Remembering Joan Castor

Obit

Joan Lorraine Castor, 76, let go and was freed from her tired body and all its pain in a quiet moment at about 7:30pm on Saturday, 6 December 2008, after a super-human effort to resist the effects of her metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her brain, lung, and spine.

After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 and undergoing chemotherapy, Joan's cancer went into remission until it was detected early this year, at which time she denied further treatment and continued to go about her business quietly. She collapsed at the end of September and spent a week at St. Peter's Hospital in Lacey before being transferred home in the care of hospice and family members until her need for 'round-the-clock care became necessary three weeks later. The kind staff at Roo-Lan Healthcare Center in Lacey cared for Joan for another several weeks until she died.

During the past five years of her life, Joan lived in suburban Lacey, Washington, with her beloved cat companions Mollie and Millie and busied herself with the details of the lives of her children. She enjoyed her courtyard garden, family gatherings, visits from neighbors, crossword puzzles, and playing Freecell and emailing jokes on the computer.

Joan is survived by her two brothers - Ronald and Alyn Adolfson; five children - Debra Wright, Kelli Shea, Patrick Shea, Jodi Andrews, and Suzi Reszczynski; as well as seven grandchildren - Chris, Tim, and Jamie Harris, Shane French, Daniel Shea, Logan Rodgers, and Kai Butkus; and a very new great-grandson, Dylan Rodgers.

Friday, January 2, 2009

one for the team

dear family,
today i finally returned to roo-lan healthcare center to give the staff a gift from us. the colorful basket was filled with a container of mini cinnamon rolls, another with apple cider-flavored merengues, light and dark chocolate-covered gingerbread cookies, a pretty painted calendar with wise & witty quotes, a little booklet of coupons for co-workers, a lavender-scented 'stress relief' herbal inhaler sachet, organic candies, relaxing tea, and a really great book called 'here's to you' by dan zadra. i ordered two more copies for suzette, mom's home-care nurse, and for sheri, our social worker, because i thought it expressed just the right thing to tell them, that we really appreciated their work in caring for our mom. although it took me three weeks (almost four) to get back there, now i understand the unconscious reason (the conscious one being that i wanted to give the staff just the right thing but what? and that took a while to figure out): it was a really sad place to revisit.

the staff lady at the nurses desk was very kind and sympathetic, and others remembered me and gave me a really warm welcome and said they appreciated us thinking of them. as soon as i started to tell them why i was there, i started crying. it was a place that brought back a lot of emotion, because i remember being so conflicted every time i went to visit mom. half the time i felt, why am i here sitting with a zombie, someone who is barely in her mind? but she knew i was there, which is the reason i kept going. after all, how would any of us like it if we were unable to communicate and everyone we knew abandoned us? still, i struggled every time with all the whys and whens and questions no one could realistically answer. sometimes mom and i just sat together and held hands and watched tv (well, i did), just like i used to do when i'd go visit on the weekends. doing that seemed somewhat normal somehow. other times, after i'd washed her face and arms and got her more comfortable, i just stared at someone i could barely feel compassion for and think, i'll never let myself get like that. i'll go on walkabout in the australian desert first before i'll have my family and friends watch me waste away, unable to care for myself, babbling nonsense. i'm sure we all think things like that. but life happens, and not usually how we plan it.

so i had a nice short heartfelt visit with some of the staff, most of whose names i don't know, and debbie, the one who handled all the business aspects of mom's stay there. mom's account gets a refund from the remainder of december, and i got a little peace of mind showing some gratitude to the folks who achieved with mom there what we could not with mom at home. next on the list: leaving mom's after three months and tying up the loose ends.

gatherings video

http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=7a292b6984c9e4cb699ecb&skin_id=601&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url
(click on link, not photo)

words to song in gatherings video

these words were written by a man who lay dying to his wife (true story).

Softly As I Leave You There: Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams

Softly (softly)
I will leave you (I will leave you softly)
Softly (softly)
For my heart would break (for my heart would break)
If you should wake (if you should wake)
And see me go (and see me go)

So I leave you (so I leave you)
Softly (softly)
Long before you miss me (long before you miss me)
Long before your arms can beg me stay (long before your arms can beg me stay)
For one more hour (for one more hour)
For one more day (for one more day)

After all the years (after all the years)
I can't bear the tears (I can't bear the tears)
To fall (to fall)
So softly, (so softly) so softly
(I will leave you there)
I will leave you
I will leave you there

Memorial Text

I wanted to share a few thoughts, or maybe several minutes of thoughts about my mom since most of you didn't really know her very well—but I'm very glad you're kind enough to be here and listen.

By the time Mom moved here to Beckonridge, she had already fought breast cancer, won, and completely surprised herself. In 2001, Joan had a mastectomy and thought chemotherapy would kill her first so she organized yet one more fun-filled summer family reunion on Orcas Island so she could say her goodbyes. She was not expected to live to see that upcoming Christmas. Thus, she made her peace with the world and waited to die. But she didn't. And she had been waiting to die ever since. That bout with such a severe disease killed her spirit because she stopped dreaming and planning her life. By the time she met all of you, many of her good friends had either died or are living out the remainder of their days in a nursing home far away. For the past several years, Mom was not the feisty, focused, optimistic, unstoppable force of nature we had always known her to be.

Yet as you know from the past three months, still she persisted beyond all expectation.

