50 years ago, with tension, fear and resignation in the air and family all around in our home, I was sent downstairs to my brothers apartment to go to bed. My protests were overruled as everyone took the opportunity to rationalize with my practical side and I was told there was nothing I could do; that someone needed to be downstairs with my niece and nephew; that I needed a good night's sleep because I had school in the morning. We all knew they were lies, but I finally conceded and made me way down the back hall stairs to my brother's apartment in the family home and crawled into his bed.
Shortly after midnight on February 24, 1971 as I lay in the bed and heard someone coming down the back stairs with my dog, to tie her out, I knew that was it. I knew it was over. I knew I would never see my mother's smile, hear her laugh or be able to tell her how much I loved her ever again. The breast cancer had won and our family lost. And I sobbed. And I sobbed; until I finally cried myself to sleep.
She fought long; and she fought hard. I still remember that day in February, 1969 when I was in my mothers bedroom with her. She was acting a little odd and I didn't understand what was happening when she asked me to feel the side of her right breast. Could I feel it? Could I feel those three, small, marble-like bumps? Yes. I could. But I had no idea that those three little lumps were about to change my life and the dynamic of our family forever.
Doctor appointments began. There was a thing called a biopsy, but at that point, I had no idea what it all really meant or what the diagnosis of cancer was. I had never known anyone who had cancer, but I was about to learn more than I ever wanted to know. But I did know one thing. I KNEW my mom was going to be okay. Because she was my mom. She had fight. She had determination. And she could do anything; including beat this thing called cancer.
At that point, my life began to change as well. I always knew I was "smart," but I knew that my mom knew how smart I was when she began to teach me how to do all the things she usually did for our family. I began to learn how to cook. I learned how to write checks, pay bills and balance the checkbook long before the rest of my friends in Consumer Education. I learned to be mindful of my maiden aunt and grandfather who lived three blocks away; to jump on my bike and go do whatever I could to help my aunt and relieve her of some of her burden, caring for the rental properties and my grandfather. I learned to do the laundry and while I had a great support system in my parents, my brothers and their wives, my aunt "Miem" and my BFF Lanie, I learned that I needed to be responsible for myself. My successes, my failures, my grades and my life plan were all results of making my own decisions.
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| Mom with Miem |
But, this isn't about me. This is about my mom and how well she prepared me for the day she would no longer be there for us. She never once played the "woe is me" card around me. I never saw her cry about the cancer. Because I didn't see her fear, I didn't have fear either. I learned how to do everything she taught me because she used the approach of "Do you want to learn...?" Or, "Let me teach you how to...." She knew me so well, she knew exactly how to prepare me for what was to come.
My mom was an amazing woman! Well, to me she was. She was intelligent; she was always able to help me with my schoolwork if I needed it. She was athletic, at least in her younger years and loved to play baseball, tennis and field hockey when she was in school. She could play the violin (although I never heard her) and she could play the piano by ear. (She claimed she couldn't read music, but I know that's not completely true, unless she played the violin by ear too.) She was chauffer, not only for us kids, but also for her parents and sister and for "Miem" whenever she needed a ride somewhere. She was always the room mother at school, president of the PTA, volunteer for anything and everything that came up at the schools, president of the Band Boosters, and den mother for my brothers' cub scout dens. She attended all of my brothers' baseball, football and basketball games to support them and cheer them on; and if there was a baseball win, you would probably find us at the A&W Root Beer stand to celebrate afterward. She was also on a bowling league and Monday nights, when she went bowling, became my bonding time with my dad. As the family klutz, I always felt like a disappointment to her when I couldn't hit a baseball, but I remember wishing she was still alive when I got an A in gym class during our tennis module!
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| Mom with Aunt Grace |
She wasn't perfect by domestic standards. She hated to cook. Cookies came from refrigerated dough or the store shelf and cakes came from a mix. She was too busy to fuss with housework that could wait. I remember one of the first gifts I ever picked out for her myself was a plaque that said "My house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy." And it was. She apparently wasn't great at driving with a clutch either as I watched my father fly off the hay wagon more than once when she was driving the tractor for him.
She could have a fiery temper and I remember watching her chase my brother around the dining room table with a belt for some offense. When I cried because I was afraid he was going to get hurt, she made him come into my bedroom to console me and let me know he was okay. It was probably that experience that enabled her to discipline me with just an icy stare from those blue eyes. I only remember being spanked twice in my life and, I'll admit, I deserved both of them. I probably deserved more since I had a terribly smart mouth and regret the verbal abuse I bestowed upon her from time to time.
