TERRY MOSHER
PEGGY MOSHER
Today – three days after her birthday – my sister-in-law, Peggy Mosher, got her independence from Earth on Independence Day. Pretty poignant stuff, don’t you think?
This was a long time coming. Peggy was once a smoker, a chain-smoker, and once again cigarettes have claimed another one of my relatives. You would think by now we all would have learned that smoking is dangerous to your long-term health. You can’t fill your lungs with smoke and not expect them to become barbequed.
My sister – Minerva – died March 3, 2011, as a result of smoking for 50 years. Like Peggy, she got COPD – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ‑ and her last years were filled with short stays n the hospital to get her oxygen level back to a reasonable level until finally her last stay was just that, her last stay.
The day her doctor told Minerva the blunt truth, I happened to call her. I called just minutes after in an angry response to the doctor’s words she kicked my brother Ray and her son Ernie out of her hospital room. She was overcome with the truth of her own mortality and was mad at the world.
Well, I called her just moments later by happenstance. We had a close relationship. When our mother died when I was 12, it was Minerva, almost 11 years older than me and married, who became my surrogate mother, my anchor as I stumbled wildly through the next 15 years in what I call my Dark Years.
In that last conversation between us, there was some idle chat with both of us aware of the elephant in the room. Finally, Minerva blurted out the terrible truth. “Terry,” she said, “There is nothing they can do for me.” With that confession, Minerva started crying and on the other end of the line I also began crying. It was a horrible moment because our special relationship was about to end and all because she would not heed my pleas as well as others to quit smoking.
Three days later Minerva was dead.
Years before, in 1990 to be exact, the consequences of smoking took my wife’s older sister, Barbara. She too had COPD and her last years were also filled with short hospital stays to balance out her medicines and stabilize her as breathing became more difficult.
In the midst of all that, Barbara, my wife (Mary) and another sister, Ruth, went to Europe together. For a month they rollicked around Europe. I don’t know how Barb did it, but she did it, and did it with a smile.
Barb and Mary had a special bond and greatly loved each other, so it was a terrible thing to watch Barb fade away at a relatively young age.
Peggy was special. She and my brother Ray would have been married 61 years in August. They produced together 14 wonderful children, who all have gone on to get higher educations. They are a very giving family, and they get a lot of that from Peggy. She always believed in her children, no matter what. She gave them the freedom to be themselves and to believe in themselves.
As I wrote on Facebook, she was a blessing to this world and the world is a lot worse for her leaving it to be with her Lord. She lived to be 81, and that is a testimony to her inner and outer strength to be able to do it in these last years as she battled with COPD. But, as we know, COPD wins those battles. In the end her lungs were totally shot.
Ray and Peggy’s daughter Christine Marie “Chrissie” Mosher, 48, died of cancer on June 19, 15 days before Peggy succumbed after doing something that likely hasten her own death.
Peggy had been in the hospital for 10 weeks as doctors tried to stabilize her so she could go home. She finally went home on June 23 and the next day they had a viewing of Chrissie at the funeral home. Peggy was there at the viewing for all four hours and for two hours the next day at the funeral and graveside services, and then she was at the local country club with 150 family members and friends to celebrate Chrissie’s life.
It was those hours that finally did her in. But it was typical Peggy. She was all in. She was there when Chrissie was born and was determined to be there with all her loving care when Chrissie left this Earth. It was the greatest sacrifice she could give, but she would have it no other way. It was with love she raised her big family, and it was with love that she left her family.
I don’t know how my brother Ray will carry on from here. She was his anchor as much or more then Minerva was my anchor. And that is a lot to lose. I will go back in a few weeks when the dust has settled and hopefully I can be of some help, if just to have somebody he can lean on if he needs to lean.
The bad thing is that Ray, who will be 85 in October, has an aorta aneurysm that was scheduled to be fixed with open-heart surgery back in May before Peggy began to slide downhill. He has had to postpone it twice (Ray stayed right by Peggy’s side for the 10 weeks she was in the hospital) and now I don’t know what he will do. That thing could burst at anytime and if it does he will be gone before he hits the floor. It’s a ticking time bomb and I’m not sure where his mental stage will be when I get back there. Will he give up and refuse to do anything? Or will he reschedule the surgery?
So there you have it. Life in the golden age is not so golden much of the time. I’m terribly sadden by what Ray and his family have gone through in the past year – the sudden death by heart attack of a beloved daughter-in-law, the snowmobile accident death of a grandson, the near-death of another grandson (child of the heart attack victim) by an auto accident, and the son who lost his loving wife to that sudden death rolling over his truck and miraculously escaping with bumps and bruises and some cuts, the death of Chrissie, and now Peggy.
Life is often not fair. It’s not even been close to fair to Ray’s family the past year. But, as Ray told me a couple days ago, that’s life.
And death.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.