Wrapped in the Flag (44 page)

Pat Robertson, the forever host of that show, agreed: “It happened because people are evil. It also happened because God is lifting His protection from this nation, and we must pray and ask Him for revival so that once again we will be His people, the planting of His righteousness, so that He will come to our defense and protect us as a nation.”
²

In addition to seeing the attacks as God’s punishment on a sinful nation, Mother accepted the John Birch Society interpretation, as outlined in the October 22 issue of the
New American
, the Birch bimonthly magazine (previously
American Opinion
). In a forty-four-page special report, various writers argued that the totalitarians who led the United Nations hoped “to use the terrorist threat and other crises to build their new world order.”
³

In one article, “The UN Is NOT Your Friend,” William Norman Grigg
wrote, “UN Headquarters in New York City would be more accurately called Terror Central,” and, “The UN long ago defined itself as an ally of terrorism and an enemy of the American way of life. . . . But that will not prevent . . . advocates of world government from seeking to exploit public fear and outrage over global terrorism in their effort to create global tyranny—a UN-dominated new world order.”
⁴

The Birch Society never believed that it was the thugs from around the world that represented the biggest threat, and they made sure their readers remembered that. “The UN should be viewed as a vehicle through which corrupt, power-seeking elites in this country and elsewhere intend to acquire power over the entire world,” wrote Grigg.
⁵
The Council on Foreign Relations was singled out as “the most visible part of this international Power Elite.” This power elite had one goal, “absolute power” resulting in “a reign of terror beyond our imagination.”

This attitude was no surprise to faithful JBS readers, and it was no surprise to me. My father had crisscrossed the country selling the same ideas in the 1960s. What I didn’t want to do was get into a fuss with Mother about all of this. I thanked her for the magazine and assured her that I’d read it.

“You better listen,” she told me. “These are serious times. Come back to the Church and be saved.”

“Please, Mother, let’s not get into that again. Not now.”

“Fine,” she said. “How’s Kevin? Does he have a girlfriend?”

My mother could always catch me unprepared, tricking me into conversations I never intended to have. On this particular one, however, I’d already made up my mind. I would not and could not discuss Kevin’s girlfriend any more than I could discuss Brian’s. A woman who just announced that 9/11 was a punishment for homosexuality would not be pleased to hear that two of her grandsons had boyfriends.

My youngest son had come out over a year before. His announcement was, to say the least, a complete shock. I’d never, ever picked up a hint that Kevin was also “in the family,” as Brian liked to say. I was so sure that Kevin didn’t know what he was talking about that I suggested, not very diplomatically, that he get into counseling and rid himself of this ridiculous notion.

In one of my most embarrassing—and unkind—moments, I told him, “I gave one son to the cause. I’m not giving another.”

An hour later, I found my youngest child curled on his bed crying. I stretched out next to him and sobbed with him. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Can you ever forgive me?”

My son reached his arms out to me. “I love you,” he said. “Always.”

The next morning, I realized that I had a lot more to learn about being gay. I called a counselor—not for Kevin—but for me.

My boys decided—and my husband and I agreed—that coming out to their grandmother was inviting trouble. “She’ll blame you for sure,” Kevin said.

“She’ll blame you twice,” Brian pointed out.

As the aftermath of 9/11 continued, I was grateful that we’d made that decision. Mother continued her diatribes against the sexual sinners who’d brought God’s vengeance on the rest of us, and before long she’d added another bogeyman to the mix: the Russians.

This struck me as odd and irrational given the demise of the USSR more than ten years earlier, and I dismissed it as more proof that she was losing her grip on reality. It wasn’t until recently that I realized why she thought the way she did. I discovered a short video from 2011,
Exposing Terrorism: Inside the Terror Triangle
, with Arthur R. Thompson, CEO of the JBS. (John McManus remains with the society as its president.) In his nineteen-minute speech, Thompson argues that 9/11 may have been authorized and directed by former KGB agents. Since the collapse of Communism, he argued, the KGB has spread out into terrorist activities around the world, and “Islamic terror is in reality the old Communist terror dressed up to look Muslim.”
⁶
Thompson then weaves this thinking into the old idea about our country merging into a New World Order. This new international government would establish peace in the “name of ending the War on Terror.”

Not knowing about this video at the time, I lumped Mother’s chatter about the Russians with a whole lot of things Mother said that seemed irrational, much more irrational that her usual radical right-wing rhetoric. She determined that bears were crossing the state lines in Yellowstone Park and that no one was doing anything about it. She insisted that Christ was coming and that he’d appear in the Vatican with the Pope at his side. She claimed that pollution helped her flowers grow and that the government was secretly watching everything she did.