My father used to tell Suzi and I that our mother had the strongest constitution of anyone he ever knew. And he must have been right because as sick as Mom ever got, she always bounced back. We have been at her 'deathbed' many times and she always inexplicably got better. But I would like to share who Mom was when she wasn't struggling with her physical and emotional health—a major theme throughout her life.

Gramma told us that Mom was one of the prettiest girls in school back in New Jersey, and then later in small-town Pennsylvania. We kids have bragged that our mom indeed was the prom queen and probably the belle of every ball. In high school, she was the band majorette and marched in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. She explored drawing and acting and wrote many songs. Mom's need to see the world led her to short-term jobs in New York, Arizona, and California, even teaching waterskiing in the Florida Keys before she settled in West Palm Beach with her young and growing family.

Throughout her 30+ years in South Florida, Mom married a few more times and had a couple more kids. She struggled to raise her two youngest, sometimes working three jobs a week, but we had our own home and we were never without what we needed. To save money, Mom made our school lunches, sewed us matching outfits, and gave us home permanents and haircuts (I would always 'allow' Suzi go first and then opt out after my poor little sister ended up with an over-the-ear Trekkie-looking bowl cut). We bought knick-knack items at a wholesale warehouse and sold them on weekends at flea markets. I wrote a letter to God when I was about ten stating that "our family had problems: We couldn't go to church because we had to go to the flea market and make money so we could go on a family vacation." Priorities!

With her business finesse, Mom opened a small restaurant called John & Mary's and it became a very popular family diner. Mom held the family together through thick and thin and showed us how to have a strong work ethic. She made sure there was always time for fun activities as she sacrificed nicer things for herself to pay for and shuffle us kids to music lessons, sports, plays, all the theme parks in Florida, the fairgrounds, campgrounds, and Christmas at Gramma's house in Pennsylvania. While running races in high school, I could hear my mom and little sister hollering louder than anyone else in the park. And we were never far from the beach. Life was centered around family gatherings, school, pets, projects, and always having something to look forward to.

Mom began crafting papier mache clown figures and collecting clown art. Soon thereafter she married a lawyer, didn't have to work anymore, and could indulge in a little luxury, like living on the beach in a three-story townhouse and travelling internationally. Mom even returned to school to become a travel agent. We were fortunate to visit places like Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, and much of the United States before moving to Washington State in 1987 to begin a new adventure altogether. On a remote 60 acres in Lewis County, Mom started a llama farm that also included a herd of Angora goats, many many dogs and cats, two horses, and the neighbors' sheep and cows. She remodelled "the farmhouse" and bought a knitting machine and yarns to start a business knitting sweaters at home; she learned how to garden, can her own food, shoot a gun, clean out barns, drive a riding mower, sing karaoke, enjoy the country life, and delight in three of her daughters and two grandsons living nearby. With her boyfriend at the time, a fantastic fiddle-player, Mom discovered the bluegrass circuit and took up playing banjo and mandolin. With another partner, she explored Scotland and England.

In 1991 Mom moved across the pasture and built the last home of her dreams, a 4,000-sq.-ft. log "cabin" on five acres with a view of Mt. Rainier. She found love again and married for the last time, travelled some more to Kenya, the Sechelles, and India, and divorced. She continued to enjoy cruise ship vacations with various partners and friends and brought some of her kids along with her on a trip to Moorea, Tahiti. After the death of her housemate and best friend, Joan became isolated and lonely, so her children convinced her to move closer to the city for medical care and company as she entered the golden years of her life. That was five and a half years ago.

Up on the wall you will notice the photo board I created to honor our mother. In the center is Joan surrounded by her family: parents, two brothers, and five children. Next come the grandkids and friends, sprinkled with a few ex-husbands and partners, then pets, and pictures of Mom doing things she loved, in particular cruising, motorcycling, gardening, and travelling. Her family was the most important part of her world, and if there is one thing anyone who knew her could agree on, it was that she was always there for us, ready to bail us out of any of our problems or talk us through one of our dramas and offer us a solution, hugs, or hope that things would get better if she had anything to do with it.

Mom didn't have too many expectations of us kids—only that we be happy and include her in our daily lives. And I have no doubt she is with us still, watching over us as we struggle to adjust to life without our mom, the most important woman in our lives, the one who almost never turned down an adventure and taught us that we could do anything we set our mind to.

I appreciate you all being here today to learn about one of your neighbors who could not bring herself to become more involved socially and believed she was more of a burden to folks than a joy. I want to especially thank her closest friends here, who persisted in helping her even when she tried to deny she needed it. Jan always cared for the cats during mom's stays in the hospital or whenever she was away, and please know that this was extremely important to Joan to know that her "babies" were well-cared for and in good hands. And Bill and Claudia kept their eye on Joan, delivered the mail, put gas in the car, offered to take her where she needed to go, ran errands, attended family social events, and were always willing to help out whenever they could.

When I was sorting through Mom's things, I came across something she had saved in with the items she wanted us to have after she died. It's the "Don't Stand Before My Grave and Weep" poem; you may have heard it before. I'll leave it here for folks to read.

This short history was pieced together from my memory and is drastically incomplete, so if anybody has any stories, thoughts, or memories about Joan Castor/Mom/Grandma you would like to share, I invite you now. Thank you again.

Obit

Friday, January 2, 2009

one for the team

gatherings video

words to song in gatherings video

Monday, December 22, 2008

hellos and goodbyes video

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

danny boy video

Saturday, December 13, 2008

mom & her kids

mom's 76th birthday video

Remembering Joan Castor

Memorial Text

Family & Friends