I remember one day when Mom scared me to death! It was in the midst of all the racial unrest of the 60s. We were walking home from a doctor's appointment when she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, kind of hunched down and began walking very determinedly toward two black women who were walking toward us. I saw the initial fear in their faces as my mother jutted her chin out toward them and I whispered "Mom, what are you doing? Stop it!" Suddenly she smiled, looked directly at one of the two and said "Don't you recognize me?" At that, the other woman looked closely and squealed just as the two women jumped into one another's arms. This woman had been my mother's best friend when they were children. Even though I had had black friends myself, that moment cemented in my mind "red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight" forever.
'Mom had thin, straight hair that was a constant challenge unless she had a perm. We joked about the one good thing to come from her chemo was an excuse to buy a wig. She had a dimple in her chin, a slight hook on the end of her nose and an uncanny ability to wiggle her scalp; which she loved to do when I was trying to put curlers in her hair to make me laugh. She was a petite woman; just 5'3" and until she had children, she was very slender, weighing in at 112 pounds on her wedding day.
She read me stories; taught me legends of the native Americans and the Great White God whose return they awaited; taught me goofy little songs; and introduced me to The Bobbsey Twins and Mother West Wind's Animal Tales. She had a fun, goofy sense of humor and taught me to laugh; even at myself when necessary.
She taught me about adoption; how she and her twin brother were given up and adopted by my grandparents. She went through her young life believing she was a year younger than she was, because of incorrect information her parents were given at the time of the adoption. This year on May 1st, she would have celebrated her 100th birthday, although legally, she would only be 99. She shared with me her desire to find her birth family one day and even showed me the beginning of her book which began with her vague memories of the orphanage where she lived the first few years of her life until her brother died and she was adopted out after her birth mother was supposedly told that both of the twins had died. The Covid-19 pandemic has provided one major blessing in my life as it gave me time to focus on my family history and I was finally able to track down her birth family. I have been blessed as her family, although shocked, has accepted the fact that there were two more children that the family never talked about and they have generously shared pictures of her family; making it all more real as I see the family resemblance to my mother and even some traits in the rest of my family.
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| Mom's birth siblings Charles, Ruthie & Eleanor |
Mom was a fighter. At times today, I regret insisting that she fight her battle with cancer so hard. Understanding the dynamic behind terminal illness and death, I know that she stayed around as long as she did for me. When she was bedridden those last months and we had to treat the wounds from the radiation therapy that had burned holes all the way through her body, I still insisted that she wasn't going to die; that she couldn't leave me. And she stayed. Much, much longer than she should have. She lived with the cancer that should have taken her in six months for two years.
My mom hated to be "on display." One time I asked her why we always had to sit in the back at church. Her response was that she didn't like to have people looking at her and if we walked up to the front of the church to sit, everyone would be watching her. Because of that, I had my first REAL argument with my dad and brothers. They were planning her viewing and funeral and I piped in saying that we would NOT have an open casket. I knew she would not want people looking at her unnatural looking wig or her swollen arm with the elastic sleeve on it. As I explained my reasoning, we reached a compromise to have an open casket for the viewing the evening before, but closed for the funeral.
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| Grandma Zielke with her 3 Daughters-in-Law |
A few months after the funeral, Dad and I had to return to the cemetery to choose the headstone. We decided to get a double headstone, so Dad's would be already placed, but then we had to choose the style. The Lily of the Valley that decorates the stone? That was a no-brainer for me; they were both born in May. I didn't realize the real significance of the stone at the time I picked it out and told my dad that "this is it," but as soon as I saw the scrolled "Together Forever" between the names, I knew that was the one that had to be on their combined graves.
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| Dad, Mom & Me |
Although I didn't have my mom very long; she died 8 days before my 16th birthday, I was so blessed to have such a wonderful example in my life. I learned how precious the time we have with our families in this life really is and I hope I did her memory proud as I raised my own children. She never had the opportunity to meet seven of her grandchildren and her 31 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great-grandchildren will never have the joy of having known her in this life, but I pray that as she looks at her family from above, she's pleased and keeping a watchful eye over us all. I love you, Mom; and even after 50 years, I still miss you. But, I know we have eternity.
