Recovered family correspondence — June 23, 2009. Original email from Jo Zeimet. This began as a joke about a package being “not bigger than a bread box” and turned into a memory about AraBelle Fuller Zeimet’s stroke and the years Jo and Lani helped their parents remain at home.
There’s a folksy old saying when guessing what something is: “Is it bigger than a bread box?” Of course, not many people use bread boxes these days, so don’t have any clue about what size that might be.
I was talking to Mom on the phone, when she was in her 70’s. She had bought something she didn’t want to confess to. But she seemed oddly addled during the conversation. I asked her if the purchase was bigger than a bread box, and she said no, not bigger than a bread box. And then she went on this loop, repeating bits of that, over and over. It was really scarey, and I finally got Daddy on the phone to ask if she’d maybe had a stroke, and that made him mad. It was weird, because Peter Zeimet didn’t lose his temper much. He said they were both fine and they’d take care of themselves.
I called Lani, she called mom, and came to the same conclusion. Daddy got madder. I finally got Bill Frye to drive up to the house and say hello, and he called back and said they seemed okay. It made me nuts, because I know that strokes need immediate attention.
Anyway, the next morning Mom got up and told Daddy she needed to go the hospital, she thought maybe she’d had a stroke. And she had, so they treated it. Geez, it made me nuts. That was when she lost all of her proper names and most of her nounds — who knew that sections of the brain store particular kinds of words? But after that, she’d joke about smaller/bigger than a bread box. She always had a good sense of humor, and I never did find out what purchase was that was not bigger than a bread box.
I couldn’t have gotten through their declining years without Lani. We were a good 1-2 team with repairs, food, stuff to keep them in their own home.
Well, enough of the nostalgia hour — I have to go water my squashes.
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