In February while visiting family in south Florida we were invited to a surprise party by the wife of a man who had just received his Pilot's License as a pilot of a small plane. The party was held in a steel hangar in Palm Beach County, near Lantana. (In my childhood down there in the 1950's and 1960's, there was nothing out there but scrub pine, some truck farms, and empty land.) Now the area is densely populated with developments and the airport for small planes.
We had to wait until dusk for the party-pilot to fly in; several other guests also flew in just for the party and flew in from all over Florida. I knew no one except my sister, brother-in-law, and a couple from Delray. Not always at my best at events where I know no one, and do not count flying around in a small plane as an ambition of mine, either, I tried to strike up conversatiion with some other people at our table in the hangar. It was an unusually chilly night for south Florida and we were shivering. The caterer had not brought hot food. She had planned the menu weeks before when it was nice and warm down there.
My brother-in-law told some people that I was a writer. (I think tha helped break the silence. None of us flew planes. )The man seated near me mentioned that he had written a volume of poetry. Well! That got my attention! I moved closer, hoping his wife, mother, and friend seated near them would not find it too odd is I talked poetry with a perfect stranger. It gave us an immediate bond. We forgot all about the other folks. They sat and shivered in sillence. (Non-writers really are NOT as verbal as the rest of us!)
He said he had studied writing and had attended writing and poetry classes and workshops out West. Never did hear which state. Maybe NM or AZ. No matter. We had a lively discussion of meter, couplets, rhyme, internal rhyme, quatrains, free verse, lyrics, epics. Well, by the time we had covered all of that I knew I wanted his book and he wanted mine.
I got my copy of his book a week later. His wife, a quilter and cake decorator, gave it to me when I went with my sister to a painting craft group meeting west of Boynton in another private airplane/private hangar community! These people take flying seriously! Not a swimming pool to be seen. But each modest house in the community had its own large hangar and a plane parked on the tarmac by the house. Wow!
I avidly read the poetry on the way home as my sister talked about the crafters and planes and pilots. I pretended to listen. I was absorbed in the love poems Marc had written his wife, the Haikus and lyric poems using butterflies as a central image (several times), and a poignant poem about a man named Sol helping his fellow sufferers just before they were led to the gas chamber in WWII. Yes, the author is Jewish. He captured the courage and altruism well. His love poems made me smile. His other poems talked of loneliness, growing up, friendships, life.
When I got home I made up a "Care Package" for the poet and his wife and included not only my own book of poems, but a metal butterfly with "jewels" on its wings, a table decoration that holds a votive candle so the butterfly could become part of their Florida outdoor decor on their lanai, a box of lovely butterfly stationery, a fancy bookmark and pad of notes decorated with fancy cakes (for the wife), and a note thanking him for his poems.
The party was ok. Most people would say that the best part was being in a hangar for a surprise party and having the guest of honor fly in. But for me, the best part was meeting a fellow poet. His book, "Walnut Fudge and S'mores" (don't let the whimsical title mislead) is available through Xlibris, and is by Marc Rissman: ISBN 1-4134-4925-5, 2004; Xlibris Corp., www. Xlibris.com, Orders@Xlibris.com
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Jewelry Store Musings
Today, balmy, foggy, unseasonably and weirdly warm for this part of Virginia, found me heading to downtown Roanoke to leave jewelry with the young Mr. Jennings at Frank L. Moose's beautiful, old, classy jewelry store on 1st Street. My gleaming red PT Cruiser slid into a small parking place across the street (very unusual to find a space at all in that neighborhood of downtown). And I stepped out and admired the awning and storefront of a shop my darling late husband frequented for many decades. He loved to buy jewelry. Over the past 50 years, his late wife, his daughters and granddaughters, my son, and I all joyfully received gorgeous trinkets from him from this shop. And I had bought his wedding ring, for him, right here in 1990.
I was wearing a blue diamond pendant today which he had bought for me last Christmas. I fingered it gently as I crossed the wet street. This was the first time I had been in the shop since his death last Spring. I took a breath and opened the heavy door. I knew it. I knew it would be hard. Someplaces are so deep and full of memories of a loved person that even breathing the air inside of the special places brings bitterseet feelings---akin to pricking your finger when handling a lovely rose while putting it in water. The pain is small but intense. The flower is worth having hurt your finger for. But the little red mark takes awhile to go away. It stings.
Well, memories sting. I sat in the special chair, where both of the now deceased proprietors had sat, and in recent visits, where my husband had sat when consulting one of the Jennings (his favorite having been a fellow Marine in WWII). I sat in the chair, waiting to see the young Jennings. I put my arms on the chair arms. I looked into the display cases nearby and saw exquisite pins, substantial necklaces, rings. I remembered each piece Keister had bought me---each a surprise. How he loved to present a gift of jewels.
Today I was there to leave some pieces that had been my parents'. I was prepared emotionally to do so. What I was not prepared for was one of those "triggers" that can happen at almost anytime, when you are grieving. The chair triggered an uprush of despair, amidst the gold and jewels. My parents and husband were now all gone from me.
A platinum string of sapphires and diamonds, a pink gold watch, and the blue diamonds at my throat enveloped me as if in a bejeweled fog. They shimmered. They sang. The joy and beauty they had brought my mother, my father, my husband, comforted me. Then I realized that he would have been happy that I was there, moving forward with a duty to my late mother's estate. I was going to get through this. I looked over at the gold monkey and the gold lizard. I thought of how immense Life is, and knew that in the Forever Now of our existence, we were together again.
I left the necklace and the watch. I was complimented on the delicate pendant by the jeweler who kindly and sweetly remembered exactly when my husband had selected it for me last year. Is it any wonder that this shop is a special place for me? My four blue diamonds and I went back out into the drizzle and my red car slipped quietly up the wet street, heading for a cappucino and a good book.
I was wearing a blue diamond pendant today which he had bought for me last Christmas. I fingered it gently as I crossed the wet street. This was the first time I had been in the shop since his death last Spring. I took a breath and opened the heavy door. I knew it. I knew it would be hard. Someplaces are so deep and full of memories of a loved person that even breathing the air inside of the special places brings bitterseet feelings---akin to pricking your finger when handling a lovely rose while putting it in water. The pain is small but intense. The flower is worth having hurt your finger for. But the little red mark takes awhile to go away. It stings.
