Transitions

By Eilene Lyon

Losing a Parent

I abruptly abandoned the blogosphere a couple weeks ago. Usually I give a little notice that I won’t be reading, commenting, or posting. I’m officially back now.

About ten years ago, my mother began exhibiting signs of dementia. For the past six, she has lived in memory care in Newberg, Oregon. Four months ago, she began falling, mostly without injury, though one fall required stitches to her face.

A few weeks ago, though, the falling took away her forward impetus. She rarely ate or drank from that point on, and a final fall left her bedridden and unresponsive. My brother and I made rapid plans to get to her bedside.

I drove 12 hours from Durango to Boise on May 14, and he departed Cleveland on a flight the morning of May 15. I was somewhere in eastern Oregon, and he was in the Denver airport, when we received word that she had passed.

Though we did not get to be there for her final moments, I was glad to be with my brother as we performed the tasks that attend the end of life. We had time to visit relatives still living in Oregon: my mom’s sister, and my dad’s brother and wife.

Since then, I’ve been engulfed: pondering my mother’s life, its ending, and impact on me; dealing with the finances; and deciding what to do with the few remaining personal items she had. Her obituary will appear in The Oregonian on June 4. It will likely be a while before I write more about her.

Pondering History

When I began the Myricopia blog, I thought that history had much to teach us. Hence my tagline, “Exploring the past to improve the future.” As many before me have discovered, though, humans remain obstinately dedicated to repeating the mistakes of the past.

Yes, history has much to teach us. Yet, we decline to learn as much as we could.

There may be another lesson we can derive from our study of ancestry and historic events: We are all fallible. Some transcendent individuals have changed the world for the better. But most of us muddle through life. And it’s okay.

Sometimes I write about exemplary people. More often about ordinary folk. I find all their lives interesting and valuable for a variety of reasons. There are times when I get frustrated by my own failings or those of others. The more I learn about our common struggles, the less alone in the universe I feel. And the more my empathy grows.

I haven’t given up on the notion that the future does, gradually, get better. We do learn from history, even if we repeat it at times.

Do not give up hope.

 

Feature image: The Green River flowing through the Gates of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument. (E. Lyon 2023)