Jeff the Zombie

My mother is dead. She died two weeks ago in her sleep, just days after spending the week with my daughters. She was sixty-two years old. By her doctor’s estimate, she probably fell victim to cardiomyopathy, a disease I have been living with for the past three years, but one which my mother did not know she had.

How does a person not know they have a terminal illness? My mother’s description of her heart ailments was rudimentary at best. I always suspected she had it, but whenever I asked her she assured me she did not. Now she is gone, and yet all the signs and symptoms were there for me to see. The swelling, the exhaustion. Her medication regimen was wrong for cardiomyopathy, and she was unaware of the requirement for a low sodium diet. An ICD might have kept her alive in the event of sudden cardiac arrest, but one was never implanted. To my knowledge, it was never even suggested to her.

I am so angry about this, because I have seen it time and again with older patients. A sense among doctors that the patient is not capable of grasping the medical condition that will take their life, an acceptance that death cannot be prevented, so they don’t bother to educate them on what they need to know to keep going.

“It was probably the cardiomyopathy,” the doctor said.

And I will wonder forever whether her death could have been forestalled a few more years.

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What follows is the eulogy I wrote for my mother and delivered on Friday, July 15, 2011:

Thank you all for coming — I know my mom would be grateful to see so many friends and family present here tonight.

Three weeks ago, I drove up from my home in Washington, D.C. to spend the night at my mother’s. My cousin Jennifer and her family were coming down to visit, and she needed her air mattress back so Jennifer’s sons would have somewhere comfortable to sleep. As usual, I got there much later than I’d planned.

My mother was on the phone when I arrived, but she still ushered me into the kitchen where she made me a lollipop. If you’re not from Hagerstown, and even if you are, you’re probably thinking it’s a kind of candy on a stick — but not so. A lollipop, as my mother explained to me, is a snow cone with ice cream. In this case, it was a strawberry snow cone, made from a strawberry syrup my mom made herself. She was very proud that she had done it, as it was not an easy process. She said she’d bought the snow cone maker so she could make snow cones for my daughters, but I could tell by the twinkle in her eye that she also bought it for herself. She loved to cook, and more importantly, she also loved her own cooking.

After she got off the phone, she went into great detail about how she had extracted the syrup from fresh strawberries — a process that would have made a chemist proud. Although I am a competent cook in my own right, I got lost halfway through the story. But the truth was there, my mother had done it in her own kitchen. It was amazing.

We went on to spend the rest of the evening together chatting in the living room, both of us reclining in our chairs. It was a wonderful night, cheerful, hopeful. We talked about my daughters, about family and the future. We talked a little about my dad. Then we went to bed. As always, my mom came into my bedroom before retiring to make sure I had everything I needed.

In the morning, we said our goodbyes and I headed for home. As always, my mom saw me out to the driveway, and I honked at her as I drove off. It occurred to me as I headed down Independence Road that this was the first night we’d spent alone together in eighteen years. And although I didn’t know it then, it would also be the last.

When I got the call that my mother had died, I thought back to that night — it was hard to believe that it had really happened. It was the kind of thing that people write about in books, a little closure before a major character passes on. But I had spent the evening with my mom, sat at her table and ate her wonderful snow cone with ice cream. It was real.

I know this because my Aunt Linda reminded me a few nights ago that she was the one on the phone with her when I came in. And so I have confirmation, there was a witness — my mind isn’t playing tricks on me. I did get to say goodbye to my mom. I feel so fortunate, many people don’t get the chance. But I did, and I will always be thankful for that night for the rest of my life.

Many people here knew Belva Barrus in different ways — as a friend, a sister, a mentor, a mother-in-law, a grandmother. As her son, my perspective is different. I know more of the story, but with my mom, only she knew her entire story. But I’ll try to share what I can with you.

My mom was born in 1949 in Fort Pierce, Florida, to her parents, Carl and Ruth Hoffman. She was the second of five siblings — three sisters: Betty, Donna and Carla and a brother: Craig. She grew up in the town of Okeechobee, which, if you look at the map, is next to the big lake in the center of the state.

Her childhood, by all accounts, was happy. She spoke often of her parents, her sisters and her little brother. She remembered those early years in stunning detail, and spent many hours sharing stories of her childhood with my daughters, who enjoyed retelling them to Tina and me.

When she came of age in 1967, my mother left Okeechobee for the United States Air Force. She spent four years in the service, with a long stint at Misawa Air Base in Japan, where she met and fell in love with a charismatic young man from Grand Island, New York named Grant Barrus. They married in Sapporo, Japan in 1971.

After leaving the Air Force, my parents moved to Hagerstown, MD to be close to my dad’s parents. And after three years of trying, they finally had a son — me, Grant Jeffrey Barrus — in 1974.

Growing up, my mom was my constant companion — the two of us walked to the library every few days and came home with stacks of books. We spent long summer days together as my father worked, and my mom eventually got a part-time job as a lunchtime aide at Bester Elementary, where I went to school.

