Her First Name Was Helen Marr
When Hans was a senior in high school, we tried to buy another, larger house close by in our neighborhood. I had long wanted my parents to come from Texas to live with us, and the house was perfect – it had two large master suites and plenty of room for everyone, sitting atop beautiful 2.5 acres with a creek running through the property. We were actually friends with the owners, a fellow GE engineer and his lovely wife. Hans was ecstatic about the idea. The house was on the one good skating hill in the neighborhood. He wanted to live in one of the master suites until my parents would eventually make the move. He was excited about all the possibilities for the land – mountain bike trails and obstacles, he wanted to buy a dirt bike and make a track. Fun galore was planned. I even have a dozen photos of him taken in the home when we first considered buying the house.
We were not able to make it happen because of the housing market at the time. Hans went off to join Zatha at the Naval Academy. We stayed in our first North Carolina home back up the street. Hans and Zatha still loved coming home whenever they could.
Then Hans died.
Three years ago the big house came back on the market. This time we bought it. My parents, Commander Robert and Helen Marr Johannesen, moved here shortly after, and we set up The Compound. It is a Hans-approved home.
Eric said that making it work – living together with my parents – would prove there is a heaven. Otherwise how could heaven exist if you can't live with and care for the people you love full time here on earth?
Zatha was stationed at Camp Lejeune and was living with us in the old house while negotiations for The Compound went through. Then she was deployed overseas. We moved into The Compound while she was gone. Eight months later, Zatha returned and still had a year on station, so she got to live with us again, and her grandparents, at The Compound for that year. After a figuring out each other’s routines, food needs, cleaning standards (Helen Marr’s were the best), and fighting “thermostat wars,” Eric’s hypothesis proved true – there is a heaven. We loved living together under one roof. At a young 82 and 83 years old, both my parents were active and sharp, engaging and sharing in all aspects of Compound life – guests, activities, chores, chainsaws, cocktail hours.
Despite a diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension requiring oxygen 24/7, my mom (aka Grandmommy, shortened to Gmommy) took up a new exercise – riding her purple tricycle twice a day, carrying her “oxygen purse” in the big basket in back protected by some of her elegant stuffed bears. She was quite the cute spectacle, riding each good-weather day with her hat and her high heels on. She had a helmet, but preferred wear her cute little hats.
She also had a the bad habit of roaring down the driveway with her shoulders forward, head down, high-heeled feet pedaling as fast as they could to gain enough momentum to make it up the hill to the left. She reminded me of a cute, better-dressed Wicked Witch of the West (with just a touch of the wicked-witchiness).
On Saturday, May 16, she started out for her second tricycle ride of the day, but this time there was a car coming down the hill, just as she was turning left out of the driveway. To avoid hitting them, she sharply turned her handlebars left and was violently thrown down onto her right side, sustaining severe head and leg injuries. She was unconscious when Eric and I got to her, but regained it, eyes closed, after I placed an ice bag on her head. She kept asking for a tissue to blow her nose. But I asked her to stay still and quiet until the ambulance arrived.
She was in horrible pain, and once loaded into the ambulance and given a shot for the pain, they informed her that they would be starting her on an IV. Her response was, “I hope it’s Rosé.”
She was admitted to the hospital and sent to ICU. We were unable to be with her initially Saturday because of COVID rules. She was in critical condition with a bilateral frontal brain bleed, subdural hematoma, arachnoid and ventricle bleeding, and she had fractured both orbitals, her nose, and her tibia and fibula. She was still responding to basic commands, and saying, “My leg, my leg.” She was hurting so badly.
Sunday was Zatha’s birthday. We were told that if death were imminent we would be allowed a visit. We politely argued with them how ridiculous that was! Why could we not see her while she still might know we are there?!! They relented and allowed us to visit her Sunday night. She was not alert, eyes closed from all of the swelling, in obvious pain, but did respond a couple of times with “yah” when dad would ask her about traveling somewhere.
As Monday progressed, her vitals were stable but she had declining neurological responses. We were given a sliver of hope after hearing about how, when the new nurse came on shift that morning, one whom mom had yet to meet, the nurse introduced herself. “Hello Helen. I’m Cassie your new nurse for the day.” Mom hated being called Helen. She answered, “Helen Marr.”
Those were her last words. Helen Marr.
Because of the severity of her brain injuries, there was no hope for meaningful recovery and she moved into Hospice on Tuesday. She died on Saturday, one week later, with my dad and I there beside her.
I understand that when someone’s elderly parent dies, there may not be much sympathy. They are old. They are supposed to die. They may be tired of living. But it is different when they die too soon. The cause of death matters. Mom died too soon. She was only 82. She had several years of fun left in her. Wear your helmet. Though wearing a helmet didn’t save Hans’s life.
My dad chuckles, however, every time he tells someone her obituary will start with, “Helen Marr Wakeman Johannesen died on Saturday, May 23, from injuries sustained in a tricycle accident.” She was living life.
Helen Marr had a lovely, bittersweet life, full of adventure as the daughter and the wife of naval officers, living in countless places throughout the United States and the world, working interesting jobs. I could easily list all of her accomplishments and accolades (like Hospice Volunteer of the Year in Amarillo TX). But it would take several pages.
