"Are we going to twirl for Liz today?"
Tessie asks this every Thursday after her ballet class. It was more common when she was in preschool and ballet was a little later in the day. This year she was in Kindergarten, so ballet was early, a bit too early for a 94 year-old to be up and ready for company. It was for Judy’s sake that we did not stop by every single Thursday, because Liz would fixate on the thought of Tess’ arms around her neck and it would confuse the routine. But we did arrange quite a few times, when Judy was able to take a break and make sure Liz could be ready. Judy, for the past many years, has been companion to her stepmother, doing what few understand unless you have lived with someone who is well past the date they finally got their senior discounts. Judy works from home in a room in the back of their mobile home, so most often when Tess bounced into their living room, there was only Liz. Tess would stand in front of Liz, smile for her, then when Liz said Go she would spin her little body in circles while her frothy ballet skirt lifted in a rippled circle around her waist. Liz always clapped and cheered. Then she’d throw her arms out and Tess would run into them, reaching her soft little girl arms up and locking them around the back of Liz’ neck. I have watched this routine with great delight, loving how sweet it is for Tess to learn how beautiful old people can be up close and personal.
Liz grew gracefully old. I can’t recall when it was she actually became old. She has always just been Liz. We met three decades ago when she moved into our area and joined our congregation at church. She was sharp and witty, a professional woman who had been widowed for years.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA she had the class of a city girl with the faith of a woman of pioneer heritage. Her great uncle was Heber J Grant, a leader and apostle and eventually prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the early settlement of Utah. Liz Grant fell in love and married Lee Wissler in LA. Lee was a widower whose daughter Judy was a teen at the time. Lee and Liz adopted two children, Glen and Libby. Then, far too early Lee died. For the decades I have known Liz she has mourned the loss of her Lee, not in a pitiful way, more like a wistful yearning. The last number of years, as her legs have caused he significant pain and those she has known and loved have moved on from this mortal state, Liz has longed to be able to just go find Lee; to return to the heavenly home her faith framed for her, and to be reunited with her beloved parents and siblings. It was not that she did not appreciate this life, or the people here who love and enjoy being with her. She had considerable social grace and always made us feel welcome, loved and important. My husband Dave has served as her Home Teacher and Ministering Brother for twenty years or more. My sister Libby and I have been Visiting Teachers and ministers to her for as long, though neither of us has had that official calling for a quite a while. I am, however, currently blessed to be her Relief Society President, which has facilitated a depth to our already sweet and intimate relationship. Years ago, Liz was our Relief Society President. Life is full of twirling circles.
Libby, Liz and I at the Bountiful Temple
Liz has always been a source for delight. If you ever felt a humbug coming on, or a case of winter blues, all you needed to do was go over and visit Lloyds Park #17. Liz and Judy are both the Queens of Christmas. Christmas went up immediately following Halloween. Some of it remains year-round, like joy refusing to be suppressed. Then, right about when the light of Christmas starts to wane, Valentine’s Day comes hand in hand with Liz’s birthday. The delight of all of this shortens the dull of winter and soon the green pots lining the steps to the front door are blooming with flowers again.
Once Liz and I were talking about the power of familiar scents and she told me about a particular perfume her husband Lee used to love. I told her how I wear different perfumes the people I love often wear. When I am missing them, or want to feel the strength of their spirit, I spritz a little bit of the scent of them on my wrists. The perfume Lee used to buy Liz was called Joy. A fitting name, don’t you think?
“Do you have any?” I asked.
“No, goodness, it’s far too expensive.”
That next birthday we gave her a bottle of Joy. You would have thought we had paid off her mortgage! Sometimes I would lean down and kiss her cheek just to inhale the love she had for Lee.
A couple weeks ago Tess had her ballet recital. We had arranged, with permission, to have Dave and Libby pick up Liz and bring her to the dress rehearsal at Weber State College so she could see the finished product of Tessie’s lessons. I was playing and singing for the dancers. The whole recital would have been too much. Liz was 94 years old, and her legs were not working well.
The morning of the recital Liz tried to get out of bed and fell, breaking her femur up by the hip. She had already been recovering from a previous fall. Lib and I rushed to the hospital to meet with Judy and their friend-who’s-like-a-sister, Chris. Judy said they had two choices, as per the doctor in the ER: one was terrible and the other awful. They opted for terrible, since awful involved not doing surgery and living in considerable pain, never leaving her bed for the rest of her life. They chose surgery, where a rod would be inserted through the upper leg. (Interestingly, three members of our Relief Society have had broken femurs in the last two months. What is it with femurs and the Somerset Ward?) There were pretty even odds that Liz might not make it through surgery. So instead of watching Tessa twirl with her ballet class Liz was in the operating room. She made it through surgery.
Tess, Dave and I stopped at McKay Dee Hospital after rehearsal. when Liz was just an hour out of surgery. She was sitting up in her bed. When she saw Tess she threw up her arms and called out her name. Tessie twirled at the foot of her hospital bed in her yellow rain boots and little yellow “Singing in the Rain” costume. Liz clapped and cheered, nothing close to how one would imagine a person to be after they had been in such an involved surgery. Dave lifted Tess up to the side of her bed, then down she went, into Liz’s arms, her lips on her wrinkled cheek, her soft little girl arms tucked between her neck and her pillow. It was their last embrace.
Liz came home from that surgery and the rest of her body decided not to cooperate. Hospice helped ease the exit. My sister Libby and I spent the night two days ago so Judy could get some much-needed rest. It was a sacred time. Liz was not comfortable, and at times it was necessary to have two of us there. Eventually I went home and Libby nurtured her on her won until Judy, still with not enough rest, took over. Yesterday Judy’s daughter Tiffany flew in from Oregan to help stand guard. Last night Dave and Paul Dickamore laid their worthy hands atop Liz’s white hair and offered her comfort and assurance that she could go Home. When they left I sat at her bedside. A circle of women gathered around her: Tiffany, Chris and Judy and I. I played my guitar and sang for her, songs she knew and loved, including songs she had planned for years to have me sing at her funeral. I sang them with a pinch of heartache because I was leaving for a long-planned family trip back to our hometown near Pittsburgh PA. All of children and grandchildren, 20 of us. Knowing, after all these years of her wanting to die and not being able to, that when it finally happened I might be gone caused my heart to ache, so I sang us through the heartache. About five hours later Liz took the mighty leap into Heaven.
I am sitting now in the seat of our van, the seats behind me filled with grandchildren, Dave at the wheel, somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming. My computer sits on my lap and that pit in my stomach jabs as I click the keys. Liz and I are both going home I suppose. Back to where things are vaguely familiar but details are sketchy. My sister Libby carries the torch, along with my counselors and other church leaders, in helping Judy work through Liz’s going away party.
Tess sits in the booster seat behind me. I have not yet told her about her Liz going back to Jesus. She left her mom this morning to ride across the country with us, and we thought the weight of such news would make her little girl heart too heavy right now. So, for a minute or two, we will let her think she will be able to go twirl for Liz in a few weeks when ballet starts up again. Truth is, Tess, we will get to twirl for our Liz, whether she is watching from her new place, or it is years from now and we are all in that place together. We will no doubt do whatver it takes to delight one another. Meanwhile Tessie, when you twirl for me, we will think of Liz.
Fare well, dear friend.
