On January 13 my mother, Joanne Shechter died due to "acute respiratory distress". She'd had so much respiratory distress, acute and chronic, that none of us who knew her well and loved her were especially surprised at this diagnoses. What walloped me on the head over and over was that she'd spent lots of time in the hospital in the past few years, sure and she was on oxygen, sure and when I went to visit back in late 2009 she was rushed to the hospital the next morning. Oh gods, poor Mom. But this time? When my sister called to tell me that it looked bad and the doctors were not being optimistic, I knew. And when Pat called back, only an hour later, I knew what she'd say when I picked up the phone. That in that short time, after they'd stupidly intubated a woman who had strict orders, once they took her off the respirator, she was gone in three minutes.

When Howard, my stepdad, died in 2009, Mom had called from his bedside to say that the decline he'd been in in recent days (Howard was in a nursing home for four years dealing with cancer, never getting better, seldom getting worse, but this was abrupt) she handed the phone to Jackie* so I could get a cell phone number or something and Jackie said she'd call me back. She didn't for a while, but then she did. An hour later. And in that short time, Howard had died. I was expecting to hear "here's that number" and instead heard Jackie say "he's gone." (*Jackie's my step-sister, and that deserves a post of its own for later.)

From my teen years, for some reason, my mother and I used to be talking at 11:11. We never planned it, never deliberately set anything up at that hour but for some reason, we'd be talking and it would pop up. Of course this was only after digital clocks were common. (why yes, young lady, in MY day, clocks had round faces and numbers. They were really purty.

When I was still living at home, we'd head to bed and one of us would call across the tiny hallway to the other "It's 11:11". Later on, when I moved to the west coast, to California, I'd often call her at night and, well, when it was cheaper to call nights/weekends, I'd call her after 8 pm. Yeah, I know you got there several lines back. I'd call at 8, we'd be on the phone at 11 minutes later.

I lived on the west coast for 10 years. I moved back to the east coast for five and then moved back to the west coast. I love the Left Coast. I'm a Left Coast kinda gal. So there were lots of telephone calls. In the last month, it happened again, which was rare because ever since that cell phone showed up one day (it took me a while to figure out why i had it) it hasn't mattered WHEN I call and in fact I use to try to call earlier than my west coast 8 pm just in case. But, hey, "Jeopardy!" is on at 7:30 five nights a week, so I either called earlier or, well, had to work around this important slot in my day's plans. But during our last phone conversation, on January 12, I explained that I had almost called her the day before, as it was 1/11 and then it could have been, yep, 11:11 on 1/11/11. And while I had a memory of talking to her about dates and that we'd discussed this year's calendar and when Veterans' Day fell, I didn't bring it up this time.

When I was in high school, and it was 11:11, I was often still reading, as was Mom. My family has always found it close to impossible to fall asleep without reading a little first. I don't remember ever hiding a book under the covers with the flashlight. Did Mom and Dad just let us read? Did they know I was a relatively obedient kid who would go to bed when told? But??? I don't know. Maybe it was that they too had to read before bed (I am not positive about Dad since my parents divorced when I was relatively young and unobservant) but as I've bored people by saying over and over, we were not a tv family and I watched relatively little television for a kid born in the 50s. Sure we watched some stuff. And my grandparents, my mother's parents watched (and kvetched over what they were watching) and bought one of the first color televisions I ever saw. Oy, was that awful. But I remember "The wonderful World of Color", the Ed Sullivan show and "Bonanza". My first ever swoon-crush? Richard Chamberlin as "Dr. Kildare". oh wow. Then came "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and Illya and then of course there was "Star Trek". But ours was a house full of books and records and board games. And I guess as long as we were reading, we were quiet? I dunno. I just don't recall there being stress over bedtimes.

But I do recall one night after we'd both gone to bed, for some reason we started talking about names. Grandma names. Names that we didn't like that had gone out of fashion and were of a certain generation. My two grandmothers were Edna and Yetta. I had an aunt Gertrude. And as it hit 11:11 we babbled on, trying to stop and go to sleep but but but "Beulah" and "Agnes" and "Bertha" and...we had a hard time stopping.

Then the famous night when Mom was over at Howard's, only a few blocks away and called. "Do you remember a story..."Mom said, without a hello, and continued to describe a short story that I knew. But we were blanking on author AND title. Before the internet. The library was closed. And we couldn't stop.

It took hours. They went out to dinner, as they did almost every night that they were together (more on that later) and
I went through every bookcase in the house (we were in the duplex on Robin Road at the time) and...nothing. We called each other a couple of times and it got so that i was no longer sure that i'd know the damn thing if I did find it.

I tried not to think about it, as did Mom. but it came back, just like Bertha. We had reference books at the house and Howard of course had them too. But looking up a short story when you don't know the author or title, or what collection it might have appeared in (or the color of the book cover, but wait, that's another story) doesn't bring much help.

And I tried to ignore it, but...in rather inane desperation I found that Mom had an almanac. Why I don't know. It was not her sort of reference book but it had tons and tons of lists and topics and pages. I don't know that I'd ever opened it (we'd had an encyclopedia which I read for fun as a kid but an almanac?). This fat reference volume had a list of "American Authors". Was the author we sought American? I no longer had a clue. Was he alive or dead? Ditto.

And somehow, somewhere it worked. At godsknowwhat time, 10:30 or 11:00 or so, I called Howard's and said "I got it. I think. I'm no longer sure but I got it. I think." it had taken an extra long time because I was reading through pages and pages of authors listed alphabetically of course. But once I got the author, all else fell into place.
And I'm betting like crazy that at some point in this conversation, it was 11:11.

And may I never forget Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" from Welcome to the Monkey House.