High Valley Matriarch and Maeve, the Magdalen

Olga: High Valley Matriarch 02/13/1913 to 12/06/2014

She lived to be 101 and almost ten months. She finally has been scattered, her ashes the last of her physical remains, on the land of High Valley, now known as 2Attara-High Valley, land on which she lived for 65 of her last 70 years. The dates, and months, are reminiscent of so many gravestones in old cemeteries here.

Olga’s last five years were spent at an Adult Home and the last three months in a nursing home. Many of Olga’s near acquaintances felt that she must stay at High Valley, no matter what, but we tried that for two years: it was hideously expensive, even at near minimum wages. The caregivers didn't really seem to 'get' Olga, and it turned out, her health care was poor, since she couldn’t go to the doctor without great discomfort to her and difficulty on the part of the caregiver.

When I found Island View, in Rosendale, NY, I realized she could have better care for much less, but what I didn’t realize: away from High Valley, Olga, at 94, able to walk with a walker, but already unable to carry on more than the most minimal conversations, finally could be persuaded that she wasn’t responsible for directing everyone around her. Because she wasn’t at High Valley. It had been years since she’d actually wanted to go out and see High Valley land, even the pond, although her caregiver insisted. Where she was had become unimportant to her, but she remained who she was right up until her last day. The adult home gave her peaceful years, despite her previous intent to “off myself” (her phrase), when she could no longer take care of herself.

There is a catch 22, here. In order to “off” yourself, you have to have the mental faculties necessary to plan and carry out the process, as well as the ability to make that momentous decision. Olga lost that capability about the time she had a health crisis, and her DNR instructions were not known and not followed. Those last years at Island View were at least more pleasant for her than suffering her increasing debility with caregivers who treated her like a slow learner grade school child (Olga had two Masters degrees, founded a school and ran it for 41 years, etc.).

But High Valley is her legacy—and ours. It’s now going through an interesting phase. We saw a little of it when we went to scatter Olga’s ashes there. (Where? Every place that any of us, including her grandchildren and an old friend remembered her using, outside, lingering here, gardening there, and so on).

I’d say High Valley looked very much like a work in progress: stuff everywhere, the meeting room being used as a chaotic artist’s studio, the vegetable garden emerging as a work of art, new stonework of high quality at the rear entrance to the main house and no mowing anywhere. Grass is trampled down where people walk frequently. Environmentally beneficial, I suppose. There is reconstruction going on in the main house, but 2Attara-High Valley is clearly in transition. Hard to say what Attara and his people will do. We met a few of his people: one known to High Valleyers as Ecco. Friendly and welcoming, but they left discreetly, when we began to scatter Olga.

Further, greater High Valley, i.e. all the lands my mother and I owned have been transferred to new owners, but the conservation easements prevent any additional buildings, with one exception, so the lands will stay more or less wild. Right now, all the trails have started to go back to forest.

That is my High Valley legacy, and Olga’s, but the easements were my idea, and I’m proud of the result.



Next: Maeve’s Day, 07/22/15

This is the day Mary Magdalen’s putative skull is paraded around a town in Provence, celebrating her. Her fictional creation, Maeve Rhuad, who becomes Mary Magdalen over the course of the first two books of her quartet, The Maeve Chronicles, came out in audio books downloadable, only days ago. Read by Heather O’Neill, what little I’ve heard is masterfully done by her. The books are on Audio Books, all four novels. The Passion of Mary Magdalen clocks in at over 27 hours. For anyone who loves a wonderful story (Maeve’s whole life), wonderful language, told well in a slightly Irish accent, these audio books are for you. And they’ll keep you going for a long time, whenever you want to hear them: available in most electronic media, not physical CD’s (a “Stone Age” medium now). Available at: http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B011PPLRJG&source_code=AUDORWS0714159E84 (Magdalen Rising); http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B011PPLWQ4&source_code=AUDORWS0714159E84 (Passion of Mary Magdalen); http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B011PPM39E&source_code=AUDORWS0714159E84 (Bright Dark Madonna); http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B011WBBLSK&source_code=AUDORWS0714159E84 (Red-robed Priestess)

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Strange world, isn’t it.