Day #13 Writing Through Covid-19: Love in the Time of Coronavirus

My mother dotes on my dad. It's both sweet and nauseating. She calls him "Berry" and tells (and retells) the story of how they met as camp counselors in Michigan.

My mother was 22 and married to Chuck. She thought my dad was about 19. She was irritated by how the camp nurse drooled over Leroy Berryhill. That fall Chuck died of sinus cancer; he and my mother had been married only two years.

The following summer my parents again both worked at the camp, my mother now single. When my shy father stopped by her cabin (I forget why), she was on the top bunk. "I suddenly realized how blue his eyes were!" She still nearly squeals when she says this line.

When he turned to go, Leroy asked Meredith if she'd like to go canoeing sometime. She said yes, but the flu then went through the camp, and my dad (who had only one year of medical school under his belt) was needed in the infirmary. The summer came to a close, and he asked my mother if he could write to her. They courted through letters, which they keep in a scrapbook. They finally went canoeing on their honeymoon--and named their canoe Homoca (for HOneyMOon CAnoe).

They are openly affectionate, often holding hands. Growing up, I thought everyone's parents shared a long, passionate kiss in the kitchen when the dad came home from work. When we were little, we liked to squeeze in between their embrace for a "sandwich."

My mother's middle initials are TMI, and over the years she has told me way more than I wanted to know about her sex life. I have a memory from when I was five, sitting on her lap as she explained that people "had intercourse" not only to conceive children but also for pleasure. I  scrambled off her lap in shock and disgust.

They still flirt shamelessly.

My own story of meeting my husband (inebriated, both of us following friends into a divorce party thrown by a woman neither of us knew) does not hold up well against my parents'. Nor do Dan and I make out in the kitchen when he walks in at the end of the day. Sometimes we say Hi.

Next week Dan and I will mark 36 years of marriage. We have six far-flung children and a life we've woven together from his serious warp and my giddy weft.  We are better together because I keep him hopping and he keeps me steady.

My parents have never been close to Dan. (Remember, I have not been close to my parents for most of my life.) To minimize germ transfer, I am the only well-scrubbed person who enters my parents' basement sanctum.

Dan is starting fieldwork (anhydrous, in case Tyler wondered, Missy). He is working 14-hour days while the price of grain hits staggering lows. He's kind of crabby. But tonight he told me he knows how hard I'm working to keep my parents fed and tended.

I needed to hear that.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

My favorite photo of Dan.

Day #12 Writing Through Covid-19: To Be of Use

Again tonight my dad asked if he could help pay for groceries. 

"Let me be your hostess," I said. "I'm pretty sure you've fed me a few meals."

My dad laughed, and let it go.

My parents are (were?) both so smart and funny. While they have different senses of humor (I favor my dad's), they are quick to laugh at themselves and at each other. 

A willing laugh is a gift. I know people (I might be married to one) who are stingy with their laughter. They hold it in reserve, as if to give laughter is to lose something. 

But back to the two laughing people in my basement: they do not want to be a burden. They have spent their lives on the giving end of the give-receive continuum. 

I am reminded of Marge Peircy's "To Be of Use" poem. We all need to contribute, to feel useful. But just how useful can two old people be? 

1) They feed their dog and take him for walks. (Reason #5485 everyone should have a pet.)
2) They set their table and wash their dishes. 
3) Today my mom helped me wash three more windows. 
4) They make their own fruit salad out of mushy grapes and spotty bananas. 
5) They walk their dog. Wait, I already said that. 

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

My dad walking Vern, March 30, 2020

Day #11 Writing Through Covid-19: Who Let the Dog In?

Last night when I went into the back hall, I could hear my father's voice coming from the basement. He was telling my mother--again, again--that they are staying at my place during Covid-19.

I've been a good eavesdropper my entire life, but my mother's voice was in a higher register that wafted up to me in wordless mewls. I could only tell what she was saying from the context of my father's patient responses. 

