Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Chapter 6: 1950-1951, Declining health

Buck was the last of her children to leave the nest. He had dropped out of school to find a job, but he had recently decided to return there when he couldn’t find anything.

2 Hence, although Mittie no longer had as many mouths to feed, she could also no longer rely on the additional income which her children had contributed during their time in the household. Sure, Pearl and Murph helped out when they could, and Dick helped some now and then since his divorce from Annie. Even so, Mittie struggled to pay her bills.

3 She continued to sew and take in laundry and boarders to help pay the bills, but there never seemed to be enough to pay for everything. In fact, much of the food she had consumed over the last several months had been purchased on credit at the local grocery store. She would pay her bill down when she got a little money, but Mittie never quite managed to entirely eliminate her debt.

4 To complicate matters, she often suffered severe and debilitating chest pains. She was tired all of the time now and often didn’t seem to have the strength to do the things which she had been doing all of her life.

5 “Mama, are you ok?” Pearl asked. “You look as white as a sheet.” “I’m just tired and give out all of the time,” she replied. “Maybe you should see the doctor?” her daughter suggested. “Don’t know what good that would do, and I can’t afford it anyway!” Mittie declared.

6 Pearl, however, was just about as stubborn as her mother and made an appointment for her. “I made an appointment for you with Doctor Maples for tomorrow morning,” she told her. “Murph and I will take you,” she continued before her mother could protest.

7 When the doctor had finished, he motioned for Pearl to join her mother in the examination room. “Miss Miller, your heart is enlarged, and it is having trouble pumping your blood through your body. We call it congestive heart failure,” he explained.

8 “What can we do for that?” Pearl asked. “She’s going to have to start taking it easier, and we’ll put her on digitalis – that will help,” Dr. Maples replied.

9 “From what your mother just told me, I suspect she has already had a number of heart attacks,” he continued. “So, let me say again, you must start taking it easy around the house,” he reiterated as he looked directly at his patient.

10 On the way back to Merrimack, Mittie sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap and looked out the car window. “Have you heard from Doodle lately?” Pearl asked. “I had a letter from her yesterday,” she replied. “How are they doin?” “They’re doin alright I reckon.”

11 Mittie was preoccupied with worry. She was worried about what the doctor had said, and she was worried about her children and whether or not she was going to have enough money to pay the rent next month.

12 “I am finished with school,” Buck announced that evening. “What will you do, son?” Mittie asked. “I’m going to Ohio and stay with Doodle and try to find a job up there,” he told her.

13 In the meantime, Dick had been out drinking again with his former brother-in-law. “I don’t know why he wants to waste his time running around town with Buddy,” Mittie wrote to Doodle. “I guess he just likes to worry me!” “Bowser got drunk and lost his whole paycheck,” she continued.

14 Edna read her mother’s letters with dismay. It was apparent that she was overwhelmed with worry, but Doodle felt powerless to do anything about it. After all, she was over six hundred miles away. “What can I do?” she fretted.

15 That fall, Mittie was sitting out on the porch visiting with Sis and Herman’s wife and crocheting when she felt a sudden stab of pain. “Oh, oh my!” she gasped. “Mama, are you ok?” Sis asked. “I think you’d better call for the doctor,” she whispered. Her forehead had broken out in a cold sweat.

16 Ethel stayed with her mother-in-law while Sis went inside to call for the doctor. “The doctor is on his way, Mama,” Sis told her when she returned. Then they helped her into the house and put her to bed.

17 “She’s had another heart attack,” the doctor told them. “She is in a very weakened condition now,” he continued. “I don’t even want her walking up and down the stairs anymore!” “She must not have any excitement for a while,” he finished.

18 Although Luke had divorced the mother of his children and remarried by that time, his first wife decided to take the children to see their grandmother when she heard about what had happened. “Can I bring Barbara and Terry to see you?” she asked over the phone. “Tell them that their granny would love to see them,” Mittie replied.

19 When they arrived, Pearl ushered them into the kitchen where Mittie was seated at the kitchen table. “Give your granny a hug,” Brooksie told her children.

20 Later, worried that the children might be getting bored, Mittie invited them to play a game of Chinese checkers with her. When their game was finished, she tried to get them to stay and eat with her.

21 “We’ve got to get home,” Brooksie smiled. “Well, I’m so proud that you came to see me,” she told them.

22 In the meantime, Buck had returned to Alabama and signed up with the Air Force. He wouldn’t leave right away, but he was scheduled to leave for his training by the end of the year. His drifting and wandering days were over, but his mother was not comforted by the development.

23 The Korean peninsula was now engulfed in war, and the news from there was not good. “I don’t guess I’ll have another minute’s peace as long as I live,” she declared.

24 In November, Mittie received the news that her father had died in Tennessee. “They didn’t let me know that he had died, because they were afraid to worry me,” she wrote to Doodle. “Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink all night.”

25 Dick, however, had landed a job at Redstone Arsenal and had temporarily moved back into his mother’s house. Then, in December, Mittie received a phone call informing her that Dick had been hurt in an accident at work. Once again, she was in turmoil.

26 “Your brother has been hurt, and I don’t have any way to get to him in the hospital,” she told Buck and Pearl when they got home. “You don’t need to go anyway, Mama!” they both exclaimed. “We’ll go and check on him,” they assured her.

27 “He mashed his fingers in one of them presses,” Buck told her when they returned. “They had to take off a couple of joints,” Pearl added. “Lord have mercy, is he goin to be alright?” Mittie demanded. “Yeah, Mama, he’ll be alright – it’ll just take time to heal,” Buck assured her.

28 A week later, Buck had left for his training in Texas. She had another one of her “spells” on the day he left. Then, just eleven days into the new year, she had a massive heart attack and died. Mittie’s long struggle was finally over.


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