Valentine AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Criminal

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Episode: Valentine

Author: Vox Media Podcast Network
Duration: 00:42:34

Episode Shownotes

Today, a personal story from Phoebe about her mother, Valentine, who died this spring. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of

Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, special merch deals, and more. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of Criminal, host Phoebe Judge shares a deeply personal narrative about her mother, Valentine, who passed away from pancreatic cancer. As Phoebe reflects on their relationship, she recalls her mother's resilience through illness, their cherished moments together, and the complexities of family dynamics during terminal illness. The story details their final days, the emotional farewells, and the ways in which they connected through memories and love, ultimately capturing the profound bond they shared until the very end.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Valentine) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_01
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00:00:11 Speaker_01
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00:00:23 Speaker_01
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00:00:34 Speaker_07
Support for this show comes from Amazon Prime. However you plan to make the most of the holiday season, you can do it with Amazon Prime. Whether it's last minute ingredients and stocking stuffers, or a themed puzzle to solve with the family.

00:00:47 Speaker_07
Get fast free delivery on Holiday Essentials with Prime. And with Prime Video, you can curl up on the couch, warm drinks in hand, and have a holiday movie marathon. Throughout it all, you can tune into classic holiday playlists on Amazon Music.

00:01:02 Speaker_07
Whatever you're into this holiday season, from streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to get more out of whatever you're into.

00:01:14 Speaker_11
This week, we released our 100th episode of our other podcast, This Is Love. To mark the occasion, we've done something very different. A story about my mother, Valentine, who died this spring. We wanted to share it here, too.

00:01:32 Speaker_11
On December 14th last year, Lauren Spohr, who I've made these shows with for the last 10 years, and I were driving to the local PBS television station in North Carolina to record an interview about the last 10 years of Criminal.

00:01:48 Speaker_11
I remember we decided it would be a good idea to go to a hair salon that morning and have them try to do something with our hair. We never do this. And when we do, we're never happy with how it comes out, but we tried.

00:02:02 Speaker_11
We went to the hair salon at 8 a.m. We were on our way to the interview by 9.30. I like to be early everywhere I go, so we got there early. We were sitting in the car in the parking lot waiting.

00:02:15 Speaker_11
And two minutes before we were supposed to walk in, I got a phone call. My mother had gone to have a CAT scan of her stomach a few weeks earlier because of some issue with gallstones, her gallbladder, nothing serious.

00:02:30 Speaker_11
But during that scan, they had found something else on her pancreas. Pancreatic cancer. I remember sitting in the car listening to the woman and thinking, I needed her to stop explaining things for a second. I couldn't catch up.

00:02:47 Speaker_11
The options weren't great. My mother at 73 had had some health issues and was not a good candidate for the long and invasive surgery that could be done.

00:02:57 Speaker_11
Putting her through radiation, chemo, treatment would be hard and probably wouldn't add that much time to her life. Pancreatic cancer. I didn't know much about it, but I'd always heard that it was the worst.

00:03:12 Speaker_11
It's hard to be told that there's nothing anyone can do. When my father was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, I got on the phone and he was sitting with an oncologist a week later, making a plan, signing up for the newest clinical trial.

00:03:27 Speaker_11
And so this news, to be told that this was it, was odd. Lauren and I walked into the studio and started our interview with PBS.

00:03:37 Speaker_11
I remember being asked questions about how I felt about true crime media and what makes a good story and thinking, none of this matters at all. Two days later, I flew to Massachusetts to see her.

00:03:50 Speaker_11
I remember walking into her room and realizing that this cancer hadn't taken over yet. She seemed great, happy, hungry. It was that first trip to see her after I found out that I started recording.

00:04:04 Speaker_04
Okay. Would you introduce yourself? My name is Alondra Yudge. I'm 73 years old and I've been living in Chicago for about 25 years and now I'm come back here close to Phoebe and close to the many humorous acts that we will perform.

00:04:34 Speaker_11
In Massachusetts?

00:04:37 Speaker_04
I think they know that enough. Oh, they do. Okay. Anything else you'd like to say while we're recording? Phoebe, I love you and I'm so glad you came to see me and I hope to come back again soon.

00:04:49 Speaker_11
Well, I'll be back in tomorrow and then next week. Okay. Well, we're going to say over and out for now and we'll bring it back out.

