Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #14 - Meijer

Meijer on Gull Road, Kalamazoo

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #14 - Meijer

Hi Mom, I went to Meijer today, and I thought of you.

It's weird to think of you in a place like Meijer, but there's so many memories that I can't help it.

You loved Meijer so much. You loved seeing what was new, even in sections that you generally did not review, like the paint aisle. I know you missed how you used to be able to take your time in Meijer, and how it was never the same after you had to rely on us to wheel you around. But I took you to Meijer so much, and spent so much time there with you as a child, that I am not going to be able to go to the store and not think of you, not feel you there with me, telling me to turn around and go back, or telling me not to run off, or asking me to go get a box of brown sugar because you forgot it.

So, I had to fight my emotions the whole time I was in Meijer. I am sure it will get easier to bear, but it's a problem to associate a place with you, Mom, so strongly, a place where I have to go every week.

I feel closest to you there, Mom. Maybe I should have some of your ashes interred there.

I was very fortunate that it was Liesel's idea to go today. I felt a lot better being there with my wife than being there alone. I am going to struggle with being there for quite a while; I may always struggle to be there.

For those who don't know, Meijer is a general merchandise and grocery store. The picture here features "our" Meijer, yours, Mom, and mine, the one near Richland, the one where we went shopping so many times since it was built in the 1980s, especially in the last 15 years when a trip to Meijer was the highlight of your day.

I wish I had some photos of our trips to Meijer in the last fifteen years. It was such a production to take you. I had to get you into the car at home, into the wheelchair in front of Meijer, often when the wind was whipping around crazily, and then get you into the store. I preferred to wheel both you and a cart at the same time, which was tricky when you wanted to be taken down every aisle because Dad would never give you such a tour when you went with him. I wonder why we never thought of touring the store aisle-by-aisle and THEN doing the shopping with the cart? Seems to me to be the right thing, now.

I should go back to the Gull Road Meijer as much as I can, especially once to tell our favorite cashier about your passing. I am not sure if I can do that now. That visit may have to wait until I feel stronger.

I often dream of Meijer, and often these dreams feature me selecting a book or comic, as you would always buy me one when I was a kid. The section is always moved in my dream, and it is surrounded by other great sections featuring great merchandise. I re-arrange the store in my dreams, which I suspect that you did, too.

Do you remember when I was a kid and I lost you? I went to the Convenience Desk and had them page you on the loud speaker? Boy, were you angry... But I couldn't find you. I remember that I was upset, too.

Next time I am in Meijer, I may ask the Convenience Desk if they will page you for me on the loud speaker.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 15 days ago

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.19 - 16:04

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #13 - Memorial Service pt. 4 - Ironing

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #13 - Memorial Service pt. 4 - Ironing

Hi Mom, so yeah, I have an iron and an ironing board. Do you remember when I got these? I want to say you were with me when I spent gift cards at Target after the wedding getting things we needed that you would approve of, like this clothes iron and stuff, a laundry drying rack, and a hamper.

Kind of a dramatic lighting effect with the iron, eh?

You were very big on ironing, which actually constitutes the next part of the talk I gave at your Memorial Service, continuing from post #11.

Here's what I said:

Ironing was another thing about which my mother was very particular. She would iron everything. She would iron jeans. She would iron t-shirts. Later, in my adult years, she felt that I should do my own ironing, but I wouldn’t. I liked being rumpled or at least not completely wrinkle-free. So, she did the ironing and than charged me for her ironing services. I started getting these notes with list of ironing charges. She charged 50 cents for pants and 75 cents for dress shirts. I told her to stop. I was not going to pay her. But then, my mother was much too fussy to let me out of the house wearing unironed clothes, especially if I was going with her to church or brunch at the country club. So did it anyway. She continued to do it no matter what I said. I tried to take them from the laundry room and put them in my closet but she would find them and iron them anyway.

So, that's the only chunk I am serving up today. It's enough, and I am still trying to catch up on late work, you know, that I get paid for.