Well, memories sting. I sat in the special chair, where both of the now deceased proprietors had sat, and in recent visits, where my husband had sat when consulting one of the Jennings (his favorite having been a fellow Marine in WWII). I sat in the chair, waiting to see the young Jennings. I put my arms on the chair arms. I looked into the display cases nearby and saw exquisite pins, substantial necklaces, rings. I remembered each piece Keister had bought me---each a surprise. How he loved to present a gift of jewels.
Today I was there to leave some pieces that had been my parents'. I was prepared emotionally to do so. What I was not prepared for was one of those "triggers" that can happen at almost anytime, when you are grieving. The chair triggered an uprush of despair, amidst the gold and jewels. My parents and husband were now all gone from me.
A platinum string of sapphires and diamonds, a pink gold watch, and the blue diamonds at my throat enveloped me as if in a bejeweled fog. They shimmered. They sang. The joy and beauty they had brought my mother, my father, my husband, comforted me. Then I realized that he would have been happy that I was there, moving forward with a duty to my late mother's estate. I was going to get through this. I looked over at the gold monkey and the gold lizard. I thought of how immense Life is, and knew that in the Forever Now of our existence, we were together again.
I left the necklace and the watch. I was complimented on the delicate pendant by the jeweler who kindly and sweetly remembered exactly when my husband had selected it for me last year. Is it any wonder that this shop is a special place for me? My four blue diamonds and I went back out into the drizzle and my red car slipped quietly up the wet street, heading for a cappucino and a good book.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
IN THE ARMS OF ROBERTY LEE
IN THE ARMS OF ROBERTY LEE Ibby Greer
Why would I ever have dreamed that there would be a day when the rare print of General Robert E. Lee, left me by my late husband, would hang on the wall of a dining room in a rented half-house half an hour from my marriage home, and comfort me? Lee? After all, I am a native of Springfield, IL, and Lee’s name did not come up in conversation, back when I was a child living there, or in the decades since. Lee? Not Lincoln? Never Lincoln, I muse.
I married into Lee when I married my Southern Gentleman Husband nearly two decades ago and moved into a Southern mansion in the heart of a small mill town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It took me years to adjust to the “other side” in the “War,” known as “The War of Northern Aggression” by most of our neighbors and certainly most of my new in-laws. I grew up calling it the Civil War. But over the years I have learned that the War Between the States is the most acceptable version of the name. To me, that cancels out the passions and goals of the entire conflict, which was, at heart, about the economic ways of life in two different regions. In some ways, I think we have more of a war between the states right now than we did in the 1860’s. It is now a war between states with money and power and states without.
Lee had family associated with our home in Virginia. His print, exceptionally distinguished and handsome, hung in our dining room throughout our marriage and I came to call that room “The Generals’ Dining Room,” as we also featured a large print of Stonewall Jackson, a portrait of Jubal Anderson Early (whose brother-in-law built the house, The Grove), and also a print of Early riding with Jackson. To add to the flavor of the room, we also had an unusual 18th-century petit point picture from Germany (possibly done by Dolly Madison herself) of Gen. George Washington.
I was not raised in a family that discussed political history, at least not in front of us three girls. But I doubt that my parents ever discussed anything political except how they disliked Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. So, to live nearly 20 years beneath rare and lovely prints of several of the South’s most revered and distinguished generals from the 1860’s was definitely something new for me. Every person who ever passed through that room or dined there commented on the prints. Lee demands that attention.
Now that I am alone, widowed five months ago, I have re-hung the generals where they can be seen from two rooms, seen and seen and seen. I am not ashamed to have their faces in my home. This is Virginia. I married into this heritage and have honor and respect for valor and courage. But right now, when I sit alone in a chilly room cupping a mug of Yorkshire Gold Tea in my hands to warm them, surrounded by small photos of family and heirloom antiques also from my marriage home and my own ancestors, I am comforted by Lee. My son, when quite young and new to The Grove, as was I, thought his name was Roberty Lee. I am amazed when I think that Lee’s name must have been spoken aloud so often, and perhaps quickly and in hushed tones in our new home, that my little son heard it and remembered it as Roberty.
Roberty, thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for making an impression on a child whose entire ancestry was behind Mr. Lincoln, who was never discussed, by mutual agreement—a kind of truce—at The Grove. My son did not even begin to think about Mr. Lincoln until he was well into his twenties. And then he wrote a book about him and Illinois history! But he will inherit the rare print of Roberty someday and he will cherish it.
Roberty, you were unable to be a victor in the War, but your presence here means I held my own in my happy marriage to a Southern Gentleman, like you. If you were here with me, I would nod to you respectfully. Then, perhaps as I would have done with my dear husband, I would approach silently and put my arms around you for a serene hug, expecting nothing but a contented sigh. I bring that kind of sigh out in people I admire and love. Goodnight, Roberty.
Why would I ever have dreamed that there would be a day when the rare print of General Robert E. Lee, left me by my late husband, would hang on the wall of a dining room in a rented half-house half an hour from my marriage home, and comfort me? Lee? After all, I am a native of Springfield, IL, and Lee’s name did not come up in conversation, back when I was a child living there, or in the decades since. Lee? Not Lincoln? Never Lincoln, I muse.
I married into Lee when I married my Southern Gentleman Husband nearly two decades ago and moved into a Southern mansion in the heart of a small mill town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It took me years to adjust to the “other side” in the “War,” known as “The War of Northern Aggression” by most of our neighbors and certainly most of my new in-laws. I grew up calling it the Civil War. But over the years I have learned that the War Between the States is the most acceptable version of the name. To me, that cancels out the passions and goals of the entire conflict, which was, at heart, about the economic ways of life in two different regions. In some ways, I think we have more of a war between the states right now than we did in the 1860’s. It is now a war between states with money and power and states without.
Lee had family associated with our home in Virginia. His print, exceptionally distinguished and handsome, hung in our dining room throughout our marriage and I came to call that room “The Generals’ Dining Room,” as we also featured a large print of Stonewall Jackson, a portrait of Jubal Anderson Early (whose brother-in-law built the house, The Grove), and also a print of Early riding with Jackson. To add to the flavor of the room, we also had an unusual 18th-century petit point picture from Germany (possibly done by Dolly Madison herself) of Gen. George Washington.
I was not raised in a family that discussed political history, at least not in front of us three girls. But I doubt that my parents ever discussed anything political except how they disliked Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. So, to live nearly 20 years beneath rare and lovely prints of several of the South’s most revered and distinguished generals from the 1860’s was definitely something new for me. Every person who ever passed through that room or dined there commented on the prints. Lee demands that attention.
