Celebration of Life

LaReta’s (Lore) celebration of life was July 24, 2016. A multitude of family and friends were there, enjoying brilliant sunshine and a refreshing breeze on the deck that overlooks a valley to the east. It’s so relaxing. This is the place where Lore spent many mornings, hands clasped around a hot cup of coffee listening to the sound of birds. She loved her bird houses that hung from a tree which grows majestically in the center of her deck. When the weather didn’t allow, Lore would sit in her living room recliner and watch her feathered friends from there. 

Lore’s deck has seen many celebrations over the years, including a wedding (mine) and multiple birthday parties. It was a poignant moment when Nicolette, Lore’s daughter, noted this would be the last time for a family gathering on the deck. The house will soon be sold.

Along with other memories of Lore, spoken by loved ones, I was asked to read an excerpt from The Road to LaReta. I had practiced many times, but knew it would be difficult to get through without crying. I was right.
 

This is the scene from which I read: Webb saw very little of his daughter after her first year of life. She’s now three and a half years old. It’s two days after Dorothy’s funeral and Webb has to go back to Montana. He’s talking to LaReta on the back porch of a relative’s home.

Webb and LaReta sat on the back porch step. “Are you my Daddy Webb?” LaReta asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you wiv in ‘Ontana?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Did I wiv there too?”

“You did. You and your mommy were there, not very long ago. You visited me last Summer. Do you remember that?”

LaReta looked long and hard at Webb. “Maybe,” she grinned, tilted her head to look at him and grabbed her knees to her chin.

“Reta, Blanche and I have to go back to Montana today cuz I have to go to work. But I’m planning for you to come live with me again real soon.”

“Can mommy come too?”

This was a conversation Webb wanted Laura to have with LaReta, not him. He wasn’t prepared, but there was the question… He looked across the back yard, paused and then turned to LaReta.

“Your mommy won’t be able to come with you, Reta. She got real sick. So sick that she … couldn’t come home from the hospital.”

LaReta looked at him wide-eyed. “She’s in the ho’pital? I want to go see her.”

“No, she’s not there anymore.”

“Where is she? I want to find her.”

Webb rubbed his forehead, stretched his legs out, pulled his pants at the knees to shake them toward his shoes, then took a deep breath, cleared his throat and asked, “When you were at Mrs. Bailey’s, did they have any animals, Reta?”

“Yup. Mommy rode Sweetheart to school every day. And they had a cow and pigs and some chickens. Some of the chickens got their heads chopped off for supper. Oh, and they had a kitty and a dog, too.” LaReta was proud of being able to name all the animals at the Bailey’s house. “I used to scare the kitty sometimes.” LaReta wrinkled her nose and tilted her head at Webb again. “Mrs Bailey didn’t like it when I did that, but it was funny.” LaReta giggled and then got serious again.

“But where’s mommy?” She was determined to get answers.

LaReta’s story about chickens getting their heads cut off for supper dissuaded Webb from continuing his explanation about death using farm animals as an example. Damn, I could do more harm than good with this talk. And it’s one I never intended to have!

He wasn’t sure if another tact would work or not, but decided to give it a try. From everything he’d been taught in Almont in the basement of the Lutheran Church, he believed it was true. At least for LaReta’s sake and his own, he wanted it to be true.

“Reta. Your mommy got so sick she went to Heaven to be with Jesus. She’s there now and someday, we’ll all be able to be with her. She can’t come live with us in Montana because she’s in that beautiful place called ‘Heaven’ where no one is sick and everyone is happy. She misses you, but knows you’ll be there with her one day too.”

LaReta looked at him with disbelief and then sadness. “Why didn’t I get to go with her to Heaben?” She started to cry.

Dear Lord, help me out here will you? Webb wrapped his arms around his daughter. “Sometimes, Reta, that’s just the way it is.”

Webb sat back and held LaReta at arm’s length. “Hey, want to drive the car again? I think we have time.”

Sniffling, she bobbed her head up and down. Webb picked her up and galloped to the Chevy. That brought back giggles and smiles.

The car eased down the driveway and then picked up a little speed. “Wookit me! Wookit me!” LaReta bounced up and down in Webb’s lap, her small hands stretched to the top of the big steering wheel. With one hand around LaReta’s waist, Webb’s other hand managed the steering wheel from the bottom as the old Chevy snaked it’s way slowly down the road. His arms and heart were full.

 

The Road to LaReta

I swam from a dream world to the surface through murky half-light. A new title came to me, a splash of thought. The Road to LaReta. The imagined waters calmed and it was clear to me, this may be the final title for the novel about Webb Bateman. 

Lying in the warmth of fluffy covers with an even fluffier cat backed into the crook of my waist, I reflected on the sound and meaning of The Road to LaReta. It rolled off my tongue; sounded right. I felt a bonding with the words.

Including LaReta’s name in the title was inspired by her daughter, Nicolette, as we stood by her dying mother’s bedside. She advised me to include something about a woman in the title. “We need more books about women,” she said. She didn’t specifically suggest her mother’s name, but it made me step back and think more about the important women in the story and the one person who motivated Webb’s journey and the opportunity to redeem himself. It was LaReta, his three-year-old daughter.

