Tag Archive | mom

Ruth Schiller is No More

Dec11

My dear old mom died in hospice in Penticton on Tuesday. She’d come home from hospital on December 1st and I tried to take care of her at home but it wasn’t possible. So on Friday she was taken to hospice where she felt very comfortable and cared for. I visited her every day and we had good conversations.

However by Monday she was already much weaker and more tired and when I arrived on Tuesday she was already in a very deep sleep, unable to be awakened. I sat by her bed and told her dad, granny, grampa, Freddie, Twig, they’re all waiting for you. I imagined that final scene in Titanic when the old woman dies and she is greeted at the Grand Staircase by Leo DiCaprio and other passengers who had died.

I was a physical and emotional wreck for the time leading up to mom’s passing, but once it occurred I felt a tremendous calm come over me. Mom was nearly 101, not able to do anything and very much wanted out of life. She’d accomplished her goal, and I was very happy for her.

I’ve written an obituary which will certainly go into the local Osoyoos Oliver Times Chronicle. But I was shocked it’d be nearly $1000 for the Province/Sun and much more for the Globe and Mail. But it’s as Penny said, you want Jean Chretien to read about mom’s passing. So I guess I have to bite the bullet and submit it to that paper for sure.

And this is the most pared-down version of an obituary I could write due to mom’s endless list of accomplishments. I had to omit the Queen’s Silver, Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medals, as well all that she did for the Town of Osoyoos. She was one of the pioneers, arriving in 1939 when she said there were still wooden sidewalks.

I worked for mom in her fruit stand, as did several of my friends over the years. I remember one morning when it was still a bit chilly, we had put sweaters on over our tank tops and shorts. Mom saw that and said “Get those sweaters off. Tourists don’t want to see people cold.” She allowed us to go out and stand in the sun as a compromise.

My friend Ron said he thinks of Mom every time he’s in a restaurant and the server removes a plate before all of the people have finished eating. He was fortunate enough to experience that in person when mom had to explain to a server that’s very bad manners. Mom’s made a lasting impression on so many people.

Those of us who know mom have all had your clothing re-arranged for you. She’d unbutton or button a shirt, depending on the aesthetic she was trying to achieve with your look. Sometimes she might come up, remove your scarf, and saying “That looks a hundred times better.” Mom was the arbiter of how an outfit should look.

She always looked fabulous and was an incredible sewer, knitter and crocheter. Mom’d buy a Vogue magazine, find a pattern of something similar, then fashion a very au courant outfit in which I’d parade around in high school. Mom could’ve been a couturier seamstress or perhaps have had her own fashion house had she not gotten stuck in Canada in 1939 when the war broke out.

Mom made the best of being separated from her parents at the age of 14. She lived with her aunt and uncle August and Anna Pfingsttag until she married my dad Fred Schiller at the age of 20. Freddie was born the following year, and I arrived (surprise!) eight years later.

Mom and Dad had an orchard where Mom would pitch in to help with picking. She said in the summers it’d be so hot the peaches would ripen by the hour so she and Dad would go out and pick all night and Freddie would come out in his nightgown in the morning looking for them.

Mom spent winters hunkered down in the basement sewing and watching the black and white T.V. In the summer she was the intrepid fruit stand owner who arrived by 6:00 AM and often stayed until 10:00 PM for three months of the year. Finally after about twenty years mom packed that in and soon had a job at Statistics Canada.

She had a yellow Pinto with no air conditioning that she drove all over southwestern B.C. drawing maps for the federal government. For fun she was involved in the Liberal party running as an MLA but being defeated, organizing a huge arts festival called Okanagan Image, and being appointed to various arts councils.

Dad was almost 19 years older than Mom, and after he died Gerry Bruck moved in with Mom. They were 77 and 87 years old when that happened which I thought was so adorable. Instead of children they adopted a poodle pup that had to make decisions and basically be the boss of the three of them. Mom and Gerry lived together until his death at the age of 98.

Mom’s last ten years were okay in that she continued to pound back litres of wine and dozens of chocolate bars and could largely get around with her walker. However, the past year saw a sharp decline and this past week Mom said she was completely ready to die. Every nurse coming and going from her room heard, “Can’t you just give me a shot? I want a shot.” You know Mom.

Mom had children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, two partners, travelled the Earth, had a lot of friends, enjoyed stimulating employment and volunteering, so for me it’s a celebration of life when someone at mom’s age dies after having lived such a full and wonderful life. She didn’t want a memorial as we had had a 100thyear celebration coinciding with my 70th birthday last year which she said was it.

