Chapter 1: Blood is Thicker Than Water: Fragments of My Mom's Life
Chapter 1
Death
On Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at approximately 1:20 am, my Mom drew in her last breath. She endured the death that she most dreaded: as her lungs filled up. she had to struggle harder and harder to get the air she needed. I couldn't bear to see her draw breath after gasping breath, clenching her hands and pushing for the last bit of air that her lungs were slowly denying her. I kissed her face three times on the forehead, put one kiss on each cheek, one on the tip of her nose and one on her mouth. I whispered, I love you so, into her ear. I took her right hand in mine and with my left hand softly stroked the hair on her forehead. Finally, I got up from the bedside and glanced back at her sitting in the bed with her skinny arms braced by her side. She looked so forlorn. Hours later, with excruciating slowness, she drowned in her own bodily fluids.
Mom once said to me, I'm not afraid of being where I am now and I'm not afraid of what lies after death; what I fear the most is how I get from the one place to the other. She had every reason to fear what would happen because her death was messy, dreadful and ugly and her dying was messy, dreadful and ugly. Mom was breathing oxygen when she died, and I wondered, Did sustaining the level of her oxygen prolong the process of dying? The nurse assured me that she felt no pain; otherwise, her arms would be flailing about, she said. Small comfort! How horrible it must have been for her because she was aware of what was happening. Perhaps no one gets the death she hopes for.
Mom's Eulogy
(I wrote this eulogy and planned to read it at Mom's funeral. Instead, I submitted it to the Pentiction Herald, where it appeared on Saturday, January 11, 2003.)
Esther Mary Curtiss--wife and mother; craftserson; seamstress; upholsterer; quilter; knitter; crocheter; artist in ceramics, oils, and acrylics; organist, singer, decorator, and so on.
Born in Calgary, Alberta, on December 14, 1919
Died in Keremeos, British Columbia, on January 7, 2003, age 83
Esther Mary Curtiss was the fourth child, born into a newly fatherless family a year after the end of World War I. Her mother raised four children by herself until she remarried and had four more children. Esther, my mother, grew up with three brother (Dan, Ward and John) and four sisters (Theta, Ruth, Lois and Kay). She and her siblings lived through the Depression and needed all their wits to help them survive. They were very devoted to each other and frew up helping each other out. Often they were left to raise themselves.
Sometimes the children had nothing much to eat in the shack they lived in. Once a sack of frozen potatoes, which also helped keep out the winter draft undr the door, was the only sustenance they had. Mom remembered making snowboots for the smaller children out of discarded material when they had nothing to wear on their feet in the winter. It was thus that Mom started using her immense creative skills that she later excelled in. Nonetheless, Mom also remembered the games they used to play, especially the "throwing water" game where everyone tried to soak everyone else without getting soaked themselves.
Through those years, Mom learned to become self-sufficient, resilient and tough. She was the daredevil who would try anything for the thrill of it. Those qualities sustained her in the hard life she had. She left home at 15 and started working for other people to earn money, most of which she sent home. Mom worked for many different families, sometimes alongside her sister Theta, and Theta's husband, Oscar. The work was physically demanding and the hours were long.
Mom married on her birthday in 1938 and a year later had a daughter Joyce and two years after that a son, Vernon Barber. She raised the children as a single mother, again working as a housekeeper in other people's homes. She learned to become an excellent cook and learned to play the piano and sang beautifully. She learned to sew and knit clothes. She had an artistic bent and designed and decorated wherever she lived. Later, in order to seek more independent employment, she placed her children in an institution so that she could work at two jobs in order to save enough money to start a new life.
Kimberley, BC, was the place where Mom really began to explore and use all her many talents. She became a master sewer and made curtains and bedspreads for many people. Se began to do upholstery also. She made most of her own clothes and those of her children as well as sewing for others. As the same time she made a living working as a presser in a dry cleaning shop. Later she learned to use business machines and worked in the city offices. She took classes during the night in painting, shorthand and woodworking. Although Mom's formal education stopped at grade 8, she was always curious and intent on improving her intellect throughout her whole life. Whenever she put her mind to learning shomething new, like making ceramics, she worked at it until she mastered it. She worked hard so that her children could have a good education and could live happy productive lives and have the material things she never had in her youth.
And she became an expert in many arts and crafts. She was proud of the oil and acrylic paintings that she did so well and sold so easily. She made mountains of knitted and crocheted bedspreads and sweaters; hundreds of cross-stitch, petit point, and needlepoint pictures. She created numerous tole paintings. She learned to frame her own pictures.
She never gave up hope of having a better life even when life dealt her severe blows. She worked long hours for little pay, then longer hours of sewing and knitting for the love of it. She liked a good time and loved to dress up and go to a party. She knew how to laugh and could make others laugh. She loved to tell stories and did it very well. Once she learned a series of off-colour jokes to entertain at gatherings with her friends. However, no one was more self-critical than she was.
She was a beautiful woman: as her physical beauty faded, her spiritual beauty grew.
After her first family grew up and left home, she again struck out on her own looking for what life had to offer next. She remarried and raised two more children, Alf and Sonya.
