Ethel Irene Kugler was born in Easton Pennsylvania on January 30th, 1909. (Or maybe it was the 28th - I could never remember because my parents' anniversary was Sept 28th, and sometimes I got the numbers mixed up when I was trying to remember which date was which.)
Her father made gold fillings until they started using other materials, then I guess things got kind of tough for them. He died when I was 5 years old. "Pop-Pop" I called him. Her mother raised three daughters, of which Ethel, my mother, was the youngest, "The baby."
I don't know a whole lot about how she grew up - other than she came through the Great Depression, and talked occasionally about how her and other kids would chew on still soft tarmac to clean their teeth. (Couldn't have been for the taste).
She was a Registered Nurse, but it wasn't until I was visiting my Aunt Gladys in my late twenties that I discovered the story of how she got there. My mother had been very sickly as a young girl, and apparently there was some doubt at one point as to whether or not she would live while in high school. She wanted to become a nurse and applied for, and won a scholarship to the local college. Her parents wouldn't let her accept the award because they were poor and couldn't pay for the room and board and incidental expenses. So she later went to work at the local department store, Laubach's, in downtown Easton and saved up her money until she could go to school and fulfill her dream. The doctor who had attended her in her health crisis wrote a glowing recommendation. I had no idea until that day when my Aunt shared the story of what a fighter my mom was.
My mom was raised by her oldest sister, Grace, who quit school at the 8th grade to take care of the household because of their mother's failing health. She was a woman wise beyond any educated person I've ever met and my mother looked to her as her mother, really. She often said "Grace raised me."
Ethel Irene Kugler was a supervising nurse when she met a dashing young intern, Philip Adler DO, who bet her a hot fudge sundae that he could drive her to an appointment that she was late for and get her there on time in his model-something Ford. She took the bet, he got her there, they got the hot fudge sundaes and later got married. Hot fudge sundaes remained a favorite desert. (Incidentally, because of the rotation he was on at the time, on the floor where she worked, they used to tell everyone that they met in the "V.D. Clinic.")
Again, it was many years later that I learned about my mother's courage and fortitude, because to look at her you might think she was frail. She was certainly a gentle being. She loved animals and was always bringing in stray critters who were wounded or lost or abandoned by their mothers. But to marry the man she loved took some bravado. He was 16 years her junior. He was from an orthodox-Jewish family, she was Lutheran. His family declared him "dead" by holding the traditional week-long period of mourning for him, even though my Mother converted to Judaism to try to appease them.
(She expressed regret for that years later when I shared with her that I had secretly been baptized at an interdenominational church I joined in my first year of college. I believe it relieved some guilt she felt for not being able to bring me up in a "Faith" because they pretty much dropped any formal religious practices and affiliations. My sharing that with her brought her comfort.)
I didn't learn resentment from her about this situation. If I asked about Dad's family she always said "Well, maybe we'll talk about it some day." Those relatives were always "Too far away" to visit when I would ask. I mean, it took 2 days of driving to get to Easton from Detroit. For a while it seems, I thought New York was west of Chicago, as a kid, because I couldn't imagine where "too far away" really was.
She was 42 years old when she gave birth to me, a pregnancy she had to take DES for in order to retain it full term and not lose me. That was a standard drug therapy then, and years later when I faced the possibility of cervical cancer (along with numerous other former DES babies) Mom expressed guilt as to having taken the drug.
"Are you kidding?" I told her from my hospital bed, "I wouldn't be here if you hadn't!" I'm not sure that helped, but I didn't have cancer, so hopefully her guilt abated.
Because youthful looks ran in her side of the family, I really didn’t get as a kid how old my mother was in comparison to the other kids' moms. She became an Assistant Girl Scout Leader and stayed active with us through High School. She did have problems with severe arthritis that prevented her from some camping trips, and she had to fly home early from our field trip to Washington D.C. because she got a severe case of "the hives." But she was there at the meetings every week and would never pass me on my badge work, so that people couldn't say I cheated. She tested our Leader's daughter and our Leader tested me!
I remember one time we were trying to find a parking space at a mall and she jammed on the brakes and said "look at that!" in anger and horror. "What?" I said, slightly confused. Then she pointed at a dog that was locked in a car with the windows all the way up. She was always appalled that people would mistreat animals. She was a regular donor to the Michigan Humane Society, the World Wildlife Fund and several other similar organizations. Her beloved dogs and cats in later years received their own funeral services and burials at the AAA Pet Cemetery in Taylor, Michigan. The owners knew her there and were sorry to hear of my mother's death. She visited often and they liked her.
She lived out a dream when she and Dad traveled to Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – several times – to stay at various lodges and go on “camera safari.” She was childlike in her delightful recounting of the sights seen, people met and beauty of the land. She treasured those trips to her last day.
Everyone liked her. She would go grocery shopping 3 times a week just to stand in line and talk with people. The clerks knew her by name and always had big smiles for her, asking about her dogs, the family, etc. She didn't gossip and she had an innocence about her that I always described as being from another generation beyond what I perceived to be her own. (Which actually, she was.) She came from a gentler time, it seems. I was so glad that she wasn't alive for 9-11 because she wouldn't have understood, if indeed any of us do.
One time when we lived on a man-made lake, some boys skated across the length of it (frozen) to pelt the house with ice balls, yelling "motherf---er" from the darkened lakeshore just out of sight. I was there and we called the police. But I remember her confusion and how she looked at me and asked why would they yell that at us, and what did it mean? I had to pause for a moment, pondering the consequences of letting her know that I knew what it meant, or just letting it go.
