Mom (17 page)

Barbara Dundon:
The thing I’m proudest of is the five years that you and I spent with Mom—her last five years. We moved her from Florida up here to an assisted living place in Philadelphia, and we had movie night together with her every Saturday night. We’d get pizza, and we’d bring it to her little sitting room and set it all up so that it was like a special little dining room. We’d have wine: she always had white zinfandel, that god-awful sweet stuff, and we’d toast to the three of us. We’d eat the greasy pizza and watch whatever movie we had that night. You often would bring her fresh fruit from home, and I’d do her pills, and this was our routine for five years—every Saturday night. It was turning a pretty sad situation into something that transformed all three of us.

She looked forward to those Saturday nights
so much
.You knew all the little ways to tease her that would make her laugh, or to compliment her to make her feel feminine, and I just loved that you were so close with her. It didn’t ever feel like a burden to you. I think you looked forward to Saturday night as much as I did.

Jack Dundon:
I did! What I remember is her preference for sex and violence in the movies. [
laughs
]

Barbara:
Right. She
did
like sex and violence. And her boyfriend! Oh, my gosh! What a story. She met Robert when she was ninety, and he was seventeen years her junior—remember, there weren’t many able-bodied men in this assisted living place. He was a hot number there for all the women—and he chose Mom! He picked her out, he pursued her, he brought her flowers, cards—he was
hot
for Mom. And she loved it! She flourished under this love and attention. It was great to see her so atitter.

We went over Christmas Eve that year, as we always did, with pizza and wine and Christmas cookies. As we were leaving, I said, “We’ll see you tomorrow, Mom. How about ten o’clock?” We all came back on Christmas Day with the presents from her grandchildren and the whole family. I mean, we always opened presents Christmas morning, and why would this be any different? So we arrived in the morning and started to open the door, but it was locked! I thought,
What’s the matter?
So we knocked, and I said, “Mom, we’re here!” I jiggled the doorknob; nothing happened. Finally, we heard voices in the room, and
shuffle shuffle
, I hear Mom’s little walker coming toward the door: “Oh, honey, I’ll be right there.” [
laughs
] We walk in, and there’s Robert, and he was putting his
shoes
back on. On Christmas Day! My God, it was unbelievable! [
laughs
] Robert made a hasty exit when he saw that the family was there to do Christmas. Everybody was kind of embarrassed, but we got over it.

We were there for her at the very end, holding her hand—remember that? The last Saturday night that we had together, I held her hand, and you moved over close to the bed, too, and we just talked with her—she wasn’t able to talk much at that point, but she was spirited in her own way, with her face and her gestures, and she loved hearing stories.

Sunday she started to fail. Thursday morning, she died. I called you right away. We went over, and each of us kissed her and touched her skin, which was cool. We’d never been with someone who just died. It was creepy and awful and wonderful—it was
all
of those things.

Jack:
What a blessing it was to be there. In a way, she had become my mother. I’d said that to her many times—that when we visited her, I felt like I was going home. It was how I was welcomed, how we knew each other, how we had cared for her. I realized after she died how much I missed having a mother. And I’ll never have a mother like that again.

Carol Kirsch:
My dad was always a tremendous support for me. I don’t remember any time that he tried in any way to discourage me from doing something I wanted to do. I miss him a lot. But I’ve had a rocky relationship with my mom.

Rebecca Posamentier:
I think that her raising you is very different than how you raised me, and that was a conscious decision on your part. What about your relationship with your mom made you decide that you didn’t want that with your own daughter?

Carol:
Mom was very insecure. She had polio as a child, and she had a limp for pretty much all her life. She was very talented at many things: she was a terrific singer, performer, and pianist. But she felt that she was not whole somehow because she had polio.

I think I’ve told you this before: I was afraid to have children. But I’m
so
glad I did.

Rebecca:
Me too! [
laughs
] And so is Shana. I just want to say that whatever it was that made you consciously make the decisions that you did in raising Shana and myself were amazing. I just remember thinking,
I could probably tell Mom anything and she’d be okay with it
. I remember a conversation you had with me right before I went off to college. We were sitting on your bed, and you spilled the beans about how there were times that you had made mistakes and you didn’t feel you could tell your parents about it, so you had to figure out how to get out of it on your own.You said that no matter what happens—even if it’s horrible, even if it’s terrible and I can solve it on my own—I should
still
tell you, and we’d talk about it. I felt like you were just genuinely
there,
no matter what happened.

