Losing Shirley

My girlfriend’s mother died the other day.  I realize I am almost totally useless at these moments.  I am good at the typical “guy stuff.”  In other words, I’m good at DOING things to help in horrible moments.  Whenever I get close to empathy I can’t help myself and I just go to pieces.  So it was the other day.  I was doing fine helping, doing my doing thing when she said in the saddest little voice, “I’ll never be able to hug my mom again.”

Shirley Smith was a nice lady.  I wonder what it was like to grow up in her age.  She died in her mid-70’s after living nearly her entire life in an America which, until the last few months, only improved. 

She was born during the Great Depression and grew up during World War II.  She arrived in an America where we really did stretch our dollars.  Victory gardens were common.  People went shopping in catalogues because it was free.  This was before layaway and long before credit cards.  If we couldn’t pay for it with cash, we didn’t buy it.  We moved slowly back then.  We didn’t have air conditioning or the internet, we smoked too much and our air was filthy, but hers may have been a better age.

As a girl, Shirley spent her summers at Harvey’s Lake.  What a time it must have been!  Back then Hanson’s Amusement Park would draw 50,000 on a Sunday for rides and games and swimming and food.  Trollies still ran from downtown Wilkes-Barre out to the lake for day-trippers.  Her family had a cottage with an honest-to-God ratskeller in the basement.

Shirley went on to college where she became a teacher and a full-blooded Penn State fan.  She taught elementary school and she was exactly the kind of person you’d want around your kids.  Nice, modest, funny, smart, but mostly nice.  She was just what young minds and spirits need to grow.

She wasn’t lucky in health, though.  For all the years I knew her, Shirley suffered from major health problems.  She had a liver transplant more than a decade ago and other serious complications in the years since.  And yet, through every miserable turn, you could hear in her voice only the sound of a nice, happy person.    

I admit that I look at life through largely selfish glasses.  I believe that well beyond my own nature, it is human nature to look at the world through some sort of spiritual mirror/projector.  I really didn’t understand losing another person until my mentor died some years back.  You realize the silly little moments you will never share with that person again, and with luck you resolve to cherish all the silly little moments yet to come with the friends and loved ones you still have. 

My mentor died in August and within a few weeks I was over the active grief, or so I thought.  Then came the first Monday night football game of the NFL season and after the opening song I literally reached for the phone to call Jim when I realized---he wasn’t there anymore.