Joyce (Noble) Loudermilk

Checking the date of my last post, I apparently have not journal-ed my thoughts in nearly four years. Surprising and disappointing at the same time, it seems I’ve been working too hard as a business owner to take the time to jot down my thoughts – something that would probably bring much needed peace to my ever constant, chaotic head space jam-packed with task lists, employee challenges (and joys, to be fair), and my aspirations to win, satisfy, or soothe our necessarily demanding clients. Time, as they say, is money!

But today I received a text from my sister. With her immediate family, she is taking care of our mother who is rapidly losing her life to dementia – the same infuriating madness my dad went through eight years ago. The words from the nurse said, “she probably won’t make it to her birthday”, which is barely a month away. You know from experience, it’s crises like these which make you stop, remember, remember some more, cry your eyes out, and wish you had one more day to call and simply chat. The woman who brought you into the world and put herself dead last to make sure your every need, for a time at least, was met is about to be gone from your existence. You know everyone goes through these difficult days, but when it’s your turn, it surely punches you right in the gut without mercy. And so here I find myself forced, thankfully no doubt, to write out the emotions which accompany this experience.

Mom was a Boomer, if ever there was one. Born in May of 1945, she was the daughter of a Navy machinist who was sent to North Africa during the Second World War. And almost twenty years later she gave birth to her first son, me. After a normal, suburban, Southern California, and Pentecostal childhood, she chose to marry the first guy at church who paid her any attention. My father was, on the outside, a normal good-looking, hard-working kid, but who on the inside was an insecure control freak. Why? He had experienced so much pain by the time he was an 8^th-grader, another very long story, he learned to exert abusive control over all situations to avoid any perceived future anguish. The stories she eventually told me were excruciating. She constantly lived in terror of my father’s temperament or what he would do to her kids. I honestly find it hard to believe she didn’t bludgeon him in his sleep with an iron. But finally, after twenty-eight years of hell, she divorced him. Don’t get me wrong, my dad chilled much later in life, and he was, in most of my memories, a great father. But his effect on my mother would leave an everlasting bitterness of which I believe she never healed.

She tried hard to be a stay-at-home mother of four children, somewhat of a religious burden of expectation. But with debts piling up she chose to work the night shift at a local nursing home in Gainesville, Georgia, where we had moved just before I started first grade. I still remember the day she took me there to meet her patients. It was the saddest place I had ever experienced and probably still ranks high on that list even now that I’m 60 years old. My favorite patient of hers was a gentleman with cerebral palsy named Clarence. I remember his hands were bent at very awkward angles from his wrists to hold onto the arms of his wheelchair. I think he was her favorite too. Regardless of the utter gloominess, and smells, of that place, I saw those patients’ faces light up when my mother spoke to each of them. Their current situation had stolen their dignity, but my mother’s loving voice and smile made them all feel worthy again. Despite the ordeals she faced at home, she was a walking example of Jesus’ kindness and compassion, a strength that has left its mark on my life in a billion ways.

I’ll never forget the day I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, age 10. We had just left the doctor’s office who had delivered the bad news and were in the parking lot of the Hall County Hospital next door where I was about to spend the next week learning how to test my blood glucose and inject myself with pigs’ insulin. It was 1975 and we were many years away from insulin pumps and laboratory-generated insulin. She had her head and hands on the steering wheel of our Volkswagen Beetle, and she was sobbing. I told her not to cry and that I would be okay. All she could bring herself to stay was “you won’t be able to eat sugar.” Well shoot, I thought I was dying. That didn’t seem like the end of my world. I guess a mother wants her kids to have a normal life and if her son can’t have ice cream and cake, then that’s about enough to make you want to break down and bawl.

One summer day she called me and my brothers in from playing outside. We were barefoot and shirtless. We had to get to the bank before they closed to deposit a check. I was in the front passenger seat of our Toyota sedan (late 1970’s – read, small!) holding my baby sister. My two brothers were in the back seat. On the way to the bank, it started to rain. Mom ran off the right side of the road slightly and then jerked the wheel back to the left to correct the course. We immediately hydroplaned all the way across the asphalt, then plunged and rolled upside down into the ditch on the other side of the road. My brother Kelly’s neck was impacted with most of the shattered glass from the rear side window which had slammed into the red clay embankment, and Mom had smashed her head against the roof of the car, crushing two of her vertebrae. The rest of us had mere scratches. I remember waiting in the hospital with my sister and youngest brother Todd in only our dirty play clothes, while Kelly was getting 50+ stitches in his neck and Mom was getting ready for back surgery. It was freezing with the cold floor of the hospital’s vinyl tile flooring against my bare feet and no clothing on except my cutoff jean shorts, waiting on my dad to come and take us home. I guess the check was not deposited in the bank that day, but we survived. For six months afterwards, mom had to wear an awkward back brace. I remember people staring at it when we went grocery shopping.

Joyce, my mom’s name, eventually worked the night shift at a regional hospital in Riverdale, Georgia for 30 years, which left her with a small retirement stipend. That’s where we took my wife Sandie to give birth to our youngest daughter, even though we lived in the adjacent southern county. The same exact week, my dad had major surgery on his stomach, and he asked to be in that same hospital. He knew his ex-wife would be nearby to make sure he was in good care. Our newest baby had a few complications at birth, so that week I held her in my arms in the NICU and then would go down a couple floors to see my father going insane because he could not have any food orally until his stomach had healed. But Mom was checking on both our daughter and Dad and giving us the behind-the-scenes take on the docs’ notes. She even sneaked Dad some gum. Ha!

Christmas time at her house was a monumental event for her grand kids. She would spend six months planning and buying the perfect gifts for each of them, each selected with careful consideration. She would have them all sit in her living room floor in a big circle as she gave them each of their gifts. It was nearly bigger than Christmas at our own homes. Regretfully, I ruined it all one year when I scolded her for getting sideways trying to make the children all be quiet – an impossible feat in my stupid opinion. I broke her heart and even though I apologized, she never again held Christmas at Grandma’s house. She brought gifts to mine and my siblings’ homes for our kids, but it wasn’t the same. I still wish I could have that day back. Why are we more callous to our family than everyday people? I’m still sorry for that one, Mom.

There was a time when my sister and her husband were dealing with some demons of their own – don’t we all? And so, for a while, Mom took angelic care of my nephews and niece, making sure they were fed, wearing new clothes, on time for school, and their homework completed. And as if it were scripted, those same knuckleheads are now taking precious care of Mom in her final days. Carree, Chris, Christoper, Charlie, and Caroline have carried the heavy burden of her decline over this past year not because they feel they owe her, but because they are grateful for her unconditional love to them. I, along with my brothers, cannot thank them enough for loving our mother in these dark days and walking with her through the indescribable fear of dementia.

Mom, I know you can’t understand what I’m saying anymore. I just wanted to tell you one more time before we say our final goodbyes that you were a Super Mom and you will be leaving us with so many memories of your smile, your guidance, your tenderness, and your persistence to give folks unconditional love. Thank you for all of that. Now, go rest high on that mountain!