“Senile Degeneration of the Brain”. That is the technical term for my mother’s cause of death on the morning of January 22nd, 2025. To fully appreciate the term, it’s helpful to have some background on Mary Isabel Frazier Myrick, her mind and her life, on what would have been her 85th birthday today.
Mom graduated high school early, taking her final two years concurrently. Even with a genius level IQ of 148, she had no interest in joining any high IQ society. She found others of high intellect quite boring, and preferred to be alone in her studies. Studies into every subject. Complex studies into simple things, and even more complex studies into difficult things. She never stopped devouring information.
An avid reader and writer, Mom had an unusual but effective style of communication. Many times in my youth, when something would be wrong with a food item, or a product would break, Mom would take pen to paper. She intended to be helpful in these letters. Never demanding. Never rude. Always with the hope of preventing another customer from the same fate. In exchange for these letters, and perhaps because she was so nice about it, she would often receive free product, coupons, or other “freebies” from the companies shortly thereafter.
As the oldest child of five, my mother helped raise her siblings as best she could. As children of parents with a degree of mental illness who were addicts, Mom and her siblings faced a bit of an uphill battle from an early age. This battle left long lasting scars in the hearts and minds of the Frazier children, and caused differing views on many things in their lives depending on their age and which version of their parents they each experienced. These differences in experiences eventually fractured the family. In the case of my mother, being the oldest, she saw it all. From being left in the car outside a bar, trying to shield her terrified siblings from rowdy drunks by covering them with a blanket while their father blissfully drank inside, to a detached mother, at times barely able to care for herself, Mom saw things from a perspective her younger siblings often did not. When her parents failed their children, Mom would often be the one to take over responsibility. She always stepped up for her family. A theme that lasted throughout her life. She always did the hard things others shied away from, or left undone. She always fought for the ones she loved, and never took the easy way in the face of a battle.
Growing up, I didn’t appreciate how deeply my mother’s upbringing affected her. I knew she had certain quirks and eccentric behaviors, but accepted them as part of who she was. As a child, I never asked why she was the way she was, she just was. Only towards the end of her life did I start to see and accept the fact my mother, like her parents before her, was mentally ill. Only upon her death did I finally own the impact it had on her life.
While there were others, anxiety would be a standout affliction for her. It would drive her actions, behaviors, and viewpoints. Anxiety prevented her from ever learning to drive, or traveling by plane. Social anxiety caused her to eventually isolate herself from the world whenever she could, only venturing out to certain places at certain times to do certain activities with certain people. There was seemingly no situation her anxiety could fail to make worse.
As the youngest child, I stayed home a bit longer than I should’ve to try to help her. Perhaps she’d instilled some of her sense of responsibility in me. I was 30 before I left home because of a sense of responsibility to help with Mom’s physical and mental health and relieve her anxiety. I felt she was seemingly better with me around than she was without me. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that by staying home, I was keeping her from inevitable difficulties. Turns out, my parents didn’t need me there at all, and things went relatively unchanged when I left. I greatly underestimated their love for each other and Dad’s resolve to endure. While not perfect, he helped to keep Mom in a situation where she didn’t have to do anything or go anywhere she didn’t want to. Oftentimes he did this at the risk of damaging the relationship with his own family. Being such an intelligent woman, her view often became the family view, at least for dad and I. We loved her enough to always want her to be correct, and when she wasn’t, we often willingly changed the narrative to make it appear she was. We did not excuse her views, we adopted them, even when we didn’t feel the same way, simply to make her more comfortable in the world.
Adopting her views came with a price. A somewhat fractured family of our own was the result. While that was not solely Mom’s fault, some of her upbringing crept into our daily lives and now affected a third generation. Looking back on her four children, I can see the lasting effects it has on each of us. For me, I was taught anxiety. Being raised by someone you admire so much who is so driven by anxiety teaches you things. Initially, how to behave like someone with anxiety. Later, upon great reflection and lots of failures in my path, it taught me to behave differently; more calmly. Still, it gave me a special connection with her thought process, even while I was not yet ready to call what I saw in her mental illness.
Finally living my own life, I struggled in various things, mostly due to anxiety. Much of my work life was driven by it for many years, but it also manifested itself in various other ways as well. Still, I was unable to address the unspoken ailment. As in the case of my mother, I wasn’t yet ready to call it anxiety. I just knew there were things I couldn’t do for various unknown reasons, and moments when life seemed overwhelming. As time wore on, my energy for this adopted anxiety decreased, and I began to slowly see it for what it was. I started to specifically target things that made my anxiety worse and conquer them. I am proud to stand before you today as someone who has stopped the generational cycle of anxiety, but it was only then I could more fully appreciate what Mom was enduring. Much of my anxiety was a learned behavior I could simply put aside. Hers was very real, and had become an integral part of who she was. It drove her.
Before all this in the late 90’s, I bought her first computer, and while the voluminous information contained on the Internet satisfied her curiosity better than a library, in later years, she also used it to find friends with common interests. Friends she treated and loved on like her own. Friends like Christine that became family. As I mentioned in her obituary, Mom was seemingly everybody’s mother. A role she relished and embraced. While her anxiety kept her from doing so many real-life activities like driving or flying, it also helped to foster her connection with others through the Internet. That gave her contact with people with common interests she wouldn’t have met otherwise, and provided a much needed outlet for her insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Through all her short-comings, Mary Myrick persevered. More than that, she continued to care for those around her as a mother figure. A theme born in being forced into that role as a child. She thought of so many people and provided for them as best she could. Upon her death, and going through her belongings, I was struck by the things she saved. So many of them were destined for other people, or to somehow help others.