Now that I am alone, widowed five months ago, I have re-hung the generals where they can be seen from two rooms, seen and seen and seen. I am not ashamed to have their faces in my home. This is Virginia. I married into this heritage and have honor and respect for valor and courage. But right now, when I sit alone in a chilly room cupping a mug of Yorkshire Gold Tea in my hands to warm them, surrounded by small photos of family and heirloom antiques also from my marriage home and my own ancestors, I am comforted by Lee. My son, when quite young and new to The Grove, as was I, thought his name was Roberty Lee. I am amazed when I think that Lee’s name must have been spoken aloud so often, and perhaps quickly and in hushed tones in our new home, that my little son heard it and remembered it as Roberty.
Roberty, thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for making an impression on a child whose entire ancestry was behind Mr. Lincoln, who was never discussed, by mutual agreement—a kind of truce—at The Grove. My son did not even begin to think about Mr. Lincoln until he was well into his twenties. And then he wrote a book about him and Illinois history! But he will inherit the rare print of Roberty someday and he will cherish it.
Roberty, you were unable to be a victor in the War, but your presence here means I held my own in my happy marriage to a Southern Gentleman, like you. If you were here with me, I would nod to you respectfully. Then, perhaps as I would have done with my dear husband, I would approach silently and put my arms around you for a serene hug, expecting nothing but a contented sigh. I bring that kind of sigh out in people I admire and love. Goodnight, Roberty.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Hosta, pasta, lotsa
Lotsa hosta here!
Pasta, lotsa garden
herbs for pasta.
Cheer!
Hear it for hosta!
Shade plants and pasta.
Summer's a comin' 'round here.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Mother's Day
This is the first Mother's Day in my life without my mother. It feels odd. I think of her spunk, her poise, her personality as I remember all the other years when I would pick out a special card or write a letter and call her.
She was a lady. She was 1/2 Irish. Her mother and she were Roman Catholics, and mother would go to Mass to commemorate our birthdays, the anniversaries of her favorite loved ones' births and deaths. She started every phone call with "Hi, dear," and ended them with "All my love."
I am a mother. On this very stormy day here in Virginia I think of and pray for all the other mothers in the world, especially those who are suffering through the aftermaths of severe storms in this country and the cyclone in Burma, and for the young mothers who do not yet know of all the joy and challenges that await them.
To my own grown child: you are surrounded by a love so great, that of your parents' and of God, that you should never feel unloved or alone. That is the gift a mother can give, which makes every day of a child's life a Mother's Day.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Death of a Parent
This is the sequence of events that eventually took my wonderful mother's life nine days after her fall on a wet floor that she did not know was wet. She was 90 and in good cheer the day she fell. This statement of events is meant to be shared so other families do not suffer this fate. I am posting this to help other people.
This document is not meant to be defamatory. I did not identify any institutions or doctors by name. That is behind us now. But people can learn from the sequence of these heart-breaking events.
Don’t let this happen to your mother or father. Or to you. I also have a list of "Medical Tips" to help anyone who sees these sites avoid the situations that took my dear mother's life. Here is the sequence of events:
Mother falls on wet floor Wednesday a.m., in her bathroom, not knowing the floor was wet; the maid did not alert her; the maid’s English was poor, and she rarely spoke, anyhow.
Also almost immediately after we got the news from my sister in FL, my husband got a call from my mother's lung doctor in FL (total coincidence that he should call this very hour!) telling him [I was at work; I was the medical and regular POA for mother and in touch with her doctors] of the new cat-scan’s results of one lung looking better, one lung having a noticeable tumor now, and signs of emphysema (first specific diagnosis of lungs), new results since the April cat-scan by him, where results only showed “lesions.”
She is taken by ambulance to the hospital of her choice where her special plastic card [given her quite a while ago as a donor] gets her a private room after she spends about 8 hours in the ER in the hall, with my sister and her husband there…
and she is x-rayed (eventually 3 times over the course of the day) to see what was broken: there is a hairline fracture of left pelvis; orthopedic doctor phoned me in the car as we started our drive to FL about 3 p.m. Wednesday, and called several times to say that several xrays showed that it was only a hairline facture of the left pelvis, and not also a hip or other fracture.
We got there Thursday afternoon and I saw her Thursday and she was in bed, in pain, but talking. Said she was sorry I made the trip, hoped our other sister would not. We all fully expected her to recover. She had no thought that her condition was "terminal," and nor did we.
The next day, Friday, she was sitting in a chair, leaning on her right arm, quiet, and wondering about whether or not she would be admitted to the special floor [available only to donors who gave a certain amount of $] with its extra special care and we asked the hospital development office to research what her donor level was, as mother thought she had gifted enough to be on the special floor, and I did not think she had ever made the gift. Many of her friends had given to belong to this donor level, and she must have thought she had, also. I remember the original discussion of it several years ago and that I had advised against it, because if she were ever that ill, did she really need a super-deluxe suite and special, gourmet meals, etc.?
The hospital development officer came out with records that showed recent gifts and nothing was higher than $7500, which had gotten her the private room as a perk. However, this same person had prepared papers ready for her to sign, or for me to authorize as her POA, so she still could be on that floor at [a very high donor level] if she gave another amount of $.
I said no. At that point we thought she would be leaving next week to go into rehab at her own health center, so she could recover from the fracture.
And I spoke in person with her [new] lung doctor who told me not to worry about the lungs, they would not be what eventually would cause her death, and that there was nothing anyone could do to help her lungs. This doctor was affiliated with this hospital and mother had not consulted this one before. But this lung doctor had gotten the newest cat-scan results from the office of the first lung doctor, and still said we should not worry about the lungs. She was not a candidate for a biopsy or radiation (according to her first lung doctor), so everyone expected she would just live with the condition as it grew more serious.
I wanted a conference with us (family) with all the doctors who were working on mother, but was told that was impossible. I had to phone them at their regular offices. I talked to the orthopedic doctor by phone who said again that there was a hairline fracture of left pelvis and that nothing could be done for it but to gradually get her up and on her feet so it could heal. He said she should recover from the fracture.
I talked to the heart doctor by phone, who said she was now on heart medication for a murmur and irregular heartbeat, and not to worry about her heart, normal for her age and condition. The heart condition had only just been noted and may have been brought on by the pain and stress of the whole fall and aftermath. No history of a heart condition, ever.
