The room where we met was the kitchen…wallpaper – circa 1970.
We sat at the vintage kitchen table in the new addition of the old farmhouse. There was plenty of light; one large picture window facing south, that overlooked the driveway and the cornfield. Out the other window, facing west, you could see the barn and other farm buildings. There were always a lot of cats hanging around outside the back door by their food dishes, and birds at a birdfeeder right outside the front window. There was life.
The farmer and his wife, really a city girl converted to a farmer’s wife, were in their late 80’s when we first met. We attended the same church but we didn’t know each other until we began our coffee visits. We started to meet regularly.
The coffee cups were cracked and mismatched but we didn’t care. The coffee itself was very strong but ready upon our arrival to their place. We always provided sweet treats, which they liked. After awhile I started to set the table when we arrived, and served the coffee, since it was getting harder for them to get in and out of chairs. We settled into a comfortable routine.
It all began when I heard he wanted a regular visitor for his wife. He had been living with cancer for over 30 years. Mayo considered him a miracle. He was starting to have other health issues; she was in the beginning stages of memory loss.
So I called to ask her out for coffee. In our initial conversation she asked, “Just me and you?” I laughed and said, “Well, I think my husband would enjoy visiting with you and your husband, how does that sound?” “OK.” And so our visits with the four of us began.
They were engaging folks…they had a lot of interesting stories to tell and yet they were always curious about our lives too. We met for a couple of years on a regular basis. We enjoyed each other immensely. For my husband and I, it was nice to have elders in our life once again since all our parents had passed away.
As time went by they slowed down more and more until he died at age 90 leaving behind his wife of 69 years! They had four children. Their son was their neighbor, living conveniently on the next farm over. The other three daughters lived in the cities but were able to come down often to visit and care for their mother. She was loved.
I continued to go and have coffee visits with her after her husband died until Covid-19 reared its ugly head. She moved into her son’s home and we were all in lockdown.
After March 2020 I tried calling her but I usually had to leave messages on her answering machine…she picked up once or twice and the conversation was just a few minutes long…”how are you? fine”…and I know she understood the pandemic situation. Then that stopped. She didn’t pick up any more. I would send her notes telling her I was thinking of her so she would know I hadn’t forgotten her.
I had her son’s phone number. Six months went by and one day I called and left a message with him. His sister, one of the daughters, called me back. She said their mom was doing ok, had more bad days than good. Thankfully she did know all her children and grandchildren but unfortunately, according to her daughter, she no longer remembered who I was.
And that changed everything. I confirmed to her daughter that I would no longer call or send notes. It felt like a rejection. In my head I know it’s not but in my heart I was very sad.
It was hard to think that my special friend no longer remembers our conversations about her 35 dresses in her closet when she was a child, and about the Young-Quinlan Store in downtown Minneapolis. We shared memories of both growing up in the city of Minneapolis, and then she moving to the farm and I moving to a small town near her farm and our paths crossing at church. She doesn’t remember showing me the photo of her dearly beloved grandfather E-V-E-R-Y-T-I-M-E we were together…”He was born in 1856 and died in 1955, just think of all the changes he saw in his lifetime” she always said. She no longer remembers our chats about her beautiful dishes…and our mutual fondness of dishes and her showing me all her dishes.
But I remember…I remember hearing the stories of this city girl who grew up to be a strong woman…she liked to drive fast cars and she was one of the first women to work at the air traffic control center in Farmington for 27 years. She was also a farmer’s wife, fixing tractors and driving tractors and helping on the farm. Oh what a life she led…
She knitted beautiful sweaters. She learned to knit in elementary school – quilt squares for soldiers in WWII – and she never stopped knitting. She had four children who “she never had to worry about.” I was privileged to get to know her story a little bit…and I grew to love and care for this woman very much, never realizing the sadness it would cause when she didn’t remember me any more.
I cherish the memories. I smile a little when I remember our good times together, then I cry a little when I remember she doesn’t remember them, or me, anymore.
I have more empathy for those sons and daughters whose mothers do not remember them.
But thank God – He remembers me, and He will never forget me.