00:04:56 Speaker_04
Okay. Au revoir.

00:05:01 Speaker_11
I remember meeting with the hospice team. I just started asking questions. My main one, always with the caveat, I know you can't tell me exactly, was what they had seen with pancreatic cancer and how long people lasted.

00:05:14 Speaker_11
One of the nurses told me, I've seen people live a year and a half, and I've seen people eating a bag of Doritos today and then dead tomorrow. But I'd say your mother has about six months.

00:05:26 Speaker_11
And then she told me how to get something they called a comfort care box, which is an actual locked box full of drugs, morphine and Ativan. I told the nurse my mother had just eaten a pound of onion rings and was in no pain at all.

00:05:41 Speaker_11
Her response was, better to have it. You never know. I stood in line at the pharmacy with all the other people picking up their prescriptions. And all I kept thinking was that they were there to pick up stuff that would keep someone alive.

00:05:57 Speaker_11
This was about two weeks before I was supposed to go on tour, the 10th anniversary criminal tour. My mother had been very interested in ticket sales. I told her that Chicago was going great. Things were a little light at that point in New York.

00:06:11 Speaker_11
She told me not to worry. It was a hard thing deciding to go through with the tour, knowing at any moment I could get a call. We were dealing with a finite number of days, and I would be choosing to spend them in Seattle and Philadelphia.

00:06:27 Speaker_11
I started calling my mother each day at 4.30 exactly. I think I was trying to hear in her voice any changes.

00:06:37 Speaker_12
Hi, Mom.

00:06:39 Speaker_05
Hi, darling.

00:06:40 Speaker_12
How are you feeling? I'm feeling just fine. Oh, good. When I talked to you yesterday, you said you had some you had low energy.

00:06:47 Speaker_05
Oh, well, I don't today.

00:06:51 Speaker_12
Good. You're feeling good. And I'm going to see you on Friday.

00:06:57 Speaker_05
Oh, honey, I'm so happy about that. Hello?

00:07:03 Speaker_12
Hi, Mom.

00:07:04 Speaker_05
Hi, darling.

00:07:05 Speaker_12
We're going to have a big storm tonight.

00:07:08 Speaker_05
Oh, good.

00:07:09 Speaker_11
Apparently, there's going to be winds, crazy winds, but you might get some snow.

00:07:15 Speaker_05
Not much. I already looked at the weather forecast. We'll do for a little bit tonight.

00:07:21 Speaker_12
Oh, but I know it's all going to melt. How are you feeling? Good, good. Well, I don't have anything else to report. I'm just, you know, working away and that's it.

00:07:35 Speaker_05
OK, sweetie, I'm glad you called.

00:07:38 Speaker_12
Well, I'll see you on Friday.

00:07:40 Speaker_05
I can't wait.

00:07:42 Speaker_11
I talked to her about what I should wear on tour. My mother was always very glamorous and loved clothes. I told her how Lauren thought it would be a good idea for me to wear a tuxedo. She didn't agree. You can see the vision? Yes, I definitely can.

00:07:59 Speaker_11
If it's a well-fitted tuxedo.

00:08:02 Speaker_04
Yes. That would make a big difference. Who else is on stage with you? Lauren. So she could wear a tuxedo? Oh, well, now if both of you are wearing tuxedos, then it makes more sense.

00:08:18 Speaker_11
I was absolutely determined to find a way for her to come to our show in Boston. I kept talking to her about it, from every city. I called my mother before the show.

00:08:28 Speaker_11
I remember standing outside of the Fitzgerald Theater in Minnesota, giving her an update on the crowd. I told her I would see her in a few days. Finally, we arrived in Boston.

00:08:39 Speaker_11
I got to the theater early to make sure that her seat would have the best view. She'd be using a wheelchair, and I spent a long time trying to map out the best route for her to get backstage.

00:08:49 Speaker_11
I told everyone that my mother was coming and that she was sick, and the staff at the Wilbur Theater were wonderful. The security guards were waiting outside when her car pulled up to the loading dock.

00:09:01 Speaker_11
I was shocked at how they treated her, like royalty. We got my mother to the dressing room, and more and more family and friends arrived. We made this little pin for the tour. It's kind of a joke.

