Nancy Parker Brummett

Author Writer Speaker

Defining Dresses

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Imagine my delight at not only getting to go shopping with my granddaughter Amanda and her mom to pick out her prom dress, but also getting to see her in it before her senior prom last weekend! That she carried a gold evening purse that had been my mom’s was an added blessing.

Little does Amanda know how long that dress will stay in her memory…and what a defining dress it is. I subscribe to the theory that anything we don’t wear for a year needs to go to a consignment shop or charity bin–everything except those few defining dresses that we all have in the back of our closets. If, because of a move or a  housecleaning frenzy, such a dress isn’t there anymore, the memory of it occupies a familiar closet of our minds. It’s a defining dress not because of its expense or style, but because of who we were when we wore it.

We remember everything about such a dress: how it felt to pull it on over our heads; the sound of the zipper; the smell of the fabric; the feel of the sash. All are as real today as the day the dress first hung on the outside of the closet door waiting to be tried on just one more time.

A dress that is forever in my mind was not mine, but my older sister’s. I was ten when she was nominated for homecoming queen, and rode around the edge of the football field waving from the back of a white Thunderbird convertible. She was wearing what I thought was the most beautiful dress in the world. It was a long, strapless gown made of tiny rows of red netting forming a huge, hoop skirt and a heart-shaped, fitted bodice. To me, my sister was Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and the fairy godmother all rolled into one, and that red dress was the most gorgeous dress I’d ever seen.

Most of us will mention a prom dress or two when asked about our defining dresses. Mine was long and straight with an empire waistline. The top was yellow, the bottom was yellow and white, and an avocado green, velveteen ribbon separated the two fabrics. I can still remember dancing to the music of The Temptations in that dress, my fake cascade of curls bouncing up and down on my head as the 150 bobby pins I had used to attach the hairpiece poked into my scalp in a desperate attempt to hold on.

A cotton dress I’ve saved for 42 years has multi-colored alphabet letters scattered at random over a bright yellow background. You guessed it. It was a mini maternity dress in 1970, and I wore it to the hospital when my first son was born. Since he turned out OK, I decided to wear the same dress to the hospital three years later when my second son was born, but this time it was a maternity top.

Now the dresses I can’t seem to part with are all connected to one of our grown kids’ weddings. We all have so much more than we need. I’m prepared to simplify my life and my wardrobe as long as I get to keep the memories…and just a few defining dresses to keep them fresh.

Old Friends Are Best

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Those caring for older adults would be wise to remember the power and comfort of lifelong friendships, and to do all they can to help the elders they love sustain their key friendships, whether in reality or just in memory.

“The Best Antiques are Old Friends,” reads a popular friendship saying. Whenever I see that motto stitched on a sampler or framed in a gift shop, I think of my mother-in-law, Mary Frances, and the friendship she shared for almost 70 years with Dorothea and Dorothea’s sister Jim (a nickname that stuck). All three of them are gone now, but while they were still alive I had a chance to ask them how they became such good, lifelong friends.

“We met at the streetcar stop on Pearl Street in Denver when I was sixteen,” Mary Frances remembered. “I lived in one apartment building and Dorothea and Jim lived in the one next door.”

“I saw her standing at the stop from my second story window,” Dorothea remembered. “I knew she went to our school, so I decided Jim and I should go down and talk to her.” The three were inseparable from that day on.

“One time we rode the streetcar together to a band concert at the park, but I couldn’t even tell you who was playing,” Dorothea said. “We talked a blue streak that night, and I guess we just never stopped.”

One summer my husband and I took Mary Frances to Las Vegas, New Mexico, to Jim’s 80th birthday party. Although she was the youngest of the three friends, Alzheimer’s was slowly robbing Jim of their shared memories. Through tear-filled eyes we watched Mary Frances and Jim embrace. Dorothea was there too, oxygen tank and all.

“If we live to be 103, we’ll still be best friends you and me,” reads another friendship quote. Given the power of friendship to sustain us, it’s no wonder a strong friendship can even outlast the death of one of the friends.

Help older adults you know stay in touch with their friends who are still living, even if it has to be a long-distance phone call rather than a visit over a cup of coffee. When you visit, ask them about good friends they have lost. How did they meet? What did they like about one another? What would they change if they could? What do they miss the most about their friend?

The gift of friendship is too precious to discard along with all the other losses that can accompany growing older. Embrace it, and encourage it in the elders you know and love.

Easter Memories

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Occasionally I will post a “classic” column on this new site. Here’s an Easter message from many years ago. The “little granddaughters” mentioned are now 20 and 18! Happy Easter, everyone! May you be blessed by the good news that Christ is risen indeed!     