The death of her son, Vernon, in 1987 was a wource of great sadness to her until the day she died. Recently, the deaths of Mom's brothers, Dan and Ward, and her sisters, Theta and Kay, made a great hole in her heart. She expecially missed Theta's long telephone calls. How those two women could talk! Mom used to visit Aunt Theta at the farm in Iola in the '50's and they would talk non-stop all day, long into the night, and continue the next day. Those were wonderful conversations for children to listen to. They so respected and loved each other and shared their problems and joys!
Mom's life experiences taught her to be tenacious and curious. Her early years of deprivation left her with a deep need to be loved. She filled this need through generoulsy giving to others--often she gave the things she made, sewed and knitted with those strong and loving hands of her. This intelligent and resilient woman will be missed by all of us who received her "stitches of love."
Esther Mary Curtiss--wife and mother; craftserson; seamstress; upholsterer; quilter; knitter; crocheter; artist in ceramics, oils, and acrylics; organist, singer, decorator, and so on.
Born in Calgary, Alberta, on December 14, 1919
Died in Keremeos, British Columbia, on January 7, 2003, age 83
Esther Mary Curtiss was the fourth child, born into a newly fatherless family a year after the end of World War I. Her mother raised four children by herself until she remarried and had four more children. Esther, my mother, grew up with three brother (Dan, Ward and John) and four sisters (Theta, Ruth, Lois and Kay). She and her siblings lived through the Depression and needed all their wits to help them survive. They were very devoted to each other and frew up helping each other out. Often they were left to raise themselves.
Sometimes the children had nothing much to eat in the shack they lived in. Once a sack of frozen potatoes, which also helped keep out the winter draft undr the door, was the only sustenance they had. Mom remembered making snowboots for the smaller children out of discarded material when they had nothing to wear on their feet in the winter. It was thus that Mom started using her immense creative skills that she later excelled in. Nonetheless, Mom also remembered the games they used to play, especially the "throwing water" game where everyone tried to soak everyone else without getting soaked themselves.
Through those years, Mom learned to become self-sufficient, resilient and tough. She was the daredevil who would try anything for the thrill of it. Those qualities sustained her in the hard life she had. She left home at 15 and started working for other people to earn money, most of which she sent home. Mom worked for many different families, sometimes alongside her sister Theta, and Theta's husband, Oscar. The work was physically demanding and the hours were long.
Mom married on her birthday in 1938 and a year later had a daughter Joyce and two years after that a son, Vernon Barber. She raised the children as a single mother, again working as a housekeeper in other people's homes. She learned to become an excellent cook and learned to play the piano and sang beautifully. She learned to sew and knit clothes. She had an artistic bent and designed and decorated wherever she lived. Later, in order to seek more independent employment, she placed her children in an institution so that she could work at two jobs in order to save enough money to start a new life.
Kimberley, BC, was the place where Mom really began to explore and use all her many talents. She became a master sewer and made curtains and bedspreads for many people. Se began to do upholstery also. She made most of her own clothes and those of her children as well as sewing for others. As the same time she made a living working as a presser in a dry cleaning shop. Later she learned to use business machines and worked in the city offices. She took classes during the night in painting, shorthand and woodworking. Although Mom's formal education stopped at grade 8, she was always curious and intent on improving her intellect throughout her whole life. Whenever she put her mind to learning shomething new, like making ceramics, she worked at it until she mastered it. She worked hard so that her children could have a good education and could live happy productive lives and have the material things she never had in her youth.
And she became an expert in many arts and crafts. She was proud of the oil and acrylic paintings that she did so well and sold so easily. She made mountains of knitted and crocheted bedspreads and sweaters; hundreds of cross-stitch, petit point, and needlepoint pictures. She created numerous tole paintings. She learned to frame her own pictures.
She never gave up hope of having a better life even when life dealt her severe blows. She worked long hours for little pay, then longer hours of sewing and knitting for the love of it. She liked a good time and loved to dress up and go to a party. She knew how to laugh and could make others laugh. She loved to tell stories and did it very well. Once she learned a series of off-colour jokes to entertain at gatherings with her friends. However, no one was more self-critical than she was.
She was a beautiful woman: as her physical beauty faded, her spiritual beauty grew.
After her first family grew up and left home, she again struck out on her own looking for what life had to offer next. She remarried and raised two more children, Alf and Sonya.
The death of her son, Vernon, in 1987 was a wource of great sadness to her until the day she died. Recently, the deaths of Mom's brothers, Dan and Ward, and her sisters, Theta and Kay, made a great hole in her heart. She expecially missed Theta's long telephone calls. How those two women could talk! Mom used to visit Aunt Theta at the farm in Iola in the '50's and they would talk non-stop all day, long into the night, and continue the next day. Those were wonderful conversations for children to listen to. They so respected and loved each other and shared their problems and joys!
Mom's life experiences taught her to be tenacious and curious. Her early years of deprivation left her with a deep need to be loved. She filled this need through generoulsy giving to others--often she gave the things she made, sewed and knitted with those strong and loving hands of her. This intelligent and resilient woman will be missed by all of us who received her "stitches of love."
posted by Joyce | 9:22 AM
1 Comments:
Beautiful and strong woman, this mother was.
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