Mom will surely remember this, but the readers do not know. I did actually pay you for some of the ironing, right? I did not stiff you for all that work. I started refusing around the time I owed you $150.00+ and realized I would not be able to pay you back and so I wanted to stop ironing. But you would not stop. And you kept charging me until the meningitis made you stop. We never let you near an iron again after that for fear that you would burn yourself.

Even this, I told you I appreciated before you left us, Mom. And I did appreciate it. You were always trying to take care of us, take care of me, just like I do now with my family.

I wonder how much I actually did pay you before we stopped.

I wonder if I kept those ironing bills or if I threw them out? I held on to those bills for a long time. Your handwriting was so pretty.

When did I realize that everything you left behind would become so precious to me?

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 14 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.18 - 17:27

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #12 - I miss you

Taken at Turkeyville Christmas show Nov. 9 2012

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #12 - I miss you

The following was written 1507.16 - starting at 16:03:

That thing in which grief blindsides me just happened and reduced me to sobs. Kind of like thunder with blue skies. Kind of like a wind shear on a calm day.

I had been getting kind of worried. I had not really cried in a few days. I felt numb. I felt empty. I did NOT feel okay, but I did not have tears just under the surface all the time. I felt cried out. But I doubted that I was done crying.

But I am watching Y&R while I am working, and the guy pretending to be Gabriel Bingham, who is really Adam Newman, just told Chelsea that he IS ADAM NEWMAN, and I really want to tell you about it, discuss it with you, share it with you, Mom.

And so that made me cry.

And for all I say about you being in my heart and with me and looking over my shoulder, and all that -- and I mean it -- I feel that, but it's not the same. It's not the same as you and your body being right here or out in Richland where I can call you or go see you.

And I am not sure how to feel about that change of status quo. I am not sure how to understand that loss and move on from it. And I am NOT going to stop watching Y&R even though it may make me bawl like a baby during every episode, and I am not going to stop feeling you with me, and I am going to keep writing this blog because it helps me make sense of this change, and I like to write run on sentences and fragments in my grief, but I have not made sense of it  all yet (not the grammar; the loss of you, Mom), and I am not sure if it ever will make sense.

So, just in case you missed it, Mom, Adam just told Chelsea who he really is. I paused the show to write this. I hope this is not another stupid soap opera trick that will get wiped away. I am unpausing now and hope that his confession continues.

Next day, now, Friday 1507.17 - It was not a stupid soap opera trick. Chelsea KNOWS. Wow.

And not to be a broken record, but I miss you, Mom. I miss you. I know this feeling is not unusual or unique, but it is heartfelt, it is true, and it's going to get repeated, a lot.

I miss you, Mom.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 13 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.17 - 10:33

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #11 - Memorial Service pt.3 - the shirt

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #11 - Memorial Service pt.3 - the shirt

Hi Mom, So, it's time for another piece of my talk from the Memorial Service, which is still not yet a week old. That's weird.

By the statistics Blogger keeps, yesterday's Calculus post was nearly as popular as any of the previous nine posts, and no one "liked" it on Facebook. Maybe this is because no one likes Calculus or not enough people per view to get even one like. I should not be so focused on readers, and I feel a bit ashamed for even mentioning it. I am doing this to talk to you, Mom, and by extension, then, I am doing this for me. And yet, I feel like I am finding good endings, or so  people have told me. I like that I worked down to my last line yesterday: "I am undefined at zero." This thing about zero, especially dividing by zero, is a big deal in math. I thought I might get a like for that. Is that me being too needy? I can't tell because I am undefined at zero.

Okay, next topic...

I was just thinking about pictures to post here. I suddenly wish I had more pictures of you. I wish I had taken a picture of us holding hands, just the hands in close up. And it hit me again that you're gone. You have been cremated. Your body is gone. Bones were pulverized. I have a little bag of your ashes. There's three other little bags. The rest we interred in the Memorial Garden next to the church. Is that where I should go to visit you? It doesn't seem right. That's a nice place and all, but your body is not there, not really. Besides, I feel you with me all the time. I don't think I have to visit you. I think you are visiting me, all the time. And though I feel you, I still miss you.

