In Lieu of Flowers, Send Vodka

The morning my mother-in-law died one of her friends sent a delivery person to the family home. We saw the car drive up, heard a knock on the door, and expected flowers.

It was a half-gallon of vodka.

When I recounted the event later on, one of my friends said, “I’d like to know that family! What an attitude: In lieu of flowers, send Vodka!”

My reply: “I’m a lucky man to have married into them.”

Lee Holden, who died at age 87, was active and mentally alert to the end of her life. And I often said to her, “If I had to choose a family instead of the bride, I couldn’t have done any better.” Her reply was always: “You’re darn right you couldn’t have!”

Lee knew I always enjoyed a cocktail before dinner so she would inevitably make me a Vodka Martini, which was her favorite drink. She and her husband of 65 years, Chuck, also enjoyed preparing food for visiting family.

The last year had been extraordinarily tough for all of us, especially Lee and Chuck: In September 2007 they lost their son-in-law: Rich Adent, husband of their oldest daughter, Sue; six weeks later their second child, Jan, died of pancreatic cancer at age 61.

Then, in February Lee was in an auto mishap and fractured her pelvis.

After the accident, both Debbie and I were afraid she might contract pneumonia from the limited activity during the healing process. Lee, after all, had smoked for sixty years before she finally quit cold-turkey one day in an effort to get Chuck to quit, too. Lee’s lungs were already weak from the smoking, and she was on four times daily respiratory treatments, which she self-administered.

But Lee was-strong willed, and a fighter who never complained about her predicament.

Two months after the accident (April) she was back home, healthy (well, mostly) and anxious to return to her old routine. A meticulous housekeeper, she loved her animals, a Yorkshire Terrier named Mikki, and a rag doll cat, Nancy. Though she couldn’t play tennis anymore (she played until age 72, when her ankles gave out) but she avidly watched tournaments on television.

Summer passed and the vegetable garden began to produce its bounty. Then, in August, Lee suffered a mild heart attack. Again, an ambulance. A stent received and medication changed, Lee attempted to return to normal. Again, no real complaints. But the added medicine didn’t quite agree with her.

Labor Day weekend, unsteady from the medication and too stubborn to use her walker to help steady herself, she tripped and fell. Something had broken, she knew. It was her hip.

Again, tenacity prevailed as she moved from the hospital to a step-down hospital and finally into the same nursing home where she recovered from the pelvis injury. She was looking forward to working hard with physical therapy to return home to Chuck and her animals. On the road to recovery, though, she became unexpectedly weak. Sue made arrangements for Lee to visit the emergency room, where they diagnosed pneumonia and an upset stomach because of her medications. Lee arrived there on Friday. Debbie rushed down to St. Joe. Saturday I received a frantic call that her mother was near death; that I should hurry down as well.

I drove the 230 miles but again, Lee had shown tenacity and apparently cheated death from its nearly-successful grip. The doctor said they’d drain her lung on Monday, and after that, she should be ready to go back to the nursing home. I visited Lee and we talked briefly and smiled. Her condition stabilized, I returned to Traverse City on Sunday, ready to go to work.

At 4:00 a.m. Monday I received a call from my wife, distraught. Lee died after asking the nurses to open a window. Deb had stayed with Lee all night, as she had in past times, and was there as she departed this earthly world.

Lee didn’t want a traditional funeral. She was cremated, and in lieu of a wake or funeral a celebration of her life was held at the family home the following Sunday. Our kids were all there, as were a ton of relatives.

We drank White Russians, Jan’s favorite drink, and Black Russians and Vodka martinis, Lee’s drinks, and Rich's favorite beer, and pop, and the Holden’s great well water, and thought of Lee.

We posted pictures and quotes of her favorite sayings around the house, and wore jeans and fuzzy socks, apparel that Lee was known to favor.

We told stories, and laughed and treasured the moments she had given us over the years, through her cantankerous but very caring personality.

Lee was from the old school, mostly German, a product of Scheers and Gundlach’s and the frugality that comes with living through the Great Depression. Yet, Lee was one of the most generous persons I have even known, though many, I believe, misunderstood her sometimes gruff nature.

Lee has helped me in many ways, through the years, to understand the Scheer mentality which sometimes shows up in my wife. And I thank her for her welcoming me into the family, and her friendship, and not least of all, her Vodka martinis.


Jeans and Fuzzy Socks in honor of Lee