Breakfast Memories Read online

  A day of rest

  So I am not put to the test

  Of a poem to you

  Who I love so true

  But when Monday comes

  And I hope with the sun

  I will write my love in volumes

  One by one.

  Kate Hanley Copyright © 2019 Green Writers Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States

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  Green Writers Press is a Vermont-based publisher whose mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal through the words and images we publish. We will adhere to our commitment to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. To that end, a percentage of our proceeds will be donated to social-justice and environmental activist groups. Green Writers Press gratefully acknowledges the generosity of individual donors, friends, and readers to help support the environment and our publishing initiative. For information about funding or getting involved in our publishing program, contact Green Writers Press.

  Giving Voice to Writers & Artists Who Will Make the World a Better Place

  Green Writers Press | Brattleboro, Vermont

  greenwriterspress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-9505841-6-1 (paperback)

  Memoir

  First Edition

  Printed by Cathedral Corporation

  Design by Sarah Clarehart

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to Manny & Marshal… Never forget that your first breaths will be remembered deep in my soul, when I take my last.

  FOREWORD

  Poetry inked on napkins, one of many that he left beside the breakfast he made for her daily, his last line of defense against the rising darkness of her dementia. The napkin, and dozens of others, just like it, each one covered in the outpourings of a man’s heart.

  This is a story of love, and a love story. A story of what I saw and felt as a daughter when my mom experienced dementia, and how my father’s love through their 65 years of marriage and courtship proved the definitive weapon against this disease.

  This is a story of hope for all who are watching those they love lose their memories. It is my personal journey of how I learned that when one is stricken by dementia, the mind and memories are lost and forgotten. However, I witnessed, through the love of my father for my mother, that this disease does not hold power over the memories that are stored within our souls.

  If you are the caregiver for one who has succumbed to the disease of dementia, please do not despair. You are doing the right thing. Your love and kindness will be remembered.

  I’ve walked this path, and I know this.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Beauty Parlor Day

  The newly laid mulch held a fresh scent and looked perfect with the array of promised daffodils popping through the ground from the April showers. In front of the basketball hoop, the chalk marks on the driveway outlining the boundaries for three-point shots were slightly washed away, faded from the spring rain. It was such a pretty day as we sat in the car in front of our home entrance and waited for her.

  What was taking so long? Dad and Marshal were in the car ready to head to the toy shop for his birthday present.

  “Bernadette,” he yelled out to her from the car window. “Bernadette, we’re waiting for you in the car.”

  She casually appeared at the doorway wearing the same red sweater from the day before, unflustered by his beckoning call. “Here I am,” she said, with the smile that could light up a galaxy.

  As Marsh got out and helped her into the front passenger seat, my insides tingled and I smiled, knowing just how much it meant to him to be with his grandparents. My husband and I both treasured these precious weekends when my parents would travel the two hours on the New York State Thruway and spend time with our two sons. Today was even more special as Dad and Marsh were going to shop for his ten-year-old’s birthday present. The toy shop, located just four doors down in the same plaza as the beauty parlor where I had gifted Mom with a cut, color and style, was sure to have the newest Star Wars light saber. I was sure it was going to be another great weekend with my mom and dad.

  I dropped off Mom first, at the sidewalk entrance of the salon. “Just call me when you’re done,” I said and kissed her cheek as I reached over to open her passenger door. “They’ve already been paid, so don’t even think of trying to pay for this!” She giggled at my comment, as Dad added, “Don’t change it too much!” It was no secret that he loved her auburn hair that held just a slight flip of a curl as it touched her slender shoulders. It would take quite the hairdresser to convince him that his wife of almost 55 years could look any prettier with a different-styled cut.

  A few minutes later, I dropped off Marsh and Dad at the entrance to the toy store.

  “We’ll call you when we’re done; give us an hour or so.”

  Perfect, I thought, knowing I would be back at that same time to pick up Mom. Just enough time to get home, marinade the lamb chops for dinner, and make Marshal’s birthday cake.

  The smell of fresh rosemary was finding its way from the cutting board to the chops, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at my phone and saw “Dad” on the screen.

  Already? It had only been thirty minutes.

  A quick flutter of anxiety shot through me as I grabbed a towel to wipe my hands from the garlic press to answer the call. “Dad, you OK?”

  “Please come get us now,” his voice pleading with a sense of despair. “Marsh and I just found your mother walking around the plaza. She never went into the salon. She said she forgot why she was here. Please come get us.”

  “Something is wrong with your mother.”

  I slid the roasting pan toward the back of the counter, turned off the oven, grabbed the keys, and did exactly what he asked.

  The red traffic lights couldn’t turn green fast enough. I hope she is OK, I thought as the sound of Dad’s nervous voice from his call to me last month echoed in my mind with his concern that “something is wrong with your mother.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Them

  While we are growing up and caught up in childish and adolescent things, our parents’ private lives are something of a mystery. It’s even more complicated when it comes to who they were before we came along. We weren’t there to witness events or register impressions, either behind the curtain of their privacy or their past.