"I don't know," I said finally. I didn't understand either, other than that she fed the Canadian Geese, who decided to stay all year round because of the great deal they had, and that ticked some people off. I don't really understand wanton cruelty either.
Lest you think Ethel Irene Kugler-Adler might appear ignorant or stupid from how I'm portraying her, that would be furthest from the truth. She was a gentle loving woman who set her career aside, because that's what women did in that time, to raise her daughter and care for her husband. Marrying an obstetrician, she sacrificed the "Ozzie-and-Harriet-Great-American-Life-Ideal" where hubby was always home at 5 pm for a life where it was a crap shoot if he would be called out for a delivery at any moment and how long he'd be gone. But being an RN herself, she knew what she was getting into. And she loved him very much.
When Dad brought home the money from the bank on Fridays, my mother went through a ritual I watched for many years. She had envelopes for every imaginable expense. She was a master of "set-aside." There were Christmas funds for her, dad and me. There were Easter funds for each of us. Travel
and Vacations funds for us all. She had a "Hummel’s" envelope where she saved to acquire those beautifully delicate figurines that she treasured and built up a sizable collection. She had "Just in Case" envelopes, and of course she budgeted for food each week, getting her hair done, and other incidentals. Before she died, she gave me a list of where she had hidden certain envelopes. There were some she wanted Dad to get and some she wanted only me to have. (She actually helped to pay for her own funeral.) Months later while cleaning out one of her dresser drawers, I found 3 crisp $1 bills in an oriental cloth glasses case, with 3 more crisp $100 bills hidden behind them when I pulled them out!)
My mother died of cancer after a colectomy and several stays in the hospital. The last one lasted about 4 weeks. I was there for the entire time. Her greatest regret that she expressed to me was not that she was dying but that she was going to go before her husband. "Who's going to take care of Phil?" she asked. (My Dad had developed some early signs of dementia which was her concern.)
On the day she died, I was in the hospital room with her. My dad and her best friend, who had been my dad's former office nurse of many years were also present. As the floor nurse in attendance rolled her on her side to alleviate the bedsores on her back, my mother came out of a coma state to open one eye, and connect with me in a way that drew me forward to lean into her and say "Mom?" She nailed me with a glance that I knew she was aware and communicating.
Then as the nurse rolled her back on her back, I felt something shift. Call it energy, call it a Presence, but there was a definite shift. Something had exited the room and I was the only one who caught it. I looked at the nurse and said, "I think she's gone."
Indeed she was. We had left a no-resuscitation order. We had no desire to see her suffer.
When I describe my mother's last week, and her withdrawal from life, I have used the analogy of a 5-room house being vacated one room at a time. On Monday, one of the rooms was completely cleaned out. On Tuesday, two rooms were completely cleaned out, and so forth until that Friday, when the house was completely empty, save for that one fleeting moment of stepping back in to say goodbye.
During that month of her last stay in the hospital, Dad and I spent most of our time by her side. When she awoke I would massage her hands with white gardenia lotion. "Oh, that smells so nice," she would say.
Sometimes she would think she was at home and that D.J., her dog (named after me) was there with her. Rather than contradict her, I would just step into the illusion with her. "Yes," I would say, "She's a good guardian. She’s a good girl."
When Mom was asleep, and Dad wasn't around, I would talk to her and let her know that I loved her and that it was okay for her to go on now. That's really important - to help our loved ones let go of this overcoat we call the body and feel free to move on to the next phase of life in Spirit.
The nurses were great. As soon as the public address speakers announced the end of visiting hours at night, they would poke their heads in and say "It's okay - just stay as long as you want." They all adored her. "She's such a dear" and "She's so sweet" they would say. They loved that she was so easy to care for. She was one of "their own."
If I have any regrets at all it's that I didn't realize that I could deliver her eulogy at the funeral. I wasn't raised in the Jewish faith, so I didn't know. I felt angry that a stranger would come to the house to "interview" us to find out something about her that he could say. The Rabbi thought I was angry because she was dead when in actuality I was pissed off at the hypocrisy of the experience. (I made that correction by delivering my father's eulogy six years later at his funeral).
My mother didn't go for early treatment, when she had detected a change in a mole she had, because she didn't want to cost the family expensive health care. She had been denied Social Security benefits and Medicare because of some insane quirk that they claimed she didn't work enough years. I took the system on and fought them - and won. Our claim was still in process when she died. The notice of award came 4 days later.
It took me months before I could walk into a Hallmark shop or past a gift store without seeing something - a card or gift or Hummel figurine - and think "Oh, Mom will like that. I'll get it for her." Catching myself was part of the "letting go" process.
I don't think you ever really get over losing a loved one. I just think you learn to live with the loss. I miss my buddy. We talked on the phone at least 3 times a week.
We shared many adventures when I was growing up, taking long rides into the country, driving to shopping malls in other cities on my dad's office nights, fall visits to the Cider Mill, going out to Detroit Metropolitan Airport to eat lunch and watch the planes and people come and go, and eating at Howard Johnson's with our next door neighbor Dorothy, to name a few.
There have been some years when this day has come and gone for me without much notice. But this year it seemed to telegraph itself in advance, so now it's part of my ongoing story here in my blog.
To Ethel Irene Kugler-Adler. I Love you very much.
Your Daughter
“Debby”
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