February in Pittsburgh

I once lived in a Holiday Inn in Pittsburgh for almost a month.

It was one of our first experiments in homeschool travel. It was our first year homeschooling our kids, and we'd bought lessons from a private school rather than try to create our own. The power plant that employs my husband was building a new unit with technology that was new to them. A company in Pittsburgh had such a unit, so the company sent personnel out to Pennsylvania to take classes and observe. My husband had already spent a week there months earlier. They didn't have the guys room together in standard rooms, but booked each man into a mini suite, with a refrigerator, microwave and sleeper sofa. When they sent him out a second time, for much longer, I thought: I'm self employed, and the kids can do their schoolwork anywhere. So, we bought plane tickets to go join Dad for the month.

My son, daughter and I flew out several days after my husband left. All I had was an address and a MapQuest set of directions to get me from the airport to my destination. We landed at about 5:00 p.m. I had neglected to take into account the fact that I was going night blind, and I'd be driving in the dark. In a rental car. On unfamiliar roads. In a snow storm. I warned my 12 year old and 8 year old - "Do not talk to me. Do not make any noise. Do not annoy each other." It speaks of either their consideration or of their terror of dying a fiery death that there wasn't a peep out of them for the entire 45 minute drive.

I don't recall much in the way of signs of civilization on the highway while driving toward the city. I did go through several unmanned toll booths, stressing out that I had run out of change by the last one. ("Which route did you take?" my husband asked. "I don't remember any toll booths." "I don't know! I just drove where the computer told me to.")

I will never forget my first look at the city. I'd been driving through dark, rural areas when I hit a tunnel. I drove along, not thinking much of it. When I came out the other side, it was the visual equivalent of being in a quiet, dark theater, then having the entire orchestra simultaneously play a crescendo. WAAAHHH! There was the skyline, bright and glittering, and very close, just across the river. It was beautiful and disorienting. I wanted to stop, look, maybe take photos, but I couldn't.

After taking my turn and eventually finding myself in a quieter area, I crawled down a snow covered road, following the instructions I had. I phoned my husband on the cell phone: "Are you in a Holiday Inn?"

"Yep."

"I'm in the parking lot."

This is what the view from our window looked like on most days:

The little red car on the right is our rental, Red.

My mother had always told me that we desert dwellers didn't really understand cold, didn't know what humidity does to the cold. I dismissed that thought. We lived less than an hour from the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, for goodness sake. We understood cold! We laughed at wimpy California transplants who couldn't take it.

Then I experienced Pennsylvania in February.

OH. MY. We were now the wimps, running from heated buildings to the heated car as fast as we could. There was no sledding, no hiking, and very little outdoor photography. We did something we hardly ever do - took photos through windows.

We'd never experienced an ice storm, where rain falls as liquid, but freezes as soon as it touches anything solid.

We had to chip our way into our car. I'd never seen anything like it.

Mostly, we settled into a comfortable rhythm. In the morning, the kids and I headed out to explore while their dad went to work. We visited almost every museum and historic site in a 45 mile radius. Then, we'd head back to the hotel to do schoolwork in the afternoon, and maybe swim in the indoor, heated pool. When Dan came home, we'd have dinner, then settle in to watch TV or head out to shop or play indoors. On weekends, Dan joined us while we explored yet more museums and historic sites.

We're museum groupies; we were in heaven.

It was so cold that the zoo moved a large number of the animals indoors - the elephants, apes, reptiles, anything not equipped to deal with the cold. Yes, those are lions, African beasts, still outside in the snow.

We explored Fort Pitt, the aviary, the parks, and spent more time than we normally would have at the mall.

We discovered that Pennsylvanians were used to indoor recreation in the winter. In the mall there were indoor playgrounds and mini golf.

Everything looked so different than it does at home; the stone buildings older than my state, the row houses, the ice, the piles of salt spread across the road.

This isn't even a creek or waterfall, it's just an ordinary hillside along the road. That much water habitually weeping out of the ground is profoundly foreign to desert folk.

This is apparently one of the iconic shots of Pittsburgh. We saw postcards and posters taken from this same spot, only in the summertime.

