Rachel (Rae) McGrath
While I can’t remember the day that I took my first breath, the day my Mum drew her last is forever engraved in my memory. I sat beside her and my sisters, holding her hand, watching her slowly ebb away. That was 6 years ago. She lost a well-fought battle against Alzheimer’s. My Mum was not one to go down without a fight. While she would say she was a “Go with the flow” kind of gal, she made things happen.
When I was a child, well, even when I was in my turbulent twenties or when I lost my first baby to miscarriage, my mom would say, “ I wish that I had a magic wand and could make everything all better.” Those words alone often did. My mom was a salve in human form. She would fight for her girls or my dad with great tenacity. Tenacious is the word for my mum. She never thought of herself like that, though. She always downplayed herself. But oh, can I give you examples of her tenacity?
As a little girl, her older brother would let her play baseball with his friends…” way out in the outfield,” she would say, implying she was not good enough. But my mum was athletic. In high school, she wanted to make the cheer squad. She came up with an idea of doing something no one else would do. She did cartwheels around the entire gymnasium. She garnered that spot on the squad!
My Mum would show us pictures of herself and tell us she was homely. Yet she caught the eye of a handsome redheaded guy from the next town. He would walk to her house in heavy snow just to see her. Her desire to see him led her to ask her dad, a county detective, to rent the hall over the county jail on Saturday nights. They sold pop and such to cover the rent.
She married that redheaded Paul McGrath and together they had 4 girls, or as she would say, “4 good girls.” Ask my mom what she wanted for her birthday or any gift-giving holiday, and the answer was always the same: “4 good girls.” You’d get that answer at least 4 times a year. You’d think she was raising hellions. She did not. My parents raised four girls who loved them, respected them, listened to them, cared for them, rushed to their sides when they fell ill, and offered them comfort as they had once been comforted by them. 4 Good Girls.
My Mum understood the value of money. When she was 10, she worked the bingo at night as a coat check girl to pay her family’s telephone bill. She wore her mom’s suit on her first date with my dad, safety-pinned at the waist to make it smaller. She carried that over to our own family, buying fabric and sewing all our clothes. She made our prom dresses, and mine was straight out of my favorite movie. There were no VCRs or DVRs to pause then. So when the scene came on, she sketched it as fast as she could. She made her own pattern and sewed it. She made our wedding dresses, except mine, because I lived too far away to fit. She did make my train. She made every bridesmaid, flower girl, and her own mother of the bride dresses. The money we saved was monumental. The memories we now have are priceless.
In the 8th grade, I was the lead, director, prop master, etc., for the school play. I had taken on too much and dropped the ball on one thing. The teacher was upset with me because I had forgotten a prop. She backed me up against a wall and reduced me to tears. I had to go home from school. Once there, my mother got the story and drove to the school. This particular teacher was renowned for being mean, mean, mean. When my mum left the school, the principal, Sister Dominic, handed the teacher tissues. My Mum never even raised her voice. She only wanted to know what had happened to her little girl.
When we moved from Pennsylvania to Missouri in 1971, my Mum left all her friends and family behind. She cried all the way through Ohio. It’s a BIG state. I was 8. I thought we were moving to the Old West, not the Midwest. They even promised us horses. We got bikes instead. Ten years later, they moved back to Pittsburgh, this time without all four girls. My mum was devastated, but not lost. She reinvented herself. She took golf lessons to spend time with my daddy and his favorite hobby. She took flower decorating. She renewed old friendships by moving down the street from our dearest friends. She took a job at a legal office. She made things happen.
My entire life, people said that I looked just like my Mum. My desire is to be just like her. We shared a friendship that ran deep because we were so much alike. We cried at the same things, rejoiced at the same things, and laughed at the same things. We made each other laugh during good times and especially bad. I had a bad habit of handing her my leg like Harpo Marx did when she was down. She would shake me off, and it would also shake off the mood. When she starred in a play, I memorized the other character’s lines to help her learn hers. We shopped, drank margaritas, and watched “Heaven Can Wait” a million times together. I was her Baby, a coveted position in the family, and our bond was and is unbreakable.
My mom never lost her sense of humor through it all. She broke her arm and had a cast on it for four months. She had to have it x-rayed for a progress report. Hospice sent a portable X-ray machine to her. The technician introduced himself. “My name is Dennis,” he said. “Would I like to dance?” she responded. “No. My name is Dennis,” he said again. “I know that. I was just messing with you..” she laughed. We all did.
That was just 3 months before she left us. She went from her sharp wit to not making sense so quickly. Just days before she died, I drove to South Carolina to see her. She really wasn’t communicating well anymore. When I arrived, she was sitting in her chair. She reached up for my face. I bent down. She put her hands on my cheeks. Clear as can be, she said, “I didn’t know you were coming.” I told her, “Of course, I was coming to see you.” The next day, she stopped talking, and two days later, she went home to Heaven.
If we could have had a magic wand, Mummy, we would have waved away your Alzheimer’s -your 4 Good Girls. We would have made sure that you would have lived your days healthy and without any deficits. But God is good. The person with Alzheimer’s doesn’t know that they have it. It is the relatives and friends who do and who miss the one they love. Thank God that He holds the magic wand and that you never knew what you were missing, that you kept your sense of humor, that you enjoyed your family and friends, and that you continued to bring us all joy until you left us, and that your memory will continue to do so. Tenacious in life and forevermore.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
2 Timothy 4:7-8
IT'S A HARnDen LIFE... 