Spring is springing up right through our new flagstone patio. I asked the workmen who put the patio in last fall to watch for bulbs as they dug, but maybe they didn’t know what a dormant bulb looked like. Through sheer determination, the bulbs have forced their way through the mixture of clay and mortar holding the stones in place. We’re going to have red tulips in the middle of our patio!

Their success is so remarkable that I can’t be too upset about the cracks. St. Augustine wrote, “We are an Easter people and alleluia is our song!” With the resurrection message in our hearts, we want to celebrate all things new, even misplaced tulips, and this is the time of year to do it.

People even look new this time of year. Although I know God doesn’t care what we wear to church on Easter Sunday, it seems to add to the celebration to see everyone all spiffed up in their best clothes. My sisters and I usually had new outfits for Easter when we were growing up. I remember the smell and the feel of the typical Easter dress. It was always stiff and “crackled” when I put it on. I also had new patent leather shoes, and white socks with lace around the top. A hat with a ribbon hanging down the back and a small purse to match completed my Easter ensemble. Just going shopping for this outfit was a treat, because I probably hadn’t shopped for new clothes since before school started in the fall.

The hats the ladies wore to church fascinated me. I’m afraid I spent more time staring at them during the church service than I should have. Why didn’t these ladies need a scratchy elastic under the chin to hold their hats on? My mom usually had a jaunty new bowler with a veil, most likely navy blue and white, and I thought she was the most beautiful person on earth.

Every year I still enjoy seeing little girls dressed up on Easter. One year in particular I remember admiring the angelic-looking little girls at church and at the place where we went for brunch afterwards.

Oh, well, I thought. At least my two young boys looked nice in their 3-piece polyester suits–one light blue, the other light green. Of course that was before they went outside and slid down a railroad-tie banister, getting splinters caught in the bottoms of both pairs of suit pants! I made them wear those suits until they outgrew them, but boy did they complain.

This is the time of year I get out all my bunnies to add to my year-round population of decorative rabbits around the house. It’s also the time for hoping the grass turns green soon, but the aspen trees don’t leaf out before the last big snowstorm. New things are happening, and I want to celebrate them all.

On Easter I’ll get to see two of our little granddaughters all dressed up. I hope the tulips are in full bloom by then. I think they will love seeing them, and I’ll love explaining how we can all be triumphant through difficult circumstances. That is, after all, the message of spring…the message of Easter.

 

On Whitney Houston and True Love

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My heart is aching over the loss of Whitney Houston and all those who aren’t able to fully embrace how loved they are. Instead they go looking for love in all the wrong places, often with disastrous results.

I guess what makes me both sad and hopeful about Whitney is that from the time she was a little girl she knew the love of God—the beautiful, unconditional love that will sustain us through anything. Even as an adult she comforted a concerned interviewer with the statement that she knew God loved her, and everything would be OK. This makes me sad because she knew the truth, and was led away from it anyway. It makes me hopeful because I believe that in the eternal sense, everything is OK with her. All is well with her soul.

So how did she manage to take her eyes off of the one true Source of love and fall into the trap of dependence on worthless substitutes? No one knows the whole story, but at least one telling chapter is her relationship with Bobby Brown.  Like so many women before her, and I fear so many yet to come, it seems she was attracted to the bad boy in him and joined in the destructive habits he brought to the relationship. Smart women, dumb choices. We see it again and again, and it’s never pretty.

If only she could have stayed true to her “first love,” the God who created her and blessed her with a world-class talent. A dear friend recently loaned me the book The Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. In it, this well-loved Catholic priest and well-read author writes a letter to a young Jewish friend who asks him to share what it means to have a spiritual life in a secular world.

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive,” Nouwen writes. “The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: ‘These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace.’”

Evidently, Whitney Houston allowed the destructive forces of this world to temporarily win.  But one of the most powerful songs she sang, “I Will Always Love You” by Dolly Parton, ironically tells the rest of the story. We can take comfort in knowing that because God said that to her, she now adds her amazing voice to heaven’s chorus of praise. The greatest love—the one true love—is hers at last.

The Crazy Cat Lady

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Do you ever read an account of some bizarre bit of human behavior in the newspaper and, while everyone around you is bemused, think to yourself, “That could be me?” I had that experience recently when I read an account of a 95-year-old woman found passed out in her front yard. When the first responders went into her house, they found 40 cats.

Lately I’ve become more aware of the thin line between being “a lady who likes cats” and “a crazy cat lady,” and I have to tell you, it’s getting thinner. I wasn’t always so attracted to cats. We owned and loved two Golden Retrievers and I remain to this day a “big dog person.” When a cat entered a room, I would instinctively put my hand to my throat, because I was sure it was just looking for an opportunity to go for my jugular vein. After all, they looked like miniature tigers. How could you trust them? All I can tell you is that, as with most biases, knowledge dispelled my fear and increased my understanding and appreciation. And getting to know one cat invalidated the generalizations I had accepted about all of them.