In the spring I’ll invite the four grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren to joint me in scattering mom’s ashes which was her wish. Good-bye, Mom, we all wish you a speedy journey. Jan and I in particular wish this as Jan is now scared to go into Mom’s house alone as she alleges there’s a ghost in there. I will be sleeping there so, just saying.

Mom Finally Landed in Hospital

Nov27

November 27, 2025

Imagine being 100 and finally needing to be admitted to hospital for the first time in 35 years. Mom’s definitely one tough bird. I visited her today and she was able to use the walker and with help from a nurse made her way into the bathroom and back to her bed. The doc thinks she’ll be discharged on Monday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she is.

Of course then the real trauma begins as after ten days in hospital she’ll be even weaker than she was so will need more care. She refuses to go into a home so I guess I can block off the next few months of my life. Kidding. Margaret and I are definitely going to Mexico and Belize in February.

I was heartbroken not to be a finalist in the memoir category for the Canadian Book Club awards. It’s amazing to think I would even enter something like that! But then those of us with poor self-awareness are everywhere. I’m thinking of the very heavy young woman in short shorts and a turtleneck sweater in Walmart the other day.

I’ve stopped fighting with the bots at Amazon. They removed me from my ideal category, Western Canadian Provinces Biographies and Memoirs, then when I inquired said oopsies, we’ll reinstate you, please wait up to 48 hours. I’ve been fighting with them for ten days now, no sign of it.  The latest bit of gaslighting said “Your book’s detail page will display the top three category rankings only.” Yet only two categories are displayed so I guess bots are blind.

I tried out a new recipe on Sylvie the other day as I’d invited her over for Happy Hour. I made mini beef Wellington bites, and they’re super easy to make and I think with more practice will be a very nice appetizer. Then the other day for fun I tried making mango curd, and with all the leftover egg whites made meringue shells and so made mango pavlovas. Calvin and Visini loved them.

I’m waiting for Steve MacNaull’s article to appear in Kelowna Now. I’ll use that as bait and drop it plus my book and a fruitcake off to the CBC station and see if they want to talk about my book. I’ve been posting photos from the old fruitcake days on Instagram and my Nuttier than a Fruitcake Facebook page and so people are inquiring as to where and how to attain the fruitcakes, to which I reply buy Okay I’ll Bite, the recipe is in there.

It really was adorable when a nurse phoned me when mom was admitted so that I could answer a bunch of questions as mom was in a delirium so couldn’t. She asked if mom used drugs or drank and I said she drinks wine every day. The nurse laughed nervously and said, “you mean like a glass with dinner?” And I said, “oh no, at least half a litre a day. Probably more. She drinks that to go along with the three Ritter Sport chocolate bars.”

The nurse then said,” Do you think she’s in withdrawal?” I said, “oh god no it takes an awful lot more liquor than that every day for our family to go into withdrawal.” I still remember being a few weeks pregnant with Nick and feeling sick as I had a cold and my dad’s advice was to take a shot of vodka. Mom screamed saying “She’s pregnant.” To which my dad looked at both of us with a look that clearly said “So?”

But today I didn’t smuggle any wine into mom’s room, though I did take some chocolate. As she’s enjoying the food at the hospital, she might not even want that which is clearly a new sign.

The Care and Feeding of Mom

Aug22

It’s difficult taking care of someone who’s 100 and a half, and who’s basically crazy as a result of it. The other day mom phoned at 5:30 PM and said “Get me a doctor, I need help. Call anyone.” I said “Do you want me to call the ambulance?” and she said, “Yes, call anyone, I need help.” So I quickly called Luke and got him and Jan to head right over and told them to let me know what happened.

Half an hour later I got an e mail from Jan saying “Gramma was mad. She was out of wine, so Luke had to go to town to get it.”  Those are the typical kinds of emergencies I have to deal with. Often she calls saying “My phone isn’t working”, to which I explain it likely is, given she’s speaking to me on it.

Mom’s got macular degeneration and is almost blind as a result, so when I say I would prefer to clean a public toilet outside of a market in Thailand to hers, you get the idea. But one thing she can see no problem is food, and she has a voracious appetite. The other night she had two helpings of lasagne followed by a large bowl of peach clafoutis for dessert.

Often by 10:00 AM she’s nibbling on chocolate and drinking wine with it. I guess when you’re that age it’s pointless to pay attention to the time of day. In fact, mom will call and ask what time it is, and when I say 9:00, she says, “In the morning??” to which I calmly reply, “uh huh.”