--?
"We're at Alli's, in her basement, because our children don't want us to get sick."
--?
"Yes, we'll go back when the pandemic passes."
--?
"Well, we will probably be here for a couple of months."
--!
"I know." 
--!
"Yes, I understand."
--?
"Our children think this is best, and I do too." 

-------------
We fill the days with small misadventures. 

This morning our big, dirty coonhound was roaming the basement when I came down with breakfast. 

"How did Rex get in here?" I asked, sure he had pushed his way in through the door they'd left unlocked.

My mother explained that when she'd let Vern out for his morning BM (ACK! Mother! Stop saying that!), he and Rex were getting along so well she brought them both inside!

I shoved Rex out with my knee and reminded my mom that Rex is farm dog. His kennel is in the garage. I'm happy he's getting along with Vern, but he is not house-trained or welcome inside.

Why do I think this won't be the only day I find Rex inside?

-----------------
My mother and I washed three of the basement windows together today. It felt productive. My parents' view across the Iowa farmland is much improved.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

Day #10 Writing Through Covid-19: Bears in the Barn

When I was in high school, my dad's mom lived with us for a time: months? years?  She was a benign, incontinent presence in my self-centered adolescent life. (Remember, I was a hateful teen.)

Grandma Berryhill liked to play Dominoes and Probe, but she cheated, and everyone knew it. She also emptied the sugar bowl into her coffee, so my mother used a very small and near-empty sugar bowl. Our primary bathroom was occupied by this clunky commode that inconvenienced and disgusted me, the oh-so-busy la-tee-da teenager.

I have wonderful memories of my other grandparents, and I am now sorry that I have so few positive memories of Grandma Berryhill's time with us. I do remember her hands were softer than a puppy's underbelly. I must have touched her hands. 

At night Grandma Berryhill "felt mice" in her bed. She would call out to my mother across the hall, and mom would come strip down the sheets to prove there were no mice. Sometimes this happened several times a night.

One night Grandma cried out in terror: "There's a bear in the barn!" My mother tried to assure her the "barn" was our garage, and we were in a city far from bears.

------

This morning my mom said she'd had a rough night. "I kept thinking your dad needed a clean white shirt, and I couldn't find one," she said. 

A lost white shirt is not exactly a bear in the barn, but both women were crafting nightmares by drawing on the realities of their younger lives.

It makes me wonder what my eventual night terrors will be:

Raccoons on the porch.

Children in my bed.

Missing stacks of student writing.
My elderly parents, lost in my basement, needing care. 

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

Day #9 Writing Through Covid-19: Gray Day

It's a gray day here on Eagle Avenue, my parents' seventh day living under my wing.

This morning I brought my mother an English muffin on a pretty blue-flowered napkin.

"I used to do what you're doing," she said.

"You mean making decisions about what to eat?"

"It's your turn now," she said simply.

----------

I want to please them.

I want to make them happy.

I want them to like me.

I was not an easy child to raise, and perhaps as a result, I have not been close to my parents in my adult life. After my adolescent years spent disobeying and disappointing them at every turn, my parents (justifiably) didn't like me much. Oh, of course they loved me, as parents do. But our relationship was forged in hateful fire, and by the time I became less hateful, I was busy with my own family, and they had several of my other siblings needing their attention.

So one week into this Covid adventure of housing these two, I'm questioning my motives.

Am I trying to be a hero?
Am I trying to ask forgiveness?
Am I, at age 60, still trying to win their approval?

Or maybe I'm just helping because I'm not such a terrible person after all. That would be nice.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison




Gray Day on Eagle Avenue

Day #8 Writing Through Covid-19: Cracks in Our Fragile Teacup

The honeymoon lasted four days.

Since Saturday, my parents and I have tiptoed around each other, perfecting our roles as mellow guests and five-star hostess. They thank me profusely for each small kindness; I dream up small kindnesses like it's my job--which I guess it is.