00:09:14 Speaker_11
It's a photograph of me looking at the camera during a local news interview years ago. I gave her one, and she put it right on. I spent the whole show looking out at the audience and finding her. She was sitting next to my aunt.

00:09:28 Speaker_11
I kept looking to see if she was laughing. She was, not all the time, but some of the jokes were landing. She was always a harsh critic. My aunt told me that when the show was over and people were clapping, my mother tried to stand up.

00:09:44 Speaker_11
My aunt tried to stop her, but my mother said, I'm standing up, and she did. The security guys carried her wheelchair down the steps out to the loading dock. I told her we had seven more shows, and then I'd be back to Massachusetts to be with her.

00:10:01 Speaker_11
She told me to do good work, don't worry about her, and that she'd see me soon. A few days before I got home, I asked if she could have another scan. She seemed to be doing so well, no symptoms. I wondered if there had been a mistake.

00:10:18 Speaker_11
We planned a family weekend on Cape Cod, her favorite place on Earth. She grew up going there with her three sisters. The night before I went to pick her up, the doctor called. The cancer had spread over her pancreas and now to her liver.

00:10:34 Speaker_11
I asked the doctor what she would do if this were one of her parents. And she said, I would let them be and have as much good time as possible. We went ahead with our Cape Cod weekend.

00:10:47 Speaker_11
My partner Sarah went early and cooked and filled the house with flowers and made a bedroom for my mother. And I sat with my mother and talked and looked at pictures. And do you see this picture of yourself? I did see that, honey.

00:11:02 Speaker_04
You like that? Oh, wow. Look how young I am. Valentine, you looked pretty good then. You really did look pretty good then. That was when I was flirting.

00:11:17 Speaker_13
It's a good picture.

00:11:18 Speaker_04
It is a good picture. Will you put that in my obituary?

00:11:23 Speaker_13
That's the picture you want in your obituary?

00:11:25 Speaker_12
Yeah, but cropped in a little bit. Okay, cropped in. That's the picture you want?

00:11:31 Speaker_11
Mm-hmm.

00:11:32 Speaker_12
Okay. Done.

00:11:35 Speaker_11
That whole weekend, we ate and laughed and drove around the beaches she loved so much. She sang old songs with my Aunt Jane. They told stories about growing up. My mother seems so alive.

00:11:49 Speaker_02
Two different faces, but in tight places, we think and we act as one. So, so, all those who know, see us, know that nothing can come between us. When, oh. That's pretty good.

00:12:14 Speaker_11
You got pretty far.

00:12:14 Speaker_02
We got pretty far, yeah. Lord, help the mister who comes between me and my sister. And Lord, help the sister who comes between me and my man. Good. Got it.

00:12:40 Speaker_11
When she left, all we talked about was coming back when it got warmer, when the flowers were out. and then I basically moved into the hospice house.

00:12:51 Speaker_11
I started using her room to do interviews over Zoom for Criminal and This Is Love, or if there was an open room, I'd sometimes do interviews there, or track, which is what we call recording my narration.

00:13:05 Speaker_11
On a Friday night in January 1893, a group of mass men arrived at the jail. Yes? Hold on, Lily. Hello. Absolutely. Lily, just one second, Lily. One second, Lily. Sorry. No problem.

00:13:23 Speaker_02
I just have a four o'clock pillow a few minutes early.

00:13:26 Speaker_11
Oh, you'll like this one, Mom.

00:13:28 Speaker_02
Do you mind if I bring you an Atomian right now? I'd love it.

00:13:31 Speaker_11
That's the good stuff. Right under the tongue.

00:13:34 Speaker_02
All right. I'll see you in a little while.

00:13:38 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:13:40 Speaker_11
Mom, just try to take... Sorry to make you be quiet for a little while, Mom, but I'll be done soon. Thank you very much. Good, good, good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

00:13:52 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:13:53 Speaker_11
All right. Sorry. I'm back. One Friday night in January, 1893, a group of masked men arrived at the jail in a small town outside of New Orleans. It became a routine.

00:14:10 Speaker_11
I'd arrive around eight each morning after stopping to get her a cinnamon roll or an old-fashioned donut on the way.

00:14:17 Speaker_11
I'd walk into my mother's room and sometimes find that she wasn't there, already down in the dining room, having an English muffin and coffee. Always coffee. Or sometimes I'd find her in her room not yet awake. I'd walk in and try to sit down quietly.

