Looking Back

We don’t know when Charlie was born. I found her on the street in May of 2007, and she had a mouth full of puppy teeth. She has this mischievous personality, much like a certain Cookie Elf we loved, and gave her the birth date of January 31, 2007.

Joan would have been 75 today.

Saturday, the 25th of February 2006, we received a call from Art, telling us to meet him at Morton plant Hospital in Clearwater. Jo had taken a turn for the worse. The doctor told us that she most likely wasn’t going to make it through the night. Art, Linda, and I stayed all night in that hospital. We didn’t want Joan to die alone.

As I sat with Linda in the ICU, listening to the ventilator helping Jo breath, I asked myself, “am I only going to remember her like this?”

Sunday afternoon, Art told the staff to remove the ventilator. He went home. Linda, Nancy and I stayed with Joan as she took her final breath. I found the answer to the question I had asked, as I held Joan’s cold hand. Things from the past came rushing back to me, as if they happened yesterday.

We went to Disney World in 1998. Joan screamed all the way down Splash Mountain. When we go to Space Mountain, I assured her she had nothing to fear. “It’s like a child’s roller coaster in the dark.” She believed me. The first few seconds of the ride scared her. Then she was told the ride was just beginning. She yelled at the top of her lungs, “I want off.” In between the blood curdling screams, she pleaded for the ride to stop, s she could get off. She then vowed she was never going to listen to me again.

She trusted me enough to have me drive her to Clearwater Beach one afternoon. As we were leaving, I took a wrong turn. Instead of going home via Gulf Blvd., I took US 19. I new that largo was in between Clearwater and St Petersburg, and so I followed the sign to St. Peterburg. I explained my strategy to her, and she started in on me, “You’re going to St. Petersburg! We’re lost!”

“We not lost. We’re sight seeing.”

“We’re lost!”

I turned onto East Bay and asked, “do you know where we are now?” She instantly transformed from Chicken Little to Captain James Cook, navigating us safely back to her home.

Her kids like to give her Life threatening surprises. It is a wonder the woman didn’t have a heart attack in 1999 or 2001.

In 1999, Linda didn’t tell her we were moving from Washington to Florida. When we arrived at Steve and Lisa’s Seminole home, Steve called his mother and told her and Art to come over for dinner. Linda waited at the side of the road for them. When Joan seen Linda, she jumped from the moving car. (I correct myself. We shouldn’t have worried about a heart attack. We should have worried about her becoming road kill.)

In the fall of 2001, Bruce and Rose came down for vacation without giving her warning. Her son knocked on the door, like he lived down the street fro her. She made us all promise her that we wouldn’t spring anymore surprises on her.

She was a bit too generous. She almost lost her fingers to a ferrous beagle one Thanksgiving. She dropped her roll, ans Susie immediately snatched it from the floor. Joan tried to retrieve it, and Susie snapped at her. I asked, “what are you doing?”


She replied, “I wanted to butter it for her.”

She was the keeper of dates, the letter writer, the foundation of the family, the cantankerous cookie elf with a very forgiving heart. (See the smirk on her face. She was telling me, “I’ll get even with you, you little shit.” And she did, I picked up one of her rum balls. I don’t drink.)

Now I’ll put on a Garth Brooks DVD and I’ll cry. She loved that man. She almost wore out the video she had of him in Central Park.

Yes I still remember her struggling to breath on her, during her final minutes on this earth. But I also remember that smile, the laughter, her ribbing me, and the way she felt when she hugged me.