Becky Denton Bumgarner May 19, 1949 – February 3, 2023

Having lemon sherbet in Ballard on the day her grandaughter Lulu was born. June 14, 2018

 Becky and I were friends from the time my son Drew met her daughter Maggie, in their second grade class at Burton Elementary. They bonded as best buds. So did we.

She knew how to be a friend, and once you were her friend, you were friends for life. She had many friends, especially school friends and the Girl Scouts with whom she grew up. Every year in August she went to Woman’s Own, a camp for adult women who had been Girl Scouts. It was held over at Camp Robbinswold on the Hood Canal on Labor Day weekend. It was the highlight of her year. Those were her people.

She was always buying things – guitars, books, clothes, routers and router bit sets, books, garden tools and other tools and yard equipment, sewing machines, books, furniture, books, and wheelbarrows and raised bed surrounds, and more – and then not really using them. Stuff was piled in the yard, and inside the house. The books went on the shelves she bought, and everything else went on the floor. Every surface was packed, and God help you if she saw you touch anything or try to do some tidying up. She would shriek, “NOOOOO! Don’t touch that!” We saw piles. She saw projects, and plans, and stuff that would definitely come in handy. Everything she brought home was a fabulous find.

She did use the garden tools, in her “jungle renovation” business, which she really enjoyed, both the work and the friends she made of the people who hired her. Her “Tool Talks” at the Vashon Garden Club meetings were legendary.

She was a fabulous storyteller, and wrote the “Blackberry Bear Tales,” which are full of wonder and wizardry. She meant to publish them, but that hasn’t happened. Yet.

At the end of Woman’s Own last September, Becky rode with Maggie to Maggie’s home up in Lake Forest Park. That night Becky was sleeping on the big couch in the TV/computer room, and in the middle of the night realized that she needed to go to the bathroom. She tried to get off the couch but couldn’t stand up. Like most hard-headed women, she was going to make the best of it and tried to crawl to the bathroom without asking for help, which did not work out. A couple of days later she was in the hospital diagnosed with cellulitis. After that and a stint in a nursing/rehab home, her husband Roy brought her back to the island, and she continued recovering at home.

One afternoon we were going to have a girls’ afternoon out. I went down to her house to pick her up, and found a tree had fallen across their driveway in a little windstorm the night before. She managed to come as far as the tree with her walker, and we talked to each other over the tree, but neither one of us was able to climb over or through it, and we certainly could not move it. We decided we could not have an outing that day, and promised each other we’d do it sometime soon, after the tree was cleared. That was the last time I saw her.

Down at Lisabeula, summer 2022. She is explaining how an airplane flies.

We talked on the phone once or twice a week. I knew she was spending a lot of her time on the couch, but she would tell me, “I walked out to the mailbox!” or some other milestone. We spoke on Groundhog Day, just a regular check in, chatting and oohing and aahing at pictures that Mags had sent to both of us on our phones of Maggie and Ben’s new baby boy, Isaac.

Becky told me that she had eighteen medical appointments coming up – I don’t know if that was the precise number or if it felt that way to her – the wound clinic, the endocrinologist, etc.

She had a serious heart attack a few years ago. She was hauled into Swedish by ambulance, received two stents to open her two totally blocked arteries, and was feeling better by that afternoon. She made a story of it and loved to tell it:  She was in the aid car, thinking that she’d had a good life, wonderful daughter, wonderful friends, she was okay with this, and then – she met God, who said, “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here yet.” She told him if that was the case, he needed to send her right back, otherwise she was going to go have tea with Mrs. God, and he would be in trouble. He sent her back right away, and she was in the aid car again.

She said after that experience that she was not afraid to die.

She passed on the morning of February 3, in her sleep. She’s gone now and she ain’t coming back. No one is going to call me after 10 o’clock at night anymore or call to tell me, “The Kingston Trio is on!” every time the PBS pledge weeks run folk music specials.