In 1985, that job turned into a instructional assistant position at Winter Street Elementary School. For the rest of her life, my mother worked for the Board of Education, as a paraprofessional, serving stints at schools around the county, including Robinwood Early Childhood Center and Clear Spring High School.

For most of her career, my mother worked with young children, so when she was transferred to Clear Spring High School, she was nervous. Working with teenagers was new to her, but it didn’t take long before she found it just as rewarding. She spoke often of her colleagues at school and the students she met. Her job was such a rich part of her life, and it meant a great deal to her.

When my father passed away in 1993, it was a difficult time for my mom. She had sat at his side as he died of cancer and losing him was devastating. But my mom was an incredibly strong person — she picked herself up and built a new life for herself. She had always been independent, had always done things for herself. But this time in her life showed her the kind of strength she really had — she was capable of almost anything she committed herself to. And that was a lot.

My mom was a born problem solver. I was reminded of this last week when, as I sat with my father-in-law as he changed my oil, he found a plastic flap under my car that someone had tied up meticulously with a tie. I then remembered a few months ago when my mother noticed that flap dragging under the car and insisted that she tie it up. Whenever she found a problem, she fixed it.

As I grew into an adult and married, my mother insisted that I have a child. This was a fight that went on for several years, as I was not certain I was ready. But my mother wanted her granddaughter. So I took no small pleasure in shocking her when I called to inform her told that the doctors said there would be not one, but two children. She couldn’t believe it — she refused to believe. “There must be some mistake?” she said. “Twins?”

There was no mistake. When Rachel and Anya were born, my mother was there to help. And during that difficult first year full of pneumonia and asthma and long hospital stays, my mom was always there to pull us through. She taught us nearly everything we needed to know about parenting — from changing diapers, to mixing formula, to bathing the girls. Tina and I were so scared, but my mom gave us the confidence that we could do it as well as she could.

Throughout their lives, my mother was my daughters’ best friend. They believed, as I did, that she could do anything. They loved their Nana so much — she always made sure they had everything they needed. She was always hunting through yard sales for clothes and toys and anything they might need. And she sewed dresses for them and their dolls.

When Rachel had a special teddy bear named Robin and Anya had no similar toy, my mother gave her Tracker the basset hound.

But most importantly, my mother shared her life with them. She told them stories of her childhood in Okeechobee, of her days in Japan, and stories of what their father was like when he was a little boy. These are stories that either I didn’t know or didn’t remember, stories that live on inside my girls as they remember them.

The week before my mother died was spent with my girls. Together, they did many of the things my mom did with me when I was a boy — they went to the library, they went swimming, they flew kites and read stories. Every day, Tina and I heard reports of the adventures they shared together. It was a happy week for them, and also bittersweet knowing now that my mother would pass away just a few days after. But the blow of what happened is blunted somewhat by the knowledge that her last week on earth was spent with the two people she loved most — and that so few of us will get to leave this life with our days filled with love. My mother was so fortunate.

Who was Belva Barrus? She was a grandmother, mother and wife. She was a sister and a friend. She organized her clothes by color, and loved blue and lavender. She loved to read, and sad stories always made her cry. She loved to laugh and to cook and to pick out clothes for her granddaughters. She kept a book of birds and checked off a bird every time she was lucky enough to spot them. My fathers old hunting binoculars were never too far away. She took her camera with her everywhere, so if she saw a beautiful stand of flowers she could stop her car and photograph them.

And most of all, she was happy with her life — she felt lucky for what she had. She had no complaints, no regrets. She did not feel bitterly about the way things turned out like so many of us do, but fortunate that things turned out so well.

When I close my eyes, I can vividly see my mother’s face. She is smiling, her eyes glowing, laughing. This is how I remember her, and I’m not capable of remembering her any other way. I am so sad to have lost her, but I feel so fortunate to have been her son.

It was not until just after she died, that I realized something. All my life, I believed that my sense of honor and right and wrong came from other people. From my father, from men in my life. But the truth is, that my mother was who taught me tobe honorable — it was her who taught me that the right thing is often the hard thing, and that other people’s feelings are more important than my own. She lived up to a strict code of conduct — a belief in right and wrong, in always doing good, in helping other people whenever they needed it, regardless of the cost to herself.

This is not something I was able to acknowledge when she was alive, but I acknowledge it here, now. My mother was the best, most honest, most decent person I have ever known. And the world is a little darker now for not having her in it.

My favorite songwriter is a folk singer named John Darnielle. A few years ago, he recorded an album called “The Life of the World to Come,” where each song was based on a different biblical verse. My favorite song on that record is called “Matthew 25:21,” which is about a mother who died too young. I’ve been going back to it a lot since I first learned about my mom.

He writes:

“You were a presence full of light upon this earth
And I am a witness to your life and to it’s worth”

Goodbye, mom. I love you. I will always miss you.