One is NOT Only

“Are, are you, are you hap, are you happy?  I, I want, I want you to be happy.” It took her several attempts to get the question out. These were the last words my mother ever spoke to me. How I answered is rather vague, I am sure I told her what was happening in my life and that yes- I was happy. But what is crystal clear is her struggle to get the question out, that despite the fact that she had not seemed to recognize me in several years or have any awareness of her surrounding, a spark of Tressie still remained. If she could only ask one thing, it wasn’t a complaint , request or fear, but was I her youngest daughter, happy. That is a memory that I will always carry with me. Memories are what this story is all about- memories of Tressie.

It has been 30 years today since my mother died. The day often comes and goes without my noticing. She had been gone for a long time already. She was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s when she passed and had not recognized me since I was 19 years old. I read recently that grief is not when we lose a person but when we have to live each day without their presence. My own daughter, Lindsay, got married two weeks ago and she is the same age I was when my mother died. I understand more now my mother’s last words to me.

No one had even heard of Alzheimer’s in 1980 when my mother was diagnosed. At the young age of 21 I became a caregiver. Only as my own children reached that age did I understand how young I was to take on such a responsibility. My father had been diagnosed with cancer shortly after my mother’s illness was finally diagnosed. They had both worked at Oak Ridge, “The Secret City”, during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. My father machined uraniuum and I don’t know what Tressie did.

When Lindsay was born, I started wondering things about my mother I had never thought of before I became a mother myself. She was a very private person and probably would not have answered my questions anyway. I was able to track down her best friend from childhood, Bonnie. She invited my sister and I to come and visit her. I was living in Boston at the time and we drove the 21 hours to Harriman, Tennessee to visit Bonnie and try to learn a bit more about my mother. I had such a hard time remembering her before the illness. She showed me a side of my mother I never new. People used to tell me I was so much like her and it made me angry. Now I was able to see a side of her that was young, adventurous and also learned some of the reasons she struggled with saddness. Bonnie said my mother was like a sister to her had lived with her family during their junior and senior year of high school-that Tressie’s mother( the grandmother who died before my birth) was mentally ill. “We didn’t talk about those things back then”, Bonnie said. She took me up a mountain where they hiked together with other girlfriends and had bonfires. She told about a group of them sneaking out to go see the Tommy Dorsey Band. My favorite part of the visit was going by to visit my mother’s high school boyfriend. Bonnie said his nickname was “Gable” because he was so handsome-like Clark Gable. All those years later he was still handsome. It was very kind of him to take time to visit with us-just dropping in from his past with no warning. He was working on a car as we talked-one of those men that is more comfortable with a machine than people. The sun broke through the clouds and he looked at us and said ” I am so happy to meet you. I loved your mother…we all loved your mother”.

Life has unexpected twists and turns. It took me from Boston, London, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Nashville back to Oak Ridge, Tennessee where my parents met. I have seen the house where my parents lived when they first married. My sister and I went to visit the grave of our baby sister, Rebecca Robin, who died at birth several years before either of us were born.

I found a picture a few months ago of my parents
and my father’s brothers and their wives from that time. I love it because they all look so full of joy and hope.

Her illness was especially cruel in that it took away so many of my memories of who she was before the disease took over. Slowly as years pass little snippets are coming back. The Tressie that was an amazing seamstress and made all my clothes until I was a teenager. The mother that took my sister and I to the fabric store so we could pick out patterns, material and my favorite – buttons, for our dresses. I read an article recently where someone made fun of Southerners for keeping a button box. They failed to understand it is really a memory box. The Tressie that baked cookies several times a week for us to take in our lunches. I started asking to take 6-8 cookies and she didn’t quiz me she just packed the cookies. My best buddies, Blake, Tony, and Jeff wanted her cookies too and I shared everyday at lunch. One of my favorite memories is going to the Bristol Library weekly where we both spent time picking out books to read. She had given me a library card for my 6th birthday. I love the world brought by books but I have also gotten to visit places and see a world she only dreamed of.

My own daughter is at that place of starting out in her own life now and it brings me great joy to see her happiness. I wrote a blessing to share at the rehearsal dinner with my daughter and new son-in-law , Tyler, at their wedding. Part of it was from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. 

“And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also…
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

“I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by, my father gone for 31 years and Tressie for 30. Time is a gift they did not get. When I visited Bonnie, she gave us a beautiful silver dogwood pin that had been our mother’s. I put it in my daugther’s wedding bouquet for her to carry with her.

I know Tressie’s question if she could have been here for Lindsay would have been the same one she asked me all those years ago,”Are, are you, are you hap, are you happy?  I, I want, I want you to be happy.” That memory is “the dew of little things’ that refreshes my heart today almost 40 years since my mother said those words to me.

©  Michelle Campanis 2019