She spent a lot of her time on the couch towards the end, entertaining herself with various screens. That’s how Roy last saw her. He said she was looking at Youtube videos at 3:30 in the morning. When he got up later that morning she was still in the same spot, and she did not answer when he asked her if she wanted breakfast, so he went over to see how she was doing and realized that she was gone.

I hope she’s having tea with Mrs. God.

On Getting Old

There are ups and downs to aging. The first up is that you are still alive.

The second up is perhaps better than the first: you no longer care about what anyone thinks.

My husband Rick died young, as I see it now. He was 68. People die at 68 all the time, but I certainly was not ready to see him go.

I used to read about people dying in their 60s or 70s, and I was not surprised. I don’t think that way anymore. I think, geez, I’m older than that person, and I’m still putting along. They were robbed of some good years. It seems unfair now when people don’t get a chance to be old.

Another part of being old for me is thinking of people I used to know years ago. I used to wonder where they were and what they were up to. Now I think about someone, and after a few minutes I think, they might be, or they probably are, dead. Takes a lot of the sparkle out of looking for old friends.

It’s okay, mostly. There are not many people to whom I want to say anything. Probably not any. I feel comfortable thinking, “I have outlived all my mistakes, even the worst ones.” If someone from the distant past showed up and complained about something I said or did, I would, if possible, make amends, but in some cases, with some people, I think we all know that there is no fixing whatever happened, because we mixed like oil and water. On fire.

We must let it go.

Of course, one of the downsides of getting old is that you feel every injury you ever had – every broken bone, every hard hit, every disease that decreased your lung capacity, every surgery, every bout of cancer you supposedly “won,” but you still carry the scars and effects of chemo or radiation. Everything that has ever happened to you. There is a book titled, “The Body Keeps the Score.” That book is about trauma, but the body really does keep score of everything that has happened to you, physically or emotionally. In old age the old injuries re-surface as chronic conditions, and I’m sorry to say that some of them involve intense physical pain. The cartilage in my knees is only a memory. My hands bear the arthritis of sixty years of playing guitar, probably most of the time holding the instrument wrong. If you have compounded the mischief by smoking or drinking or doing drugs, or in my case being obese, the oppressions of old age can be heavy. Rick had emphysema/COPD, probably from smoking for 55 years. Just a guess.

Eating weird diets can do you in, too. I dieted to lose weight many times, and I may again, but I know there are risks involved. That’s why you are always told to talk to your doctor before starting a diet. I don’t know if anyone does that, but we are told to do it. Dieting has finished off many a gallbladder, but they don’t warn you about that at dieting groups, at least none of the ones I joined.

“You are guaranteed to lose weight! And maybe an internal organ!” See, that would be a terrible sales pitch.

Then there is osteoporosis, arthritis in general, weakening muscles from disuse, gum disease, cataracts, hearing, and vision loss, and of course the real Boogey Man: dementia. Most of us have moments of not being able to remember a name, or a word. That’s common, and it is also an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, which not everyone will develop, but a lot of us are worried about. There are other varieties of dementia – whee! – and we all know that sooner or later our bodies will fall to being worn out and used up.

Some of us will see the end and use assisted suicide to avoid suffering and placing financial burdens on our families, but mostly to avoid suffering. I hear it is peaceful.

Some of us will unexpectedly go out in a blink. I envy those people.

Some will linger long, and fight their leaving the party, because they don’t want to miss anything.

Some will inspire us with their spiritual light and courage, although I have found that courage is something you discover in yourself when circumstances arise, and you do what needs to be done.

Anyway, getting older. There are ups and downs. Most of the downs are physical, but if you still have friends and a sense of humor, that makes up for a lot of physical pain. If you play an instrument and sing, bonus! Time ceases to enslave you when you sing or play an instrument. Or play with your model trains. Or quilt. Or write poems. Or do any of the things that bring you bliss and a moment out of time.

We’re all going to the same end, but some of us are having more fun along the way than others. I think it’s at least partially a choice, and luck. At this point I feel lucky. I’m still here and the house is paid off.