My parents took Steven’s death hard. Death can drive two people apart, but it drove Mom and Dad together. They cried together. They talked together. They leaned on each other. My father converted to Catholicism, Mom’s religion, and started attending church regularly for the first time in his adult life.
And they adopted a cat.
Three weeks after Steven’s death, Dad bought Mom a blue Persian and named him Max. Those were terrible days for them, just terrible, but Max was a sainted cat, full of personality but not wild. He would sleep in the bathroom sink; with the exception of snuggling up against Mom’s side, that sink was his favorite place in the house. If ever a cat changed a couple, it was Max. He raised my parents’ spirits. He made them laugh. He kept them company in their empty home. The children loved Max for his personality, but we loved him more for taking care of Mom and Dad.
My older brother David, my dear friend and inspiration, was also deeply affected by Steven’s death. David had dropped out of college six weeks before graduation and after a few false starts ended up in Mason City, Iowa, about a hundred miles east of Spencer. When I think of David, though, I think of Mankato, Minnesota. The two of us were so close in Mankato. We had a wonderful time together, simply wonderful. But one night, shortly before he dropped out of college and moved away, he knocked on my door at one in the morning. It was ten below zero, and he had walked ten miles.
He said, “There’s something wrong with me, Vicki. In my head. I think I’m having a breakdown. But you can’t tell Mom and Dad. Promise me you’ll never tell Mom and Dad.”
I was nineteen years old, young and stupid. I promised. I never told anyone about that night, but I know now that mental illness often strikes young men, especially bright and talented young men in their early twenties like David. I know David was ill. He was as ill as Steven had been, but it wasn’t as obvious. Slowly, his condition pulled his life downward. Within a few years, he was a different person. He couldn’t hold a job. He couldn’t laugh, even with me. He started taking drugs, downers mostly, to combat depression. He fathered a child out of wedlock. He called me every few months, and we talked for hours, but over the years I heard from him less and less.
When Steven died in January 1980, David coped with drugs. He said he couldn’t function without them. His daughter, Mackenzie, was four, and her mother cut David off from contact with her until he kicked his habit. Eight months after Steven died, David phoned me in the middle of the night to tell me he had lost his daughter.
“You haven’t lost Mackenzie,” I told him. “If you’re straight, you can visit her. If you’re high, you can’t. It’s that simple.”
He couldn’t see it. We talked about a million things that night, but nothing I suggested was possible. He had a blank wall in front of him. He couldn’t see any future at all. I was scared to death, but he swore he wouldn’t do anything until we talked again. He loved his daughter, he assured me, and he would never leave her. But sometime later that night or early the next morning, my brother David, my childhood buddy, picked up a shotgun and pulled the trigger.
My friend Trudy drove me to Hartley at two in the morning. I could barely breathe; there was no way I could drive. My parents were no better. None of us wanted to face David’s death, especially so soon after Steven’s, but it was there whether we wanted it or not. A few days after the funeral, David’s landlord started calling my parents’ house and pestering them. He was screaming at us to come get David’s things, to clean out the apartment, so he could rent it again. It was another reminder that David didn’t live in the best area or associate with the kindest people.
We drove to Mason City in two vehicles. Dad, my brothers Mike and Doug, and two of David’s old friends drove ahead in the car. My mother, Val, and I followed in a truck. When we arrived, the men were standing at the curb.
“You’re not going in there,” Dad said. “Wait here. We’ll bring everything out.”
We didn’t know it until Dad opened the door, but nobody had touched the apartment since David’s death. The mess from what David had done, it was everywhere. Dad, Mike, and Doug had to wipe everything down before bringing it out to pack in the truck. I can still see the stains. David’s possessions were meager, to say the least, but it took all day to move them. Dad, Mike, and Doug didn’t say a word, and they’ve never spoken about that day since. When I told him I was writing this book, Dad asked me not to mention David. It wasn’t shame or secrecy. There were tears in his eyes. Even after all this time, it’s too painful for him to talk about. But talk we must.
Two weeks after David’s death, it was time to have Max fixed. The vet gave him the anesthetic and left for ten minutes to give it time to work. Unfortunately he didn’t remove the water dish from his cage. The dish held only half an inch of water, but Max fell in and drowned.
I happened to be there when the veterinarian came to the house. He knew my family. He knew what my parents were going through. Now he had to tell them he had killed their cat. We all stared at him for half a minute, speechless. “I loved that cat with a passion,” Dad finally said, calmly but firmly. “You son of a bitch.” Then he turned and walked upstairs. He couldn’t even speak to the guy. He couldn’t look at him. Dad still feels bad about his outburst, but Max’s death was too much. It was simply too much.
When Mom was diagnosed with leukemia in the spring of 2003, she and Dad adopted a kitten. Mom hadn’t owned a Persian in twenty years, since the death of Max. But instead of adopting a Persian as they intended, they came back with a Himalayan, a cross between a Persian and a Siamese. He was a gray beauty with silky blue eyes, the spitting image of Max right down to the outgoing and loving personality. They named him Max II.
Max II was the first admission Mom was going to die. Not from Dad. My mother was so strong, Dad believed she could survive anything. The admission came from Mom. She knew this illness was the one to beat her, and she didn’t want Dad to be alone.
Mom was a force of nature. I suspect she started out running from life, from her alcoholic father and the long hours she worked in the family restaurant, even as a five-year-old child. When my grandmother divorced, she and Mom took jobs in a women’s clothing store. That was her life, her future, until she met Dad.
After she met Verlyn Jipson, Marie Mayou turned around and spent every moment running toward life. My mother and father loved each other deeply. Their love was so great it can’t be contained in this or any book. They loved their children. They loved to sing and dance. They loved their friends, their town, their lives. They were great ones for celebrations. They would throw a party for every accomplishment and milestone. Mom would get up early to do the cooking, and she’d stay up until three in the morning when everyone finally left. At six the next morning, she’d start cleaning. By eight, the house was immaculate. Mom’s house was always immaculate.
Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in the early 1970s. The doctors gave her no chance to live, but she beat it. She beat it not once but five times, twice in one breast and three times in the other. She beat it with a whole lot of strength and a whole lot of faith. My friend Bonnie and I used to call Mom “the number two Catholic in the world.” When Jodi was eight, she and I were riding our bikes in Hartley when we happened to pass the small building that used to house St. Joseph Catholic Church. Mom had been on the planning committee for the new building, and the two trees in front were planted in memory of Steven and David. Jodi looked at the old wooden building and said, “Mom, was Grandma as crazy about church when you were growing up as she is now?”