But we are human, and yesterday I saw the first hairline evidence that our arrangement is not rock solid. How could it be? My parents really don't want to be here. A mere seven days ago a once-a-week phone call and a once-a-month face-to-face visit felt right to all three of us.

Now I am their lifeline to the world, bringing each meal, the newspaper, their medicine, their lone human contact. I am also the one (speaking for all their children) who said they needed to be here for now. How could then not resent me just a bit?

So yesterday I was more bemused than surprised when we hit some rumble strips.

First it was the coffee. I'd brought my dad a mid-morning cup, but he was napping, so I left it on the table hoping he'd wake up before it grew cold.

At lunchtime I asked if I should have woken him when I came down earlier. "Well," he said, "I don't like cold coffee." I registered the first tremor of irritability I'd heard since he arrived.

In the afternoon I found my mother in wandering mode. "I'm looking for another bathroom," she said.

I showed her again both bathroom options.

"I was hoping to find one with a taller toilet."

I told her (again) that I had ordered a raised seat and to be sure to use her walker to help her stand up until it gets here. She agreed (again) that should work.

But then I saw the damp towel on the bathroom floor and realized my dad had taken a shower, despite me asking them not to shower until the shower chair arrived. "I have a shower chair coming, too," I reminded him, "so you won't be as likely to fall."

"I STAND UP when I shower," he snipped.

What I refrained from saying was "You have terrible balance and I do not want to pick up your brittle bones from the shower floor."

Of course he wants to shower standing up; of course I want him to use a chair.

I said, "I'll take this towel upstairs and wash it."

----------
Later I offered to play accordion music while they ate dinner. I played "Blue Skirt Waltz" and "Little Annie Rooney." I made some mistakes. And that's okay.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

Day #7 Writing Through Covid-19: Isolated Extroverts or How Reading Will Save You

I am extroverted. I am too friendly, too out-spoken, too sure that everyone wants to know my every opinion.

But I also have an introverted dimension. I love to hole up on the weekends, putter from chair to couch, read a book, then a magazine, then a newspaper--without having to talk to anyone.

I do not dread the isolation of Covid-19. True, Dan is here, and we have children who check in daily. I have students I'm prodding with writing prompts and poems. I have friends in various crevices of my life. I have the best sister in the world, and we sometimes talk five times a day. So my aloneness is not being tested that much.

If you've read my past few posts, you know that my 89- and 90-year-old parents have moved into my basement. Both of these people led extroverted lives. They joined committees, served on school boards, led countless initiatives.

But they also were voracious readers and writers. They knew how to sink into themselves, their private sanctums, and I'm seeing the benefit of that now.

In the past, I may have felt dismissed when, after a Thanksgiving meal, my dad would find a chair and a book and excuse himself from all family interaction for a few hours. I also absorbed deep pain when my mom told me she wouldn't be able to visit my newborn twins because she was busy with her own plans.

My mother works on our puzzle while my dad reads.

But this past week, as my parents and I are choreographing our dance of support and independence, I am grateful they are introverted extroverts, or extroverted introverts.

They lived in the thick of the nursing home's activities, organizing the duplicate bridge tournaments and reading to residents with limited sight. My dad loved his Saturday morning men's coffee time. As of last summer, my mother still rode her bike and scoured the grounds to pick up litter on long walks. Their vibrancy has been good for both them and the people around them.

But today I'm happy they have strong interior lives as well. My mother has filled countless spiral notebooks with journaling for years. Twice yesterday I found her writing when I came downstairs. My father reads and reads.

They are cheerful and conversational when I visit throughout the day, but I know as long as they are surrounded with reading material and lined notebooks, they'll be fine for a few hours on their own.

Reading and writing for the win.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

Day #6 Writing Through Covid-19: Tea Cups and Kentucky Belle

When I left for college, my mother re-entered the workforce as a substitute teacher. Ask anyone who went to Ft. Dodge public school between 1979 and 2009: she was an extraordinary sub. She told me today that aides at the nursing home said they remembered her because she always drew a strawberry (Berry) and a hill (hill) on the board to represent her name. She also brought a bag of cereal and would offer a small Cinnabon treat for student work well done.

