The Woman Who Caught the Train … On Living Life Fully

At the time you were transitioning, so was I — although I didn’t quite realize it. While you were leaving this plane of existence, I was walking through a doorway towards a new life.

It was so perfect you that you went out with Alzheimer’s. You were always an incredible storyteller. Always the life of the party. Always funny. And that altered state of mind seemed to accentuate all of that... and then some.

I remember being in college and watching you walk straight up to the best-looking guy in the room and start a conversation. Because you could. Then you’d pull me in and introduce us. Smooth move, Mom.

I remember when you were leaving Seattle on the train and got off at a stop, missed getting back on, and promptly nabbed some stranger, jumped into his VW bug and sped down the highway to catch the train at the next station. Turned out he was an evangelist — so the whole way there he was preaching about Jesus. Never a dull moment with you.

And I’ve never met anyone who could bake over an open fire like you could. Cinnamon rolls over an open fire. Amazing. We ate well all those years of summer camping and traveling around the country.

And yet... I know you were hurting on the inside.

It took real courage to be you. It took courage to be a female real estate agent at a time when women simply didn’t work — not because you needed to, but because you wanted to. And it cost you. You took heat for being a working woman, for not being home with me, for dad cooking Sunday dinner.

And still — you were the one who sold the first solar home in Cincinnati, who worked with the builder to bring it in. The first one in the city. You won sales awards over and over. And I saw you crying in the bedroom over the treatment you received from the men on the sales force. Still, you persevered.

The horrors of your childhood in an orphanage became clear the day we arrived at a care facility so I could attend a week-long training. It was nothing like what we’d originally seen — just an old mattress on a bare bed frame, bare walls, no television, no color, no life.

You got scared. In your state of mind, you turned toward me with hatred. Everyone knew it was the Alzheimer’s... but I felt the pain and the anger. You wanted to go to Hospice and die. You were done with dialysis, done with me. It was time to go.

And it was the beginning of the end.

We moved you to Hospice by taxi — you refused to ride in my car. But when they asked what you’d like for dinner, you lit up. Leaned back with your hands behind your head, legs crossed, and said: “I like it here. I think I’ll stay.”

I eventually left for the training in a remote part of Oregon, at the prompting of the entire support staff. I checked in by short wave radio, though you still wouldn’t speak to me.

Then Tuesday came. You had clarity. You knew things had been hard but couldn’t quite piece together what had happened. We said what we needed to say. We were both sorry. We were both crying. We were both loving one another. You were dying and there was no going back.

It’s unlikely I could have made it home in time — but more than that, had I been there, Marc wouldn’t have come. It was good for him to be with you. I spent that time in the meditation center.

When we hung up, you crossed out of consciousness but stayed alive. I was in the nearest town, in the middle of a two-day process with a notary, the paperwork from your Arizona home being FedEx’d to me. And then I realized — in the chaos of leaving the city, I had no ID. Nothing. Not a single thing to show her.

Thank God for small town trust. She notarized my signature anyway.

Within an hour, you crossed over.

Thank you for waiting.

Thank you, Mom, for being you. For following your passion. For making the most of every situation — every train missed, every open fire, every room you walked into and owned completely. I love you.

I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate you more.

My mother never read a self-help book in her life. She just... lived. Fully, messily, courageously — right up until the end.

I think about that when I feel myself holding back. When I'm being careful instead of present. When I'm waiting for the right moment instead of catching the train.

She didn't teach me with words. She taught me by being utterly, unapologetically herself.

That's the invitation, I think. Not to live loudly — she was loud, but that was her — just to live fully. Whatever that looks like for you.

What did the people who shaped you teach you about being fully alive?