We ate often at the Ponderosa Steak House. We liked the food, and it was amusing that we lived, at home, less than an hour away from the actual site of the Ponderosa Ranch, but we didn't have any of the chain restaurants named after it. Plus, they had Family Nights with free balloons and face painting.

I am not prone to homesickness, but I started being more excited than usual to see places that reminded me of home on TV. Even the California coast looked like "home," its being a familiar place (and only a few hours drive from our house.) Still, our first foray into "travel schooling" proved to be a resounding success.

We're all agreed that one day, though, we need to go back to Pittsburgh - in warmer weather.

Documentation

Our society places an inordinate importance on official documentation of all kinds. Want to travel? You need a passport. What's being taught in schools? Show me the standardized test scores.

Of course, not everything boils down to what can be seen on a piece of paper.

My father's death certificate actually tells you very little about his death.

My dad was a private trap shooting coach. One day, he left as normal to go to the gun club, about 20 minutes away. My mom was working in the garden, as she did every day. Dad came out to let her know he was headed to the gun club. "OK. See you later," Mom said. It was all very ordinary.

At the gun club, it was also very ordinary. He watched his students, chatted with friends. His students say that he suddenly put his hand to his temple and said, "Oh!" Then he collapsed. Someone called 911. One of his students, Heather, acted quickly and tirelessly, giving him CPR until emergency crews arrived. She managed to get his heart started again, but he needed artificial respiration.

At the hospital, they continued to try to revive him, but he'd had a massive stroke. He was pronounced brain dead.

They had him in the ICU, hooked up to a variety of machines, by the time someone phoned my mother.

She knew, all four of the children knew, all our relatives, most of his friends, even casual acquaintances knew that his biggest fear in life was being incapacitated and kept alive by machines. He'd told us all, over and over, never to let that happen.

He'd never put it in writing, though. Luckily, his doctors left the decisions up to my mom. Luckily, we all agreed – Dad had actually died at the gun club. He was already gone. He was 78 years old.

None of the children lived in the same town as my parents at the time. I was the closest, and it would take 3 ½ hours for me to drive there. Some of us, children and spouses, needed to arrange time off from work. The earliest we could all get to Mom was the next day. Mom decided that we needed each other, and should all be in town before they unplugged the machines. She asked the hospital to wait until the next day, to let us all see him if we wanted to. Then, they'd unhook all the machines.

Everyone who wanted to be was let into the ICU, one and two at a time, cousins, aunts, uncles, children and grandchildren. My children were 21 months and 8 months old. For me, seeing him was like seeing a familiar house that no one lives in anymore. He wasn't there.  I wasn't at the hospital when they unhooked him and officially pronounced him dead.

His death certificate lists his place of death as the hospital, of course. It lists his cause of death, rather inexplicably, as cardiac arrest.

I know doctors who are scornful of cardiac arrest as a cause of death, or a diagnosis of any kind. "It's like saying that someone died from abdominal pain. It's a symptom, not a cause." It's apparently a catch-all fall back to say, "Well, yup, obviously the heart stopped." Even more inexplicably, on Dad's death certificate in the spaces left for other medical conditions, those that were present but not officially the cause of death, the spaces are blank. There's no mention of the stroke that left him brain dead. I have no idea why, but I've wondered more than once if the person who filled out the necessary paperwork was actually familiar with my dad.

When I'm asked about my family history on medical forms, I list stroke as my dad's cause of death. Some day, someone may look at the records and assume that I had it wrong, but I think it's important that my doctors know what actually happened.

My mother died at home, in her own bed, which is an inestimably great thing for her. It meant, though, that the authorities probably had to work a bit harder to document her passing.

The morning that she died, I called the police department's non-emergency number and asked, "What do I do now?" Did I call an ambulance? The coroner? Was there a procedure? What is it? I didn't know.

"We're sending an officer over," she said.

We sat and waited, my middle daughter and I. The house already felt different. Two officers showed up in minutes, arriving in separate cars and conferring for a moment outside before they came up to the door. I wondered if they were steeling themselves for a scene inside; there wasn't going to be one, but they didn't know that.

