In the Lilt of Irish Laughter
Mom’s been gone a year now. She was not a victim of Covid, though it complicated her departure from this world; from the time she broke her leg (in two places) to the time she came home on hospice, we could not get in to see her, neither at the hospital where she had surgery nor at the recovery center to which she went after that. Our fireman friend Rob bluffed his way into seeing her at the hospital. I’m not sure she fully recognized him; she was in the ever-tightening grip of dementia by then.
The recovery center was actually a perfect fit for Mom, and for us. Nora found it after sending a query out on a neighborhood bulletin board. It was an older facility, perched on a hill in Culver City, and it was Catholic; it even had its own grotto, which reminded my dad of the Grotto at Notre Dame, where he had proposed to Mom some 65 years previously. I went up there to see Mom transferred in from the hospital, and I realized I had been there before. In high school. Fr. Al Scott had arranged a retreat in that peaceful place, which had a little conference center – just a hall, really – adjacent to the-then retirement home, set among the eucalyptus trees (a symbol of LA, as much as or more so than palm trees) with a view toward downtown, across the oil pump-dotted Baldwin Hills.
The facility was built in the 1930s, and each room had a rusty sliding glass door opening onto a patio, and rusty hinged louvered windows. We technically couldn’t enter the room to talk to Mom, but the kind nurses and nuns would open the louvers, and sometime even the sliding glass door, so we could talk to her. Dad was even able to hold her hand occasionally; the staff fully realized how important this was. We’d take Dad to visit Mom daily, and he’d sit on the peaceful patio, in the quiet of the June gloom, with hummingbirds visiting the feeders, and read a book while she slept, and sometimes he slept, too. And he would always walk down to visit the grotto. One day as he and I were leaving, he turned and said softly to Mom, asleep behind the glass door, “Good-bye, lady; thanks for being my wife.”
Mom gradually stopped eating – damn that dementia – and her system started failing. She came home on hospice, which, of course, is when you realize that this is not going to work out, though she lasted much longer than the hospice nurse expected – tough Irish mom! She received the last rites, the anointing of the sick, from a family priest, surrounded by her kids and grandkids. That was some solace for my dad, who was watching the love of his life, his partner of 65 years, slip away.
She finally succumbed. The hospice nurses, Catholic as well, say that as the end draws near, a person starts seeing other dearly departed family in the room, welcoming them home, to the other side. If this is true – and who am I to say that it’s not? – there were a host of McFaddens waiting for her: Grandpa Mac and Grandma Mac, brothers Joe and Jim, sister Carol. Mom was the last of her McFadden generation, and that torch has now been passed to my Illinois McFadden cousins.
As Mom was being taken away from 758 Bungalow Street for the last time, from her home of 50 years, Dad was at the curb, waving her good-bye. This was entirely consistent with how Mom and Dad lived their lives. Many of you know that when you left 758 after a visit, Mom and Dad would be waving you goodbye from the walkway, and you were required, absolutely required, to honk twice as you rounded the corner. These days Dad waves with both arms, perhaps making up for the fact that Mom is not there to wave with him.
I am not sure I have properly grieved for her. At her graveside service, though, I could not get through my part, the Irish Blessing (“May the road rise up to meet you”); thank God Carrie was there to help me. Our hope, our strength, is in the next generation, isn’t it? In the year since Mom passed, I have come to appreciate some qualities of her, and of my dad, that I hadn’t really thought about. A friend noted they had a quality maybe emblematic of that generation: they valued their children’s friends, and took the time to get to know them, and to welcome them into their home and family. My friend Hawk can attest to this. During college years he missed a flight back to Notre Dame, by minutes, uttered a loud expletive, and turned around to see my mom and dad standing there (Terry and I had made the flight). Hawk spent the next several hours at my parents’ house, being force-fed Louisiana sausages by my mom, waiting for the next flight to South Bend. Mom and Dad absolutely took the time to get to know people, to engage with them. And they had no hint of FOMO (fear of missing out), a scourge of subsequent generations.