Why didn't I think to take a picture of our hands, mine holding yours? There's probably a poem that speaks to this thought, but none come to mind at this moment.


I went searching for my book of Rilke poems. I thought I had a book of Rilke poems. And I couldn't find it. Much like, I think I keep hearing your voice, and you are not really here, not physically, at least not the way I always understood "physically."

Oh, yeah, so this is all preamble to today's main event, which is about the Memorial Service and another piece from my ... talk. I still don't like calling it the other thing yet.

Here's the next segment after the bit (the start) I detailed here at

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #9 - Memorial Service pt.2 - the start.

I will probably collect them all in one entry when I get them all included a piece at a time.

Here we go:

I would like to start my description of Marjorie with this shirt. My father helped me create this shirt to feature two nicknames I gave my mother in the 1990s: Frantic Woman and Ms. Intensity. I should have added a third: Ms. Genuine. My mother could not tell a lie. Everything my mother felt was clearly apparent on her face. When she didn’t like one of my girlfriends, and there were a few she did not like, she couldn’t hide it very well. Though she was never crude or cruel, she could be blunt. She would say what she meant, and she would ask any question she felt like asking. I admire these qualities of hers.

Before I come back to the names on this shirt, there’s another name for my mother: the ANL. My best friend and I create acronyms for some of the people in our lives. We had a very difficult time creating a suitable acronym for my mother. Eventually in our random way, we came upon ANL, which means Acronym With No Letters, and it fits. My mother is very difficult to describe. This collection of stories will not do her justice, and I am leaving a lot out, especially things with which I had less experience, like her church work. Her essence is difficult to capture. You had to know her. You had to feel her intensity to really get what she was all about.

And so, the nicknames. Frantic Woman came about at a time when she was clearly doing too much in her life, but she was unwilling to relinquish all her household tasks. After my sister and I were grown up and had jobs, my Mother’s therapist gave her the prescription to get out of the house most days as a way to combat depression. But here’s a woman who spent her life in the home, taking care of everything, and suddenly she was spending most days out of the home, and yet believed she could still take care of everything. For instance, the laundry. My mother would not let me do my own laundry. I would ask her about a shirt in the laundry room that I wanted to wear soon and when she might get around to laundering it and maybe I could just do it myself. “Don’t touch it!” she would cry. “I will do it!” And so she would. After a full day of shopping, appointments, or classes, she would stay up until one or two in the morning doing laundry and all kinds of other things she would have done had she stayed home even one of those days during the week.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 12 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.16 - 18:21

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #10 - Calculus - Test #1

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #10 - Calculus - Test #1

Hi Mom,

I may very well fail my Calculus class. I am pretty sure that I failed my first test, which I took yesterday, especially given that I was able to devote about zero (very close to zero, which is a thing in Calculus called a Limit) time to studying. In fact, so confident was I that I would fail, that I almost decided to not go to class yesterday and take the test. But then, I am aiming to at least achieve near perfect (I know one day I will miss) attendance, and so I decided to go. My next fear was that I would not be able to even attempt any of the problems, and so I would submit a blank test, which is about the same as not showing up. But then, I managed to write something down for each problem. I tried. I am not sure if any of it is right, but I tried, and I did so without trying to leverage your death for sympathy points as I have not told my professor of your passing.

Why am I taking Calculus? Well, that's the plan, right? I am back to school for computer science and Calculus is required. After how I struggled with Pre-Calculus, I decided that I should take Calculus by itself, so it is my only class, and I can give it my whole focus. Well aware that a summer session moves at double time, I felt that with the help of a tutor I am paying, the help of the tutoring lab, and some hard work, I would be able to conquer Calculus and earn the grade I need (which needs to be better than my Pre-Calculus grade).

My prof compared Summer session to drinking water from a fire hose, and this is a bit how I have felt so far.

Yes, I thought about dropping the class, and here's why I didn't. I figure I may well fail. But since WMU regards me as an undergraduate, any F grade will be replaced by the new grade when I retake the course. If I get through this course and fail (or earn too low of a grade), I will know more when I retake Calculus, and maybe I can do it in the more leisurely Winter semester. No biggie.

