Breakfast Memories Read online

  She was tall, and as Dad would say, her face was “the map of Ireland.” She had big blue eyes, a perfect size-eight figure, and auburn hair that she wore flipped slightly under with the help of her Clairol electric curlers. At 5:00 p.m. every weekday, she would disappear upstairs to wash up from her life as mom and home manager and then reappear back downstairs looking very much like Katharine Hepburn, striking and sweet. With freshly-applied, bright-red lipstick, hair pulled into a soft bun, and a gentle and welcoming smile, the quick-change artist would welcome Dad back from the demands of his day in the newly evolving world of advertising.

  When Mom wasn’t being a mom she was a community volunteer, taking time to give to those less fortunate than herself. Mom took her charity work with absolute intensity, and we learned not to intrude upon this special side of her.

  “Hello. Yes?—wait, let me check.” She would open her daily planner during phone calls to see if she was available to help our priest with Mass, deliver meals on wheels, assist homebound seniors, or make a cake for one of our teachers. She never said no, and she never ended a phone call without saying, “Thank you for calling.”

  Her kindness and energy made her a target, in a way. “Could you…?” “Would it be possible for you to…?” were questions and requests that came at her from many directions. Her answer was always, “Yes, I can.”

  Every year she was the room mother for each of our classrooms. Seven classrooms equaled seven sets of responsibility and enough brownies baked for what seemed like half of the school system. She was the volunteer parent who would go into the public elementary and middle schools to lead the children in their walk down the sidewalks to the Assumption Parish Catholic Religion School. I remember being so proud that she was my Mom because she was always so nice to all the kids. If there was one child walking alone, she would ask a random child to take over as leader and quietly fall behind the group and walk with the stray child.

  “Her faith was always the answer.”

  All these things were so typical of Mom; she was always sensitive to the needs of lonely or misunderstood souls and always happy to give to someone rather than give to herself. But how did she trust that she would have enough?

  Her faith was always the answer. It could not be overlooked.

  Mom’s spirituality was undoubtedly her bedrock foundation, and she showed devotion by doing.

  She was famous in the community for giving fresh, warm, delicious treats to someone who was struggling or suffering. Sliding pans of freshly baked brownies, breads, cookies, or cakes would come out of the oven, and she’d call us into the kitchen, so we could wrap them in plastic and attach a simple note that said, “With love from the McDonough Family.” We would all be assigned to get on our bikes and deliver these “love-gifts” to people from church who were ill or others whom she wanted to thank for their kindness to her brood or husband. During Christmas season, we would walk throughout the neighborhood delivering her baked goods to our twenty-five-plus neighbors on her Christmas list.

  In the summer months, the smell of her signature cinnamon-apple bundt cake, brought neighborhood kids in from around the block.

  “Mrs. McDonough…do you have any cake?” Tenney, my brother’s best friend, who basically grew up in our home, would charge through the back door, not saying hello, but seeking one of her warm baked goods.

  “On the counter,” Mom would tell him, and he would open the drawer, take out a knife, and cut a slab of still-warm cake. The remarkable thing was, Mom would do this with all of our friends. Little wonder our neighbors thought she was special—her spirit shone through everything she did.

  Faith in action—that’s who Mom was.

  For thirty-four years Mom managed her husband and seven children. After Tricia left for college, and with no more children in their home, their lives became even more entwined as one. They continued their nightly rituals of ice cream. They laughed. They traveled through Ireland, and ultimately Mom worked for Dad as his assistant and secretary in his newly found career of professor.

  She would take dictation of his teaching notes for his students. The university where they worked, Empire State College, was a mentorship-style university that offered coursework for older students in need of a college degree to advance in their careers. His office, one hallway down from her secretarial desk, was unlike the predictably decorated offices with gray, stainless steel file cabinets and matching gray, stainless steel desks. Dad’s office was different and better. Dad’s office was more of a storyboard collection of their passions.

  Different and Better. That’s what he taught as his subject matter at college and his home. The office of my father, the professor, had charm and warmth. Like a hideaway, it was in the far corner of the university center and had its own back entranceway from the parking lot. He would welcome his students, often the same age as Dad, and quickly capture them with his wit and fascination for all things from the past. Students would fall into his world beyond academia, as he would engage them with stories, describing in great detail when and where he had found items to add to the collections that adorned his office. He had a gumball machine from the 1940s, and nautical artwork hung all over the walls, celebrating his love for ships and Commodore Nelson. His bookcases housed hundreds of books on creativity, imagination, and the power of the brain. On his bookshelves, he displayed ships in a bottle, many of them his constructions, cast-iron penny banks dating back to 1840, and a glass sculpture of the phrenology of the brain.

