Holiday heartache

'If we get to Christmas, it's a blessing'

Dorothy Hutcheson celebrated yuletide early this year. She doesn't expect to make it to Christmas.

Hutcheson, 75, is dying of cancer.

She lies in her bedroom in the Lakeside house she shares with Bob, her husband of 38 years. The room is filled with medical equipment and medication, the indicators of failing health.

Down the hall, the Christmas tree twinkles in the living room.

In March, Hutcheson was diagnosed with cancer. By June she began hospice, or end-of-life care. Now there are good days and bad. Hutcheson could wallow in self pity, but that's not her style.

"It's not hard for me," she says as she reclines in bed. "People don't believe me, but really, it's not a hard time for me."

Her life as a housewife and mother to Bob's three children was a good one and she has no regrets, she says. Hutcheson also credits her strong Methodist faith for her positive outlook: Death is a part of life and one that shouldn't be feared.

She has said her goodbyes, which weren't grief-laden. She says she has always been good about resolving problems as they arise, so there were no apologies to be made before she dies.

But there was Christmas.

The holiday season is her favorite time of year, so she wanted to have Christmas one more time, whether or not her health holds until Dec. 25.

Her sister came from Indiana several weeks ago to celebrate. They put up the tree. They laughed and they cried as they unwrapped and reminisced about each of the ornaments Hutcheson has collected. The couple's children and grandchildren live in Florida and weren't able to make it for the early holiday.

This year the tree will stay up until Dec. 25, regardless of whether Hutcheson's health holds or fails. If she gets to Christmas, they will celebrate again.

The Hutchesons' experience this year is typical of what families using hospice services go through when holidays approach, says Lon Eliason, a social worker with Home Options Hospice of Kalispell.

"Holidays are what I would call family-centering moments," he says.

During the holidays, families traditionally get together. But when someone in the family is ill, being with loved ones often seems more important than usual, he explains.

Many families choose to celebrate the holidays as they always have or hold festivities early. Other people, though, choose to avoid the holidays completely while their loved one is dying and plan to ignore future holidays - and that's not a healthy option.

"December 25th is going to show up whether they want it to or not," Eliason says. "What I tell people to do is to acknowledge what's changing, think about it and talk to somebody about it."

Eliason and the hospice staff share that advice with their clients and families.

Some local families have taken it to heart - and it's worked to their advantage, they are quick to say. They have learned to take the good with the bad and to celebrate what they have as well as what they've lost.

Here are their stories.

This December is the first Christmas the Clapper family will spend without their husband and father, Charlie Clapper.

"We don't know how we're going to do this year, but we're going to do it," Charlie's wife, Nancy, says of the coming holiday.

Memories of last year prompt tears for Clapper, 62, and her three daughters. Shortly after Thanksgiving 2003, Charlie Clapper, 69, began hospice care for brain cancer.

Jacey Barnaby, 33, and her sisters, Darci Wilkins, 36, and Jill Shaver, 31, live in Kalispell and were at their parents' house often while Clapper was dying. The home was the customary gathering spot for family and friends each Christmas. Last year they kept it that way.

"We went ahead with our holiday," Nancy Clapper says, "because we didn't want him to feel he was making us miss anything."

Clapper and her daughters also wanted to ensure the four grandchildren had a happy holiday. The Christmas tree and decorations went up in the living room, along with the hospital bed.

On Christmas Eve they gathered at the Clappers' home for dinner and gifts. Clapper's mother, Renna Clapper, came from the Brendan House nursing facility to spend the evening with them. While the rest of the family opened gifts in the living room, Nancy Clapper looked into the kitchen.

Her husband sat at the table while his 93-year-old mother cut his food and fed him.

Clapper knew then it wouldn't be long before her husband died. She took down the decorations quickly after Christmas so the holiday wouldn't be tied to his death. He died Jan. 2; his mother died less than a month later after her own struggle with cancer.

The Clappers have many sad recollections of last December, but they also laugh about the good memories from that time. They'll celebrate this Christmas like they have past holidays.

"Because of the grandkids, we want the holidays to be joyful," Clapper says.