I tried to reach the doctor in charge of all the doctors of her care and of her, the primary doctor, but he was unavailable. We waited and waited, then finally left. He reached us by cell phone as we were getting in the car, and we said we would be back soon.
Met with this doctor—a diffident man who turned his back on us and talked about nothing but Medicare and how she could not stay any longer than 3 days—this was the 3rd day---and he wanted to discharge her Sunday at the latest. He said nothing at all about her, the patient!
I told him we wanted her to stay in the hospital longer, as she had so many problems. For one thing, she was in extreme pain and that had not yet been taken care of, according to the night nurse.
He said we could pay $1000 extra a day to keep her in, and we agreed, said that was no problem, but that we definitely wanted to her to be able to stay until the pain was under control and she could be moved without being in agony. We asked if he could at least wait to discharge her Monday, if she had to come out at all, because her own health care center was not fully staffed with RN’s or a doctor on weekends. [In fact, we learned the hard way that there was no doctor at all available on a weekend and only one nurse for the entire facility…] We said we would prefer it be later than Monday, and that we wanted the IV and catheter to stay in so they would not have to be reinserted at her health care center. He said ok.
We asked that her IV and catheter be kept in, so as not to have to be redone, and told him she was not able to eat or drink, according to the nurses. We and the nurses were dropping water onto her tongue with a straw. Swallowing apparently was either difficult or impossible. No medical person looked into these problems.
Mother started gesturing with her hands, goofily, like Harpo Marx. She had a giddy expression and acted silly, refusing to speak, and we realized this was a reaction to the pain medication. She was hallucinating. But we hoped she was not in pain. She was on Percocet, they said [which we later learned was a derivative of codeine, something she was allergic to, and which was on her chart as an allergy]. She also started a severe internal itching which lasted almost a week. Nothing was done about this.
I spoke with the Case Manager, in charge of her at this hospital, by phone who suggested I hire private duty nurses, so I did, to have them ready to help out upon her discharge the next week, so I arranged to meet with the head of a private duty nurse company, and to meet her at mother’s own health care center that afternoon when we arranged for her to have room for the following week over there, and arranged for them to be at there on Monday if necessary.
We went to the Health Care Center to see about a nice room and were greeted with the announcement that the hospital had just called and was going to discharge her the following morning, Saturday!!!!!!!We were told there was nothing we could do about it. The doctor in charge had decided she should leave. So I arranged for the private duty nurse to start the next morning when mother came back to her own health care center.
We visited mother again and she was clearly in pain. The nurse told us that the pain meds were not really working and that she had been taken again to x-ray---each move really hurting her. She was not in her room so we eventually left. More tests? What?
That night at 9:30 my sister got a call from the hospital saying mother wanted to see her and me and a priest, so we all hurried over and my sister put calls in to the priests at both of mother’s churches. Four priests eventually came. Not great.
Mother was very anxious and confused [later, we figured out that it was a hallucinatory reaction to the medications, which were all making her very anxious and confused.] By the time the priest came mother was able to say she did not think she needed the Last Rites. She was calmer and seemed in control of herself, although clearly in pain. We stayed until she was asleep, sedated. We saw no doctor. She had spoken to us, and seemed calmer by the time we left, and no one had suggested in any way that she was terminal or needed to go into hospice. They were discharging her earlier than we wanted, but the Case Manager and private duty nurses and her own health care center had all assured us by now that they could handle her and she would soon start to improve.
She was brought to her own health care center later in the day on Saturday than they had told us she would be the next day—several hours later than arranged for, and it was because Transport had not been called by the hospital. One of many mistakes that hurt her.
The transporting of her was agony for her. The pain medications were neither strong enough or often enough. And when she arrived, the one nurse on duty at the health care center said the hospital had not sent along discharge orders or medications or instructions of any kind, so they would have to wait for a doctor’s directions, in order to do anything at all, including giving her her next dose of pain medicine.
There was no IV or catheter! She was put on a normal bed in a private room and our first private duty day nurse tended to her to make her more comfortable; and we were with her. She still could not swallow [later we decided it must have been a stroke] and drops of water were put on her tongue with a straw. No food, no fluids. And the hospital had released her without pain medication, directions, an IV, or a catheter; the medicine took hours and hours to get because no one was in charge.
Our private nurse had to defer to their nurses and the doctor was unavailable.
By evening the situation was desperate, as she was in agony and scared and her mouth very dry, like tree bark. The nurses all agreed that the Health Center could not handle the case, largely because mother could not swallow liquids, so pills could not be given my mouth, and no IV had been ordered, as no doctor was available. It was a weekend.
And just as our first private duty night nurse was coming on, it was decided to re-hospitalize her, but not at the first hospital, because they would not take her back anyhow, having discharged her, and also because her health center doctor (still unavailable by phone or person) practiced at another area hospital (as did the first lung doctor). So it was decided to take her to the other hospital. This was mother’s decision as much as ours. So she was taken to another hospital where she had never been a patient.
Because no doctor of her own was there to admit her to a room and get going on the problems (swallowing, thirst, dehydration, hunger, pain, IV, and catheter, just to start with), she had to go in through the ER. They looked at her chart. They did not look at her.
This process took from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. to be done. My sister and I and the private nurse stayed right with her, in a small cubicle in the ER where no doctor ever looked at her. She was in extreme pain, with a dry mouth, anxious, unmedicated, and not sure they would even admit her. Not only that, but by now she had been without any pain medication since early that morning, almost 24 hours earlier. It was beyond heartbreaking to feel so helpless in trying to care for her.
We found out later that her health care doctor [whom we had been paging all night for help] had been calling the ER docs to beg them to admit her, but did not call us back to say he was doing so.
In FL the ER staff is not on staff at its own hospital, and there is no guarantee that an ER will admit someone to the hospital.
She got a semi-private room on a cardiac floor at 5 a.m. Why cardiac? (Because her chart had note about heart irregularities noticed at the first hospital.)
She was taken for more tests, including a swallowing test. No blockage or other reason could be found. But no one discussed stroke. And in the meantime her left arm had swollen huge and her left hand had swollen and turned grey-green and was very hot. Her left arm shook and she would take hold of it with her right hand and try to quiet it, and to hide it from us.
No one ever discussed her hand. No one discussed her thirst or pain.
They switched medicines. They tried morphine but she could not swallow a pill and had to have drops under her tongue. She was drowsy now, not talking.
They also put some meds in her IV. Still no food, no drink. It continued like this for all of Sunday.