So how many cats would I like to have you (and my husband!) might ask. That’s hard to say. After having at least one cat around for the last two dozen years, I’ve learned to truly appreciate their unique personalities. At the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region all the cats available for adoption are categorized according to one of nine “feline-alities.” (I think they should have called them purr-sonalities.) For example, our cat Molly clearly fits into the Personal Assistant category. If anyone is wrapping a gift, working on taxes, or flipping through a cookbook to come up with something for dinner, she’s right there to lend a paw. Our cat Beau, however, would be classified as the Leader of the Band, a cat who does everything in a big way. Although he does love to cuddle, he’s especially big into adventure and couldn’t care less what we are doing unless he sees one of us go outside. Then he waits right by the door for us to open it again in hopes of blowing this boring baby boomer abode for some real excitement!

So you see, that leaves seven cat purr-sonalities I’m missing! What about the Private Investigator, the Secret Admirer, the Love Bug, the Sidekick, etc.? By my calculations, I only need to add 1.2 cats per year to reach 40 by the time I’m 95. That doesn’t seem excessive, does it? (Although I’m not sure what one feeds a partial cat.)

Actually, just writing this has been therapeutic. And there is one really good reason I’ll just continue to enjoy Molly and Beau and won’t go over into the “crazy cat lady” lifestyle. You see, I have a pretty good idea why that woman (who was fine, by the way) was passed out in her front yard. It was the smell of 40 litter boxes.

Beating the Mid-Winter Blues

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It’s week two of a hacking cough and the wind is howling outside just to see if it can make more noise than I can. This is the time of year when those cruise commercials to places in the Caribbean begin to look very inviting, but alas, that’s not always an option.

I wish I could be as patient about winter as my cat, Molly. She does meow at the deck door on a regular basis just because she wants to check and see if the 85 degree temperatures have magically returned. But when I slide open the door just a bit and she sees the snow and feels the wind on her face, she shakes one paw, then another, and then quickly turns to go look for the first sunbeam she can find streaming into the house. This time of year I should just follow her from room to room as she seeks out the sun. Even if I have to curl up on the floor to get my dose of Vitamin D!

But I know, much to Molly’s delight and mine, spring will return in time. Even now the Master of all seasons is crafting hyacinths and crocuses under the snow, and soon we will be able to proclaim with Solomon, “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come” (Song of Songs 2:12).

Until that day arrives, there are things we can do to give birth to spring in our hearts! Even a stroll through the grocery store can provide some mid-winter relief. Today I spent an extra long time in the floral department looking at all the orchids and other exotic blooming plants—easier than going to the botanic garden! I chose a small one for our kitchen table.

In the magazine aisle I noticed spring issues are already on the stands. As I walked by I heard one woman pointing out a spread on “springtime in Ireland” to her husband. “Want to go there?” she asked. “I think we just did,” he prudently replied.

The photo on my screensaver is of the last beach we visited, so when I need a break I just stare at the sand, the sea, and the gulls and try to transport myself back to that spot. Looking through gardening and bulb catalogs and imagining all those flowers blooming in my gardens provides similar relief.

A good dose of color can do much to elevate our winter moods, too.  Beat the blues by dressing in bright colors instead of the dour grays and browns we tend to wear because they suit the mood we’re in…not the one we desire!

And keep the faith—spring will be here before we know it!

When the Roles Reverse

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On one of my visits to Tennessee from Colorado to visit my mother at her assisted living facility, the two of us started down the hall to go to the dining room for dinner. Holding onto the railing that ran along one side of the wall with her right hand, Mom reached her left hand out to grab hold of mine. “Somehow I always feel better when you’re here to hold my hand,” she said, as down the hall we went.

I knew that feeling all too well. When I was a little girl and Mom took me downtown to shop for a new Easter dress or back-to-school shoes, I felt better when she held my hand as we crossed the busy street. Going up those big tall stairs into the school where I would start kindergarten, I couldn’t have made it without her hand to steady me. All my life I’d found security in reaching out for her and knowing she was there for me. Now she was saying, “Take my hand again,” only it was she needing the reassurance, and me being asked to find the courage and the strength to provide it.

It’s not as if she was alone during the months between my visits. My two sisters were local and visited her frequently, and she was surrounded by other caregivers and friends in her facility. But Mom liked knowing all three of her “chicks” were home to roost, and so holding my hand gave her a special sense of security.

