Sleeping in my Mom's Deathbed

Gladyce Aunan. Born July 9, 1934. Died June 22, 2022. She kept the first two photographs on her bedside table before she died.

I have COVID, and I’m sleeping in my mom’s deathbed.

Let me explain.

One week ago, at my father’s request, I arrived in Yakima, Washington. After a decade of suffering from a devastating stroke, getting a recent a cancer diagnosis, and finally selling the family home, my mother was dying.

The deathbed is in my younger sister’s house, which sits on the heights east of town. To the west, past the horse pasture, the orchards, the valley, the river and the ridges beyond, snow-capped Mt. Adams broods in the atmospheric haze. Life plunges into the house through the open windows.

The deathbed is one of those mechanical hospital appliances, out of which the discomfort can be temporarily adjusted.

I arrived knowing that my father, three of my siblings, my brother-in-law, and a niece and nephew, all had COVID. My brother, who arrived a day before me, had taken over as primary care-giver. The two of us, the uninfected, cared for our mother for four days.

She died on the fifth day. That was three days ago. The day I woke up in my hotel room knowing I had COVID.

I checked out of the hotel today, and tonight I am sleeping in her bedroom, where I can quarantine until I recover.

Gladyce Lenore Rappana grew up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes — the state of Minnesota — and I grew up listening to tales of her adventures in the wild lands north of Lake Superior; or, as she used to call it, Gitche-Gumee (Huge Water).

Her father built a log cabin on the shore of one of those 10,000 lakes. As a young woman, my mother roamed the birch tree forests and scoured the agate-strewn shorelines, looking for arrowheads. As a young boy, I marveled at her collection, but for her the physical objects were less important than what they represented.

She told me of the canoe trips she took with her sister, a week at a time in the wilderness, portaging the craft from one lake to the next and finally back to the family cabin. She told me about her hunting trips, and the time she almost got shot by a careless girl who didn’t know how to handle her shotgun.

In 1957, she married Wallace Aunan and they had 5 children.

She accompanied my father during his 26-year Air Force career, kids in tow, crisscrossing the United States several times and traveling to 13 foreign countries. One day long after they had retired, she told me she hated flying.

She placed a high value on education, refused to allow a TV in the house, took us kids regularly to the library, and subscribed to a Great Books program, acquiring a full set including Homer, Shakespeare, Plato, Euclid, St. Augustine, and many others. When the public schools did a poor job — as happened with each of us in different ways — she taught us instead.

She also taught us, by word and example, to be independent and confident and respectful of others.  “Leave it better than when you arrived,” was her philosophy regarding the many rental houses we lived in around the world.

An accomplished horsewoman, she rode dressage in Germany, was a 4-H Horse Club Leader in California, and head Vaulting Instructor for the Diamond M Ranch in Nevada. She had studied to be a veterinarian, but it was a vocation impossible to practice while moving her household every three years.

In Oslo, Norway, she competed in the 26-kilometer Holmenkollen cross-country ski race, coming in dead last, but refusing to quit. She also learned the decorative folk art of rural Norway called rosemaling (rose painting) and tried her hand at weaving and stained glass.

She taught school in Duluth MN, Las Vegas NV, and Leavenworth WA before joining the staff of the Enzian Inn of Leavenworth where she worked for 18 years until retirement.

Her grit and determination was only surpassed by her love and compassion for others. No matter where she lived, she found ways to volunteer: She visited shut-ins, volunteered at the air-base medical clinics, and always helped at church, including 10 years as Mission Chair during the 39 years she was a member of the Community United Methodist Church in Leavenworth. As Cultural Director of Epledalen Lodge, Sons of Norway, she was the heart of the Norwegian programs at North Central WA Museum in Wenatchee for a decade.

A wife and mother extraordinaire, an athlete, philosopher, teacher, student, poet and artist – a true Renaissance Woman − my mother never did anything halfway. Finding her inspiration in Christ, her motto was, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)  and, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

She once told me that no one knows where heaven is, and that it could be another dimension. I said I’m sleeping in her deathbed tonight, and that might sound morbid to some. But I think the Life plunging in through her bedroom windows simply carried her away to another Life Everlasting. So this evening I’m spending some time listening to the birds outside.