The staff at her assisted-living apartment became alarmed. Then, after she trapped herself in the bathroom, unable to figure out how to push the alarm button she wore on a chain around her neck, we increased her level of care. One day, she could not find her apartment and wandered up and down the halls of the building for several hours. Another day she called me, frantic
about the bugs in her apartment. When I arrived to help, she looked at me and said, “What are you doing here? Go away. I don’t want you.”

The administrator of the facility thought Mother needed round-the-clock care, which they couldn’t give. With great reluctance, all the professionals finally said the D word: dementia. My sister Mary found a small center just outside Marshfield that specialized in care for patients with advanced Alzheimer’s.

To my surprise, once Mother settled in her new home, she became less and less combative. The staff called her “our sweet Laurene” and lavished attention, care, and kisses on her. Though they couldn’t stop the progression of her illness, the women never failed to keep Mother as comfortable and as happy as possible.

One morning in the early spring of 2005, I pulled my car into the parking lot at Mother’s home. In the front hall, I peeled off my wet raincoat and dropped it onto the bench. Most of the residents were settled in front of the television in time for one of their favorite shows. As I walked into the main room, I could hear the announcer saying, “Come on down. You’re the next contestant on
The Price Is Right
.”

In the dining room, my mother was alone, perched in her wheelchair. As usual, she was staring at the newspaper in her lap—she couldn’t see to read anything, but holding the paper gave her comfort. I sat down next to her, took her hand, and reminded her who I was. I’d hoped, just like always, for just a hint of recognition, but she stared at me like she’d never seen me before. “Fifteen minutes,” I told myself.

I was so intent on escaping that I almost missed Mother’s words. “I remember a story,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you.”

I leaned in closer. Her voice was so tiny and scratchy; I knew she didn’t talk often. I reached for a small cup of water on the table and held it for her while she took a few sips.

“Listen to me,” she began. “Spain was my favorite place. I went with my husband a long time ago. Everyone was Catholic and I was so happy.”

The minute she said “Spain,” I knew the story. I’d heard it dozens of times since that first time, the night she and Dad returned from a long European vacation. As my old mother talked, I pondered the irony that the one memory that had survived Mother’s dementia-plagued brain was about civil war, Communists, and a young boy shot in the head.

My ninety-two-year-old mother, who barely knew her name and seldom recognized her
children, recalled perfectly the strange, dark tale. “That’s real devotion, real patriotism,” Mother said as she finished. Her eyes filled with tears for that boy, dead sixty years or more, a boy she’d never met, whose name she did not know.

Mother looked at me. “How very sad,” I said.

“It’s not sad at all, young lady,” she sniped. “It’s a marvelous story. The father had such principles, such integrity.” Her anger took me by surprise. The feeble old lady had disappeared; in her place was the powerful, fiery, resolute Laurene.

But in a blink, my old mother was back, drooling and yawning.

One of the staff came over, released the brakes on the chair, and backed Mother away from the table.

“I love you,” I said.

My mother turned her head away.

Our visit was definitely over.

After that, Mother ate less and slept more. She began to repeat words, over and over. Her doctor described the condition as “echolalia,” a parrot-like repetition of words that indicated the terminal stages of dementia. The staff thought she was a 33 rpm record caught in a groove.

Mother settled on one phrase and repeated it for hours on end. “Over the river, over the river, over the river, over the river.” When I heard her, I remembered the song she sang to my children when they were little, “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh over the white and drifted snow.”

She’d exhaust herself with the talking and then she’d cry. Several times, the staff thought she must have been in pain, but no one could find anything wrong with her. She didn’t have cancer or heart disease or diabetes, but she was dying. She was ninety-three then; she wouldn’t reach ninety-four.

Late in June of 2007, my daughter drove three hours from her home in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, to Marshfield to see her grandmother. I knew Sarah had been planning to go, and I hugged her so close to my heart for making this decision.

My sweet daughter, bone of my bone and heart of my heart, had walked a bumpy road with her grandmother. It would have been easy for her—and in every way understandable—if she’d skipped this final visit, but Sarah had never been one to take the easy way.

I could still see my daughter, age six, standing over a neighbor girl she’d
punched. I dashed out the door and pulled Sarah into the house. “What are you doing?!” I screamed as I shook her. “No fighting.”

“She called Brian names and made him cry,” Sarah said. “I was protecting my brother.”

I sent her to her room even though I admired her grit. That was how she approached everything—head-on.

Thirty-one years later, my all-grown-up Sarah called me from my mother’s bedroom. “Grandmother is having a really good day and she wants to talk to you now.” Sarah pressed the phone to my mother’s ear.

“This is Claire,” I said. “I’m so glad you called. I love you, Mom.”