00:14:33 Speaker_11
She'd usually wake up quickly, and I'd go sit on her bed, and she'd say the same thing always. Hi, darling. I'm so glad to see you. And then, you know what I'd really love? Coffee. Most mornings, she would remind me that I had my 9 a.m.

00:14:49 Speaker_11
editorial call coming up. I'd say, I'll be quick. And her response was always, take your time.

00:14:56 Speaker_11
In between meetings and interviews, we would go out, taking long drives around western Massachusetts, always with a big emphasis on lunch, and then usually with a stop for marshmallow sundaes and diet Pepsi.

00:15:11 Speaker_11
We'd come back so my mother could take a nap and I could do some work, most afternoons sneaking away for a run, the same route up and down Pleasant Street to the top of the UMass campus and then back, 3.2 miles.

00:15:25 Speaker_11
My mother would say the same thing to me as I left. Please be careful. And I'd reply the same way every time. Don't worry, Mom, it's on sidewalks. She'd be waiting when I came back. How'd you do? My mother was very present during work calls.

00:15:43 Speaker_11
At one point, Lauren was telling everyone that one way to keep cut flowers from wilting is to add a few drops of vodka. My mother joked, same for me. Another time, we were having an edit for the criminal episode about jaywalking.

00:15:58 Speaker_11
I offered to go into another room, but she said she was happy just listening. And then, an hour later, she said out loud, this is the most boring thing I've ever heard in my life. Everyone laughed.

00:16:12 Speaker_11
Her sisters and cousins would come and visit, and then the singing would start. My aunt Phoebe would sing the songs they made up when they were little.

00:16:22 Speaker_11
When my mother was six, she made up a cereal she called Cry Me's, which was just a bunch of healthy cereals all mixed up together. But when you called them Cry Me's, it made it more exciting, and she made up a jingle.

00:16:35 Speaker_11
Here's my aunt playing the piano in the living room of the hospice.

00:16:43 Speaker_09
Crimies, ooh, crimies, they are so good. Crimies, ooh, crimies, ooh, crimies, they are so good. Good, good. One more time. Crimies, ooh, crimies, ooh, crimies, they are so good.

00:17:14 Speaker_11
There was a lot of watching British gardening shows and Rick Steves. But more than anything, my mother wanted to watch Larry David. She would laugh and laugh. My father would often come at the end of the day, and I'd head back to his house.

00:17:31 Speaker_11
He and my mother were married for 30 years, had three children together, and had been divorced for a decade. But they never really drifted apart. My father would show up to the hospice every evening around five.

00:17:46 Speaker_11
And hours later, I'd call and ask where he was. And he'd say, your mother and I are sitting outside, having a glass of wine and listening to Blossom Deary. It's a beautiful night.

00:17:58 Speaker_11
My mother had been giving him a hard time about his decision to grow a beard. She'd said, Tony, what are you gonna do about that beard? It's really awful. Then one day he walked in and the beard was gone.

00:18:12 Speaker_11
My mother and I were at Captain Jack's, a seafood restaurant, when I realized something had changed. Her favorite thing in the world had been their onion rings. She looked at me after eating a few and said, You know what, Phoebe? I'm not really hungry.

00:18:29 Speaker_11
We got in the car and turned on The Talking Heads, her favorite. And she was there smoking a cigarette and singing along to Road to Nowhere. She said that day what she said every time we got in the car.

00:18:42 Speaker_11
I'm here driving on this beautiful day with my girl Phoebe. What more could I want? Right around this time, I did an interview with the musician Peggy Seeger. It was a difficult interview for a lot of reasons.

00:18:56 Speaker_11
But there was a point where, listening back now, I think I couldn't hide what was happening. What was it like to lose him?

00:19:07 Speaker_08
What do you think? Those kind of questions, Phoebe, baffle me, because I know you want some fantastic answer. And whenever anybody asks a woman, what did it feel like to see your toddler under a steamroller, I think, what do they think it felt like?

00:19:32 Speaker_08
I mean, he was my life companion. He, it was, it was, I'm not comparing you to that, but the question, I think you must know what the answer is, and you just want me to say it.