I never saw a doctor look at her and I was there most of the time. She was taken to xray all over again (new hospital) and they redid the testing for the fracture, etc. Agony each time she was moved.
Monday she took a few spoonfuls of soup from our day nurse.
Monday night the doctor met with us all at 11 p.m. and told us Hospice was his choice for her in her condition----in other words, no more effort at treatment, just effort to keep her comfortable.
A death sentence. And he said that the hospital would not keep her any longer. And we overheard doctors at both hospitals say, within her hearing, “What is SHE doing here? We don’t take patients like that.” [Oh, really? Just who do they take?] Well, we found out, actually: they take victims of violent crime and give them the red carpet. What they saw was a 90-year-old woman with a fracture, a lung tumor, irregular heart, unable to eat or drink. So they kicked her out. “Terminal.”
Tuesday she was discharged after a long delay with no pain meds, because the staff had lost her chart while copying it and had deleted her list of medications. I know this to be a fact because I was standing there while they talked about it and they had no idea I was the daughter. They "re-created" a list of what they thought was on her chart. I complained. Too many people were involved, including a case manager there who just wanted to get her discharged.
When she finally got back, by medical transport, to the same room at her own health care center with our nurse there, and us, it had been decided by all the medical people that she would not recover and would go into hospice and die within a few days. The staff decided she should have an air mattress, so ordered one and lifted her onto it, causing her to scream.
I told the staff she might be allergic to Latex and the health care staff complained that they did not carry other gloves! I insisted and they found some, thanks to our own day nurse having some with her! They wanted to put her on Benadryl for the terrible itching that had begun in the first hospital (allergic reaction to meds) and I told them she was allergic to Benadryl. Got medicated powder instead.
Aides came in to change the bed and even though our nurse told them they might wait until the pain meds had started to work, they refused, and flipped her onto her side, causing her to scream in agony. I had stepped into the hall or I would have prevented this!
I saw her reaching for and tenderly holding her left arm, with the swollen, black hand. It broke my heart. Her mouth was so dry it looked inhuman.
She could not talk more than a word or two at a time, if at all. I got a white board and marker and we tried to communicate. At one point she wrote “I will die” on the board. The IV was still in but nutriments would soon be stopped, per hospice.
By the way, our private duty nurses turned out to be hospice nurses, too. So we kept THEM on as private duty hospice nurses, so there would not be so many new people around to confuse mother.
She still could not swallow, drink, or eat. Meals still had to be taken to a room, by law, even though she was not to be given any of the food. I asked about that—wasn’t it cruel for food to be in sight and within smell? She had to be hungry by now! Would the aromas be hard for her to be around, since she was not able to eat and may not even have known that she could not eat, and would some “helpful” aide try spooning food into her mouth in our absence, seeing the food tray in there? I was told that the law requires food trays in all rooms, so it does not “look like you are trying to starve her to death.” This was said, loudly, in our hearing by a nurse. (Not our private duty nurse!)
Wednesday was much the same, with her breathing becoming more labored and her saying she could not breathe. She would cough a lot. No doctor saw her. No one discussed pneumonia, emphysema or anything. Her lungs were filling up. No doctor saw her. But a Hospice person came to meet with us and to tell us we needed to communicate with her now, as it would be harder to do so or to have her hear or squeeze our hands or communicate in other ways, as they were increasing the pain meds (morphine) for her comfort. By now her mouth was so dry that the tongue was like an emery board and speaking was impossible. I asked the hospice pharmaceutical rep, who showed up late at night and stood staring at her in her bed, for something to imitate saliva and he ordered it. It arrived the day before she died, but it did help moisten her completely dried out mouth and tongue. [Why couldn’t someone who knew medicines have ordered this a week ago?]
They took the IV out. They decided she could have something like jello, pudding, or ice cream. [Oh, really? After nothing for a week?! And after the earlier warning that all food would go into the lungs and not the stomach!] I wrote the choices on the board (she was heard of hearing anyhow) and she pointed to ice cream, which we were not allowed to go get for her. It had to be done by the medical staff. More delays. Nothing could be done by our private duty nurse/hospice nurse until the “official” health care staff person okayed it and signed for it, etc. And they were very busy with everyone else in the facility. Finally, she asked for the board, by gesturing, and wrote in a tiny, legible scrawl, “when?” When the ice cream came, at last, one spoonful was put on her tongue. And that is all she had for nourishment by mouth for about one week.
She shut her eyes more and more, and seemed to be sleeping most of the time now. I am not sure if she could hear anyone. I had written a note on the board for the private nurse to show her after we left, and she told me she had, and had asked mother to squeeze her hand if she understood the message. Mother squeezed. That was the last “communication” from her.
By Friday morning she was asleep all the time. Hospice officials had told us not be with her in the room all the time, as that often made it harder for the person to “let go.” I wish I had stayed, anyhow. She died while I was at the funeral home proofing the obituary I had written that morning.
I cannot pinpoint exactly when the medical people decided to shift from recovery mode to hospice mode, but they did. Granted, mother had JUST received a diagnosis of a tumor in her lung, a condition which eventually would have become very serious and painful, etc. Yet the second lung doctor had told us not to worry about the lungs. Why? And the heart doctor said not to worry about her heart. And the orthopedic doctor had said the fracture would heal, albeit slowly at her age. And our own private duty nurses had thought she could recover through careful rehab, and eventually return, with a nurse, to her own apartment.
So, where did it all go wrong? By discharging her so early and on a weekend from the first hospital into an understaffed health care center with no resident doctor, without the right pain medication, discharge orders, instructions for her immediate care, an IV for nutrition and medication, and a catheter, they basically sent her out to die. But they told us they were sending her back because she would recover from the fracture. Hmmmm. They sent her out of there even though we had agreed to pay the extra $1000 a day to keep her in! And they sent her out over a weekend knowing the health care center had no doctor and was understaffed. I think that is the turning point between recovery and death.
When it was learned that the pain medicines were not working and she actually having allergic reactions to them, and that her swallowing fluids had become impossible, and she could not eat real food, no one could do anything because no doctor was available to ask. And she did not have an IV from the time she was discharged from the first hospital until she was put in a room at 5 a.m. the following day at the second hospital, and in that intervening time she probably had at least one small stroke, which created a blood clot in her left hand, made her left arm weak, and made it impossible to swallow, as even the swallowing tests that did not find an obstruction could not point out.
And not once, not once, did a doctor at the second hospital who had done these tests ever talk to us. No one discussed stroke. No one discussed food or drink or pain medication choices. Where were the doctors?