So, Mom, remember how I told you that you timed your death well in terms of choosing a time I had a reduced work load? Maybe you even were waiting until I got back from Scotland and that's why when I was showing you all those pictures from our trip, you kept saying "I am glad you're back" over and over. Did you know? Did you really time this event? I like to think you did. It would fit how you did things.

Well, even with your good timing, I did not calculate how your passing would affect me and affect my ability to study. I am all right, but all right is a relative term. I have not shut down, curled into a fetal position, and stopped eating or showering. I am functional. But my "all right" status is difficult to define. It's much like "all right" is a limit to value that cannot be reached, like dividing by zero.

I am undefined at zero.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 11 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.15 - 9:00

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #9 - Memorial Service pt.2 - the start

Mom loved Christmas

Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother #9 - Memorial Service pt.2 - the start

Hi Mom, I scripted my talk for your service. Lori spoke first and did a great job. I will share more about that later. She was a difficult act to follow.

Though I scripted everything, I improvised my first remarks, and then I forgot one part, which I will add here.

I started something like this:

"My mother loved the CBS television program Everybody Loves Raymond. In one episode, Raymond's mother Marie discovers that Raymond had already written a eulogy for his father, Frank, but not one for her, and so Marie asks Raymond to write hers. If you know the show, this becomes a funny example of Marie's manipulative ways. I never imagined this day. I never thought about a service taking place let alone planning what I would say, and so I have only spent two weeks writing these remarks, and this is what I have. Here goes."

I was going to add: "I am very blessed and honored to be able to speak at my Mother's memorial service." But I forgot to say that, despite the word "blessed" written at the top of the first page. So, I said it to everyone who complimented me on my remarks after and I write it here. It's a privilege to be able to write something in tribute to you, Mom, and I will share all my remarks a chunk at a time for the next couple of weeks, interspersed with other items so as not to overwhelm you.

Mom, I felt you there in that church just as I feel you with me all the time. I don't have to ask you how you feel about my talk because I know.

In writing this post, I think about how it was my suggestion that got you and Dad watching Everybody Loves Raymond, and how we watched the TV show so many times in the last fifteen years. There were times that we managed to get close to three hours of "Raymond" in an evening as we ate dinner and spent family time together. Their jokes became our jokes, such as Robert's "is this about me?" or "Ray is here! Ha, ha!!" And I got to watch you laugh and laugh, knowing that some day I would not be sitting with you any more and would not be seeing you laugh any more. But I think I still hear it, your laughter, and I will surely hear it next time I watch a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Here's the rest of what I consider to be the introduction to the "talk" (which others call a eulogy):

"Thank you for attending this Memorial Service. I made clear to friends of mine, many of whom had not met my mother, that by informing them of this service, I was not obligating or even expecting them to attend, and I meant that. And yet, I am happy to see so many people turning out in support of my mother and my family. I have no words for how much it means to me see all of you here. Thank you.

I would like to tell you about my mother, Mrs. Marjorie Ellen Tower, born Marjorie Delbridge in a little country town called New Lothrop. I will try to keep my comments short, but those who know me, and know I am a writer, also know that I could write a book on this subject, so short is a relative term. 

When I started thinking about what I would say today, I worried that I would make this talk too much about me and not enough about my mother. And yet, all I have of my mother are my experiences with her, and so anything I say cannot help but be about me as it is also about her, which is fitting. My mother was always very much more focused on her family than she was on herself. This is one of the important things to know about her. 

My sister and I have a wealth of experiences with our parents as we lived with them late into our adult years. My sister moved out when she was 31, and I lived with them until I was 47. Though this is not an unusual living arrangement pretty much everywhere else in the world, it is here in America. I used to be embarrassed about it, but after the meningitis, I was able help my Dad take care of my mother for many years, and we all grew much closer because of it. I would not trade those years for anything even though I wish the meningitis had never happened to her. Having her family around her is exactly what my mother wanted, and we were all there together with her in her final week."

after tooth removal... :-)

I thought it odd that I was the first one that day to mention your birth place and your maiden name, but I am glad I did. Those things needed to be mentioned. I tried to keep the subject of the talk on YOU, Mom, and not on me. I think I succeeded for the most part. More parts to come in future entries.