They were very sweet, but they also had to follow procedure. They couldn't just take our word for who she was. They wanted my mom's ID, but when I said it would be in the pocket of the pants she'd worn the day before, they said they'd get it themselves. They wouldn't let either of us back into Mom's room. I thought that was silly – if we wanted to stage things, we would have already done so.

They closed the door while they checked Mom. "What are they looking for?" Terry wondered.

"Needle marks, bruises, signs of malnutrition," I told her. I knew they were also looking for things like bed sores, urine soaked sheets or clothes, signs of suffocation, wounds – any sign that she had been neglected or a victim of violence – but Terry was upset enough. I wasn't going to say that out loud.

"Oh. They won't find anything like that," Terry said.

"I know, but they don't know that yet. They don't know us from Adam."

They came out and informed us of what we already knew, that it looked as if she had passed away peacefully in her sleep. They phoned the coroner, and made small talk while we waited.

"Was she on any prescription medication?" No. "Any history of heart disease?" No. "Any history of high blood pressure?" No. "Any history of stroke?" No. "Under a doctor's care?" No. She hadn't seen a doctor in 20 years.

After several more of these questions, one officer asked, "How old was she again?"

"83."

"Ma'am," he said, "that's amazing."

"I know! She's amazing."

I predicted that the official cause of death would again be listed as cardiac arrest. It took them almost a month – long after the body had been cremated – to issue a death certificate.

The cause of death is listed as "arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease."

Well. Really? The space for "interval between onset and death" is blank, because she was never diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or arteriosclerosis. The certificate also indicates that there was no autopsy. Without an autopsy, how do they know what her circulatory system looked like? I'm willing to guess that they took a blood test; maybe it said that she had high cholesterol. Still, it seems a pretty big leap to get from there to deadly cardiovascular disease, and I have no idea whether they did any tests at all.

There are, again, no secondary causes. The form has 3 spaces for, "Conditions if any which gave rise to immediate cause stating the underlying cause last," and one for "Other significant conditions," but all that's listed is the official cause. Since she did not die under supervision by medical personnel, there is no certifying physician. The coroner's office filled out the part that says, "On the basis of examination and/or investigation, in my opinion, death occurred at the time, place and date stated." The official time, of course, is the time the coroner arrived at Mom's house. Even though she was dead for hours before that, she was not officially dead until Someone in Authority was able to Certify it.

In generations past, "old age" was a perfectly acceptable cause of death. History and literature are full of people who are described as dying from old age. Now, though, we find that unsatisfactory and vague. We can't possibly say that advanced age alone is fatal – we want an explanation, darn it. Why is old age fatal?

There are few other ways to explain using 36 letters to say, basically, "cardiac arrest," which basically means, "Yeah, s/he's dead, alright." Using a dart board or Magic 8 Ball also explains it, but not much better.

My teenage son said, "Isn't cardiovascular disease preventable?" He was annoyed that his grandmother's death might possibly have been something she could have postponed longer. (I miss her so much; we all do.) I had to point out, though, that they were just making a best guess. Without an autopsy, no one knows what her arteries, her heart or anything else looks like. More importantly, everyone who has cardiovascular disease wishes that they could live a normal, medication free life and then pass away peacefully in their sleep, at the age of 83. That's pretty much everyone's best case scenario, sick or not.

In fact, knowing that both my parents died painlessly, at places they loved, gives me great hope that I can prevail upon the Almighty for the same for myself. Let me have an ordinary day and pass away quickly, without warning. Ordinary days are what a life is built of.

I won't ever put "old age" as a cause of death on my medical forms when I'm asked how my mother died - but I'll think it.

A Truly Grand Parent

My mother hated crowds and noise. For her, the concept of "crowd" was pretty small, too, encompassing groups that others might deem modest or intimate. When we celebrated my children's birthdays, she would only come celebrate with us if it was just the immediate family. If they were having a party, she would come by earlier that day to drop off a gift and then skip the party. They never felt neglected - they knew how she felt. If she went to the extended family Christmas party (and she didn't always go), she would stay for an hour or less and then slip quietly out without saying goodbye.

It was a big deal, then, when she went with us to Las Vegas for our daughter Terry's college graduation.