The book, a historical fiction novel based on a true story, had two other titles during the writing: Cat Skinner and Nicolette’s first inspired title, LaReta’s Cat Skinner. But the third title seemed best, The Road to LaReta.

The father LaReta and I share, Webb Bateman, was a Cat Skinner – a heavy equipment operator, but the story is not just about the earth he moved. It’s also about a man honed behind a cue stick, at the end of a fist, behind a plow, in a circus giraffe suit, and in the belly of a coal mine.  It’s the story of a man who married because he thought it was the right thing to do, but a man more interested in his construction jobs, drinking and playing cards than he was in raising a family. His wife’s sudden death provided a chance at redemption. Could he do what was right and make up for the pain he caused? Could he raise LaReta?

The journey of 900 miles to Dorothy’s funeral takes just a few days, but gives Webb time to reflect on his twenty-seven years of life; too much time and not enough to grapple with who he is and the man he wants to be.

The novel is in revision, after being read by four wonderful women who offered right-on suggestions. The one woman I wanted to read the story, is gone. My half-sister LaReta passed away at age eighty on June 14, 2016, but she knew her name would be in the title and I’m hopeful her sweet spirit will live on in The Road to LaReta.

The Beginning and The End

It’s strange. Very strange. I don’t know how to describe my feelings when I write about LaReta, ("Lore") as a three-year-old and then see my eighty-year-old sister at the Wesley Homes Health Center.

I’m sad. Her beginnings were difficult as a child when her mother, Dorothy, died in 1939 . Lore was three years old. Dorothy’s death had repercussions the rest of Lore's life. It impacted how she was raised, her relationships with our father, Webb, and what became important to her.

To see her now on hospice care and near death also makes me very sad. I’m looking at both ends of her life at the same time. Her son, Dan, pointed out that the beginning and the end are very close together. So true.

But I’m also glad that Lore and I became close, not only as sisters, but as friends. We've had great fun together talking, eating out, going to movies, and traveling to Hawaii to see two of her children, even though we had to walk up a hill to her home in six inches of snow when we got back. We laughed about that a lot.

Lore's told me more than once she had a good life. She is very proud of her five children, knows she is loved, and can say she had one great love in her life.

On our trips back and forth to the clinic this year for her radiation treatments, Lore let me know she’s ready to die. She’s been ready for five years, having made all her preparations when she was first treated for breast cancer in 2011. She did have four years of being cancer free, but this year she was diagnosed with bone cancer, her breast cancer had metastasized. It's hard to believe that the end of 2015, she was leading her life, walking her son's dog every day and just being Lore.

A couple months ago, I wasn’t ready to let her go. I was focused on keeping her alive for as long as possible, but it was an excruciating process for Lore. Any movement at all was extremely painful in spite of all her pain medication. The meds only succeeded in causing chronic nausea.

Now seeing her comfortable and no longer in pain, I can more readily accept the inevitable. Yesterday, her words were few, She said over and over, “I love you very much.” Who could ask for more.

A New Title

The first draft of Cat Skinner is finished and the work of revision has begun. It's going slowly, but serves as a refuge for me to focus on the story in a new way and think about nothing else for a few hours at a time.

I've been doing a lot of driving to transport my sister to doctor appointments and serve as her advocate with doctors and the nursing staff at the Swedish Cancer Institute in Burien and at the Wesley Homes Health Center in Des Moines.

Since my last post in April, LaReta's health has declined. She's gone through radiation in an effort to reduce tumors close to her spine and is on a regimen of shots for cancer which has metastasized into her bones. Her oncologist said, "There is no cure, only treatment."

Unfortunately, the treatment has not eased her pain or chronic nausea which is the worst he's ever seen - and he's been in the cancer business a long time. In an effort to find out what's causing the extreme nausea aside from radiation, chemo therapy and pain pills, he's ordered a brain scan for next week.

The story of Webster Warren Bateman (the Cat Skinner) is also the story of my sister, LaReta, when she was three years old. I'm hoping and praying she'll find some comfort at age 80, in her last days. She already knows I've changed the title to LaReta's Cat Skinner, A Story of Love and Loss in the 1930's. Right now, her story is one of love from her family and our sense of loss at the prospect of her passing.

His Women

The story, Cat Skinner, is not only a story of a young man finding his way and learning what’s important in life, it’s about the women who influenced him. There were six. All of these women, whether they assumed the Bateman name in marriage or were born to it, were survivors whose strength and perseverance becomes more evident as the story goes on.

Webster Warren Bateman’s mother, Dena, is initially seen as cold and detached, preferring her boys stay out of trouble and out of sight. Once you see her life circumstances in the 1920’s, you understand her motives.

Toots, Webb’s older sister, and the oldest of six children takes on the role of mother hen to her wayward brothers and younger sisters. She fills the emotional void Dena can’t muster because she’s running a hotel and restaurant to keep the family afloat financially.