  What we’re left to handle, when we try to reach for who they really are, are just the surface facts: our mundane daily encounters with them, some old photos, and a few wry or cute or terrible stories.

  There comes a time when some of us feel compelled to excavate down through the layers, and think about who these people really were. One such time occurs when you start to lose them.

  Then you dig, not so much with your mind, for bare facts—those are glaring. You dig with your heart. Like an archaeologist, you may only be left to guess at the meaning and purpose of what you uncover. But to do that is important—at least to the heart.

  It was for mine.

  “Hello, Miss O’Rourke.”

  “Hello, Mr. McDonough.”

  That was their daily exchange as he picked her up from her job at B. Altman’s, “America’s Most Famous Department Store” on 5th and 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

  She would come down the escalator, beaming from the top step with a ray of light that seemed to surround her, and gently wave at him in recognition, smiling shyly until she reached the main floor. She was always smiling. A smile with a humbleness that was ever enchanti
ng as its warmth swept onto the avenues where they would walk out the department store entrance, stroll hand in hand, and chat.

  1944

  They met through her older brother, John. John and Dad both attended Manhattan’s Saint Vincent Ferrer Catholic School and had mutual future plans to enlist in the Navy.

  “Would it be OK if my little sister Bernadette joined us today for an ice cream soda?” John asked Dad one day after school, knowing full well that his little sister, the youngest of four in the O’Rourke family, with roots in County Leitrim, Ireland, might well steal Peter’s heart. “She has a weakness for ice cream, and I think she’d enjoy your company.”

  And the rest, as they say, is history. John had been right. That was the day Peter saw her, and, as was his determined nature, knew he wanted to win her and keep her in his life. She was lovely, with big, sparkling blue eyes, and a terrific figure. She was sweetly shy yet engaging; she was brilliant yet humble and pure.

  John went back to his studies, and Peter walked Bernadette back to her parents’ home. He asked if she would join him the next day for a piece of chocolate cake. She said yes. They ended up instead at a 5th Avenue ice cream shop. It became their bond, meeting for ice cream after he picked her up from B. Altman’s. She was so smart. She was going to apply to Hunter College after high school to study home economics. She was proud of herself, and oh so sweet, like the ice cream they would order on their dates.

  Ice cream box from their dating days

  They shared stories of their childhoods, both having parents who left Ireland and immigrated to America with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the hope of finding love and building future generations. Mom’s father was an ice delivery man and her mom was a housekeeper. Between the two incomes, there was enough money to cover the expenses of their small, three-room apartment in Manhattan. Bernadette was adored as a child by both of her parents and her siblings. She grew up expecting little, demanding nothing, and poured much into making her parents proud. Their house was filled with love and happy times that included college graduation celebrations of all four O’Rourke children—three of them women.

  Dad’s life was different economically, but similar in the virtue of family loyalty and pride. He grew up broke—the kind of broke illustrated in poverty scenes by Norman Rockwell. Unlike Mom, he didn’t know his father well. His only memories were of his father in the hospital and his grisly, eventual death from lung disease due to mustard-gas poisoning during World War I. His mom, Bridget, and he were very close. She adored him, and he often accompanied her on her job as an office cleaner in old East-side Manhattan tenement buildings. When Dad wasn’t working with Bridget or studying for school, he was responsible for smashing discarded crates on the street to provide firewood for heating their small-three room, fifth-floor apartment. Unlike Mom, Dad had no electricity as a child. No wood meant no heat for the family.

  They dated for two years, and then Dad and her brother, John, went off to the Navy. Although John was the required enlistment age of eighteen, Dad was only seventeen. With fierce determination and loyalty to his mom, he graduated one year early from high school and, so that he could enter the military, falsified his date of birth and added one year to his age. Moreover, he changed his middle name on his military enlistment papers. In the 1940’s the federal government offered veterans benefits for mothers of sons in the military. As a son devoted to the care of his mom, he entered the Navy with the faith and peace that she would be protected by the G.I. Bill should anything happen to him.

  1945

  He was stationed at Sampson Naval Base in Upstate New York where he wrote in the evenings to his girlfriend Bernadette. He wrote to her of his plans to return to Manhattan to see her, and…would she be waiting for him?

  He wrote that he was interested in her thoughts on politics, her quiet but strong opinion, and the cheerful spirit that she carried in her personality. He wrote that the electric alarm clock in his room was wonderful and that his nights were filled with entertaining radio broadcasts from the common area of the compound main building. He gave her details of his day, hoping her mind would escape into his world and that she would miss him. He wrote of hoping her parents liked and respected him, his unspoken intention being that once he was out of the Navy, if she obliged, she would honor him and accept his marriage proposal.