Towards the end of her life, Mom became a hoarder. While collecting empty boxes and containers of all sorts and sizes seemed to be a primary objective, there were other things as well. Most notably, clipping various articles from magazines, and saving tens of thousands of recipes. Clearly, she was making busy work for her big, beautiful brain as her world got smaller and smaller due to physical limitations. In going through her belongings, I found so many articles on every imaginable subject she’d read and clipped to save for later. Stacks of books cluttered the house. I don’t know if she read them all, or just intended to, but she remained enamored with the written word all her life. Among the things she collected, was this, a Mother’s Day tribute I’d written on Facebook in 2018. She’d printed four copies of this post and had it saved in four different places in the house. It touched me the woman who taught me to write was so taken by something I’d written that she saved it.
Because she handled the finances, only upon her death was Dad able to fully see the financial impact he’d unknowingly had on various causes the world over through her generosity and caring. A stunning number of causes received monthly checks, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars through the years. It had apparently become a bit of a hobby. Something to keep her mind busy as well as care for those less able to care for themselves. She was being a mother to the world from the safety and comfort of her own home.
Her mind was always working, never able to shut down. Something that greatly impacted her sleep for years. She would oftentimes not sleep more than an hour or two at a time. A “good night’s sleep” would mean three or four hours sleep. When not asleep, she was constantly doing something. Anything. Often reading and writing, but household chores and the collecting of various things also filled the void.
While Mom experienced ever increasing pain for many years, she refused to take even the smallest dosage of medicine, even over-the-counter pills, to relieve it. I can only assume the family history of addiction scared her to a point she didn’t want to fall subject to it. As with the anxiety and failure to sleep, being able to finally help her with her pain was such an incredible blessing provided by hospice. Certainly not in time to be life-changing, but definitely in time to provide her some much earned comfort in her final days. Seeing her finally relax was a true blessing. Medication she probably needed all her life provided a physical and mental rest she sorely needed.
In those final days before her death, words became difficult. She had to be reminded how to write her name, or even what shape the letters were. Talking was tricky, as some words just would not come no matter how hard she tried. A particularly cruel ending for someone who loved words so well. In her awake times, when she was able to speak somewhat coherently, she would share some true wisdom. The rest of the time, she would slur her words, mix them up, pick the wrong word, or just not remember the rest of what she wanted to say. Just a week before her passing however, she and I had a perfect conversation. She didn’t miss a word. She didn’t pause. She didn’t slur her speech. It was as if the clock rolled back to years before. She told me everything a child would want to hear from their mother. If possible, even more than that. All loving, all supporting, all true insight into my life, and my role in her life. A truly unexpected blessing. Then suddenly she said she was tired, and fell asleep. When she woke up a few moments later, she was no longer speaking clearly. That brief window was the last real conversation I had with her, but by far the best ever. A gift from God.
Just three days before her death, as she had not eaten in days, barely had more than a few ounces of water in a week, and was too weak to lift her head or even open her eyes, she began to make some sounds. The hospice nurse was there, and I apologized. I told the nurse I’m sorry we couldn’t understand what Mom was saying, but I knew she was trying to speak. The nurse replied, “You can’t hear that?”. I told her I could hear mumbling, but I couldn’t make out any of what she was saying. The nurse said, “She’s not talking, she’s singing.” Dad and I both laughed a bit as I told her, “Oh no. Mom doesn’t sing.” She shot back, “LISTEN! She’s singing!” to which I stubbornly replied – “MY MOM DOESN’T SING”. The nurse, now a touch frustrated with me, but still ever patient, said, “Listen. Come right here and listen. She’s singing.” So I walked closer to Mom’s bed, and with a willing mindset, I listened. Sure enough, what I thought was a mumbled, one-sided conversation was in fact singing. While we were unable to make out all the words, it was clear Mom had made up a song of her own to Jesus. It went somewhat like, “(unintelligible) Thank you Jesus! Thank you! Thank you! (unintelligible) I love you Jesus! (unintelligible) Thank you! Thank you Jesus! I sing this song (unintelligible) Thank you Jesus!” My dear mother, who had not sung in my 53 years of life up to this moment, was singing. She did this for a solid 45 minutes. Over and over again. At one point mustering enough strength to lift her hands off her chest a couple of inches towards the sky. She was truly auditioning for Heaven’s choir! A moment that comforted my father, and filled my heart so full I just couldn’t take any more of the blessing it provided. I felt like my heart was going to burst. It was simply overwhelming. I had to leave and pick up her medicine at the pharmacy to recover from it.
When I endeavored to write this, I started it as a more complete obituary. A tribute to Mom. As I let the draft sit for weeks at a time, it changed with each writing. Ultimately, I know she’d want me to tell the truth in an effort to help others. So here we are. A story that is perhaps a bit less of a shining house on a hill, and more of a double-wide trailer that Mom was more accustomed to.
Mary Myrick was an excellent mother. I think that’s all she really wanted to be. She did it well. I will never stop missing her. In the end, she very much died the way she had lived. With incredible strength in the face of her own frailty. With resolve to continue living in a world that did not cater to her, doing her best to care for others even when no one could fully care for her needs. To me, she wasn’t perfect, but she was certainly the ultimate mother. In the best tribute I can muster, I’ll end with this – in the face of it all, she prepared me for life without her, and isn’t that the most motherly thing of all?
Happy Heavenly Birthday Mommy! Your best birthday ever!
Her obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/mary-myrick-obituary?id=57355033