  From the ceiling hung a three-foot lightbulb that he had jerry-rigged into a ceiling fixture. When his students had a “bright idea,” he would turn on the light and celebrate their success. Outside of his office, he had an Irish flag, hanging on a flagpole. As students entered his office, they could find a huge 1940s, seven-foot-tall, white porcelain drug-store penny scale, like the kind seen in a Jimmy Stewart movie. A 1960 solid oak phone booth, (think Clark Kent changing into Superman clothes), was on the left, and hundreds of matchbox cars that he had collected for years, were showcased on his bookshelves. We would visit him in his office, and because we all loved the scale and the telephone booth, once retired, he brought them home to adorn our family kitchen. Yes, we had a 1940 white porcelain penny scale and a telephone booth in our house when I was growing up.

  Dad spoke at advertising club luncheons and university professional development seminars extolling the power of creativity and challenging his audience to think outside of the box. His students both loved and admired him, and it was with great pride and joy that he would introduce them to our family. His students became his dear friends.

  Dad’s collections weren’t confined to his office. They filled our home well beyond the transitioned porcelain drug-store scale and the 1960s telephone booth. He and Mom spent great amounts of time at art museums, attending art lecture after art lecture, and always left with a piece for her or for them from a particular exhibit. Sometimes it was a poster of an exhibit or a replica piece from the exhibit. It didn’t matter to either of them how exciting a piece was to someone else: they collected pieces that appealed to their memories. For Dad, though, this pastime had even more significance.

  When he discovered certain treasures, Dad would research their historical significance and use them to open discussions in his creativity seminars. His message was the same to each student, as well as to us: While things have a value to life, the value of things themselves does not matter. Something that is valuable is so because of its story and connection to you.

  That was Dad. Dad’s message was the story behind his collections, not the collection itself. That was what his students loved about him. Dad could pick up an object and minutes into his storytelling, the object became a piece of fascinating artwork.

  Apart from his far-ranging travels, his teaching, and his community work, there was always only one place Dad would rather be. Dad was happiest when he was just with her—his Bernadette—sitting in the backyard or alone with her at the kitchen table. He was grou
nded in her, relying on her self-taught secretarial skills and her ability to multitask. I remember coming home many Sundays and watching them outside in the backyard near her rose beds. They would sit under a shade umbrella, and he would dictate to her a college memo regarding his sabbatical interest, or she’d check his grammar and spelling on a letter to the newspaper editor updating the village residents on a new and exciting urban renewal project, all while sipping tea and savoring her special cinnamon cake. Notably, when he was with her, there was always calm. He knew he had a treasure in her, and what a treasure she was.

  Besides the management skills of a Fortune 500 CEO, she had beauty, efficient typing skills, and the ability to create great recipes and stretch a dollar. Mom was all of this, wrapped around a heart the size of Texas. She was the executive director of his home and had complete responsibility for the academics, social behaviors, and scheduling of his seven children—not an easy part-time job. She loved him, and he loved her. Indeed, there was never a doubt in my mind that his greatest pride was the auburn-haired beauty at his side.

  They explored their beloved Ireland and immersed themselves in Irish literature and music. In dedication to their heritage, each St. Patrick’s Day he would provide the village DPW with Irish green paint and paint one solid green line all the way from outside of our home to the center of the village.

  He continued to express his love for her through his tinkering. When the village was excavating to improve the roadway in front of their home, he convinced the workers to place a boulder found during the excavation directly in front of their beloved house, on the left side of their front entrance steps. A boulder? For what? A love story, we would learn. As a self-taught soldering craftsman, he soldered two love birds on top of the boulder and inscribed into the rock, with his own steady hand, a message of love to his bride: Come live with me, the best is yet to be.

  The boulder now sits at the entrance to the cemetery of their parish of 43 years.

  They celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary by renewing their vows at the parish in the village, followed by an intimate reception lovingly hosted at the home of my sister. Our aunts and uncles and all seven of us, along with our children, spouses, and their friends, celebrated their marriage of forty years. A pin drop could have been heard as she entered the renewal of vows mass, forty years later wearing her original wedding dress, unaltered, looking as beautiful as she did when it adorned her lovely figure four decades earlier.

  What a treasure he had.

  CHAPTER 3

  That Day

  When we were little kids, it was always Mom who was the parent who was most involved in our everyday needs, and when the seven of us turned into parents ourselves, the pattern continued with Mom being the one who would call us and check in on her thirteen grandchildren scattered across the country.

  “How are the boys?” No matter how I answered this question when Mom called, and she called at least three or four times a week, she would be elated over everything I told her. “Wow! You must be so proud of them,” she’d say as I listed each and every happening in their early teenage lives. I looked forward to her responses to their accomplishments, because without missing a step, she would always end our conversation with “Well, I’m not surprised…just look at their parents.” I’d hang up, feeling her warmth like the wrap of an Aran Isles wool shawl—the kind of warmth that a daughter can only feel from the unconditional love from a mom. I knew, because she told me, that she was proud of both Mike and me as parents. How lucky was I that she loved telling me?

  But Dad never called. It wasn’t like him to want to talk on the phone. The phone call routine was that Mom would call to chat, and then before hanging up, put Dad on the phone, whereupon he’d offer a brief conversation about his latest tinkering projects.

