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.