Lost arts

One of the hardest things to take about Mom's illness is the loss of her considerable and varied capabilities. I saw my grandmothers slide into the fogginess of old age, and it was, truthfully, to be expected: They were already rather helpless individuals, relying on their spouses to earn and to fix and to transport.

My mother, though, was as capable as a longshoreman and as sharp as a knife. She was formidable.

She knew everything there was to know about insurance, as an award-winning, high-wage-garnering Prudential salesperson, and was a wizard with numbers. She managed the hectic front desk of my dad's auction business. She could wallpaper a room flawlessly, even if the paper was of an intricate design (to which the seamlessly prancing elephants in my dining room will attest). Need a diorama of the human body the night before the big science fair? She was your go-to girl. She could find her way anywhere; on any conveyance. On her first trip outside the U.S., she made her way around Paris the second day we were there, unassisted and not knowing the language, including a long trip on the Metro to return a train ticket.

But I think of the loss of many of her other capabilities as a collective loss to humanity. And I want you all to know what we're losing. She did the kinds of things people don't know how to do anymore. She could sew; really sew. As in: Make prom dresses. And elaborate costumes, say, for a high school production of Hello, Dolly. Her flower garden was and still is legendary in three towns for its size and exuberance. She was crafty, making stuffed animals for said aged grandmothers. The woman grew and canned her own vegetables, for chrissake. She made, and decorated and transported, a gorgeous, elegant, three-tiered wedding cake for 17-year-old cousin's shotgun wedding.

For my tenth wedding anniversary gift, Mom sewed a queen-size patchwork quilt, a "crazy" style, of exotic fabrics -- silks, velvets, heavy brocades -- that we chose together over a period of six months or so. If you don't know much about quilts, crazy means that no two pieces are alike -- so it's that much harder to fit them all together. Here's the kicker: Each piece of the quilt was embroidered, in a unique pattern entirely of her own design. The thing was jaw-droppingly exotic. Guests trooped up to my bedroom to have a look at it, some of them more than once. It took her six months to make; she worked on it for hours every single day. We joked back then that it had literally driven her crazy to make. Bad joke.

The thing is so heavy, so ungainly and yet delicate, that it sits, folded, in my linen closet. Its seams are already starting to unravel.