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Copyright © 2009 Andrea Langworthy
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Sadness arrived at my home last week in the form of an e-mail. Phyllis, who had been my mother’s next door neighbor and dear friend, passed away. She’d been in a nursing home, recovering from a broken hip. I sent an e-mail to my siblings telling them of Phyllis’ passing. My brother wrote back to say his wife said Phyllis was now in heaven with my mother and the two of them were shopping. It’s true: Mom must have been waiting for Phyllis at the pearly gates, her Herberger’s credit card clutched in her hand. Mom and Phyllis never missed a chance to head to Herberger’s to see what was on sale.
My mother passed away in July, also. Ten years ago. Every year after, Phyllis included a personal message in her Christmas card, telling me how much she missed my mom. The two of them had been like sisters. The sister my mother, an only child, never had.
When Mom and her husband retired and moved to a house in Garrison, I thought she’d be like a fish out of water. After all, she was a city girl. But she liked living up north on the lake and after her husband’s stroke, it was Mom who cut a hole through the ice so her grandchildren could fish. When Mom and Larry moved to an apartment in Brainerd, Mom thrived in the closeness of the residents. She always had a fresh pot of coffee brewing for whoever wanted to visit. Phyllis, a widow, was a regular. She and Mom started their days with a cup of brew and conversation — the first of many each day.
After my stepfather passed away, I called Mom often. But never on Sunday evenings. Sundays were when Phyllis and Doug, the upstairs neighbor, kept her company. They took turns cooking dinner and set up TV trays in each other’s living rooms to watch their favorite shows. “Murder She Wrote was a favorite,” says Doug, who was like a son to Mom and Phyllis. It was Doug who sent the e-mail about Phyllis’ death. He always took care of things for Mom and Phyllis. Every winter he helped set up elaborate snow villages in their apartments, even building special shelves to accommodate the many houses, shoppes and carolers.
Every spring, Mom and Phyllis spent days beautifying the area outside the sliding glass doors of their side-by-side first floor apartments. They planted hostas and day lilies and, under the big shade tree, impatiens. When Mom’s knees got bad, she couldn’t garden so she gave the orders and Phyllis did the planting. When Mom had knee replacement surgery, it was Phyllis who helped her in and out of the bath tub. And Phyllis who accompanied Mom from Brainerd to Minneapolis on Memorial Day to put flowers on my stepfather’s grave. Phyllis who rode along with Mom on Mother’s Days and had brunch with us at a downtown restaurant. It was Phyllis who mourned the loss of my mother as she would a sister.
My husband and I cried when we learned Phyllis had passed. But we take comfort in the thought that she and Mom are picking through Herberger’s clearance racks “up there,” finding heavenly bargains on cute little outfits. Because to Mom and Phyllis, if it’s really heaven, there has to be a Herberger’s.