There was never a
moment in my life where I wasn't a momma's boy.
I am proud to admit it and I welcome nay-sayers to go ahead and say
nay. My mother was simply the best. A waitress by trade at the Pine Tavern
Restaurant in Bend, Oregon, she was so much more than that word defines; more
than whatever words I might conjure up.
If ever someone I knew met her, they went out of their way to mention
just how crazy lucky I was to have a mom like her. After a five year battle with Multiple
Myeloma, my mother passed away in May 2012.
She was 55.
The battle my mother went through
was not, and should not, be the definition of her life. To be defined by the disease, and remembered
solely because of such thereafter, does what a person lived for no
justice. Teresa Klouda lived for her
family. I say this not as the blanket
statement used so often by people wishing to make a person sound like they were
great. I say this because if anything I
have ever said were to be true, this is it.
Wholly and to the core, she was a giver and never asked for any of her
generosity to be reciprocated.
I think back to my childhood and it is so full of warm
memories. I have a great brother, two great
sisters, and a great dad. Just like any
group of human beings, we gravitated towards the greatest thing in our
lives. She was the sun to our solar
system, the rock to our foundation. She
could be your best friend, but cross her and you'd find no enemy more capable
of mass destruction. My mind goes back
to the time she once struck my grandmother in the temple with a full one liter
Listerine bottle. Out of context, this
sounds like little more than wanton brutality;
however, my grandmother was a little drunk and got physical with me, a
10 year old, for not putting things in the correct trash can. Laying hands on us was her and my father's
duty, and theirs alone.
She wanted nothing more than to raise and protect her
children. Any time I remember her angry
is balanced by the 100 times she was caring and selfless. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so
she would take four children to the Laundromat and handle us and six simultaneous
loads of laundry. As a father of two
boys, she made my current situation look like a simple endeavor. Her joy was derived from her service to her
family. Like my father said once, how
apt for a person who wanted only to serve to be a waitress.
My mother started working at the Pine Tavern Restaurant
in Bend, Oregon in the early 90's. She
quickly built a cult following around her comprised of a retinue of regulars
who came to the famous restaurant not because of the 200 year old pine in the
dining room, but because of the gorgeous gal with the infectious laugh and
quick wit. Not many businesses are lucky
enough to get such a person that acts as a veritable people magnet. It stands to reason that the restaurant owed
her a great debt of gratitude, which is why her wake was held there and there is
a memorial plaque in her name as well.
The Pine Tavern was like a second family to my mom and
the staff there held our family in high esteem.
I could walk in there on her day off and still get the "rock
star" treatment (i.e. a free Shirley Temple). She was without a doubt the most popular soul
within that establishment. My mom was very
well known within that establishment and even people not seated in her section
would find themselves conversing with her (or wishing they were!). When people I knew met her at the restaurant,
or elsewhere for that matter, they went out of their way to contact me about
how smitten they were. They would tell
me how wonderful she was and how taken aback they were by her friendly
demeanor. All I could do was smile
because I didn't expect anything less.
When my mother's cancer was discovered, she was
determined to beat it. Never giving up
was not just something she did, it was part of her DNA. She started the chemotherapy and radiation
treatments, but never let the pain be known to others lest she burden them
somehow. I was on an Air Force mission
in Alaska in 2008 and was allowed a couple days to fly to Portland to visit
her. My wife met me there, flying in
from Japan, so we could give her all the support we could. You wouldn't even know she was sick because
she held her head up high and made every effort to look strong.
Even when the chemo took my mother's hair, she was able
to look stoic and beautiful. Whereas
other's might give in to looking sullen, she pulled the look off. Never in history has there been a more
attractive bald lady. After the cancer
subsided and she went into remission, I made myself believe that she could and
would live to be 100. After all, how
could such a strong individual who gave up smoking cold-turkey and could carry
a 50 pound food tray with grace and ease, be beaten by anything? It was last year in March 2012 that I
received the phone call I never wished to get.
My mom's cancer had returned with a vengeance.
My Air Force squadron acted quickly on the Red Cross
message my dad sent out. Once the Red
Cross notifies the unit, they get the member and their family free round-trip
tickets on the soonest flight available.
In just a couple of days, I was in Bend with wife and children in
tow. My mother still looked
resilient. She was upbeat and talked
about how she would beat that damned disease twice. This trip meant the world to me as she was
able to meet my youngest son, Jonathan, for the first time. I was also able to privately talk to her and
tell her just what she meant to me. This
visit would also mark the last time my wife and children would see her.
I flew back to Germany hoping and praying for the best
outcome, though I got nervous after I researched Multiple Myeloma. As the years go by, the survival rates go
down significantly. At her stage, the
chances were slim but the doctor's were confident based on my mother's spirit
and how she was progressing the second time through. This made my shaky feeling let up a little
and I allowed myself to believe that she had this in the bag, no problem. Less than two months went by and another
phone call came.
During that two month period, every time the phone rang
my stomach knotted up. I would be
relieved that it wasn't bad news or that it was someone else calling. This time, however, "Klouda, Bruce"
was on the caller-ID - my father's name.
I put the receiver to my hear and his voice was hoarse and broken. Already I knew the jig was up. He said that my mom wasn't doing so well and
that she might not have a lot of time. I
told him to put in a second Red Cross message and within a couple days, I was
back in Bend.
Before I showed up, my dad warned me that the Terri
Klouda I was about to see looked different.
I chalked it up to over-exaggeration.
I walked through the door of the house I grew up in and my mother was
sitting on the couch, tubes in her nose and arm with respirator helping her
breathe. She had somehow gotten
pneumonia and did not have the white blood cells to fight it. It had collapsed one of her lungs and the
other was struggling to provide oxygen to her body. Every breath she made sounded labored. She was heavily medicated, so she was barely
herself. Even in such a state, she was
able to give me a smile and a, "Hi, Michael."
Within a couple days, I was getting a coffee when my
sister called the temporary cell phone I had and told me that mom had given
up. This meant that after all the years
of battle, the suffering was too great and she was on the ropes. I rushed to the house to find everyone with
my mom in the bedroom. My dad, and two
sisters were there. My mom had stopped
antibiotics and breathing treatments. We
did our best to make her comfortable and tell her how much we loved her. Within about 5 hours I was sitting in the chair
next to the bed when my sister shouted, "She's not breathing!" I jumped up to see her face; eyes closed, jaw
clenched. I watched the final moment of
her life. I checked her pulse and
breathing and found none. She was
gone.
That was by far the hardest moment in my life and I hope
I never have reason to cry so hard again.
Everything afterwards was a grey, bleak flash of happenings. The body-bag, the funeral home, the memorial
service, the wake, the odd feeling in my childhood home. We all ate dinner together that night and
talked about my mom and how she would want us to conduct ourselves. We all agreed that the lady who lived to
serve would tell us, "Get over it and don't let me be a burden!"
My dad said she
would've hated all this attention and would have been angry at him for letting
everyone focus on her for so long. That
made us laugh, which though awkward, felt good.
Laughing was what my mom loved and to be able to laugh was the greatest
way we could honor her memory. As I said
before, the cancer was not and should not be what defined her. It was her everlasting spirit, generosity,
love, and compassion that defined her.
The several hundred that showed up to the memorial service can attest to
that. What my mom did in her 55 years on
this earth was make everyone she came in contact feel better. She was the joy-bringer, the center of
attention. I will forever remember my
mom not as the battle-worn cancer patient, but as the pretty woman with a
silly, high-pitched laugh and more pep than a double shot espresso. Having great memories of a person's life and
not focusing on their death is the greatest way to honor their impact on
yourself and this world.
No comments:
Post a Comment