My Mother-in-Law died this week

My mother-in-law died this week. Actually she died one week ago today. The reason I mention this is to note her passing, since she was a terrific woman, and one could argue, my model for the past thirty-eight years. As a young bride of twenty-two I watched her evolution as wife and mother, dedicated daughter and confidante to her three living siblings into scion (scioness?) and matriarch of a large extended family of far-flung children, grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews. Mom gracefully navigated above the fray, always generous with her time, making endless cups of team while mentoring family and other non-family members. She spread joy, news and cheerful advice liberally, always refraining from criticism. She prayed formally and informally for everyone, celebrated life and the lives of her offspring with a joy that we all envied and appreciated. A faithful member of the AOH, (Ancient Order of Hibernians) she regularly attended ceili where she danced the jigs and reels of her youth, and only gave up dancing when her spouse of fifty-eight years passed away four years ago.

So why speak of her at a blog dedicated to talking about teaching? Well, I want to write about her! But I'll try and connect the dots because I think she gave me so much material to make sense of. It may take a while to truly comprehend how much influence Mom actually had upon me, which was considerable.

Let me start at the events which immediately precipitated her entering the hospital.

A week ago Thursday on my way to a get-together with the Mavens, a group of (some retired and some not yet) educators from my school who meet for a monthly dinner, my husband called and informed me that his mother had gone to the local hospital earlier that evening. She had apparently taken a fall upon returning from her great-niece's birthday party that afternoon. Her niece had been with her, and although she had gotten up and walked away from the fall, the niece was concerned that she had been disoriented and needed to be checked by a doctor. My mother-in-law remained in the emergency room, where she was waiting test results. Since my husband was an hour and a half away, it fell to me to check in upon her when her niece left.

I arrived in the emergency room to discover my mother-in-law nauseous and bruised, but cautiously optimistic that she would be home the next day. She proceeded to outline the day's events and regale me with stories of her great niece's elaborate 12th birthday party which had taken place in various stages: a luncheon (she expressed amazement at the sophisticated palettes of the 12 year-old guests: they ordered "just like adults" she mused), a stop at a store/spa where the guests entered a backroom and had their make-up done, and nails painted ("so grown-up, so indulgent!") and a final treat from her niece -- each guest was allowed to pick out a piece of jewelry from the store. My mother-in-law thought this was all very exciting for her young great-niece. She wasn't convinced it was necessary - or even advisable -- ("Whatever happened to a party given at your parent's house, with cake and ice-cream and favors?" "Wouldn't a sleep-over have been just as much fun?") but, at eighty-six, she was pleased to be included in the merriment.

We spoke about the day's events and what the doctors planned for her the next day: tests and more tests -- they had given her a clean bill of health from the fall -- nothing on the catscan, no broken bones; however, they had detected an arrhythmia and wanted to see if her very fast beating heart would "right itself" during the night. In the meantime, she was given fluids and a drug to assist in slowing down her racing heart.

Assured that she was in good hands that night, I went home with the promise that I would check in on her the next day, either at home or in the hospital.

Mom remained in the hospital all day Friday. Her rapidly beating heart simply wouldn't slow down. The doctor planned on giving her coumadin, a drug which thins the blood. Apparently the continuing arrhythmia meant the possibility (although low, only a purported 5%)of a stroke risk. When I saw my mother-in-law Friday night after work, she was sitting in a large comfortable chair in an I.C.U. The hospital claimed there were no beds in the Intermediate Care Unit, and the I.C.U. was virtually empty so Mom was pretty much guaranteed a lot of high quality care. I arrived at 6:00 and we spent the next three hours gossiping about children and grandchildren. My sister-in-law and her cousin had all visited earlier in the day, and there was always much to discuss. My husband called during the visit and Mom dismissed my husband saying, "Let me off the phone -- I want to talk to your wife." My husband later ruefully noted that these were his mother's final words to him.

I thought my mother-in-law seemed a little downhearted and with good reason. She had spent the day cooped up in a room full of medicinal bells and whistles, stuck (literally) to an I.V. with the impending threat of continuing needle sticks and ongoing need for blood-thinners. Her heart continued to run amok, and Mom's willing it to slow down was not doing the trick. So after a slight diversion by a Celtic-cross-tatooed red-headed phlebotomist who flirted unabashedly with my mother-in-law, and, I suspect, every other woman whom he encounters, I decided to veer the conversation towards my first graders and their bathroom woes. In retrospect, I find my decision to share 1st grade bathroom stories a little odd. Perhaps I just wanted to lighten things up a bit. Maybe I just wanted to shift the stage radically from hospital to school. Anyway, it's what we talked about that night.

