The Thief

The curtain began closing in on my mother’s mind long before the last act of her life was over, perhaps when she was in her early forties. Whether she was already suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s or from some unrelated problem, I cannot say.

What I can say is that most people who knew my mother during the last forty years of her life knew a different person than those who knew her during the first forty. Many of the latter group lived far away on the plains of south-central Kansas, where she spent her childhood, the middle child in a family of three girls, and the designated “boy” who helped her father sow, cultivate, and harvest winter wheat in the red-dirt fields of Harper County. Many others who knew her then hailed from the oil-boom town of Perryton, at the northern tip of the Texas Panhandle, where she spent most of the early years of her married life and undertook the daunting process of raising five children overdosed on energy and imagination, a condition that was exacerbated by the boredom that sometimes accompanied living in the country on long summer days.

We weren’t bad kids, but when you’ve got a brand new set of bunk beds, a screwdriver, and a need to distinguish which bed belongs to whom, the unblemished woodwork practically screams for a name to be carved into it. And when you make your own cinnamon toothpicks using cinnamon oil from Corner Drugstore, how could you possibly know that the oil can eat away the varnish of a brand new piano? And when you read about a winepress in a Bible storybook, but you can’t find enough grapes to try it, a loaded mulberry tree actually works quite nicely. Unfortunately the storybook didn’t mention what happens when you walk barefoot across the living room carpet after finishing a hard day of stomping at the winery.

In our family’s case, the mulberries didn’t fall far from the tree. Both Mom and Dad had put together impressive resumes of childhood mischief, and neither had lost their zest for an adventure or the urge to be creative. I’ll never forget Mom’s creative use of language when she discovered my artwork on the bunk beds. And oratory was not her only gift. She played piano, painted, wrote poetry, and sang funny songs with names like “I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch.” She made the most incredible birthday cakes, customized for each of us, including a basketball-shaped, frosted cake for my brother Jim that looked like a basketball but exploded like a balloon when he cut into it. (Oh, wait, it actually was a balloon!) She made us laugh and play games together. She made us hold hands and sing “Love Lifted Me” when we quarreled. (I still remember all three verses!) And occasionally she scared us to death.

When the curtain began to close, it happened so slowly that we can’t even say when it began. When did she put away her oil paints and brushes for the last time? When did she compose her last poem? Even before the doctor delivered the official diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease ten years ago, these passions and many of the little things that defined the mother of my childhood days had disappeared behind the curtain. My dad, who showed incredible patience and love throughout this disappearing act, wrote a poem which says it best:

— — — — —

The Thief

Just how and when the thief slipped in
I have no clue, nor do those sleuths
whom I’ve called on to help me solve
the mystery of missing links
that once held cells together in
a mind that served her well back when
she reared a striking family;
created lovely works of art
with yarn and beads and her own skill.
The thief began his devious deeds
by robbing her of knowing how
to get back to our country home
from a short drive to buy some bread.
Too soon he stole from her the place
in which for years she’d kept her “Trix”
and other breakfast cereals.
The robber slipped away with all
the means she had of cooking meals.
In broad daylight the scum would steal
her lipstick, purse, and socks and shoes.
In recent months, he hides the bath,
and sneaks off with the oddest stuff.
He’ll dress her in the strangest clothes,
as if to call attention to
a woman who had never wanted
that before the thief stole in.
I think the culprit now has aides
abetting him to lame her frame,
and also tangle up her talk.
Sometimes the thief provokes a sob,
because it’s hard for her to know
how precious things could vanish so!
But up to now this evil crook
has not purloined her smile, nor zest
for three or more good meals a day.
If ever I can find this thief,
I’ll batter him till he returns
the loot that’s left this one so stripped
of almost all that she once was.