Instead, I will quote a letter that Zatha wrote to her that Grandpa read to Gmommy the evening after she arrived in Hospice. All I can say is, DITTO.
Dear Gmommy,
I’m wearing the necklace you got me for my birthday. I’m also wearing a long black skirt from you. I’m also wearing Grandmother Elsie’s perfume that you recently found and sent to me in the last care package from The Compound. I am fully immersed in Gmommy essence right now.
On Saturday morning Matt and I went for a bike ride to the Capitol, it was perfect weather, and we brought picnic stuff and a blanket. We set up right beneath the shade of the Capitol in the grass and read books. It was perfect. But for some reason I felt stressed while we were biking back to the condo. When we got back home I got ready for a video call with Gpa, Mom, and Dad so we could talk about Grad School stuff before we started prepping for my birthday dinner, it was during this time that the accident happened. I am shaking with anger and frustration at the unfairness of it as I type this.
I was so lucky to have YOU as a grandmother, someone I enjoyed to be around 100% of the time, someone I looked forward to seeing 100% of the time, someone that I admire 100% of the time (except when you got mad at my mom for her tattoos). Most people have a surface level relationship with their grandmother, but not you and me. I don’t have to translate things from my generation into yours, because you get it. You understand it all, we can just talk straight up with one another. You sometimes say things so sharp and witty that Matt doesn’t even get it at first. You’re one step ahead of everyone.
Your qualities that I really admire are plentiful but here are a few traits that stand out. You are always deliberate. You never wander around aimlessly, you’re always on to the next thing even if it’s just to read another mystery book. You’re very precise with everything you do, you are a functioning perfectionist that makes the average person seem lazy in comparison. Another thing I love is your bank of opinions on which I regularly draw. You have a tasteful, unforceful, elegant opinion about everything, and I always look forward to whatever your answer might be to an obscure question or fashion guidance request. Your fashion sense is just an outward reflection of your inward persona. Your personality impresses me so much, I wish I could bottle it up and inject it.
Things I will miss with you are too long to list but here are a few. I will miss our exciting Expeditions where the car smells like clean new car leather and your perfume and there are no dog hairs or sticky spills and we are listening to the Cats soundtrack for the fourth time in a row. I will miss the fancy dinner reservations where we are all on our best behavior and excited to dress up and receive Grandmommy-sourced compliments that uniquely assess our particular attire. I will miss how you insist on NO ICE in your drink and will send it back if ice gets poured into it. I will miss carrying your twenty-pound purse that could sustain the family for a week and I will miss digging around in it to find a bottle of carminative oil. I will miss annoying you in your walk-in closet as you do your rounds of staging your outfit for the next day and as you work through your skin care routine. I will miss giving you personalized stretch physical therapy and trying out my new gadgets on your neck and muscles.
I will miss walking into your room to show you an outfit combo that I know you’ll like but not know exactly how you will compliment it. I will miss watching you walk around the kitchen and back to your room, and how you say “Hey-lo.” I will miss how you collect all my Thank-You letters and then send them back to me years later. I will miss hearing your cute voice talk to FiFi or Divinio (I promise I will try not to call her Tupac). I will miss forcing you to talk on the phone because even though you don’t like it, you are so fun to talk to. I will miss getting historical tidbits of the artifacts arrayed around The Compound, I love walking around with you and having you tell me the backstory. I will miss hearing your stories at cocktail hour and watching how easily you engage with everyone. I will miss proudly showing you off to my friends, both your personality and your fashion. I will miss texting my mom to show you something so that I can get your reaction. I will miss the sound of your voice, which I have always loved. I will miss the sound of your laugh, which I love even more.
I will miss trying to get you addicted to Netflix. I will miss watching you walk in your heels on your treadmill. I will miss hearing you explain how to have breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen, and dinner like a pauper. I will miss smelling your perfume that doesn't smell like an old lady at all. I will miss taking sips of your low-alcohol-content wine. I will miss exchanging cute messages on Facebook. I will miss getting your hand-me-downs that I sometimes would take out of the "Goodwill donation" bin in the garage to keep for myself. I will miss hearing you scold Grandpa for needing to replace the batteries in his hearing aids. I will miss being cold with you because our family likes to keep the thermostat at a painfully cold level. I will miss your story telling.
I promise that I will keep your hat, jewelry, and shoe collections in use, worn proudly, and appreciated fully. We got to spend more time together than most grandmothers and granddaughters but that doesn’t make this easier. It makes it 10X harder because not having you in my life is a HUGE HUGE HUGE UNFAIR GAPING LOSS. I can take a broken leg but I can’t take your head being injured. I hope you know how sad I am because it’s a testament to how much I enjoyed life with you, and I honestly can’t imagine life without you in it. It physically hurts. I know Grandpa has other letters to read you so I will bring this to a close but there is so much more to say to you. Having you and Grandpa as my grandparents made me a very lucky girl. I knew it then and I know it now.
I know Hans is excited to welcome you on this next Expedition. Both of you left for the Expedition too soon on wheeled vehicles, Hans 80 years too soon, you eight years too soon. The rest of us are not happy about it.
I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ZelBell
