I have to tell you that I come from a family of whistlers. My mother was a prodigious whistler, that she whistled all the time, and I remember when you used to go shopping with her, you know, I was like in my 20s or something. I remember telling somebody I never had to worry about losing my mother because all I had to do was stop and listen for the whistling ’cause my mother whistles all the time. I know — not loud, just a nice little, whistling a tune. And she whistled while she worked, she whistled while she was happy, she whistled when she was sad. She was just — it was just she liked to whistle, and I also whistle. I whistle a lot, and I know that since my husband got hearing aids, he’s not completely thrilled with the fact that I whistle. So I try to be careful about not whistling around him, but I like to whistle. It’s, uh, something that keeps me company, I guess, and I like to have music around me.
And one thing about whistling with my mother. I remember that my sister lives on the other side of the country. She lives in Seattle, and she would come home and visit sometimes. And I remember one time when she came, she said, “What’s wrong with Mom? She’s not whistling.” And it was like, “Oh my gosh, you’re right. Mom doesn’t whistle anymore.” And I was, “I, I don’t know. There is something wrong with her, I think.” And it turned out — as it turned out, she had Alzheimer’s. But that was one of the very first things that we noticed that were different. I had noticed some other things, but whistling. It was like when we realized that she wasn’t whistling anymore, that it was sad. It was a very — it was a deep sadness because whistling had been so much a part of her and our perception of our mother that when she no longer whistled, we knew we had lost something dear.
And so anyway, that was my thing about whistling. I, uh, know that I’ll always remember my mom whistling and, and try to remember her that way rather than how she became as the disease progressed. And so even right now as I’m thinking about it, I can see her out in the yard hanging up clothes on the line, whistling, and the sun shining, and just — those are good memories. And so those are what I have to hang on to rather than the sadness.