I think of my mom often, even daily. I have all my dad’s family pictures (1959 – 1992, the golden years), and I’ve been going through them (because I’m prone to that kind of thing), and I’m struck by the number of photos in which my mom is smiling, or laughing. So much so that her eyes are closed, which became a family joke – her eyes were closed during many family pictures. She and my dad were happy, and that’s not a guarantee in this life. In fact, it can be fairly elusive for some, as is the 60+ year happy marriage. That has certainly not been my path. My dad told me he and Mom were serious after three dates (!!), and if that was a gamble, then it sure worked out, didn’t it? Dad and I were talking about this recently. “You and Mom were so lucky to have found each other,” I told him. “Don’t I know it,” he said.
My dad’s grief, inconsolable for a while, morphed into a deep loneliness. He says he talks to Mom every day, and has written letters to her, on his phone, painstakingly. Dad spends significant time in Mom’s room, where Dan had mounted dozens of family pictures, to help Mom remember the many chapters in her life. Now Dad looks at those pictures and remembers. His roots in Massachusetts and Maryland, hers in Illinois. That strong Midwestern McFadden family – he was in awe of her dad. Their courtship, begun and sealed at Notre Dame. Mom’s beauty as a bride, her classy, elegant wedding dress set off by the black-and-white photography of the 1950s. All the family events, the flotsam and jetsam, from six decades of family life: weddings, graduations, vacations, holiday dinners, reunions, sporting events. Dad also has many thoughts – worries, even - on what it will be like in heaven, when he and Mom meet again. Will she recognize him? Will he have to court her again?
Mom’s presence is still palpable in the house, evident in that curated environment steadily built over 60+ years of marriage and family life. Her upright piano, long unplayed, stands against a dining room wall, and its top is still where everyone puts their keys and sunglasses when visiting. The dining room table itself is massive. It once sat in Mom’s grandmother’s house in Bloomington, Illinois, where Midwestern Sunday dinner was served in midafternoon. The table can hold 14 or more when the piano bench is pressed into service, and has been the scene of countless Sunday and holiday dinners. These days my dad likes to get out Mom’s good china, a wedding present in 1957, and eat at the dining room table, whenever we get together. A wooden hutch, also from Illinois, flanks the table and houses the china, the good silver (I remember helping Mom polish that) and my mom’s Waterford crystal wine glasses.
Much of this revolves around food and eating, doesn’t it? I cook for my dad a bit, and am thoroughly familiar with Mom’s kitchen. I see Mom in her roasting pans and gravy boats, her wooden spoons and trivets, the ceramic bean pot, the huge aluminum pots used to boil potatoes and make massive recipes of stuffing. Some kitchen items have been around forever, since my parents’ wedding, even, and still work well. Among these are a meat grinder (for ham salad), an egg cooker, and a cheese slicer (how has that remained sharp for 60 years? Of course, slicing Velveeta cheese probably didn’t dull it much). And I sure see Mom in her recipes, those family dinners (and desserts!) that punctuated our family life. That’s tangible evidence of love: cooking for your family.
Of course, I see Mom most of all in my brothers and sisters, and in our kids, and in my dad. Mom had quiet strength, and steadfast faith, but also an edge; she didn’t hesitate to call something out. These are qualities, of course, shared by all Irish mothers. My parents had a special affinity for the Old Country, from which their families had emigrated in the late 1800s, becoming American versions of the Irish: farmers, railroad men, domestic workers. The trips my parents took to that blessed isle were no doubt the highlight of their travels. Mom recalled that when their plane to Ireland first came in view of the Emerald Isle, as dawn broke, everyone in the plane started cheering. Mom and Dad sure looked Irish, especially over there, in their cable knit sweaters, Dad in his tweed paddy cap and Mom in a scarf, cinched down tight against the Irish damp. Mom’s pale Irish skin remained untouched by the sun, even after 60 years in coastal southern California (the same can’t be said for her sun-worshipping kids!).
Mom, occasionally sharp of tongue, was also quick to laughter, and to smile. Perhaps another Irish trait (as an Irish comic observed, how can you hate the Irish? We never invaded ANYONE). Her sister Carol, the quintessential aunt, was even more prone to laughter, and was easily the happiest person I have ever known. I swear, there is not one picture of Carol in which she is not laughing (there are, however, pictures of Carol with a lampshade on her head, and of her shoe being used as a champagne glass at family weddings). Mom and Carol together were all smiles and laughter, the kind that crinkles the eyes. Add to that my father’s joy of six decades, still evident in his face, and, well, you can just hear the angels sing, can’t you?
Slainte, Mom.