You were always there for the good: good grades, intern-ships, everything. That’s just as important as being there when I had mono in college and went unconscious. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital bed and you were there next to me. I couldn’t understand how you’d gotten there so fast—but you basically hopped a plane and flew down the second you heard I was so sick. And you would do that for any of your kids. Those are the qualities of motherhood that I want to have, too.

Carol:
Well, I’m not as calm and cool and collected as I used to be. [
laughs
] It’s not easy. I know that there’s nothing I can do about the Alzheimer’s, and I know it’s not my fault— I have to live with it. I try to make the most of each day, because I’m not the kind of person who sits and wallows in self-pity.

For me, right now, what’s important is to be as close to family as I can be. I just am so grateful to have all of you in my life.

Rebecca:
I feel so lucky to have had such a wonderful childhood and still have your support at thirty years old and know that I’m gonna have it till I’m fifty, hopefully. It really gives me
so
much confidence going into my own motherhood for the first time. I know I’m gonna be a good mom—and I know that because I had a good mom as a role model. I had somebody who cared about me. Just like your father always supported you, you always supported me. You have those qualities, and you did a great job in passing them down. It’s my dream to pass them on to my own children as well.

Sophia is not due for another seven weeks or so, but when she comes, what are some of the things that you would want to be able to pass on to her? What are some of the things that you’d want her to know?

Carol:
Well, I’d want her to know that she’s going to be very loved. When she’s old enough, I’d like to tell her stories about my grandparents and my parents. I’m worried that my Alzheimer’s will get worse and that I won’t be able to spend the time I want with her. . . . I look forward to taking her places. I really hope I can do that for a while.

Rebecca:
Me too. I used to love getting tucked in at night. I know that you’ll do that for the baby when she’s a baby. . . . [
crying
]

Carol:
Oh, I will, honey.

Rebecca:
I think I got tucked in till I was going off to college! But I used to love just sitting in bed and having you sing a lullaby to me. And you will for the baby, too. I just think it would be great if you could just sing a lullaby for her—for me and for her. And for future babies that aren’t here, and aren’t twinkling in anyone’s eye quite yet, maybe you could sing one of the lullabies.

Carol:
Okay. [
sings
]
Tu, lu, lu, lu, lu, hush.To, lu, lu, lu, lu, hush-a-by. Dream of the angels way up high. Tu, lu, lu, lu, lu, don’t you cry. Mommy won’t go away. Stay in my arms, while you still can. Childhood is but a day. To, lu, lu, lu, lu, hush-a-by. Mommy won’t go away.

I was lucky enough to give StoryCorps its first-ever test run in a booth jury-rigged out of Styrofoam baffles inside a China-town recording studio in early 2003. For StoryCorps Interview #1, I chose to speak to my great uncle Sandy, the last survivor of my grandparents’ generation.

Reserved and wry with a quiet, country-boy charm, Sandy couldn’t have been any more different than his beloved late wife, my eccentric aunt Birdie, who insisted that, among other notable accomplishments, she was the inventor of fruit salad. Getting Sandy into this recording booth would answer a lot of questions I had about StoryCorps—how would an in trovert take to being interviewed? Would Sandy even agree to talk? Would he feel violated by being asked personal questions about his life?

Happily, the interview worked: in forty minutes, Sandy recounted the anti-Semitism he had faced as one of the few Jewish children in a small Connecticut town; he spoke with grace and humor about his half-century romance with my great-aunt Birdie; and he cried over the void her death had left in his life. At the end of the interview Sandy told me that the session had meant a great deal to him. Later I learned that he listened to the CD of his interview over and over again as he drove around New York City in his car. (As I write, Uncle Sandy is ninety-four and still going strong!) StoryCorps had passed a critical test, and we moved forward toward the launch of the project.

Life got very busy. I worked nonstop with a small team to get StoryCorps off the ground and to sustain it through the first challenging year. Months passed, and while I really wanted to take my own mother to the booth for a StoryCorps interview, it just felt like there wasn’t the time. It took more than a year before I brought my mom to the booth for what would be my second-ever StoryCorps interview, the project’s 1,013th.

As we walked into the booth to begin our conversation, I was happy to have the chance to steal an hour with my mom, but I really didn’t expect to hear anything I hadn’t heard before. My mom and I are quite close, and we talk all the time. Forty minutes later, though, there was barely a thing she had told me that I had known before.