This morning I read my mother another poem of the day before I posted it on her bathroom mirror. The poem reminded her of the writing she had done for her own students. Over the years she wrote and illustrated books, had them laminated, and brought them into the classrooms where she taught. Students usually chose the books she'd written over the regulars stocked on their classroom shelves.

I remember one titled "Longer and Skinnier." It told the story of a child asking his mother for a box. She offers several, but the child keeps saying "Longer and skinnier!" until at last, she offers an aluminum foil box. The child says the box is perfect: a home for his snake!

We enjoyed talking about how students value their teachers' authentic writing. But midway through our conversation, my mother began scanning a large bookshelf in my basement. "I can't find the books," she said.

I told her again that she was at my house, and that her books were in her apartment at Friendship Haven. She sighed with relief.

An hour later, I came downstairs to find my father napping, and my mother searching my son's bedroom. "I can't find my homemade books," she said with trepidation.

"Your books are at Friendship Haven," I reminded her gently.

"They'll throw them away! They throw out anything you leave!"

"You are still paying for your rooms," I reminded her. "They won't throw anything out. I will have Adrienne mail them to us."

My mother was once so fierce.  Her self-righteousness, confidence, and cutthroat intelligence contributed to our years-long strained relationship. It has only since she has slipped into dementia (and I have been humbled by years of trying to raise my own children) that I have been able to let go of anger and simply love her. We have never been as gentle to each other as we are now.

In the evening I brought her evening meds in a miniature hand-painted tea cup.


"My mother used to recite 'Kentucky Belle' to her students," she said. "And she'd recite it on long car rides."

"Yes, and you recited it to us! And I recited it to my own children," I said.

"I don't know it anymore."

"I don't think I do either," I said.

"Summer of '63, sir..." she began, pulling the line from deepest memory. I chimed in. Line by line we stumbled our way along. Where one of us forgot the next phrase, the other would pipe up. Together, we managed to recite the entire poem.

This morning I again brought her meds in the tiny tea cup.

Day #5 Writing Through Covid-19: Fruit Salad

"Did you sleep well?" I asked as I set my parents' small table for breakfast. "No," my mother said. She had been up multiple times in the night. In the light of day, she had her bearings. But in the night, she'd been confused. "It felt like a nightmare," she said, "not knowing which door was which."

The day before, as I settled them in, I offered to put a blue painters'-tape path on the carpet to guide them from their bedroom to the bathroom. My mother laughed and assured me she would find the bathroom if we left the light on.

In direct conversation, my mother is lucid for stretches at a time. But twice now I've gone down to the basement and found my father softly explaining to her where she is, why they're here.

After lunch, I brought down a puzzle and dumped it out on the Ping-Pong table. My diligence to maintain distance and limit physical contact slipped considerably when I felt compelled to turn the pieces face up. My mother and I bowed toward the table, eagerly touching and re-touching the pieces we'd both just touched. Chalk it up to quality over quantity of life. We had a lovely time.

Later in the afternoon, my son and his girlfriend walked down the gravel road for exercise and "visited" my parents by walking past the window and waving.

"Enjoy it!" I announced. "This is the day's entertainment: viewing beautiful young people for one minute!"

My parents moved into Friendship Haven's most independent housing ten years ago. They were still alert and strong, and their friends wondered why they were so eager to move to a care center. But my parents wanted to be proactive in assuring their children would not need to house them in their dotage. My mother had cared for both her own father and my dad's mother and wanted to spare her children that. Last year they moved to a higher level of care. Two meals a day were provided, but they still had a kitchenette and some independence.

Their hesitation in coming to stay with me during Covid Time comes from an urge not to be a burden. They asked if they could cook their own meals on a hotplate. Could they wash their own dishes? We put a dorm refrigerator in the basement and stocked it with fruit so they can nibble at will, but I assured them it would be ultimately less work for me if I could simply share what I was already cooking for Dan and myself for meals. They acquiesced.