  But Dad’s calls started coming in pretty regularly after the “no-show beauty parlor day,” and his calls were not about his tinkering but his concerns “about your mother.”

  He was worried that she wasn’t interested in the usual things anymore. She wasn’t herself. She slept more and wanted to go out less. He worried about all kinds of things, and as much as I am embarrassed to admit it, I thought he was being a bit selfish and particularly harsh on her. After all, she had raised seven kids and put up with all kinds of struggles and demands in her life. Give her a break, I thought, completely dismissing his comments. When I’d hang up from his calls, I’d look for something to grab or clench in frustration about his selfishness and angrily tell my husband Mike that “Dad, as usual, was calling about himself, not about her.” I was sure of it, because when I talked to her she seemed fine.

  But then, that day, I saw things differently, and I wasn’t so sure.

  That day. I’d gone to my parents’ home at Dad’s urgent request to go with him to see a specialist for Mom. I found them sitting at the kitchen table, the same kitchen table where seven nights a week for over fifteen years I sat with my parents, brothers, and sisters and ate dinners of fish sticks, sloppy joes, baked potatoes with margarine, and Friday night clam chowder. Years ago, after the table was clear of dinner dishes, it transformed into an oversized homework desk scattered with books ranging from kindergarten math to English Regents prep books. So that she could keep abreast of her household demands, a stack of Dad’s laundered shirts and my brothers’ Cub Scout uniforms would be piled on a chair at the far end of the table, ready for Mom to iron while she kept a watchful eye on our studying.

  At one time, the table had nine slat-back chairs with four extra (for additional drop-in eaters) that were stored in the laundry room next to the kitchen. That day, there were just three chairs: one placed at the head of the table where Dad sat, with one chair on the right-end corner and one chair on the left-end corner, creating the form of a small arch. I was taken aback by the noticeable change as I looked at it that day, remembering that when I was a kid, the table felt huge. My mind flashed back to when all seven of us—nine including Mom and Dad—were piled around the twelve-foot rectangular table. The setting was more like the mess hall from M*A*S*H than the all-American family dinner scenes on The Brady Bunch.

  That day, as I walked in, Dad was hovering over Mom, who was seated in her chair on the left side of the arch. He was coaching her on where the pieces of a makeshift puzzle fit. He had taken an envelope from the mail and cut it into large pieces, handed her Scotch tape, and was gently mixing the envelope pieces on the table in front of her. He was coaching her as she attempted to re-piece the four envelope cutouts into their original form to recreate the envelope.

  “Good one! That-a-girl,” he was saying, as I walked in the door. It reminded me of the way I spoke to my boys when they were little and learning how to read. Radiating with pride from his acknowledgment, she continued her puzzle, not noticing me as I walked through the door.

  Oh, my God. I was seeing first-hand what Dad had been telling me over the last month before the “no-show beauty parlor day.” I had ignored Dad’s complaints that Mom was not herself, that something about her was not right and that she wasn’t as alert as she used to be.

  She’s just slowing down, for Pete’s sake, I had thought.

  But now, seeing her lost look behind her little-girl smile as she playfully placed the puzzle pieces, I finally got it. I felt my face tighten up and a huge knot form in my stomach. What is going on here?

  As I gazed over at them both, I could taste the fear in the back of my mouth. Dad was sitting with Mom, not complaining or pouting about her “lack of…” but broken and trembling. As he reached over to help her with the puzzle, his hand was shaking. This was not the man I knew. I knew him and saw him as strong and tall, long legged, and firm with a handshake that meant, “Let’s do business.” He was the mayor of our village and was known for refusing defeat. But what I saw that day was a man stumbling, trembling in his words, recognizing his own limitations and fighting hard to not surrender to what he knew he would soon have to accept. He was losing her.

 
; A switch went off in my mind, and I was projected into a setting other than my childhood kitchen. I wasn’t watching my mom and dad; I was looking at an elderly man tenderly helping an elderly woman. I was watching their romance story play out in incomparable pain.

  Oh, my God. She can’t remember how the pieces fit.

  It felt like hours before Mom looked over and smiled at me, noticing my entrance for the first time. I wondered as I hugged her with a smothering embrace, “Is she in pain, or is it just Dad that is in pain? Are they both? Am I in pain or just total confusion? How will I tell this story to my six siblings? Are we all about to see the stealthy progression of what Dad has been telling us and what we (at least I) have only accepted as signs of Mom’s simple aging?”

  Dad knew before anyone. Onset dementia was stealing the mind of the one he loved. An enemy that plays by no rules had broken into his world. He had all the play books on how to love her and protect her in any other way, yet there was no play book on how to safeguard her now. He had a plan for their life together, and he was losing. She was his connection to all that was good, and the connection was coming apart.

  We put aside the pieces to the puzzle, and I helped both of them into my car. Within the hour we were in the specialist’s office, anxious for the appointment that my sister Tricia had secured. Trish, a pediatric neuropsychologist, had reached out to her medical contacts and was able to get Mom on a geriatric neuropsychologist’s new patient cancellation list.