Mom lived three more years. I was on my way for a visit in the spring of 1997 when I received a phone call upon getting into Los Angeles. It was Don. He told me that Jodi Spiegel, Ellie’s middle child from her first marriage, had died suddenly of a brain tumor. She had been having severe headaches for weeks. Don had helped raise Jodi and her two sisters since she was eight years old. They were still at the hospital, in shock, and not sure they would be able to pick me up as planned. I told them not to worry, I’d find my way, but they managed, and were waiting when I deplaned in San Diego.
I stayed with Mom at her one-bedroom apartment. Her rental was in a small retirement community of four two-story buildings that enclosed a beautifully landscaped courtyard - rather charming. There were gates at each corner, one lead conveniently to a strip mall and grocery. Don and Ellie lived only a couple miles away.
The clan gathered at Don and Ellie’s place each evening during those sad days. The core group included more than a dozen people: Ellie’s surviving daughters, Stephanie and Susan, along with their families, her first husband, Jerry Spiegel, and Don‘s sons, Lee and Dennis Buckingham, who flew in from Indiana. They planned a memorial service for Jodi at Dog Beach in San Diego, a favorite of Jodi as she had often taken her dog there. It was an entertainment to see the dogs frolicking in the waves, seemingly with
out a care in the world. A pavilion was pitched on the beach, and the service consisted of friends and family taking turns telling remembrances of events that they had shared with Jodi.
One evening, as I was helping Mom into the car to take her back to her apartment she let me know she would be interested in trying some pot. This was a bit of a surprise. She had been a smoker all her adult life, but never showed the lease interest in the stuff of Reefer Madness. She had, no doubt, smelled the characteristic aroma of the weed wafting through the group that night, and I suspect her dormant curiosity became aroused. Maybe she had always been curious, but the opportunity had never presented itself at a convenient time. But she was in California now, land of liberalism, so why not join in. Besides, what did it matter at that stage of her life. I told her I would see if someone could help her.
Jerry Spiegel was known to be a connoisseur, and the next evening he presented Mom with a joint. She immediately took a puff, inhaled deeply and started coughing. She coughed for several minutes, loud and hurtful hacks, with big tears rolling down her cheeks. She never finished her joint, never got to experience a marijuana high. Most everybody smiled sheepishly, and I think all felt sorry for her, though the sympathy might have followed different paths of reasoning.
Mom never got into the California niche, once admitting to me of feeling overwhelmed by the move, and not able to make herself get involved. She was depressed and withdrawn.
There were plenty of activities at the senior complex. Don said they passed the community room on one occasion where a number of residents were playing cards and kibitzing. It looked like a lot of fun, but they were on their way to dinner, and didn’t stop. He regretted not taking her in as it was a perfect opportunity to introduce her to the new neighbors as Mom was not the type to boldly go in on her own.
Mom stayed in the apartment for a little over a year before Don moved her into a care facility. She had a series of small strokes that robbed her of short-term memory. Don was devoted in his caretaking, going over every day to spend time with her. I visited a last time a few months before she died, and took our newly adopted boy, John. We visited at the hospice. Mom was confined to a wheel chair. We strolled with her out the walk around the facility. She stopped to ask about the name of a flower along the path‘s edge. Don said she asked that same question every day. Mom died a month later on May 5th, 1999, four and a half months short of 86.
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