How I killed My Mother.

Betty R. Procter, Susan P Mettler, Otto V. Mettler

My Granny was an icon in my life. She was a force of nature with a heart of gold and mouth like a sailor. She was a rebel in the truest sense of the word. She ran the family's famous diner in Northern California. Even though she was not the son. She was a foster parent before there was such a thing, giving jobs, structure and a home to any lost or wounded young adult who came her way and EVERYONE called her Granny. She cajoled, maneuvered, complained, encouraged, took charge and led the way. No one was immune. If she wanted it, it happened. When my parents fought it was my father who went to her for advice and she always sent him back. He loved her in a way that was totally different than they way he loved his own mother. I often suspect that Granny was one of the many reasons he fell so hard for my mother. She was benevolent, generous, demanding and funny. And she was a wicked cook. After years behind the grill in the restaurant she could pretty much make anything and I was impressed that she cooked at home at all.

It wasn't until they sold the diner and moved to Washington State ( taking a hostile me with them) that I saw Granny canning. She spent hours preserving the bounty of my Grandfather's abundant and enormous garden. Corn, beans, peas, fruit, garlic, onions, potatoes, squash, zucchini, tomatoes you name it. He grew it and she canned, froze, dried, pickled or cooked it. I can remember being sent to the cavernous basement to fetch something from the cold shelves. Row after row of shelves lined with homemade jams, pickles, canned fruits, chutneys and fruit butters. Granny made the best apple butter in the history of the world. I have not been able to duplicate it, but I keep trying.

She wasn't a crazy end times hoarder, she didn't suffer through the depression on stale bread and water. She just didn't like to waste things and she loved the process. Each morning during the summer harvest my Grandfather would deliver an overflowing basket to the kitchen counter and she would spend the better part of the day processing whatever there was. Their west facing house had rare Western Washington a/c, but even with it full tilt the kitchen was a hot place to be. The a/c was no match for the canners and the plate glass west facing windows.

Two nights ago I was making a stab at my first big canning job. Last year I made jam a few times, but this year our cherries overflowed and we were gifted with two large crates of peaches and apricots. I figured my time had come. We don't have a/c and by the time I got the last batch of peach chutney into the canner the kitchen was 104 degrees. I had a brief glimpse of the generations of women ( and some men, I am sure) who stood over boiling pots of water scalding peaches or tomatoes, who chopped and cooked and canned their way into a cupboard full of food to sustain their families through a long winter. I am sure the cold nights of winter seemed much closer to them than they do me. My family will not starve if I don't "put up" this food. Our diets will be much richer and our wallets heavier though. Even if I had paid retail prices for some of our fruit, I would still be ahead. And the jams and jellies, sauces, canned fruits and pickles have no preservatives, no unpronounceable ingredients, no high fructose corn syrup. My kids know where food comes from, that it isn't cheap, shouldn't be wasted, is not instant and generally requires a fair bit of work. And they like it!

The canning stopped and my Grandfather scaled way back in the garden when Granny died of lung cancer in 1989. Coming 6 years after my Father's death, her death was a huge blow to my family. We literally fell apart. My Mom stepped in to her mother's role, taking care of my Grandfather and assuming most of the matriarchal duties. But it was never really OK again. My mother both resented the job and desperately wanted to succeed. Family politics have a way of getting ugly when there is no clear leader. They did get ugly. We still had holidays and got together now and then but really, the light had gone out. I know my Mom felt a very deep sense of failure that she couldn't make everything normal again for everyone. She had a myriad of serious health problems that were exacerbated by stress, lack of sleep and worry. I believe my mother lived every year after her mother's death for someone else. For me, for her younger brother, for her father, for my sons. I don't want to be that kind of mother.

My mother often said that she wanted us to have the sort of relationship that she had with her mother. I think she hoped that after her surgery she and I could live together. That I would come back home like she did. But I was not that kind of daughter either. After her last big health crisis, after the double lung transplant we decided together that the best thing would be for her to live with us. We would sell her beautiful house on the water and all move together to a small house here in the city. I knew that even the with the sale of her house we could not afford the size and scope of home that she was used to. We had to stay in the city so that we could be close to work and to Crusty's Mom. I could not fracture my small family any further. I emphasized to her that our combined home would be smaller and not as fancy. That we would all need to make sacrifices. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, " So it has to go, it all has to go." It wasn't a question, it wasn't resignation. That moment haunts me. I believed that she could do it. That she could let go of the generations of important objects, papers, photographs and furniture. All the things that she had lovingly cared for and saved. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't face it and it broke her. It broke her will, it was the final straw. She was losing the thing that defined her. The house she built without my father, the plans she carried on after his death. The only place he knew to find her.

Four weeks later when I stood by her hospital bed and watched them remove the respirator tube. When I heard the last of her heart beats and heard that last ragged breath. I knew what I had done. I had provided the thing she needed most. The thing that would give her permission to stop struggling, stop suffering. I gave her a way to find my father. He was there. As certain as I am that the sun will rise in the morning, he was there. My Granny sent him.