  1951

  He was 23, a college graduate, and out of the Navy. She was 21, and had just graduated with honors from Hunter College three months earlier. They were married at the parish church she had attended her whole life. They had plans, big plans—plans to make a better world. Plans to make her parents and his mom feel a pride that only immigrants to America must feel as they watch their children—the family’s first generation of Americans—flourish.

  October 28, 1946: Peter’s letter from Sampson Naval Base

  1953

  As newlyweds, they had a small one-room apartment in Brooklyn. Their first-born, traditionally and lovingly named after Mom in the Irish Catholic practice, was born two years after their wedding. The baby thrived in their small apartment, partitioned by a curtain that created a makeshift nursery and held the small bassinet Peter built for his beautiful daughter. She was baptized within two days by the same priest who married them.

  Two years later, Mary Margaret was born, named after Mom’s two sisters. They moved to a bigger apartment in the same building, which included a real second room as a nursery for both girls.

  “Bernadette, it’s time to leave Brooklyn,” he told her. “We need a better place to raise the girls.”

  Two years later, their first born son and Dad’s namesake, was born in Philadelphia. I came along two years later and was named Catherine, after Mom’s mother. I cannot imagine how anxious and exhausted she must have been with four little children, (one every two years,) a husband who earned his living as a traveling salesman, and her closest family support now four hours away in Manhattan. But overwhelming was not in her vocabulary and not a part of her being. Not our Mom, the home economist. She had a system.

  She put her home economics degree to work by starting a shared babysitting business so that she and Dad could have one night a week without kids. Our CEO mother designed a business plan in Darby, outside of Philadelphia, where her neighbors and friends would watch her four toddlers for one night a week in exchange for her watching another family’s children for the same amount of time. Brilliant economics, if you ask me. They had no money for babysitters; who would? They were raising four children on his one salary, but he would tell her not to worry about their financial future. Any good economist knows the future is all about worry, so sure enough, she took her love for being alone with her husband one night a week into her own hands without tendering cash. She kept her role as mother and as wife, as only she could have done. What a clever woman, yet again, creating and finding time to share her love and affection for our dad.

  Two years later James, a.k.a. Jamesy, was born and named after Mom’s uncle in Ireland. Dad had taken a better job making more money and was able to get a bigger house to provide for his wife and small little children, now five in tow, in their new home of Cincinnati, Ohio.

  Two years later they moved to another suburb in Cincinnati, with a stronger Catholic elementary school in walking distance for my older siblings. Their sixth child, Thomas, my second youngest brother, came along and was christened and named after her sister Catherine’s husband.

  Two years later, my little sister Patricia, their seventh and final child, was born. Their last relocation, to a suburb in Rochester, New York, offered their brood of seven children a four-bedroom, one-bathroom, 1830 farmhouse. The house was set in a perfect village suburb with sidewalks everywhere and a short walk to the Catholic convent, where we attended religious education classes. The elementary school was literally in the backyard, and the middle school and high school were both a quick walk down the hill. This was really when my memories of childhood started, with the birth and naming of my s
ister Trish.

  All six of us had been namesakes, but for some reason, naming this seventh child was different. She was not to be a namesake. This time, the six of us participated in the naming of our newborn sister.

  “You have a little sister,” Dad announced as he walked through the kitchen door, returning from the hospital. “The baby and your mother should be home in five days or so. We can go and see them both tomorrow. Your mother wants to name the baby Agnes.”

  “What? Agnes?” The scream from my older siblings and I could be heard throughout the neighborhood and the dinner table quickly turned into a competition on naming the baby, all of us, shouting out names for our little sister like we were on Family Feud. Poor little baby had no idea what world she was about to enter with such competitive brothers and sisters, each insisting that the name they had selected for the baby was the best. In the end, Dad claimed victory in the name game, after naming his lovely little baby girl after a beautiful girl he remembered from his elementary school youth. His victory was challenged by Mom, of course, who said the baby was named after two of her favorite saints.

  For 45 years our family lived in the same house, hosted graduation parties for all seven of us from high school, pushed seven of us out the door to college and welcomed thirteen grandchildren. Our home was known throughout the village as “the Mayor’s House,” and Mom was “the Mayor’s Wife,” or as Bette Midler so beautifully sings, the “wind beneath [his] wings.” To me, my brothers, and my sisters, she was simply a vessel of happy energy and unending love and faith.

  Mom had a skip in her step, a smile that had the sweetness of the nectar that we read about in the story of Adam and Eve, and the work ethics of her beloved parents. Constantly using her home economics degree, she ran our home like a machine on all four gears. She had seven children—seven workers who helped manage her home, her yard, and her gardens. She was a homemaker, finding joy in making fantastic strawberry rhubarb jam, which she bottled in recycled baby-food jars. Our favorite dinners included baked potatoes smothered in margarine, served alongside fresh-cut asparagus from her garden.