00:19:48 Speaker_11
No, I, no, I don't know. I only ask because I wonder if you had been watching someone decline for a very long time and be sick even though he was good at it, and I wonder in some way

00:20:04 Speaker_11
Of course the easy answer and that's the answer is of course it's hard, it's the worst thing in the world, it's horrible, of course. But that's not really, that's just the simple thing.

00:20:12 Speaker_11
I wonder in some way whether because you had this life with Irene that was happening in some way and because he had been sick, I just, that's what I'm interested in is, you know, is it anything more than just of course, of course horrible.

00:20:31 Speaker_11
My mother had started to have pain. I'd see it in her face, and she'd hold her stomach. She never complained, but I was always watching, constantly asking. At one point she said, Phoebe, you asked me five minutes ago. The answer is the same.

00:20:49 Speaker_11
We had this new language. Where are you on a scale of one to ten? three we could live with. When it got to five, I went to find the nurses. The nurse station was just outside my mother's room.

00:21:00 Speaker_11
I passed by it every time I walked down the hall to get her a diet Pepsi or push her outside to have a cigarette. I got to know them all and they were wonderful. I'd go and tell them that my mother was at a five again.

00:21:11 Speaker_11
And the answer would always be, well, that's not good. Let's see what we can do. They would come and talk to her and comfort me and find a way to get the pain to go back down. One morning, my mother said, let's go for a drive.

00:21:27 Speaker_11
It was a beautiful May day. Things were green. We drove on back roads to my father's house to pick something up. As we were driving back, I saw my mother grimace a bit in the passenger seat. I asked her about her pain.

00:21:43 Speaker_11
She looked out the window and said, don't ask me about that anymore. Let's talk about the trees. We'll be right back.

00:22:09 Speaker_01
This message is a paid partnership with Apple Pay. When you've got a gift list to finish, the last thing you want to do is take out your wallet a million times. Instead, pay the Apple way.

00:22:19 Speaker_01
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00:22:31 Speaker_01
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00:22:42 Speaker_07
Support for this show comes from Amazon Prime. However you plan to make the most of the holiday season, you can do it with Amazon Prime.

00:22:50 Speaker_07
Whether it's last minute ingredients and stocking stuffers, or a themed puzzle to solve with the family, get fast free delivery on Holiday Essentials with Prime.

00:22:59 Speaker_07
And with Prime Video, you can curl up on the couch, warm drinks in hand, and have a holiday movie marathon. Throughout it all, you can tune into classic holiday playlists on Amazon Music.

00:23:10 Speaker_07
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00:23:22 Speaker_11
My sister Chloe died in 2015. She was just about to turn 30. She and my mother were very close. Soon after we found out that my mother had cancer, she started talking about Chloe a lot. And talking to her.

00:23:37 Speaker_04
I wish you were here. I'll be having a good time. If you're having a good time, then I'll be happy if you're not here.

00:23:50 Speaker_13
Yep, I think that's right. You think what's right?

00:23:56 Speaker_06
She can hear when you talk about her.

00:24:00 Speaker_11
As my mother got sicker, I found myself talking to Chloe too. I was on a run one morning and out loud said, Chloe, get ready, she's coming. I've done all I can here. It's your turn now. I kept saying it.

00:24:19 Speaker_11
I knew things were really turning when she didn't want a cigarette. I'd try and get her to eat little bites of things. I started calling people and telling them that they should come. Come now and not in a week or two when she may be sleeping a lot.

00:24:36 Speaker_11
A lot about the last 15 years of my mother's life had been hard. And all I wanted to do now was to make her as happy as possible, letting only the good things through.

00:24:48 Speaker_12
Okay. Mom, what did you just say you were?

00:24:52 Speaker_04
I said that I wanted to be, and I'm going to be, happy and... I forget the other thing.

00:25:01 Speaker_14
Comfortable.

00:25:01 Speaker_04
Comfortable. And I'm both.

00:25:04 Speaker_14
Because you're being served donuts in bed.

00:25:06 Speaker_03
I'm being served donuts in bed and my girl Phoebe is here. So I am happy. And now we just need to find the remote.

00:25:15 Speaker_11
My mother was always talking about how she needed a manicure. So I decided I would give her a manicure. Not something I've ever done before.

