Insights Into Mom More Than Two Years After Her Death

I recently sorted through my mother's 2003 and 2004 taxes, since tax forms older than seven years can be tossed. I looked through every page because I wanted to shred any papers that had her name, former address, or Social Security number on them. Three things struck me about what I saw, the first of which is rather mundane, but the latter two which are tragic.

1. She preferred paper clips to staples. There were hundreds of paper clips, many of which held together only two tiny pieces of paper. I wondered why she did this. I can only think that an elderly woman with thin skin could easily be cut by the end of a staple and not so easily with a paper clip.

2. Following her retirement as executive director of the Girl Scouts of Racine County, she continued to make donations to the local council and the nationwide organization. She had worked as what would be called the CEO-CFO from March 1969 to mid-1985. Sixteen years. She really gave her all to that job, and the stress took a big toll on her. Yet when she died in December of 2009, I could not get anyone currently working at the Racine council to care. I told the then-executive director that I was very willing to write an obit for any e-newsletter that went to members and volunteers. I said I was sure that there were people who would remember her and appreciate knowing what had happened to her. I said if only for historical purposes, she might be interested. Dead air on the other side of the line.

The contribution receipts that I came across in my mom's taxes reminded me of this exchange over two years ago. The message came through loud and clear: You can work your tail off at your job, but when you die, no one from your former workplace is going to care. So, as always, make sure this is how you really want to be spending your time, because in the end, very few if any people will remember or appreciate what you did during your career, especially if you die long after retiring or moving on to another job.

3. On the top of copies of tax forms my mother sent to the government was written "your copy" in my mother's handwriting. Not "my copy" but "your copy" as if she were handing these form to another person. She often addressed herself in the third person in letters to me, but I can't remember seeing this odd use of the second person singular before this.

This strange way of addressing herself is further confirmation of something I've known for a long time about my mother: She was not present in her body. Rather she was coping as best she could without a definite sense of self, always looking outside herself for cues. Her addiction to pain meds during the last 10 years of her life only made this state all the more acute.

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A few interesting things about these newspaper articles:

* The use of "Mrs." and the use of "Mrs. Eugene (Arlyn) Siehr"--as if her first name was her husband's first name and then misspelling her first name on top of it! A time when women were designated by their husbands, not by what they were doing on their own out in the world.
* She retired on my birthday--July 31.
* The reporter thought fit to provide her home address.
* She did in fact work for the Girl Scouts of the USA in interim executive director positions in Hibbing, Mich. (Upper Michigan), and Grand Junction, Colo. As such, she was what would now be called a turnaround manager, as she took councils that were struggling financially and got their houses in order.