They will, though, add grieving in their own ways to their list of customs. Wilkins plans to go to the cemetery Christmas Day. Her mother will put up a tree this year, but she'll get a new one and different decorations since last year's are painful to look at.

. . .

Joe McKay will split Christmas Day between his Kalispell house and the nursing facility where his wife, Ruth, lives.

Ruth McKay, 68, has a neurological disease similar to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. In May, her husband admitted her to Immanuel Lutheran Home because he couldn't care for her by himself. They don't know how long she will live, but the disease is terminal.

McKay, 67, visits his wife twice every day. The couple are retired teachers who have been married 43 years. Their conversations aren't like they used to be because Ruth is unable to speak. She can't vocalize her thoughts except on occasion when her brain makes the correct connection and she says a few words. She also has lost the ability to write.

The couple's Christmas traditions include decorating, making clam chowder for Christmas Eve and a big breakfast the next morning. This year Joe McKay will decorate the house.

His son Mike and family will come from Missoula to visit. When McKay visits his wife on Christmas, he probably will call the couple's other son, Kent, in California. He will hold the phone to her ear so she can hear her son say, "Merry Christmas." McKay plans to put up lights in Ruth's room. But he doesn't know quite what else to expect from Christmas this year.

"We're in unchartered waters," he says.

He's not sure how Ruth feels because she can't communicate with him other than by a shake or nod of the head.

"She may or may not show it, but I'll guess she'll have some mixed emotions," he says. "And so will the boys. I guess we'll deal with that as it comes up."

McKay, like the Clappers, wants the holidays to be happy and joyous for his grandchildren. And for his wife.

But he readily acknowledges this Christmas won't be an easy one.

. . .

This Christmas will be the second Lynn Schnur of Kalispell will be without her husband and the first without her son and a close friend.

Her husband, Ken, died of pancreatic cancer in October 2003. Her 33-year-old son Jason killed himself in August. Her close friend Bob Lawyer, 74, died in early November after being ill for sometime.

But Schnur refuses to be overwhelmed by grief.

"I sure could be in a pool of despair every day," she says, "but I don't want to do that."

Schnur's philosophy is simple: As a Christian, she puts her faith in God and knows her loved ones are in a better place. She cries when she needs to, embraces memories as they come up and chooses to move on with her life.

Schnur is very familiar with death and the grieving process after being a hospice nurse's aide for seven years. Schnur now works in the rehabilitation department of Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Working through the grieving process came naturally to her, even when the patient was her husband. She helped care for him after he began hospice care in September 2003.

Her son had a hard time accepting his adoptive father's death in addition to other problems he was having, she says. Jason's suicide meant dealing with grief in a condensed period compared to Ken's death, but Schnur says her faith gave her strength to both deaths. When Lawyer died, she again relied on faith to see her through.

Christmas last year, though, was not without its share of sadness.

"It was hard, but we really embraced it," she says. "We did everything as if Ken was here and it was good."

Schnur and her college-aged daughter, Amber, followed traditions that Ken always enjoyed, such as baking cookies. This year Amber will be in Mexico on a mission trip, so Schnur will spend the holiday with other family in the area.

Her daughter is more sentimental than she is, Schnur says. So she probably will skip some traditions she normally does for her daughter's sake. But embracing the holiday and the memories that go with it is one tradition she won't overlook.

. . .

Dorothy Hutcheson's family celebrated Christmas early this year for her. She hopes that next year they will still make the day a joyous one.

"I hope they celebrate the way I always have," she says.

She recognizes, though, that not all her family members share her positive attitude.

"I can't expect them to accept it the way I have," she says.

Her husband is the one she worries about most, since he's not ready to let go. Bob Hutcheson says he prefers to take one day at a time rather than say goodbye.

"I don't know that we'll ever get our goodbyes said on that one," she says. "We can say our goodbyes, but there's always more to say."

If they reach Christmas together, they will consider it a gift.

"If we get to Christmas, it's a blessing," Bob Hutcheson says.

"I'll celebrate it," his wife says of what would be their second Christmas of the year. "I'll just get a bonus this year."

Reporter Camden Easterling may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at ceasterling@dailyinterlake.com