I usually use this space to ramble on about something associated with the design business, being self-employed, AIBD stuff, etc. This time, however, I'm going to comment about life and loss.

We just "lost" my dear "Mommy-in-Law," Martha Chapman. If she were to have a head stone it would be inscribed "I don't want to be a bother!"

She spent the last weeks of her life, here, with us in our home in Healdsburg. She was born in January of 1912 in San Francisco. She grew up in San Mateo. She married the love of her life, Eddie, a handsome sailor boy in 1937. On their honeymoon they walked across the Golden Gate Bridge on its opening day. She was a wonderful mother, grandmother and great grandmother.

She was afflicted with macular degeneration and was legally blind, but played golf until she turned 96! After her Eddie died in 1991, she lived alone in their home in San Anselmo for a couple of years, none of us realizing how frightening that was for her. She had never, ever lived alone. She didn't say anything because "she didn't want to be a bother!" The house was sold (before the Real Estate bust!) and she moved into a Senior Apartment complex in Petaluma, closer to us as well as her other two children. She lived there for a few years, until the family realized, probably later than we should have, that she was having difficulty walking and was missing meals. She didn't say anything because "she didn't want to be a bother!"

We (her children and their spouses) decided that she needed to move into Assisted Living (she refused offers from all of us for her to move in with any of us - she didn't want to be a bother!). Again she was frightened. A new place to negotiate, new routines to adapt to - all very difficult for a 99 year old blind woman. She came to stay with us while arrangements were made. That was difficult for her, since she "didn't want to be a bother!" A week before she was to move in to the new Assisted Living apartment, she finally let on about how seriously ill she was. After a 7 ½ hour long visit to emergency, the family gathered here and we talked about what to do. Martha would stay with us. We would get help for the nights. She sat at the dining room table with us, sharing pizza and root beer floats. She had a cup of her favorite soup and went to bed. It was the last meal she took. She slipped away in the night five days later. She wasn't a bother.

I miss her terribly. Not because she isn't here for the weekend, wanting my ironing basket and the ironing board set up so she would feel useful. Not because she needed her own laundry tended to for spots she couldn't see. Not because she was afraid to be left alone in the house for even a quick trip to the market. I miss her because she was so much a part of making my husband the man he is. I miss her because she laughed easily, enjoyed sitting in the morning sun in summer or by the fire in winter, enjoyed listening to Forties Singers & Swing on the TV music station, used a sleeping bag instead of getting into her bed so I wouldn't have to do laundry!

I wish she was here, being a bother!!