Next week I’m going to start recording my book, Nuttier than a Fruitcake, so that I’m ready for all versions to go onto Amazon by mid September. I’m going to enter a reader’s choice contest which has a deadline for the end of that month, so I’m cutting it kind of close, but I’ll get it done because I have a good feeling about that contest.

We’re in the midst of another heat wave so I’m watering like mad, and I can see the results of it on my electricity bill. My well is powered by electricity, and with the irrigation system running three times a week all night long that takes a lot of juice. First you pay for the well, then you pay for the power to run it so the water’s not exactly free. But I still love having my own water source.

Hence for the next seven days I believe this is all I can do: water and work toward my book’s completion. Trevor, my illustrator’s coming on Monday with the recording equipment, so I have to get serious and stop fooling around.

Elsa’s going to be in Vancouver so that should cut down on thrift store shopping, and as I don’t usually go on my own, that’ll free up some of my time. I often marvel at how I worked, had a husband and kids, a yard and garden, and now I can barely do the few things I have on my list in a day.

I also won’t be returning to Osoyoos for a couple of weeks, which will help as I find my nerves are pretty much shot while I’m there, and then it takes a day to recuperate from it when I get home. Mom’s conversations are often puzzles. She says “Jan comes in and washes the dishes, then sits down and talks to me and I can’t understand a word she says. I wish she would talk first, then do the dishes.”

I reply, “But what difference does it make if she does the dishes first and talks second when you can’t understand her anyway?” To which she replies emphatically, “Exactly, it makes no difference.”

Mom’s Quite the Handful

May29

One thing I do not do is run into the house when I hear the phone ringing and I’m out working in the garden. I don’t like talking on the phone as it is, but when I’m interrupted by something like “Did you just phone me?” asked by a 100-year-old, it gets maddening. As you may recall, Luke installed a Tapo camera in Mom’s living area, so I can see the phone ringing when I call her. Her phone then says, “M. Schiller” a few times as it’s ringing. So then I ask mom, did the phone say it was me? No? Then no, I didn’t call you.

And if it was just useless questions being asked constantly, it’d be fine, but Mom’s crabby streak has caused her nighttime caregiver to give notice, so now Jan’s going to take over sleeping there. Poor Jan. She’s the least favourite person on mom’s list. I guess everyone has a burden to bear when caring for a centenarian.

Margaret came for the long weekend, and we went down to Osoyoos to party around with Luke and Jan, and of course Mom. Though cranky, she easily drinks her .5 litre of wine and eats her two Ritter Sport chocolate bars a night. Margaret’s not used to our lifestyle and was hungover the first day but then got with the program and managed to hold her own and still feel okay the second day.

I was raised to loathe and fear teetotallers, so drinking is just what Schillers do. Growing up, people who didn’t drink were spoken of as the world’s stupidest bores, so who wouldn’t want to drink for God’s sake? I believe the secret to it is keeping it to a dull roar to avoid damage.

Sunny and Julie and their families came for brunch, as did Denis so there were 14 of us. At the last minute Mom decided she was too sick and went to bed for a couple of hours. Then came out and seemed fine. I made a particularly delicious breakfast casserole, made with croissants instead of bread. Everyone seemed to like all of it, plus fruit salad, ambrosia salad, pound cake and marshmallow and chocolate squares.

It was nice to get back home, and Margaret and I had time for a couple of hours of thrift store shopping on Tuesday before she flew home. Then two days later Elsa and I returned for more treasure hunting, and I felt fab finding a Fossil handbag for $10. So much better than the several hundred the original owner paid.

And on Sunday, June 1, I will have lived in this lovely house for 35 years! Isn’t that great? And due to the awful thrift store hobby, I can’t move, so this is it until I’m hauled out feet first. Watching Mom age is certainly scary, and I can see it takes a lot of courage to get that old, but I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I get to it. If I do, right?  Putin could take us out with a nuclear bomb tomorrow.

Hence my philosophy of not worrying, which I try to employ even though it can be difficult. When I was in Germany, I learned so much by staying with dear Hannelore, mom’s cousin who is 92. We spent every morning and evening talking about all manner of things, and one thing she stressed was not trying to predict the future and to just let it all come upon you.

And when you think of it, there’s nothing we can do except try our best to remind ourselves how fortunate we are. My problems are small: broody hens, a centenarian, clutter, an insatiable appetite for trashy YouTube videos and incurable evening snacking.  Okay, add vodka and there you have it.