That's all for today, Mom. I have work and then a Calculus test. I am having lunch with Dad at the Park Club. Somehow I know you are going to be there with us, too.

See you later.

Love always, chris




Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 10 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.14 - 8:10

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #8 - The tree removal story.

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #8 The tree removal story.

Hi Mom,

Before I share more about the Memorial service, I want to share more about something that happened last week just like I would if I had called you on the phone as I did practically every day for the last five years.

Last Wednesday, an hour before I was going to teach a particularly difficult class online, tree service persons with huge trucks, a hydraulic lift, and a wood chipper/shredder arrived to remove a tree that stands (or did) literally about 20 feet from my office window.

It was a cool day, so I had all the windows open, but even with the windows shut, just the sound of the trucks, the chain saws, and the chipper was so loud that I could barely hear myself think let alone speak for an hour to students about literature.

I lost my temper in a big way, and so it was a good thing that no one was home. Through some miracle of self-restraint, I did not smash anything, though it's also a fortunate thing that I was not holding a baseball bat.

I am not even sure if my neighbor was home; I was tempted to call and express my feelings about the timing of this tree removal. After all, it was just that hour from 10-11 a.m. Wednesday morning. Any other time would have been all right. I would have been annoyed by the sounds at any time but not insanely enraged as I was when I had to teach that class accompanied by the din of tree removal.

I thought of you, then, Mom. You were big on the Golden Rule. I would not like an enraged phone call from anyone, and so I did make one to my neighbor. After all, my neighbor may not have scheduled that specific time for the tree removal. And even if she did, it may not have occurred to her to check with me, not knowing that if I was scheduled to teach when the tree was due to be removed, I would have left the house and taught elsewhere rather than enduring the cacophony produced by the all the machines.

Then again, I could not let the injustice of this event pass undocumented, and because social media allows for these declarations, I sent the following to Twitter, which also posts on Facebook:

Okay, I know. Pissy and dramatic. Kind of ridiculous, really. So then, a few second later, I sent and posted the following:

Fair, right? My reaction was proportional to my emotional state last week, which was a bit like being filled to bursting with the Power Cosmic (I had to get a comic book simile in here somewhere).

Yeah... so it was all right. I moved my lap top to the dining room, and though still very loud, the chainsaws and shredder were a bit less deafening with me in there. And the workers did their job quickly and without a lot of shouting. By the time I was done teaching, the tree was gone, the trucks were gone, and it was over.

And I felt a bit like an ass, especially since that tree may have actually been on OUR property, and both the tree and the half-tree-sized branch that the previous storm had brought down (see photos), nearly missing her roof (a new roof, too) may have been OUR responsibility, legally speaking.

AND, at the time, she may not have known that my Mom just died. So there's that, too.

Last night, I decided to share this blog entry as today's post. I had sketched it a few days back, and I wanted to take a break from the excessive weight of grief and the tear-jerking content that has been and will be posted, especially as I work through the Memorial Service stuff.

So what happens while I am teaching today? This same neighbor brings over a lovely sympathy card and a tin of treats. You know what the treats are? NUTS. Spiced nuts! Get it? Tree = nuts?

Yeah, so now I have a thank you to deliver as I am very touched and blessed by her kindness and love. I also feel like MORE of an ass (which I did not think was possible) for my rage of last week.

So, there, that's a thing.

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: The three tree photos on today's blog show the post-storm, half-tree branch in front of our neighbor's house from back in early June. She had that all removed weeks ago. The tree I am writing about is in the foreground-right of the picture directly below (tree photo #2). Apparently, tree experts felt that the whole thing should be removed before a storm brought down the rest of it on my neighbor's roof.... I am guessing...

Bye, Mom. More tomorrow.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 09 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1507.13 - 12:05