But last evening when I brought them supper, my dad was standing at the Ping-Pong table cutting up fruit for a fruit salad. He was using a table knife to slice a soft pear, banana, and orange sections directly on the table. He had placed the peelings and cores in the empty puzzle box.

At 89 and 90, my parents are the gentlest of people now. They thank me profusely for every simple kindness I show to them. I could tell it took my dad some effort to ask me--if it wasn't too much trouble--to have a boiled egg every two days or so. I was only too happy to accommodate this small request. "It's for Vern," he said sheepishly. "He likes his dog food so much better if we put a little egg on it."

I brought them a bowl of boiled eggs and placed them in the refrigerator. I discreetly wiped fruit juice from the Ping-Pong table and moved the peelings from the puzzle box to a wastebasket.


Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison

Day #4 Writing Through Covid-19: My Parents Move In

So much has happened so fast. My daughter in Spain is my harbinger. Her country had zero cases when I was there 24 days ago. This morning their tally was 24,926 including 1326 deaths.

It is her warnings, and those from family in Minneapolis, that were the impetus for today's move of my feeble and moderately confused parents from their sitting-duck situation at Friendship Haven to their moving-duck situation in my basement.

We don't know if this move will actually prevent them from getting Covid-19. But the care center where they've been happy to be living for the past year is necessarily limiting the residents to their rooms. No more Bridge Club, Trivia Fridays, Memoir Writing Group. My siblings and I agreed that moving them during this time will hopefully lessen their chances of being exposed, at least in the short term. The main goal is to increase their happiness, not necessarily their longevity.

My biggest worry for now is that there might be some confusion on what increases happiness.

We have set up their living space on the single floor of our walk-out basement. It is bright with east windows, and they can walk their dog Vern out the back door without a step. (Side story: my parents' favorite topic seems to be quantifying Verm's BMs, as they call them.)

Last evening I showed my mother where the washer and dryer were and told her I could show her how to run the machines as often as necessary. She laughed and said, "Oh, the machines at Friendship Haven are automatic! I'll just use those."

"But you're staying here," I said, jolted again by how memory holes suddenly gape open in her conversations--like loud cracks of ice when you thought the ground was firm.

My mother looked at me with terror and said, "How LONG will we be here?!"

I quickly realized my mistake in saying "staying here" and assured her she would eventually go back to Friendship Haven--where she wants to be. I reminded her that this was a temporary move, and her horrified expression relaxed a bit. We shared a common shudder at that thought this situation might be permanent.
----

Before I went upstairs for the night, I walked my mother into the bathroom to show her a poem I had taped to the mirror. She began reading it aloud, and I joined in. We read it together to our reflections as our audience.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Day #3 Writing Through Covid-19: Meet the Parents

Game changer: I woke this morning to an email from my brother that will alter the next months of my life. Stafford lives in St. Paul, Minn. He is experiencing the pressures of isolation and virus transmission at the city level, while we here in rural Iowa are still in "isolation lite."

My parents live in a care center in our home town of Ft. Dodge. Stafford asked if Dan and I could relocate our 89-yr-old (suffering dementia) mother and 90-yr-old (weak heart, frequently stumbling)  father to our (relatively isolated) farm for the next weeks (?) months (??) while the virus moves through their care center. Lots of parentheticals. Bear with me.

Of the five siblings, I have the home that offers the best isolation option. My husband and I live in the country and can limit our contact with others. We can do this. We will give my parents the basement level to accommodate their limited mobility and still give them a degree of privacy.

But as the day unfolded, the reality of embracing elderly parents began to set in. My dad asked if they could have a stove or cook plate in the basement. (NO! You'd both forget to turn it off!) "Of course," I said. 

Would there be refrigerator space for all the sundry leftovers they'd like to cart halfway across the state? (JUST THROW IT OUT! I've seen your refrigerator!) "Of course," I said.