00:25:24 Speaker_11
She'd been keeping her hands kind of balled into fists and I gently opened her fingers and painted her nails bright red. My niece and my mother were very close, and we decided that it was time for her to come and say goodbye.

00:25:39 Speaker_11
She goes to school in Vermont. My father went to pick her up, and I met her at the door outside to let her know that grandma looked a little different. Standing in the hall outside of my mother's door, my niece said, she's dying, Phoebe.

00:25:54 Speaker_11
And I said, yes, she is, and she's so happy you're here. And then this 15-year-old walked into her grandmother's room and sat right on the side of her bed and leaned down and said, hi, Grandma, I'm so glad to see you.

00:26:09 Speaker_11
My mother wasn't really eating anything by this point. We'd started putting Diet Pepsi in a dropper, the same kind they were using to give her morphine and Ativan. Chocolate chip ice cream still works sometimes, a few bites.

00:26:22 Speaker_11
She'd let us know when she didn't want any more. I had to go and have a meeting with the nurses for a few minutes, and I left Madeline in with my mother. I asked her to take care of her for a little while. She seemed a little nervous.

00:26:37 Speaker_11
When I came back 15 minutes later, I peeked my head in the door and saw Madeline spooning little bits of ice cream into my mother's mouth, and then using a napkin to make sure she hadn't dropped any. My mother was staring right at her.

00:26:52 Speaker_11
I decided to leave them alone. The nurses kept telling me that they couldn't say exactly when my mother would die. I kept asking. I'd been asking that question since December. This was May. They told me she likely had a week or less.

00:27:12 Speaker_11
They said that sometimes people need to feel like they have permission to go. So we should start telling my mother that she could leave any time. What a wild thing, I thought. But I would say it.

00:27:24 Speaker_11
I started telling her that she could go anytime, that everything was going to be okay, that her children would be fine, and she had done her job. My cousin is a geriatric nurse practitioner, and I asked her what she thought about this.

00:27:40 Speaker_11
She said, yes, and that my mother should hear it from each of her children and see our faces, not just voices on the phone. One morning, I got my sister and brother on FaceTime. My mother's eyes were closed and she wasn't speaking much.

00:27:56 Speaker_11
But when she heard their voices, her eyes opened. And they both told her that they loved her and that it was okay to go. I always had a hard time leaving at night, but the aides and nurses started telling me that sometimes people need space.

00:28:12 Speaker_11
It felt very counterintuitive. I would get back to my father's house at 7.30 or 8. My partner Sarah would be there with dinner and our new four-month-old puppy. I'd walk in and immediately call the nurses and ask how she was.

00:28:28 Speaker_11
I'd tell them that I would be back there at 8 a.m., but my arrival started getting earlier. 8 a.m. became 7 and then 6 and then 5. It was like a magnet. I'd wait outside her room just watching, trying not to wake her. I didn't know what else to do.

00:28:44 Speaker_11
I didn't want to be anywhere else. I kept thinking about the heat wave in Chicago when I was nine. My mother dragged the mattresses off of our beds and put them outside.

00:28:58 Speaker_11
On New Year's Eve, she would always set up Twinkies and root beer and create a string maze through all the rooms of the house.

00:29:05 Speaker_11
Before we went to sleep, she would come in and say goodnight, and you could pick whether you wanted your head rubbed or your back rubbed. I didn't forget that stuff. On May 15th, I stayed in bed until 4.45 AM and then left to see her.

00:29:24 Speaker_11
When I walked in, my mother was still there, breathing slowly and then not breathing. Someone told me that dying is a lot of work, just like giving birth. I was trying not to crowd her.

00:29:36 Speaker_11
Sarah and I went to an antique festival, something that I would normally never agree to. My Aunt Jane was there with my mother and texting updates all the time.

00:29:46 Speaker_11
It was an odd thing, walking around looking at old fishing rods, knowing that the next text I could get might be that my mother was gone. I ended up buying a painting of a man riding on the top of a whale.

00:29:58 Speaker_11
He kind of looked like a pilgrim, and he was wearing these shoes with heels. I kept thinking how much my mother would like that. My father was fixated on making arrangements. It hadn't been so long since we did this for my sister.

00:30:13 Speaker_11
I remember that funeral director saying we would need an urn of some sort. He said he could sell us one, but if it were him, he would go to Michael's and buy a nice cookie jar or something like that to make sure it had a lid. So we did.

