so) to go through again. And again and again.
It was a huge success. And sure enough, under my mother's direction and with her moving around a lot of furniture herself, the bungalow was transformed back into a classroom by mid-day Sunday.
She did stuff like that all the time…volunteering, figuring out how to do the impossible, contributing time and sheer physical labor. Our home was a polling place on several Election Days and when I hear about Rudy Giuliani and other Trump lackeys wanting to throw ballot counters in prison because their guy didn't win, I can't help but think, "Hey, my mother was a ballot counter and she worked like crazy for almost no money just because it was a job someone had to do!" In this world, selfish people can't recognize how anyone can do anything that is not in their immediate self-interest.
My mother cared about others and not just about us. Down the street from where we lived, there was a sweet little old lady named Mrs. Hollingsworth. She lived alone with a couple of cats and I don't think she had any non-feline family. Any time my mother cooked a big family dinner for some holiday, she'd make enough to prepare a plate for Mrs. Hollingsworth. Then she'd phone her and say, "We have so much food left over, I wonder if I could send Mark down with a tray of it." She always made it sound like Mrs. Hollingsworth was doing her a favor by accepting a free holiday dinner.
And when Mrs. Hollingsworth (who had come to expect it and looked forward to it) agreed, I'd trot down to her home with a beautiful tray of really delicious supper. Mrs. Hollingsworth would always ask me to keep her company while she dined and I would, whereupon we'd have as much of a conversation as an older adult can have with a kid whose age was in single digits. Over and over and over, she'd tell me what a wonderful woman my mother was and over and over and over, I'd just keep saying, "I know, I know…"