After all these hours of pain and no food or drink she was so weak and dehydrated and confused that the healthcare doctor actually wrote that she had end-stage dementia, when she did not. She could not talk but she was clear and as alert as she could be when we asked her questions in the health care center after her final return there, and she could point to the answers on the whiteboard. She acknowledged the photos we showed her, pointed to her heart and pointed to the three of us daughters to indicate how she loved us. She asked for ice cream just a day before she died.
This should not have been how her life ended. She died on morphine, in hospice care, because of major mistakes made all along the line by doctors and institutional policies. Yes, she was 90. Yes, she had a lung tumor. Yes, she was frail and bedridden. But she could have lived longer. She was a fighter. They killed her. And neither she, nor we, had any way to fight the sequence of events because the health system does not allow for challenges.
The official Death Certificate said she died of end-stage dementia, pneumonia [oh, really? Who looked at that?] and lung cancer! Right….
She died of medical errors.Please do not let this happen to your mother or father or to you.
This document is not meant to be defamatory. I did not identify any institutions or doctors by name. That is behind us now. But people can learn from the sequence of these heart-breaking events.
Don’t let this happen to your mother or father. Or to you. I also have a list of "Medical Tips" to help anyone who sees these sites avoid the situations that took my dear mother's life. Here is the sequence of events:
Mother falls on wet floor Wednesday a.m., in her bathroom, not knowing the floor was wet; the maid did not alert her; the maid’s English was poor, and she rarely spoke, anyhow.
Also almost immediately after we got the news from my sister in FL, my husband got a call from my mother's lung doctor in FL (total coincidence that he should call this very hour!) telling him [I was at work; I was the medical and regular POA for mother and in touch with her doctors] of the new cat-scan’s results of one lung looking better, one lung having a noticeable tumor now, and signs of emphysema (first specific diagnosis of lungs), new results since the April cat-scan by him, where results only showed “lesions.”
She is taken by ambulance to the hospital of her choice where her special plastic card [given her quite a while ago as a donor] gets her a private room after she spends about 8 hours in the ER in the hall, with my sister and her husband there…
and she is x-rayed (eventually 3 times over the course of the day) to see what was broken: there is a hairline fracture of left pelvis; orthopedic doctor phoned me in the car as we started our drive to FL about 3 p.m. Wednesday, and called several times to say that several xrays showed that it was only a hairline facture of the left pelvis, and not also a hip or other fracture.
We got there Thursday afternoon and I saw her Thursday and she was in bed, in pain, but talking. Said she was sorry I made the trip, hoped our other sister would not. We all fully expected her to recover. She had no thought that her condition was "terminal," and nor did we.
The next day, Friday, she was sitting in a chair, leaning on her right arm, quiet, and wondering about whether or not she would be admitted to the special floor [available only to donors who gave a certain amount of $] with its extra special care and we asked the hospital development office to research what her donor level was, as mother thought she had gifted enough to be on the special floor, and I did not think she had ever made the gift. Many of her friends had given to belong to this donor level, and she must have thought she had, also. I remember the original discussion of it several years ago and that I had advised against it, because if she were ever that ill, did she really need a super-deluxe suite and special, gourmet meals, etc.?
The hospital development officer came out with records that showed recent gifts and nothing was higher than $7500, which had gotten her the private room as a perk. However, this same person had prepared papers ready for her to sign, or for me to authorize as her POA, so she still could be on that floor at [a very high donor level] if she gave another amount of $.
I said no. At that point we thought she would be leaving next week to go into rehab at her own health center, so she could recover from the fracture.
And I spoke in person with her [new] lung doctor who told me not to worry about the lungs, they would not be what eventually would cause her death, and that there was nothing anyone could do to help her lungs. This doctor was affiliated with this hospital and mother had not consulted this one before. But this lung doctor had gotten the newest cat-scan results from the office of the first lung doctor, and still said we should not worry about the lungs. She was not a candidate for a biopsy or radiation (according to her first lung doctor), so everyone expected she would just live with the condition as it grew more serious.
I wanted a conference with us (family) with all the doctors who were working on mother, but was told that was impossible. I had to phone them at their regular offices. I talked to the orthopedic doctor by phone who said again that there was a hairline fracture of left pelvis and that nothing could be done for it but to gradually get her up and on her feet so it could heal. He said she should recover from the fracture.
I talked to the heart doctor by phone, who said she was now on heart medication for a murmur and irregular heartbeat, and not to worry about her heart, normal for her age and condition. The heart condition had only just been noted and may have been brought on by the pain and stress of the whole fall and aftermath. No history of a heart condition, ever.
I tried to reach the doctor in charge of all the doctors of her care and of her, the primary doctor, but he was unavailable. We waited and waited, then finally left. He reached us by cell phone as we were getting in the car, and we said we would be back soon.
Met with this doctor—a diffident man who turned his back on us and talked about nothing but Medicare and how she could not stay any longer than 3 days—this was the 3rd day---and he wanted to discharge her Sunday at the latest. He said nothing at all about her, the patient!
I told him we wanted her to stay in the hospital longer, as she had so many problems. For one thing, she was in extreme pain and that had not yet been taken care of, according to the night nurse.
He said we could pay $1000 extra a day to keep her in, and we agreed, said that was no problem, but that we definitely wanted to her to be able to stay until the pain was under control and she could be moved without being in agony. We asked if he could at least wait to discharge her Monday, if she had to come out at all, because her own health care center was not fully staffed with RN’s or a doctor on weekends. [In fact, we learned the hard way that there was no doctor at all available on a weekend and only one nurse for the entire facility…] We said we would prefer it be later than Monday, and that we wanted the IV and catheter to stay in so they would not have to be reinserted at her health care center. He said ok.
We asked that her IV and catheter be kept in, so as not to have to be redone, and told him she was not able to eat or drink, according to the nurses. We and the nurses were dropping water onto her tongue with a straw. Swallowing apparently was either difficult or impossible. No medical person looked into these problems.
Mother started gesturing with her hands, goofily, like Harpo Marx. She had a giddy expression and acted silly, refusing to speak, and we realized this was a reaction to the pain medication. She was hallucinating. But we hoped she was not in pain. She was on Percocet, they said [which we later learned was a derivative of codeine, something she was allergic to, and which was on her chart as an allergy]. She also started a severe internal itching which lasted almost a week. Nothing was done about this.