00:30:27 Speaker_11
A white ceramic cookie jar from the mall. We dropped it off. It was a set of threes, so we told them they could keep the rest. When we came back to pick up her ashes, they told me there was a problem. She didn't fit.

00:30:42 Speaker_11
They had really tried, but they were having a hard time getting all the ashes in the largest of the jars. I asked if I could try. I walked back into the office and saw Chloe's ashes there in a cardboard box, a plastic bag the size of a bag of flour.

00:30:59 Speaker_11
A man showed me that it just wasn't gonna work, so I asked if he would hand her to me. And I moved and shaped and stuffed her in there, and I held her in while I asked the man to quickly get the super glue on the top of the lid.

00:31:15 Speaker_11
When Sarah and I got back to the hospice house, my aunt and uncle and father were outside. The sun was out. I walked into her room to say hello. Her eyes were closed. We changed her into some clean pajamas.

00:31:29 Speaker_11
I had become a pro at this point, at rolling her over, holding on to her as the aide or nurse pulled the sheets out from underneath. Whenever we would turn her, my mother's eyes would shoot open. She hated it. She was in pain.

00:31:42 Speaker_11
She would grab onto my hand with so much force, I couldn't imagine that this was someone who was dying. I'd tell her that I was right there, and there was no way I was going to let her fall. I'd make a joke about how strong I was.

00:31:56 Speaker_11
When we finally got her changed and moved, it was always a relief. I'd fall down next to her and say, we did it mom, it's over now. And then I'd offer her a little Diet Pepsi. That night, the aides told me that they had her.

00:32:13 Speaker_11
She was well taken care of, that she would want me to get some rest. I was told that people's feet start to look a little blue and get cold at the end. So before I left, I felt my mother's feet, warm. The next morning, it was still dark when I arrived.

00:32:30 Speaker_11
I slipped into my mother's room, and unlike the way I'd left her the night before, now her eyes were open, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe.

00:32:40 Speaker_11
The nurse came in and we gave my mother her medicine early, and then the nurse put a patch on my mother's neck to help her breathe. It didn't work. I was trying not to let my mother see how upset I was at the fact that she seemed to be struggling.

00:32:54 Speaker_11
I sat down by her side and held her hand and talked to her about the funny painting with the man in the heels. I told her I'd go get us some coffee.

00:33:04 Speaker_11
Then I went into the hall and asked the nurse what she thought about the idea that people need space to die. She said, well, yes, but also people leave the way they lived. If your mother was a social person, she might like you around, company.

00:33:24 Speaker_11
When I walked back in the room, my mother's eyes were still open, staring right at me. But her breath was calm, the calmest breathing I'd ever seen. I told her to go find Chloe, and that I'd come find them.

00:33:39 Speaker_11
And I told her thank you, and then she took her last breath. I had my hand on her shoulder, and I closed my eyes, and I just started breathing. The birds outside the window had not stopped. The rain had not stopped.

00:33:56 Speaker_11
After a minute, I felt my mother's wrist. No pulse. I kept standing there with my hand on her shoulder. After about ten minutes, I walked out to the nurse's station to let them know that my mother had died at 8-16.

00:34:11 Speaker_11
The nurse came in and listened to her chest, and then said, Valentine, it was an honor caring for you. I'd never really been with a dead body before. I'd been to the body farm for an episode of Criminal, but I didn't really know what to expect.

00:34:29 Speaker_11
I had no idea how peaceful it would be. I called my father and Sarah, and they started the drive over. I spent the next 20 minutes alone with her in the room.

00:34:40 Speaker_11
After a while, the aide came in and asked if it would be alright to wash my mother a little so we could get her changed. I said, of course. I said I would help. It was so funny. My mother's back was still warm. Her cheek was cold.

00:34:58 Speaker_11
We washed her and then dressed her back in her favorite gray sweater and put the Phoebe pin on her chest. and then braided her hair, and I put a bow at the end and sprayed her with Chanel No. 5, her favorite. I put her pocketbook on the end of her bed.

00:35:16 Speaker_11
When the funeral home showed up, I realized that this was the one thing I couldn't do. I didn't want to see her being taken away. I stayed in the room until I heard they were outside, and then I did what I had done for so many days in the past months.