— Ken Roller

— — — — —

It wasn’t until the day after Mom’s passing, as we were going through her keepsakes, that I realized just how much The Thief had stolen. Dad came across a letter — forgotten by him and unknown to the rest of us — explaining, from Mom’s point of view, an event that has become one of the stories that make up the canon of our family history: The Tearing Down of the Barn Roof. As background, it was the summer of 1964. I was ten. Kenna was nine. John was seven. Jim was a toddler. Jane had not yet worked up the courage to be born into such a family as ours. We lived in a wonderful rock house a mile west of Perryton. It had an old run-down barn behind it which served very briefly as a clubhouse for us kids — until we came home one evening covered with lice from the section that had once housed the chickens. Talk about a lousy day!

Anyway, Mom, who always had an eye for the aesthetic, didn’t like that old barn and was constantly after Dad to tear it down. Dad, who was a busy man and perhaps slightly less focused on the aesthetic, kept telling her that he would get around to it and — knowing my mother — asked her not to take matters into her own hands. That’s where our story begins, and I’m going to tell it to you in Mom’s own words from a letter (edited slightly) that she wrote to Dad:

— — — — —

Dear Ken,

You see, it was this way:

The children were hot and sweaty and beginning to get cross with one another, so when the suggestion was dropped that they start tearing down the south garage, who was I to shatter their world of fun, since it had to be done anyway?

So as soon as I was sure that you and Jim were out of sight, I gave into their pleas and to the plea of that faraway voice of yore that seemed to say, “Why not? More fun than trimming a hedge any ol’ day!” So I found myself shinnying up the locust tree onto the roof. You can’t imagine the feeling of exuberance it gave me, nor the pleasant memories it brought back!

I settled back and watched the children take turns pulling those stubborn nails out of the roof. Kenna pulled awhile and then came to one that wouldn’t budge. Little did we know at the time that it held the roof in place. Carefully picking her way back up to solid roof, she turned the chore over to John, who knew just where to step to get down to that nail. Struggling for several minutes, he finally asked, “Mother, why don’t you see if you can get this nail out?”

“OK,” I replied. “Let me go down and get the ladder.”

“No, it’s too rotten!” replied Doug, “And the roof is too weak to hold you. Let’s quit for tonight!”

“No!” I replied. “If that tin were to blow off, it could really hurt someone. We must finish the job we’ve started!” At this point everything happened so fast that all I remember was the surprised gasp from three little mouths as one end of the roof collapsed and Mother took the fancy, feet-first dive, landing in the most relaxed form of one idly passing the time of day.

Then someone shouted, “John!” And here he came zipping down to greet me, hammer clutched tightly in his hand high above his head. I shall never forget his expression, all eyes, ready to pop clean out of their sockets. How I wish you could have shared this moment of humor!

That is why I wrote this down for you. How thankful I am that Jim was not nearby and that John wasn’t hurt. Surely God’s guardian angels were working overtime. I am wondering what events to look forward to tomorrow. Let’s never cease enjoying every minute with our fun-filled kids!

My love always,

Yours Truly

— — — — —

What Mom doesn’t say is that she cut her ankle pretty badly when she fell. Dad got home just in time to watch her limp his direction as we ran ahead to tell him the story. In an even, measured voice that we heard so often when he was most angry, he simply told Mom that any woman who could take it upon herself to tear down a barn with only the help of three little children could undoubtedly drive herself to the doctor for stitches. Mom, in an equally measured response, proceeded to oblige him, with Kenna riding shotgun. I’m sure the letter, which was typewritten on an old Smith-Corona manual typewriter, was her strategy for charming herself back into his good graces. It obviously worked.

When I read Mom’s letter, I was overcome for the first time with the magnitude of our loss. I wept. How could The Thief have done this to us? I realized that it was not just her memory that he took, but also our memory of the person she really was. But I was also overcome with the joy of finding her again. She was not the woman in the hospital bed staring blankly at us after the tubes that supported her life were pulled, the last bracing holding up her collapsing frame. She was and always will be to me, the beautiful, audacious, creative mother standing on that Texas Panhandle stage with the curtain wide open, wondering what adventures awaited us tomorrow.

— Doug Roller, July 15, 2008