Oh my. I love my parents. I want to love them through this time of Clovid-19. But it helps to talk about it here.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.  

Leighton, Adrienne, Allison, Megan, Stafford
Leroy and Meredith Berryhill, 2017

Day #2 Writing Through Covid-19

My first few days of this week were pretty worthless. I stumbled around in a fog of uncertainty, checking my phone for news updates, frittering, lollygagging, napping, checking for news updates...

This morning I told myself to snap out of it, and I wrestled myself back into productivity. I got to work posting a daily poem, a creative writing prompt, an informational writing prompt, and a reading log for my English 9 students. I completed the writing prompts myself and posted my writing as examples. I read for 100 minutes.

This evening I made phone contact with the parents of seven students who hadn't responded to my emails Tuesday and Wednesday. I asked them to nudge their children to fill out the Google form I'd sent to identify learning supports they'd like during this hiatus. 

The phone calls turned out to be the highlight of my day. The parents and I commiserated, shared our dismay, and bonded over our shared concern for their children adrift in this surreal experience.

The burst of activity was good for me. I felt like a teacher again.

Tonight I will write a poem.

At the suggestion of Sarah J. Donovan, I posted a poem by the hand-washing sink.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Following Rachelle's Advice: Writing Through Covid-19

I retweeted my friend Rachelle's Twitter post:
@msrachellelipp
Mar 16
We are always witnessing history, but crises like this remind us of the sentiment; that’s why I challenge you to write each day: jot down your new routine, write a review for the show you just binged, list events that have been put on hold—take a snapshot of this time in history.

Having shared Rachelle's advice, I must also take it, even though I don't feel like my thoughts are settled enough for a cogent observation. 

Routine: 

Sleep in an hour
Read
Make a list
Play the piano
Take a walk or go for a run out here on the gravel
Do a crossword puzzle
Touch base with students 

Send out learning options (none of the work we're sharing is required)
Call my kids
Call my parents
Call friends

Take a nap
Play the accordion

Do some laundry
Read some more
Write a poem. As luck would have it, Ethical ELA began the March 5-Day challenge on Saturday. Perfect timing! My goal is to keep writing a poem a day through this. Here is last night's "origin" poem, using the mentor text of Jacqueline Woodson's opening page of "Brown Girl Dreaming":

December 29, 1959

I am born in
Wagner, South Dakota
Yankton Sioux Reservation
USA–

My father
a late bloomer
is 30 but looks like a boy
playing dress-up like a doctor

Korea or government service?
pacifist answer for
why he delivered me

I am the family papoose
dark-haired and swaddled
in my mother’s arms

Her hair is bobby-pin curled
in a style abandoned
along with the house dresses
and lipstick
by the time my mind
captures her
eternal pose
scowling at the kitchen sink
1974

she gazes at me
in the Wagner photos
with a love I did not know

until now
2020
when she hugs
me with her boney arms
her steely judgement
and acute memory
have sluiced
together
into the past 

I'm not bored. I like doing the low-key things I'm doing. Dan is stressed as the price of grain tanks alongside the price of oil, so I'm giving him LOTS of social distance. He'll take ibuprofen tonight to keep from clenching his teeth in his sleep. Eloise, in Spain, is housebound with her dog, a quarter mile from a beach she cannot go to. Harrison will be coming home early from Utah because the slope where he works ski rescue closed Sunday. His girlfriend is a pediatric emergency room nurse, so we're trying to figure out how to prevent the her--to him--to us--to Grandma germ-spread. Is everyone thinking of crazy stuff like this? 

Meanwhile, Grandma (Dan's mom) is the one we are most concerned about protecting, yet she has been getting her news from questionable sources for the past weeks and isn't ready to admit there is any worry. Against my advice, she went to the dentist Monday and to the medical center Tuesday for a non-essential thyroid test!

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Rex, after today's run in light drizzle.