First graders in our building are confronted with a very long walk to the bathroom. In Kindergarten the bathrooms are, in two out of three classes, adjoined to the room. The walk is short. If there is an emergency, it only takes two or three steps to get to the required space. For first graders, the walk is daunting. Our three first grade classrooms are down a long corridor, a big turn and then halfway down another hallway. Emergencies are truly emergencies. At the beginning of the year, we spend time practicing walking through the hallways, acclimating ourselves to where everything is, where to go when you need the nurse, when you need a drink, how long it takes to get to different places, etc. We talk about what bathrooms are for; bathrooms are not places to have parties and you don't want to spend a lot of time there, you should "do your business" carefully and quickly, wash your hands and then, get back to the classroom as quickly as possible. Sometimes the lure of the long walk can be a good way to take a break and some students take advantage of it. I try to encourage the shortest break possible by telling the student making the bathroom request, "I'm counting how long you will be gone!" " I really need for you to return as quickly as possible." "Let's not waste time!" For the most part, students are responsive to these cues and return quickly.

Almost every week there is a bathroom story. Some are more interesting than others, and some are funnier than others. Sometimes I find my student's bathroom habits amusing and other times they can be annoying. They always reflect common six-year old behaviors and you just have to roll with the punches, so to speak. On Friday last, I told Mom a typical first grade bathroom stories that happened earlier this fall.

A male student who likes to take a bathroom break returned to the classroom from the boys' room with a look of horror on his face. "Mrs. D, when I was in the bathroom a second grader (always a culprit) crawled over the wall and looked at me when I was naked! I told him to go away - then he turned out the light!" There's nothing more frightening in our first floor boys' room than turning out the light, because our boys' and girls' rooms are completely without natural light - they're very dark.

"Do you know who it was?" I asked. "He was wearing an orange-striped shirt." I informed my student teacher where I was going, Jimmy and I excused ourselves and headed for the second grade classroom. Once there we quickly spotted the striped-shirt boy who was in my classroom the previous year and I told his teacher the scenario and problem. She agreed to send the perpetrator into the hall for an interview. The three of us stood outside the second grade classroom door. George knew the jig was up; he looked at his feet and couldn't look me in the eye. I opened the conversation with, "George, did you crawl over the bathroom stall wall and look at Jimmy?" "I did," he nodded quickly. He didn't try to conceal his perfidy. "You know that is completely unacceptable, don't you? George, each one of us deserves to have privacy in the bathroom! How would you feel if someone crawled over the wall and looked at you?" George looked very innocent and said, "Well, Rafi and Jan told me to do it!"

This response is one of my favorites because it is so transparent. George claimed he was manipulated by his two non-present friends. In a way, I was surprised he didn't try to cover up his behavior. Having spent a year in my classroom he should know what was coming next: "George, were Rafi and Jan in the bathroom with you?" "No, but they told me.. it would be fun!" "George, do you have control over what your body does?" "Um, yes..." "Well, you made the decision to crawl over the wall, and no one was telling you to do it. You control yourself and you made the decision to crawl and look. Then you turned the lights in the bathroom off. You need to apologize to Jimmy." "I'm sorry, Jimmy." "You should tell Jimmy that you won't do this again. It was very scary for him." George had the grace to look slightly downcast. "I'm sorry, Jimmy." "It's okay." As we return to the classroom I said to Jimmy, "You know, I think George feels bad he did this. If anything like this happens again, please tell me or another adult as soon as it happens. It's important that you feel safe when you go to the bathroom."

This story or something similar plays itself out several times a year. Sometimes I hear about it, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I hear about it later from another teacher or a parent. The bathroom is a place where first graders (and second graders as well) get to be independent. They get to leave the classroom and walk to the bathroom on their own; once they get to the bathroom they are effectively on their own without adult supervision for the first times in their lives. We have no male adult teachers during the school day in the K-2 cluster, so the boys' room is even more separate than the girls' room where an occasional female teacher will wander in. If there is an emergency which requires an adult male I must scout one from the second floor or go in search of a custodian, who may or may not be working on the downstairs floor. I mention this because it means that least there must be a pretty high degree of trust that things will go well and the students will behave responsibly on their way to and inside the bathrooms.

That Friday night my mother-in-law laughed whole-heartedly at the stories of six year olds making sense of their independence. She appreciated the time it took for me (or any teacher) to work through Jimmy's predicament and the community's need to ensure bathroom safety. She understood well that George needed to admit his culpability and apologize for his bad behavior in the bathroom. We laughed about how people thought teachers spent their days teaching... as in reading, writing, math, and science. She swore she couldn't imagine how teachers found the time to teach anything when they had to spend their days dealing with issues like teaching individual responsibility, preventing teasing, bullying, and issues of physical and emotional safety. By letting me tell my school stories, Mom helped me to make sense of what happened during my school day; telling my bathroom stories gave me the opportunity to understand and identify the reasons all of us did what we did, and sometimes her questions helped me think about how I could have done things differently, for the next time around.

When I left Mom on Friday night I promised I'd see her back at her house the next day. We laughed about her nurse's hairdo ("very utilitarian - frightful!") and I gave her a quick kiss and a hug, not even considering for a moment that it would be the last time we'd confide in each other, laugh and tell stories together.

The next morning she suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and never awoke, passing away quietly in her sleep on Sunday morning.