Mom had never been to Vegas. For most of her life she'd loved to travel, but at 78 she was frequently in pain and always walked with a cane. She also hated leaving her home and her cat in someone else's care, trusting only my cousin Ted to do a good job.

We offered to fly her there and back, sparing her the experience of a road trip of almost 450 miles one way. Still, she opted for the whole road trip, including the post-graduation trip to Disneyland. She'd be rooming with us, and sharing a bed with our oldest daughter. The kids were thrilled.

The graduation invitations had indicated that the ceremony would be held not at the school, a hotel or an auditorium, but at the Fashion Show Mall. We found that very odd - a mall? Really? Then we attended the rehearsal and saw why. The graduates would enter by being raised up out of the floor in a huge glass sided elevator, then walk down the fashion show catwalk, all the while accompanied by special effects smoke, lights and music. I forget which of my family said it first - "It's a very Vegas graduation."

So there's my elderly mom, surrounded by the regular shoppers, the graduation crowd, and loud rock and roll accompanied by smoke, in the Fashion Show Mall on the Las Vegas Strip. It would not have been unheard of for her to simply flee, but she didn't. She sat through the whole thing.

She also let us take photographs of her afterward. This too was not something she enjoyed. To say that she hated to be photographed is understating things. She would, however, agree to a few on special occasions.

Look at the sheer joy in that photo!

There was no question that she was proud of Terry.

Three years later, when Lana, our oldest, graduated from college in Provo, Utah, it was important to her to have Grandma there. It was even more important because she was getting married the day after graduation.

Again, we offered to fly Mom there and back. This time, it was 560 miles one way. Again, she opted for the road trip and shared hotel, this time sharing a bed with Terry.

She was even slower and in more pain when she walked than she had been for Terry's graduation. Climbing in and out of our Suburban was difficult, painful and laborious, yet she didn't even consider not going.

Take a look at the size of that auditorium, and how high up we were sitting! Still, not a single complaint - not so much as a bad mood from Mom.

After she passed away, Lana found that "I <3 BYU" button in Mom's bedroom.

The graduation was so huge that it spread over 2 days. If you wanted to actually hear your name called and to walk across the stage, you had to attend your department's ceremony the day after the huge commencement.   Mom was in such pain from navigating the campus that she skipped those ceremonies for our son in law (morning) and daughter (afternoon). Even then she didn't complain, but simply said, "If I'm going to be up to all the walking tomorrow, I have to rest today."

Weddings in our temples tend to be small and private, often with only the couple and their witnesses or their immediate family present. Often, even the wedding party is not present for the actual ceremony. The reception tends to be the big event. Sometimes, there's more than one reception, especially if the wedding takes place away from the bride's or groom's home town. I've known couples who've had a wedding luncheon for the family and wedding party after the ceremony, gone on their honeymoon, and then returned to a reception in the bride's home town and one in the groom's home town.

In order to witness the actual wedding ceremony, you need to be an adult member of our church, in good standing, and have received certain ordinances.

Because they've grown up in this culture, my kids have never minded not attending someone's actual wedding, even when they're in the wedding party. They don't mind at all waiting in the waiting room. I fit all the requirements to attend the ceremony, but I've spent many weddings in the waiting room, simply because I'm not immediate family (and the rooms are small). I find that to be normal. Others, though, especially those who aren't members of our church or those who haven't been exposed to LDS weddings, find it very odd and are sometimes quite put out.

Not my mom.

Allow me to digress a bit here for some history. I joined my church, by myself but with my parents' permission, when I was 12. My dad's family was not particularly religious at all. My mom's family was moderately religious; they claimed a denomination, and my mom was baptized as a baby. When my siblings and I were children, we attended church once a year, on Easter, at the Methodist church.

All three of my mother's daughters joined churches that our parents did not attend. It did not bother or fluster Mom in any way. She spent all of my pre-driving years driving me to and from church services and activities. Sometimes, when invited, she'd attend meetings or activities with my sister, with me or even with my cousins. She never felt that anyone, at any church, was trying to convert her, or was judging her, or was expecting her to explain herself. If she had, she would have firmly declined any further invitations. When one of her granddaughters converted to Judaism and married a rabbi, my mother met it with the same acceptance and grace and true happiness for her that she had exhibited when her daughters joined Christian churches.

