Myrtle

She was 96 years old and stood 6’1” tall. She was a powerfully built woman, yet she was

stately. I can reach around my own wrist with my thumb and my middle finger of the opposing

hand, but Myrtle’s wrists were about an inch larger in circumference than my own. She had to be

made of stern stuff – she was born in Aroostook County, Maine in the town of Dyer Brook in the

1890’s. She was one of nineteen children. She loved to tell of her childhood. Like many other

elderly Mainers she frequently said, “We were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. We had

everything we needed, and we were happy.” Aroostook County is a cold place, and back in

Myrtle’s childhood it took a lot of planning, hard work, and courage to make a go of it in that

hardscrabble country.

Myrtle used to go into the woods for the Winter to cook for the men in the logging camps

back in the Allagash Wilderness in the early 1900’s. Nobody messed with her. Her husband came

with her for those harsh Maine Winters. She had a picture of the two of them in a faded old

photograph next to her bed. They were a handsome couple.

When I met her, she was insistent that I would refer to her as “Grammy Myrtle”. I was

opposed to this idea, as I had called my own maternal grandmother “Grammy”, and in my mind

that name belonged to her, but I quickly learned that Myrtle was an indomitable force, and not to

be denied. I eventually gave in and came to call her “Grammy”. It was easier than trying to

resist. She was one of a largely elderly flock of parishioners which I had come to serve as a

parish minister. I used to visit her regularly during the week. She was fairly blind, and had some

issues with incontinence, but she seemed unaware of both conditions. She would put a nice dress

and high heels on, and then inform me that she was “going out to visit the old folks”. By this she

meant that she was going to walk around the town in her high heels visiting them. She was much

older than most of those whom she dropped in on. She seemed as unaware of her age as she was

of her vision and continence issues .

We had Myrtle to our home for Thanksgiving a couple of times. Since she was

incontinent and almost blind I kept setting a pad on any chair where she sat before she got there.

She was sharp, so she eventually asked, “Why do you have these foolish pads on all of your nice

chairs?” My wife and I had four children under the age of eight, and we eventually all became

quite fond of “Grammy Myrtle”. We’d go and see her in her apartment and she loved the

company. We began to realize that her fingers quite frequently had burns on them because her

failing eyesight made it hard for her to cook without hurting herself, but she was fiercely

independent and refused to discuss having any help with her cooking.

Eventually, after she’d turned 98, Myrtle did wind up in the nursing home when her

family realized how frequently she was falling and how often she was burning herself. One

Saturday, shortly thereafter, I received a call from Wanda, a nurse who worked at the nursing

home and who also served as the head of our parish Trustee board. She informed me that Myrtle

had gone into a coma. The family decided to let her die a natural death, and not force nutrition or

hydration on her. I had always been told that people couldn’t live longer than three days without

hydration. I accepted that as a truism. I dutifully went to the nursing home and read Scripture to

Myrtle and prayed with her daily. On the fourth day I was certain death must be imminent, and I

bent down and kissed her brow before I left. She was as cold a stone. She hung on for three more

days after that. Eight days after having slipped into a coma Myrtle woke up bellowing, “I want

corn chowdah!” Wanda called me and made me aware. I headed for the nursing home. Before I

got there Myrtle finished the corn chowder they’d made for her, and she was once again

declaring quite loudly that she wanted “corn chowdah”. They made her a second bowl and she

ate it.

I was astounded that she was alive and speaking. Something had changed during the eight

days that she was unconscious, but I was not yet aware. I began speaking to her and calling her

“Grammy”, assuming that she recognized me and knew who I was. Bear in mind that she had

always hated the notion of being institutionalized. As I was speaking to her and telling her how

thankful I was that she had awoken, she yelled at me and told me not to call her “Grammy”. I

was quite puzzled and explained to her that I wasn’t family, but that she had demanded I call her

Grammy. Her mind was not processing information properly, and she fired back at me that

anyone who would put her in a place “like this” (the nursing home) was no family of hers. I

again explained that I wasn’t family and hadn’t put her here. I told her that I was the pastor from

her church. I called her “Grammy” during my explanation of things, and she said, “You call me

‘Grammy’ one more time and I’ll punch you in the face.” I wasn’t worried that a 98-year-old

woman who had been in a coma and without food or water for eight days could deliver on such a

threat, so I stayed nearby and tried to reassure her that she was getting upset over nothing. I was

just her pastor. I was sitting on a chair to her right, fairly close so that she could see me with

what little vision she had. Myrtle had thoroughly trained me to call her “Grammy” and I had not

yet unlearned that lesson. In my subsequent comments I unwittingly called her “Grammy” yet

again. I should mention that I was involved at the time in full contact kickboxing and was also

regularly going to Gamache’s boxing gym in Lewiston, Maine and boxing with amateur and

professional boxers. Bobbing and weaving were second nature, and I could certainly take a

punch, or so I thought. Upon my speaking the name “Grammy” Myrtle delivered a thundering

backhand from her bed. I was wearing glasses, and she broke them in half and knocked me off of

my chair. I found myself sitting on the floor stunned, and saw Wanda, the nurse, doubled over

and laughing hysterically in the door to the room. She went and retrieved my broken glasses and

set about taping them together with gauze tape. I got up and brushed myself off. I spoke gently to

Myrtle being careful not to call her “Grammy” again. Before I left I said, “Well I’m going to be

going now Mrs. Morrison.” She smiled pleasantly at me and said, “Okay Deah, I’ll see you

soon.”

I came back to see Myrtle about a week later trying to sneak into the nursing home

inconspicuously, since the staff had heard about my having been knocked down by a 98-year-old

bedridden woman, and I did not desire any further humiliation. When I came into her room she

was making odd motions with her hands, which looked as if she was grabbing some sort of

invisible objects. I said, “What are we doing Myrtle?” She promptly replied in a rather matter-of-

fact tone of voice, “Picking apples”. Then she opened her eyes real wide and said, “Oh, you’re

the pastor. Help me pick some apples Deah.” So, I found myself picking invisible apples with

Myrtle and realized that her younger years in Dyer Brook had bled together in her consciousness

with her later years in our hometown of Pittsfield. From that point forward I never knew if I was

speaking with 98-year-old Myrtle, or with young Myrtle.

Things continued in that vein for another few years with Myrtle’s perceptions becoming

more and more muddled and confused. On her 100th birthday I was there with her and with her

family. We had a big party and all the people in the nursing home were trying to celebrate with

Myrtle, but the whole time she stared vacantly off into the distance. I thought perhaps she was

comatose but with her eyes open. Suddenly, rising from silence and from that vacant look, she

rose up in her wheelchair, lifted her hands to the ceiling and said in an emotion-filled tone,

“Thank you Lord. I asked you to let me live to see my 100th birthday and you did.” Then she

became silent again and even kisses from her greatgrandchildren failed to rouse her from her

silence. A few days later Myrtle was gone.