By Barb Rose
My husband’s mother, Evelyn Marion Lentz, passed away just 6 weeks before she was to turn 100 years old. She was a very religious woman and had been waiting for God to send her the sign that he was ready for her for a while. When she contracted pneumonia just after Christmas, she told us he hadn’t given her the sign yet. But as her body tired of fighting the disease, she seemed more ready and willing to let go of her life on earth and to join her loved ones in heaven. She was not a particularly assertive woman and obeyed her doctor’s orders. But by mid-January she was sleeping much of the time and having trouble breathing even while hooked up to oxygen constantly. She soon made it clear that she did not want any invasive procedures done and that she wanted to be out of the hospital. Luckily, all 4 of her children unanimously respected her wishes and she went back “home.”
For the past 18 1/2 years, “home” for Evelyn had been living independently at Harwood Place, a facility she had moved to when her husband succumbed to memory loss and they were forced to sell the family home they had lived in together for over 50 years. Less than a year ago, she had moved to the assisted living wing at Harwood so she could get help putting on her support hose in the morning and taking a shower when she wanted to. She adapted to these changes in her lifestyle and abilities with such grace and an acceptance that I respected and wondered if I will be able to do the same
Harwood Place was less than 1 mile from their house in suburban Milwaukee. There were people living there that she had known from church and even someone she had gone to grade school with in the city. Evelyn loved people. She was friendly to everyone; she always stopped to check in with her neighbors at the mailbox, check in with the care givers and had regular meals with a couple groups of women several times a month. She told me she liked to think of all of them as part of her new family. I think she knew she had to make a choice to embrace this new community. Evelyn was the last survivor of her generation on both her side of the family and her husband’s. Most of her closest friends passed on during the years she lived at Harwood. The ones that were left she kept in touch by the occasional phone calls and writing note cards. But she was also intensely private too and spent much of her time alone with her memories and prayers and her TV. She didn’t seem to mind. Her consistent positivity was contagious even as her life got smaller and smaller. The smallest things gave her the most pleasure. She didn’t want to be burden to anyone and her needs and desires were minimal. I appreciated that but often wondered what she was really feeling and who she could talk freely with. She kept so much to herself and her prayers.
To Evelyn, aging with gusto meant sharing her love. She had a smile for everyone, always remembered birthdays and learned the names of all the caregivers and their families too. Living to 100 was something Evelyn claimed she didn’t really need or care to achieve. Yet as the years ticked away, her body stayed strong and she had few bouts with poor health or illness. Living to almost 100 did give her many opportunities to share old stories of her childhood, her marriage and her family life with all of us and that’s when she really shone. She had an incredible memory and a good sense of humor. She loved to relive her earlier days. She would recall details of her high school and secretarial school careers and her work at the shoe factory and mostly, her joys and dedication from being a wife and mother. She had a rich yet simple life even though she never traveled too far away from Wisconsin. She was grateful for all of it.
I learned from Evelyn how to appreciate what life offers, not to expect that it should be any other way and to make the most of that. And she showed me and others around her what love really means. Living to almost 100 is not something we all will experience but I’m grateful that Evelyn did and that I became part of her family. We all live with sweet memories of her and will miss her Christmas cookies, her infectious giggle and bending down to her 4 ft 11 frame to squeeze one more hug.
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