Linda C Wright - A Bittersweet Goodnight: A Memoir of Life, Love and Family

This book is a memoir. It reflects the authors present recollections of experiences over time. Some names and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been recreated .

If life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate.
If life is bitter, say thank you and grow.

Chapter One

I dont even know Junes favorite color or what kind of books she liked to read or how she spent her time during the long empty days of retirement. June changed the diversity of her tastes like a chameleon, liking whatever food sat in front of her at the moment, or movie we selected to see, or blouse I wore. Whether we went to Outback or Applebees, or sat on my back patio enjoying the fresh air, every meal we ate together turned out to be her most favorite. The colorful bouquet of lilies and roses I agonized over choosing for her birthday were always the most beautiful shed ever seen and a Christmas gift of new stationery and postage stamps turned out to be exactly what shed wished for.

But when life didnt agree with how June wanted it to be, she acted more like a mule, stubborn, impossible to reason with. Like the summer three of my fathers grandchildren were being married, and no amount of convincing could get her to agree to attend even one of the weddings. My stepmother refused to go without my father, who by this time had been dead for ten years.

Or the time she didnt speak to my husband, Richard for several months after he commented on the price she paid to have some old, ugly wallpaper removed from the kitchen in her condo that had been on the walls when she moved in. He worked as an interior designer, knew the fair price of the job and probably could have called in a favor to have it taken down for free. When Richard told her she overpaid, she dug in her heels.

June always knew she was right and no one was going to tell her differently. She would never ask Richard or me for help of any kind, not with her finances, home repairs or ride to a good friends funeral. She made her own arrangements. We gladly offered our assistance no matter what the problem because to us, June was family. To her we were something different. Im not sure what separated us but I found through the many years I knew her that our relationship was like the brass ring on the carousel, coming closer, and floating farther away and always just slightly out of reach.

I dont even know the real color of her hair. After a certain age, all women keep that a secret but I knew June since I was eleven years old and Im now sixty. Surely we spent time together before coloring the gray started. I began to color my own hair at forty, and when June moved across the street from us, she made her appointment for the same hairdresser I used, on the same day and time as me, every six weeks on a Saturday. I picked her up and together we went to the hairdresser. Our joke was we were getting all dolled up in order to pick up some cute guys at the grocery store where we headed for our weekly shopping trip right after our hair had been colored, cut and teased into perfection.

June, I found an old picture of you. Your hair was blonde. I said. I didnt add while cleaning out your apartment to the end of the sentence fearing it would trigger a temper tantrum. June wasnt happy since I turned her world upside down by moving her out of her familiar home to an unfamiliar assisted living unit.

She cocked her head to the left side trying to process my words.

I never remember you as a blonde, I repeated.

Oh, I think there was a blonde period at some point, she answered.

You wore a beige knit suit. Who made those suits you sold like crazy back in the sixties? I asked. Butte Knits?

June dreamed big for a woman of her day. As the first in her family to go off to college, she earned a teaching degree from Penn State and returned home to do what she was trained to do, teach. Small town life quickly lost its luster and somehow she managed to land a job at Kaufmanns, a department store in Pittsburgh. She moved to the big city to live with her aunt and uncle because a young woman of the times had only two choices. Live with family or rent a room at the YMCA. June started her career in ladies ready-to-wear and immediately found her calling.

Kimberly Knits, she said.

Ah. And you were holding Mia. I remember Mia in Seattle, I said.

Mia, Junes miniature poodle, about fifteen pounds and black as night, came along when June married Dad.

Molly, she corrected me.

Molly, a toy poodle, came after Mia. Again June chose a black dog, but Molly was much smaller than Mia. Molly weighed less than ten pounds but carried enough personality for a hundred. Her sister, Maggie, a gray version of Molly, who never turned away food of any kind and would snatch it from Mollys dish if given the opportunity, also came in a package deal. Maggie waddled like a duck while Molly ran circles around her.

Both dogs were kissers, licking my brother, Steve, and me during our summer visits to see Dad and June until we were covered with sticky dog slobber. The dogs made us giggle so we didnt really mind. It was more affection than we were shown by anyone else in our lives, none of who were great kissers or huggers, not even by dog standards.

No, Mia. Dont you remember Mia? I asked.

No. Shana?

A June who didnt remember her precious dogs was still hard for me to grasp. Her fading memory placed both of us on a rocky road searching for a new home where she could be watched over and cared for. It turned out to be a place neither of us wanted to be.

Dad and June bought Shana after Maggie and Molly got to old to live a comfortable life, from a person they referred to as a prominent standard poodle breeder after they moved to Tampa. Not that any of us cared where the dog came from as long as it gave us the hugs and slobbers we craved. June made sure her family and friends understood Shana came from a good pedigree.

It was Junes way of letting the world know that she didnt let just anyone or anything into her home, only the best. That same mindset applied to her furniture, paintings on the walls and of course her clothing, showing off every chance she got. I learned over the years, in her mind she never made a mistake, even if I thought she had.

She picked out another black puppy from the litter and chose her name, however, Shana belonged to Dad. He drove her to the grocery store, allowing her to sit on the white leather seat of his Cadillac, took her for long walks and taught his dog with the fancy French haircut every stupid dog trick imaginable.

Its that vision of her beloved Paul with their very last pet thats the only image shes able to conjure up. The lineage of her favorite dogs is now tucked deep into the recesses of her mind. The thought of the two of them together is the only memory she can bring forward in this stage of her life.

You were young in the picture. You had blonde hair. Remember?

No.

Dementia also acts as a chameleon, changing and adapting to the current situation. Answers to seemingly complex questions roll off Junes tongue as if she was young and vibrant and knew everything that happened in the world today. If I asked who was the President, shed most likely answer Obama, which was correct but if I asked her what she had for breakfast she could only tell me about her hot cup of coffee and nothing else, because she loved coffee and never started her day without it. I fell into the trap believing we were having an ordinary conversation as wed done for years. Then she forgot her first and most precious dog.

June adored those dogs with every ounce of love in her heart. They were her children. She spoiled them rotten and cried for days when they became old and sick and had to be put to sleep. In my mind, its a toss up whether the dogs or my father came first in her life.