Dorothy, Webb’s first wife, is initially in love with the concept of marriage and family, but once she experiences the reality of being married to a man whose work comes first, finds her own strength to survive and make her own way.

Blanche, Webb’s youngest sister, gives birth at sixteen to a baby boy she gives up for adoption. Although she regrets her “mistake,” she longs for a relationship with a child and determines she’ll make something of herself.

Laura, Webb’s mother-in-law (Dorothy’s mother) has experienced extreme loss, the death of five of her twelve children, but fights fiercely to raise her granddaughter, LaReta.

And LaReta, Webb’s three-year-old daughter, who doesn’t understand her mother’s death, is determined to “find my mommy.”

While Cat Skinner has an end when LaReta is three-years-old, her real life story goes on as does her determination. Today, “Lore” as she nicknamed herself years ago, is nearly 81-years-old. She has survived two divorces, nervous breakdowns, breast cancer, surgeries, and is now facing the challenge of bone cancer and its treatment. But she’s focusing on the positive.

Lore has five children of whom she’s very proud, grandchildren whom she adores, a beautiful home on a hill and she’s managed her finances and her life with independence and flair. Funny, opinionated, generous, controlling and artistic, Lore is most of all carrying on the Bateman women’s legacy of strength and perseverance.   

Journey

The difference between the writer and the wannabe writer is … one writes and the other, due to choice, chance or circumstance, thinks about writing rather than getting it done. That’s where I’ve been the last couple weeks. Thinking, reading, procrastinating.

From what I’ve read and been told, that’s not unusual, but it’s also what keeps a story in one’s head and not on paper. 

I’m now in Part 3 - The Funeral of Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s. This is the final third of the story. Webb and his sister, Blanche, have exchanged personal information and experiences as they motor the 350 miles from Billings, Montana to Dunn Center, North Dakota on Friday, March 10, 1939. Their goal is to reach Dunn Center by 1 pm in time for Dorothy’s funeral.

The journey is more than watching the straight-as-an-arrow highway disappear beneath the spoke wheels of the 1930 Chevy. It is a journey for Webb to figure out, with the help of his sister, what kind of man he wants to be, the real thing or a wannabe. Is he going to think about what he should have done and what he should do now regarding his three-year-old daughter, LaReta, or is he going to do it.

I’ve been stuck these past few weeks trying to think my way to the end of the story. How do I pay homage to the real people who lived this story, show their perspectives, their feelings and fears, in a fictionalized version of the truth? Tonight is the first time I’ve gained a little traction. I'm letting the story tell me where it wants to go.

Hopefully, the story will reveal itself in a way that readers remain sympathetic to all the characters, including Webb, and in part, to this wannabe writer, his daughter.

Getting out of Bed

I woke up this morning thinking about a response to an exercise I gave the students in my memoir writing class yesterday. We had discussed the use of sensory description, dialogue and action in writing about a location where they used to live.

The exercise was to describe getting out of bed and moving to another room; not just telling about it, but enabling the reader of the story to see what was happening. Show don’t tell – one of the principles of writing. I’m trying to use the principle in the book I’m writing, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s, but here’s my own response to yesterday’s exercise.

Light filters through my sheer curtains, teasing my eyes to open. My alarm with its incessant beeping brings more than a tease to the process. I slap it quiet for another seven minutes and roll from my left side onto my back. I love stretching like the cat beside me. Pointing my toes toward the end of the bed, my elbows are thrust toward the headboard, fists on either side of my neck. Maybe a strange way to stretch, but it frees spine and muscle kinks until my calf threatens a Charlie. Not Charlie my dog, but Charlie, my horse. I let up on the toe pointing and relax, until the muscle spasm subsides, and then return to my fetal, left side position. Just a few more minutes in this warm, toasty environment won’t hurt.

The alarm beeps again, quietly at first and then louder and louder until I can’t ignore it any longer. One more slap to shut it up. There have been times when I’ve let it go on and on because in a half sleep, dream state, I’ve imagined it was a truck backing up. This morning I got the message without a garbage truck in the room.

I slip my feet off the side of the bed, the rest of me following into an upright position, however reluctant certain body parts are to follow others. My toes slide into my slippers. I sit on the edge of the bed, turn off the alarm, stand up and shake down my older than dirt, purple, granny nightgown. Love the thing. (Girls, feel free to bury me in it. I’m sure you won’t want an open casket anyway, so no one will know the truth of the matter).

Walking to the door of my bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom is dangerous business. The same cat whose stretching I emulate, enjoys weaving in and out of my legs as I walk. While silky soft against my legs, Riley’s erratic movement keeps me guessing about where I step next. 

Charlie, my dog, is behind the gate in the utility room, just across from the bathroom. He’s deaf, but when it comes to the possibility of getting fed in the morning, he knows I’m up and with paws up on the gate, in all his Malti-poo cuteness, he whines until I give him what he wants, one-third cup of dog chow. (Of course, he wants more, but unlike me – he’s on a diet).

And so my morning begins - every morning, although now that I’m retired, I must admit, some mornings look more like Noon.