the continued PERILS OF KATHARINE

 

Katharine Reynolds Lockhart was no more raised to be an assertive female than she was to flap her arms & fly to the moon.  

 

Females born in 1910 were basically expected to be ornamental, to do what was asked by their families, and perhaps to play at least a little piano.  Know their own mind, let alone speak it?  Heaven forbid! 

If you had told me in 1995 how Mom would, in just a few years, pull off a complete turn around, I would not have believed you.  Too fantastic to be credible.

1995.  That year – or rather very late 1994 – more than any other epitomized Mom’s utter lack of any sense of self assertion.  The plan was for Mom to go down in late fall for an extended visit with Mike & Kerry, just outside Sydney. 

 

She’d fly down with her Aussie grandson, who was attending college in the USA, in time for Christmas, then I’d fly down in April to help celebrate Mike & Kerry’s 25^th wedding anniversary & fly home with Mom.

Unfortunately, two serious glitches happened to the plans.  Medicare had recently been changed;  where Mom’s plan had always been fully portable outside of the country, it now no longer covered any care received outside the USA.  Problem #1.  Problem #2 – for the first time, Mom would not be staying overnight on the West Coast and/or in Hawaii or Tahiti.  To save money, Mike & Kerry had her flying straight through from Philadelphia to Sydney.

The flight was no big deal to Mom, but she was alarmed enough about the lack of health care coverage to call Mike & cancel the trip. 

Whew!  I was so relieved. 

Mom wasn’t worried about the long flight, but I was.  As a writer & editor for a major USA health care provider, I’d written several articles on the perils of long haul flights, posing risks for healthy young adults, let alone an octogenarian with a history of cancer & heart problems. 

In spite of all my eloquent arguments against anything remotely resembling a straight through flight, Mom refused to insist on at least a 24-hour layover.  She assured me that there would be many hours between flights at LAX, that she’d book a room to stretch out & get some rest.   

But no medical coverage?  That was too much.  She took a stand.  It was not that she would not go, but that lack of medical care meant she could not go.

And then Mike & Kerry told her that the ticket was non-refundable, that if she didn’t go, they would lose its full price. 

I was with Mom as she talked to them on her bedroom phone.  Although I couldn’t their end of the conversation, I could see her resolve drain away.  Mike assuring her they’d arrange health care coverage on their end was enough – she totally crumbled. 

Suffice it to say, Mom & Scott flew off to Sydney, as scheduled – long haul flight & no Medicare coverage.  All my pleas for details on the health care coverage Mike had arranged went unanswered.  When Mom’s plane took off, I hadn’t a shred of information on what was covered & what was not.  I never did get any. 

 

That particular moment in time topped, in my opinion, any of Mom’s previous caves – and some of them were pretty spectacular.  It was as reasonable for me to believe she'd suddenly, in her late 80s, realize she had no more idea who she was, what she really valued, what she really held dear & was willing to stand up for, than it was to believe she’d be picked by NASA for a space shuttle crew.

And yet it happened.  After such a spectacular fail at 84, at 88 she totally turned things around.   

Stay tuned as The Perils of Katharine turn into 
The Adventures of...!