00:35:31 Speaker_11
I left my mother's room and went for a run. Sarah stayed with my mother until they took her away. I ran the same route that I had all those times. When I got back, my mother was gone.

00:35:46 Speaker_11
Sarah told me that when they opened the door to bring my mother out, the whole staff and all the volunteers were lined up on both sides of the hallway, wishing my mother a good journey, telling her how glad they were to have gotten to know her.

00:36:01 Speaker_11
I wrote her obituary the next morning. It was strange to try to get the feeling of her right. I wrote that She loved beautiful things, stone walls, French braids. She loved a good joke. She loved a well-cut suit on a man. She loved Cape Cod.

00:36:20 Speaker_11
She loved the sun. She loved fried clams, but did not like bellies. She loved onion rings, chocolate chip ice cream. She loved a marshmallow sundae. She hated eggs and whipped cream. She loved opera and the talking heads, Italian vogue.

00:36:36 Speaker_11
She loved an event and was a fantastic hostess. She loved her children. I chose the picture that she asked for, for the obituary, of her on the beach on Cape Cod when she was about 38.

00:36:53 Speaker_11
We had her memorial in Sudbury, Massachusetts, where she grew up on June 1st, in a beautiful old chapel. I wore my mother's skirt. We always called it the butterfly skirt. She'd worn it at Chloe's funeral.

00:37:08 Speaker_11
I played some of the tape I had recorded of her over the last few months, so my mother was there with us in the room.

00:37:16 Speaker_05
Hello. Hi, Mom. Hi, darling. How are you? Fine.

00:37:24 Speaker_11
How are you feeling?

00:37:25 Speaker_05
Good.

00:37:32 Speaker_04
Would you introduce yourself? My name is Valentine Judge. I'm 73 years old and I've been living in Chicago for about 25 years. And now I'm come back here close to Phoebe and close to the many humorous acts that we will perform.

00:37:57 Speaker_11
In Massachusetts. Oh, they do, okay. And do you see this picture of yourself?

00:38:07 Speaker_04
I did see that, honey. You like that? Oh, wow, look how young I am. Valentine, you look pretty good then. You really did look pretty good then. That was when I was flirting.

00:38:21 Speaker_13
It's a good picture.

00:38:25 Speaker_04
It is a good picture. Will you put that in my obituary?

00:38:29 Speaker_13
You want that to picture you want in your obituary?

00:38:31 Speaker_12
Yeah, but cropped in a little bit. Okay, cropped in. That's the picture you want?

00:38:37 Speaker_04
Mm-hmm.

00:38:38 Speaker_12
Okay, done.

00:38:40 Speaker_04
I can't, why do you have a picture of me there?

00:38:42 Speaker_12
Because I liked it.

00:38:46 Speaker_04
Okay, Mom, what did you just say you were? I said that I wanted to be and I'm going to be happy and I forget the other thing. Comfortable. Comfortable, and I'm both.

00:39:02 Speaker_14
because you're being served donuts in bed.

00:39:04 Speaker_03
I'm being served donuts in bed and my girl Phoebe is here, so I am happy. And now we just need to find the remote.

00:39:14 Speaker_04
Okay, I'll sign off.

00:39:16 Speaker_13
Okay, say, you gotta end the show. You gotta say something to end the show.

00:39:22 Speaker_04
I have to say something to end the show? Yeah. Well, the star of the show is going away. It's me, yes.

00:39:54 Speaker_11
If you'd like to hear even more This Is Love, subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you're already a listener, tell someone about it. Thanks very much. Criminal and This Is Love are created by Lauren Spoor and me.

00:40:09 Speaker_11
Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.

00:40:26 Speaker_11
You can learn more about the show on our website, thisislovepodcast.com. And you can sign up for a newsletter at thisislovepodcast.com slash newsletter. You can listen to This Is Love without any ads by signing up for Criminal Plus.

00:40:41 Speaker_11
You'll also get to listen ad-free to our other shows, Criminal and Phoebe Reads A Mystery. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes and more. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at This Is Love Show.

00:40:56 Speaker_11
This Is Love is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love.

00:41:10 Speaker_05
Okay, sweetheart.

00:41:15 Speaker_12
Okay, bye, Mom.

00:41:17 Speaker_05
Bye, darling.

00:41:31 Speaker_10
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