I spoke with the Case Manager, in charge of her at this hospital, by phone who suggested I hire private duty nurses, so I did, to have them ready to help out upon her discharge the next week, so I arranged to meet with the head of a private duty nurse company, and to meet her at mother’s own health care center that afternoon when we arranged for her to have room for the following week over there, and arranged for them to be at there on Monday if necessary.
We went to the Health Care Center to see about a nice room and were greeted with the announcement that the hospital had just called and was going to discharge her the following morning, Saturday!!!!!!!We were told there was nothing we could do about it. The doctor in charge had decided she should leave. So I arranged for the private duty nurse to start the next morning when mother came back to her own health care center.
We visited mother again and she was clearly in pain. The nurse told us that the pain meds were not really working and that she had been taken again to x-ray---each move really hurting her. She was not in her room so we eventually left. More tests? What?
That night at 9:30 my sister got a call from the hospital saying mother wanted to see her and me and a priest, so we all hurried over and my sister put calls in to the priests at both of mother’s churches. Four priests eventually came. Not great.
Mother was very anxious and confused [later, we figured out that it was a hallucinatory reaction to the medications, which were all making her very anxious and confused.] By the time the priest came mother was able to say she did not think she needed the Last Rites. She was calmer and seemed in control of herself, although clearly in pain. We stayed until she was asleep, sedated. We saw no doctor. She had spoken to us, and seemed calmer by the time we left, and no one had suggested in any way that she was terminal or needed to go into hospice. They were discharging her earlier than we wanted, but the Case Manager and private duty nurses and her own health care center had all assured us by now that they could handle her and she would soon start to improve.
She was brought to her own health care center later in the day on Saturday than they had told us she would be the next day—several hours later than arranged for, and it was because Transport had not been called by the hospital. One of many mistakes that hurt her.
The transporting of her was agony for her. The pain medications were neither strong enough or often enough. And when she arrived, the one nurse on duty at the health care center said the hospital had not sent along discharge orders or medications or instructions of any kind, so they would have to wait for a doctor’s directions, in order to do anything at all, including giving her her next dose of pain medicine.
There was no IV or catheter! She was put on a normal bed in a private room and our first private duty day nurse tended to her to make her more comfortable; and we were with her. She still could not swallow [later we decided it must have been a stroke] and drops of water were put on her tongue with a straw. No food, no fluids. And the hospital had released her without pain medication, directions, an IV, or a catheter; the medicine took hours and hours to get because no one was in charge.
Our private nurse had to defer to their nurses and the doctor was unavailable.
By evening the situation was desperate, as she was in agony and scared and her mouth very dry, like tree bark. The nurses all agreed that the Health Center could not handle the case, largely because mother could not swallow liquids, so pills could not be given my mouth, and no IV had been ordered, as no doctor was available. It was a weekend.
And just as our first private duty night nurse was coming on, it was decided to re-hospitalize her, but not at the first hospital, because they would not take her back anyhow, having discharged her, and also because her health center doctor (still unavailable by phone or person) practiced at another area hospital (as did the first lung doctor). So it was decided to take her to the other hospital. This was mother’s decision as much as ours. So she was taken to another hospital where she had never been a patient.
Because no doctor of her own was there to admit her to a room and get going on the problems (swallowing, thirst, dehydration, hunger, pain, IV, and catheter, just to start with), she had to go in through the ER. They looked at her chart. They did not look at her.
This process took from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. to be done. My sister and I and the private nurse stayed right with her, in a small cubicle in the ER where no doctor ever looked at her. She was in extreme pain, with a dry mouth, anxious, unmedicated, and not sure they would even admit her. Not only that, but by now she had been without any pain medication since early that morning, almost 24 hours earlier. It was beyond heartbreaking to feel so helpless in trying to care for her.
We found out later that her health care doctor [whom we had been paging all night for help] had been calling the ER docs to beg them to admit her, but did not call us back to say he was doing so.
In FL the ER staff is not on staff at its own hospital, and there is no guarantee that an ER will admit someone to the hospital.
She got a semi-private room on a cardiac floor at 5 a.m. Why cardiac? (Because her chart had note about heart irregularities noticed at the first hospital.)
She was taken for more tests, including a swallowing test. No blockage or other reason could be found. But no one discussed stroke. And in the meantime her left arm had swollen huge and her left hand had swollen and turned grey-green and was very hot. Her left arm shook and she would take hold of it with her right hand and try to quiet it, and to hide it from us.
No one ever discussed her hand. No one discussed her thirst or pain.
They switched medicines. They tried morphine but she could not swallow a pill and had to have drops under her tongue. She was drowsy now, not talking.
They also put some meds in her IV. Still no food, no drink. It continued like this for all of Sunday.
I never saw a doctor look at her and I was there most of the time. She was taken to xray all over again (new hospital) and they redid the testing for the fracture, etc. Agony each time she was moved.
Monday she took a few spoonfuls of soup from our day nurse.
Monday night the doctor met with us all at 11 p.m. and told us Hospice was his choice for her in her condition----in other words, no more effort at treatment, just effort to keep her comfortable.
A death sentence. And he said that the hospital would not keep her any longer. And we overheard doctors at both hospitals say, within her hearing, “What is SHE doing here? We don’t take patients like that.” [Oh, really? Just who do they take?] Well, we found out, actually: they take victims of violent crime and give them the red carpet. What they saw was a 90-year-old woman with a fracture, a lung tumor, irregular heart, unable to eat or drink. So they kicked her out. “Terminal.”
Tuesday she was discharged after a long delay with no pain meds, because the staff had lost her chart while copying it and had deleted her list of medications. I know this to be a fact because I was standing there while they talked about it and they had no idea I was the daughter. They "re-created" a list of what they thought was on her chart. I complained. Too many people were involved, including a case manager there who just wanted to get her discharged.
When she finally got back, by medical transport, to the same room at her own health care center with our nurse there, and us, it had been decided by all the medical people that she would not recover and would go into hospice and die within a few days. The staff decided she should have an air mattress, so ordered one and lifted her onto it, causing her to scream.
I told the staff she might be allergic to Latex and the health care staff complained that they did not carry other gloves! I insisted and they found some, thanks to our own day nurse having some with her! They wanted to put her on Benadryl for the terrible itching that had begun in the first hospital (allergic reaction to meds) and I told them she was allergic to Benadryl. Got medicated powder instead.
Aides came in to change the bed and even though our nurse told them they might wait until the pain meds had started to work, they refused, and flipped her onto her side, causing her to scream in agony. I had stepped into the hall or I would have prevented this!