To say I was pleased to take her hand is an understatement, but most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, are reluctant to accept the role reversal it represents. We see signs of aging in our parents that startle or alarm us, but we dismiss them as momentary lapses or anomalies. After all, if we accept that we now have to be the one to make the decisions and carry the load, then we are relinquishing the security we’ve always found in relying on our parents to do that.

And our reluctance to accept the role reversal has nothing to do with our chronological age. Some of my friends lost their mothers at a young age and were involved in their care when they were only in their twenties or thirties. A special friend of my mom’s was in his eighties when his mother passed away in a nursing home.

Regardless of how old we are when the roles reverse, we just wish things could stay the way they were a bit longer. In the midst of so much uncertainty, holding hands is never a bad choice.

My Mother’s Hands

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I was blessed to be with my mother for two weeks before she passed away at 92, even though we lived thousands of miles apart. Sitting beside her bed I found myself drawn to her hands—wanting to touch them and hold them as long as I possibly could.

These were the hands that cared for me when I was little and reached out for me when we crossed the street—both when I was small and carefree and when she was old and frail. These were the hands that created the home my two sisters and I remember so fondly…the hands that stirred the gravy, tied the bows on the backs of our dresses, decorated the Christmas tree, and folded the laundry.

On family vacations my Mom would lay her arm across the back of the front seat where she sat with my Dad, tapping her fingers in time to the music on the car radio or to the songs she was teaching us. I remember marveling at her long red nails and sparkly rings and thinking my Mom’s hands had to be the most beautiful hands in the world!

As she aged arthritis took its toll on Mom’s hands, but they were still beautiful to me because they were the hands that clapped excitedly whenever she first saw me on one of my visits to Tennessee from Colorado. And when she wanted to call her three daughters together one last time, and it was so difficult for her to speak, she motioned to us with her hands. Saying, “I want one, two, three” as she pointed to three spots on the foot of her bed, she indicated she expected us all to be present at once. When we were assembled, in an incredible and memorable blessing, she told us how much she loved us, how proud she was of us, and thanked us for taking good care of her in her old age. Then she sang the words “He touched me” from the old hymn, and simply said the word “peace.”

Mom lingered for two more days but never really spoke or opened her eyes again. She had said her goodbyes. As I sat by her bed after she had slipped away, I was still holding her hand and wondering how I could ever let it go.

But the Lord knew that day would come and thought of a way to comfort my sisters and me in it even as He was creating us in our mother’s womb. For you see, when we look at our own hands they remind us of our mother’s in so many ways. With hearts full of the love Mom gave us, and still gives us from heaven, we are left to carry on with our children and grandchildren. The work of her hands is now ours to do, and by God’s grace we will do it joyfully as we celebrate her life and the legacy she left us every day we live.

Assisted Living Camp

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After an agonizing period of decision-making, my two sisters and I checked my mom into an assisted living facility. The day we took her to her new apartment, we kept sensing we’d experienced it all before.

This made no sense until one sister exclaimed, “I know what it is—it’s just like dropping a kid off at camp!” I don’t want to seem disrespectful to the aging in the least, after all we are the next generation headed toward assisted living, but the similarities are poignantly amazing.

Seeing an attractive woman seated in the hallway, we steered our mom in that direction. “She looks nice, Mom. Why don’t we go over and meet her? Maybe she plays bridge.” How like the efforts parents make to ensure their children make new friends at camp.

Concerns and complaints about the food in the dining hall are certainly similar, as is the clothing situation. My mother-in-law was in assisted living in our hometown, so I was the one charged with trying to keep up with all her laundry—a frustrating and fruitless endeavor. The only solution was to make sure her name was boldly imprinted on every single piece of clothing, sheet or pillowcase—just like at camp.

We expect our kids to participate in camp activities, and we hope our moms in assisted living will engage as well. In an effort to encourage my mom-in-law, I decided to join in one of the activities. Several times I called and reminded her that I was coming on Monday for the apple butter festival. I entered her room with a cheerful, “Hi! I’m here for the festival. Are you ready to go?” She replied, “I’m not going to that. Why are you going?” In this, as in many aspects of what my ninety-year-old friend mistakenly calls “assumed living,” it helps to keep a sense of humor.

But there are serious comparisons, too. We entrust our children to the care of camp counselors, but we can’t help but wonder if they are alright in the middle of the night. How often I woke up wondering if my mother and mother-in-law were truly safe. Was someone sneaking into their rooms to rob them of their few personal possessions? Had they fallen out of bed unable to call for help? At such times, whether with kids at camp or moms in assisted living, the best thing we can do is pray. In both cases, we send them off with our good intentions—and a whole lot of faith.