My Mom Ruth - June 14, 1936 - May 31, 2004

This one is going to be hard. My mom and I didn't have the relationship that my dad and I had. I think that she may have been jealous of this.

This is a picture of my mom and my brother. This is the first and only house that my mom and dad had. Gosh to look at this same angle now, you wouldn't believe that it is the same place.

She was always barefoot. I get that from her. I don't ever remember her wearing sneakers. When we got snow, she would wear snow boots, but inside she just wore socks in the winter.

Here she is with my Auntie Violet. I think my mom learned how to cook from her. I have to say that my mom was a good cook. Once she cooked something, she would change it around just a little bit. I remember one time I had to make the turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving. She wasn't feeling well and insisted that we were still going to have Thanksgiving dinner. I asked her were the recipe was? She didn't have one. Wasn't this fun. I had to keep running between the kitchen and her bedroom until it was right. She ended up going to the hospital. She had pneumonia. So here Danny and I were with a 15 pound bird and stuffing. Needless to say, Danny had a lot of turkey sandwiches. After that I told her I wanted recipes. She said she didn't have any. All the recipes were in her head. I didn't care I told her to write down what she used and about how much. She did. As it turns out I cook a lot like her. If I find a recipe that I think I will like, I make according to the recipe. Then I tweak it to my taste. So basically, when someone asks me for one of my recipes, they get mad when I tell them I don't have it, but this is how I make it. One time my dad and her went crabbing in the back bays. My dad set the CB up and my mom told me to put the roast in the oven. I put the roast in the oven at the time she told me. I was in my room and realized that it was pretty late. I came out and asked Danny if he heard anything from them? He said no. They finally got home. She was pissed. Neither one was paying attention to the tide so here they high and dry waiting for the tide to come. Good thing we had gravy with that roast.

In the entry about my dad, I said that he had an Exxon gas station. Sometimes there wasn't enough help and my mom helped out. This picture was taken back in the day when there was leaded gas. Don't we all wish that the price of gas was this low again.

Her favorite things to do were go the the casino, play bingo and watch the news. I would go over after work and she always had the news on. This was to depressing for me. The other thing was reading the newspaper front to back. Oh I have to add another thing to this list. When my dad was still alive they would go for rides. There was never a destination. Where ever they ended up, they ended up.

My brother's health was horrible. After she retired she basically took care of him. Very seldom did she go out. When he died, she basically gave up. She just sat in her chair. We had many a fight about this. My Aunt Mae would asked her all the time if she wanted to go out to dinner, bingo or the casino. The answer was always no. This was starting to wear on me because aside from Aunt Mae, I had no help. She fell one day while I was at work. She had broke her ankle and because of just sitting, she had no muscle tone in her legs. She went to a re-hab center for therapy. She basically did the same thing there that she did at home, sat. She made friends in the center and quite honestly I think she enjoyed being there. There were people there in similar situations as her. When I would go, she would be in the dining area playing cards or some other games with someone. This went on for a good many months. I was tired, angry and depressed. She didn't understand this and still demanded more. I had asked Aunt Mae to go and talk to her. She did, but then went to Maine for vacation. The day after Valentine's Day my mom called me and told me that Mae was hit and killed by a drunk driver last night. I couldn't believe this. I called Aunt Mae's friend to find out if this was true. Yes - it was true. This was another blow for my mom. And a major blow for me. Things got worse after this. She spent more time in the hospital then in the center. One haul was 40 days in ICU, with an additional 20 in a regular ward. She went back to the same facility and after a little while they wanted her to sign a DNH (Do Not Hospitalize) I fought with them about this. How stupid. There are reason's for people to go to the hospital. I ended up having her transferred to a different center. She did have to go back to the hospital, but not for a major reason like the last time. She ended up taking a turn for the worse and her mind started to go. One time she asked me if Danny was home yet and had dinner? I was dumbfounded as he had died several years prior. The facility called me the Friday before Memorial Day to tell me they had sent her to the hospital. She was in isolation. She was talking and laughing the whole time, not to me, but to someone. She would say "Vaughn, go upstairs to mom and dad's room and get that thing." This went on all day Saturday. Sunday was different. Her breathing was labored and she wasn't talking, but mumbling. When the nurse came in I asked if there was a DNR on file. She said that she was going to talk to me about this. She said that she had already checked and there wasn't. She gave me some time and came back in the room and asked what I wanted to do? I told her that she wasn't going to get better this time and I wanting to sign the DNR. Monday there wasn't any mumbling. At one point she opened her eyes when I was standing there and said "Ruthie". I said, "No. Lisa." She had no idea who I was. I knew that I would be getting a phone call that night. It rang about 10:30.

After I was getting all the affairs in order. I went to the Social Security building to inform them of her passing. They informed me that she would not be entitled to the May check. I asked them why not. I figured that it would be rated on the number of days that she was alive. Wrong. A person must be alive for the entire month to be entitled to the check. So because my mom missed the end of the month by an hour and a half, she wasn't entitled to that month. I couldn't believe this.

She used to work for the elementary school district in the administrative office. They planted a memorial tree in her memory.