One of the governing documents of my religion says, "We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may." I had been taught that precept by example my entire childhood, so when I heard it, I already knew of its validity. Your worship, or lack of it, is between you and God. I am neither of those people. I might admire you, pity you, or be annoyed by you, but it won't affect whether I love you or how I treat you. I learned that first, and best, from my mom.

Mom was not into very existential "there is no right, there is no wrong" philosophies. She was very sure of what she felt was right and what she felt was wrong. She just had no interest in making you agree with her, or even in knowing if you did or not.

I have seen and heard the way some other people react to situations similar to ours. Relatives who can't attend the wedding ceremony are very hurt, feel very left out, and are often vocal. They say things like, "I've waited my whole life to see you walk down the aisle!" and, "Your church can't really care very much about families if they're willing to put them through this kind of pain."

My mom, far from home and in physical pain, didn't even think about complaining. It's not as if she put on a happy face for us and vented to people about how awful and inconsiderate it was after she got back home. Trust me, my mother had no problem being very vocal about her displeasure. She never even considered that the day should be about what she wanted or expected. It was about what Lana and Craig wanted, and she was truly happy for them that they got to have what THEY wanted. She was very, very happy that her presence there that day made her granddaughter happy.

She wore the same dress she'd worn to my wedding 24 years earlier. It matched Lana's wedding colors.

She waited in the waiting room with the younger children during the ceremony. They had loaner wheelchairs, which she accepted after three full days of walking farther than normal, and climbing in and out of our behemoth of a vehicle. After the family photos were taken, a family friend - the closet thing we had to our side of the family being there that day - whisked her off on a tour after hearing that she'd never been in Salt Lake City before. She loved it.

She spent the reception that evening commenting on how happy the couple was, and what a wonderful thing it was for them to have a happy wedding day. She even let us take more photos.

A week later, after their honeymoon, she braved a larger crowd to attend the reception in our home town. Almost all of my side of the family made it there; my sister and her husband drove for 12 hours to attend the reception, then drove 12 hours back home so as not to miss work. My daughter felt very loved.

Some people spend a lot of time talking about tolerance, consideration, kindness and respect. Often, unfortunately, I have observed that what they mean is, "I don't think that you are sending enough of these things my way. You should do better." My mom didn't spend much time talking about such things, or telling us to treat everyone with respect; she just did it. She never said, "So-and-so is just as good as we are, even though his skin is a different color;" she treated So-and-so the same way she treated everyone else. We learned by watching.

So many people don't understand the difference between understanding someone, accepting someone and agreeing with them. They say, "I want your understanding," when what they mean is, "I want you to agree with me." They say, "I just can't accept you because of your belief system," instead of realizing that it's totally possible to accept someone while disagreeing with them. I think I have an easier time navigating those feelings than many people do, because I had such a stellar example.

Just as an aside, the niece I mentioned who married the rabbi - perhaps that's not an entirely accurate way to describe it. The rabbi is a lovely, red haired woman, and as far as I know, they haven't had a ceremony, religious, legal or private. They simply decided to form a family - and so, years ago, I gained a niece, my kids gained a cousin, my mom gained a granddaughter.

(Postscript: four years after this was written, my nieces made it official with a wedding on the beach, attended by their children.)

One of the last pieces of mail my mother got was a card from those nieces, letting her know the gender of the baby they're expecting. "Did you know that Kara and Mari are having a girl?" she excitedly asked Terry that night. She was looking forward to this 5th great-grandchild. None of us are concerned with the biology of this child; she's already ours, and always will be.

I have no idea how my mom felt about many things, including gay marriage. I do know that I was raised to accept others for who they are, not who we want them to be. We do not need to agree to love one another, to treat each other with respect and kindness, and to enjoy each other's company. My mother taught me that. My religion reinforced it. Most of the people I choose to fill my life with embrace it.

Take a look again at the elderly woman in a wheelchair, in front of a building she would never enter. That is the face of religious tolerance. That is the face of someone so secure in her belief system that she didn't need to challenge or argue with anyone. That is the face of love and acceptance. That is the woman who taught me  that to be sure of yourself does not mean belittling or demeaning others.

That is my mom.