I saw her reaching for and tenderly holding her left arm, with the swollen, black hand. It broke my heart. Her mouth was so dry it looked inhuman.
She could not talk more than a word or two at a time, if at all. I got a white board and marker and we tried to communicate. At one point she wrote “I will die” on the board. The IV was still in but nutriments would soon be stopped, per hospice.
By the way, our private duty nurses turned out to be hospice nurses, too. So we kept THEM on as private duty hospice nurses, so there would not be so many new people around to confuse mother.
She still could not swallow, drink, or eat. Meals still had to be taken to a room, by law, even though she was not to be given any of the food. I asked about that—wasn’t it cruel for food to be in sight and within smell? She had to be hungry by now! Would the aromas be hard for her to be around, since she was not able to eat and may not even have known that she could not eat, and would some “helpful” aide try spooning food into her mouth in our absence, seeing the food tray in there? I was told that the law requires food trays in all rooms, so it does not “look like you are trying to starve her to death.” This was said, loudly, in our hearing by a nurse. (Not our private duty nurse!)
Wednesday was much the same, with her breathing becoming more labored and her saying she could not breathe. She would cough a lot. No doctor saw her. No one discussed pneumonia, emphysema or anything. Her lungs were filling up. No doctor saw her. But a Hospice person came to meet with us and to tell us we needed to communicate with her now, as it would be harder to do so or to have her hear or squeeze our hands or communicate in other ways, as they were increasing the pain meds (morphine) for her comfort. By now her mouth was so dry that the tongue was like an emery board and speaking was impossible. I asked the hospice pharmaceutical rep, who showed up late at night and stood staring at her in her bed, for something to imitate saliva and he ordered it. It arrived the day before she died, but it did help moisten her completely dried out mouth and tongue. [Why couldn’t someone who knew medicines have ordered this a week ago?]
They took the IV out. They decided she could have something like jello, pudding, or ice cream. [Oh, really? After nothing for a week?! And after the earlier warning that all food would go into the lungs and not the stomach!] I wrote the choices on the board (she was heard of hearing anyhow) and she pointed to ice cream, which we were not allowed to go get for her. It had to be done by the medical staff. More delays. Nothing could be done by our private duty nurse/hospice nurse until the “official” health care staff person okayed it and signed for it, etc. And they were very busy with everyone else in the facility. Finally, she asked for the board, by gesturing, and wrote in a tiny, legible scrawl, “when?” When the ice cream came, at last, one spoonful was put on her tongue. And that is all she had for nourishment by mouth for about one week.
She shut her eyes more and more, and seemed to be sleeping most of the time now. I am not sure if she could hear anyone. I had written a note on the board for the private nurse to show her after we left, and she told me she had, and had asked mother to squeeze her hand if she understood the message. Mother squeezed. That was the last “communication” from her.
By Friday morning she was asleep all the time. Hospice officials had told us not be with her in the room all the time, as that often made it harder for the person to “let go.” I wish I had stayed, anyhow. She died while I was at the funeral home proofing the obituary I had written that morning.
I cannot pinpoint exactly when the medical people decided to shift from recovery mode to hospice mode, but they did. Granted, mother had JUST received a diagnosis of a tumor in her lung, a condition which eventually would have become very serious and painful, etc. Yet the second lung doctor had told us not to worry about the lungs. Why? And the heart doctor said not to worry about her heart. And the orthopedic doctor had said the fracture would heal, albeit slowly at her age. And our own private duty nurses had thought she could recover through careful rehab, and eventually return, with a nurse, to her own apartment.
So, where did it all go wrong? By discharging her so early and on a weekend from the first hospital into an understaffed health care center with no resident doctor, without the right pain medication, discharge orders, instructions for her immediate care, an IV for nutrition and medication, and a catheter, they basically sent her out to die. But they told us they were sending her back because she would recover from the fracture. Hmmmm. They sent her out of there even though we had agreed to pay the extra $1000 a day to keep her in! And they sent her out over a weekend knowing the health care center had no doctor and was understaffed. I think that is the turning point between recovery and death.
When it was learned that the pain medicines were not working and she actually having allergic reactions to them, and that her swallowing fluids had become impossible, and she could not eat real food, no one could do anything because no doctor was available to ask. And she did not have an IV from the time she was discharged from the first hospital until she was put in a room at 5 a.m. the following day at the second hospital, and in that intervening time she probably had at least one small stroke, which created a blood clot in her left hand, made her left arm weak, and made it impossible to swallow, as even the swallowing tests that did not find an obstruction could not point out.
And not once, not once, did a doctor at the second hospital who had done these tests ever talk to us. No one discussed stroke. No one discussed food or drink or pain medication choices. Where were the doctors?
After all these hours of pain and no food or drink she was so weak and dehydrated and confused that the healthcare doctor actually wrote that she had end-stage dementia, when she did not. She could not talk but she was clear and as alert as she could be when we asked her questions in the health care center after her final return there, and she could point to the answers on the whiteboard. She acknowledged the photos we showed her, pointed to her heart and pointed to the three of us daughters to indicate how she loved us. She asked for ice cream just a day before she died.
This should not have been how her life ended. She died on morphine, in hospice care, because of major mistakes made all along the line by doctors and institutional policies. Yes, she was 90. Yes, she had a lung tumor. Yes, she was frail and bedridden. But she could have lived longer. She was a fighter. They killed her. And neither she, nor we, had any way to fight the sequence of events because the health system does not allow for challenges.
The official Death Certificate said she died of end-stage dementia, pneumonia [oh, really? Who looked at that?] and lung cancer! Right….
She died of medical errors.Please do not let this happen to your mother or father or to you.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Beauty at The Grove
Beauty at The Grove is to be found outside, where the grounds sweep westward down the slope towards sunset, with forsythia starting to bloom.
Beauty is found inside on the mantel, where a vase of roses multiplies in the mirror.
Beauty is the early-flowering Japanese Magnolia against the blue sky.
Beauty is in the patio where I read. The holly is dense with berries. Robins, who never left our yard all winter, will soon eat the berries when they are sweet enough, I have been told.
On the wall behind the picnic table you can barely make out the faint lines that marked where an original frame porch used to stand. It was removed 40 years ago. The patio dates from the early 1990s. There is always something beautiful to work on at an historic home.
The house is full of birthday and Easter flowers. I would like to share them with you. Happy Spring!
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