Take the Good Times

By Nedra Brown

The book is written with the caregiver in mind and is entitled Take the Good Times. Take it while the living is good, and then when life hands you lemons, dont forget to remember the past good times. Even through the bad times, suddenly you will look at each other remembering the good, or your loved one will hug you and those are good times to always remember. Youll need those memories in the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524670931

Nedra Brown

Nedra Pattison Brown was born in the Northern California town of Chico. She grew up on a ranch, in the community of Ord Bend, located in an area triangulated between the towns of Willows, Orland and Chico. She graduated from Hamilton High School, took business classes at Chico State, and Rio Cosumnes College in Sacramento, California. She spent most of her working years in Sacramento in the Insurance and Real Estate businesses holding a license in both of these fields. She moved back to Chico in 1993 and worked at Mid Valley Title and Escrow until her retirement in the year 2000. While living in Chico she met and married Jack Brown, who this story is about.

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JANUARY 25, 2015, 4:25 AM

"Jack it’s time.

You can go now and be with God. You will see your mother and you will have the greatest joy ever being with God. The confusion that this horrible disease has left you with is gone and you are free."

Eleanor Pattison, my sister-in-law and her daughter Evan had come by for one last visit, and later Jack’s daughter, Debbie, and husband, John D’Ewart, spent some time saying their goodbyes.

I had been at my home in Yuba City, California, catching up on duties when I received the call that morning from the hospital, telling me that Jack was unresponsive. I threw stuff in the car, left for the 40-mile trip to the Grass Valley hospital, and called Debbie to let her know what was happening. Jack’s son, Ron, who resides in the State of Washington, was notified so he could make arrangements to be here to see his dad.

When I arrived at the hospital, Jack opened his eyes, looked right at me and asked what the matter was. I answered that he had a problem waking up but everything was OK now. He lapsed again right away, and was having such a bad time with his breathing as his oxygen level had been failing since the day before. The staff continued to give him more oxygen and pain medicine to ease his distress.

When Debbie and John left, I sat in front of Jack, or in the recliner beside his bed, for hours. I continued rubbing his chest and talking to him as he left me. I understand that the hearing is the last sense to leave the body, and if this is true, I wanted him to have good thoughts in his mind. When he took his last breath, I checked his pulse and, finding none, I called for the night nurse to verify.

They gave me some time to be alone with him and I continued touching him and saying goodbye. Then Dawn, the nurse on duty, came to me and said, The mortuary is coming for him and we need to spend some time with him before they arrive.

Dawn was a wonderful Christian woman, and before Jack passed she said a prayer for both of us. I will never forget her kindness, and the loving kindness of the nursing staff in the Alzheimer’s unit of the Golden Empire Hospital in Grass Valley.

I recall leaving his room, and after that the next thing I remember was sitting in our living room in Yuba City thinking, I have been so busy taking care of you Jack, and then for the last month and a half driving the 40 miles to see you that now I have no purpose left in my life. No purpose!

My sister-in-law told me later what I really did after leaving the hospital. When we had to place Jack in the hospital, she had given me a key to her home in Grass Valley so I could spend the night with her when I needed to. This was wonderful because I could drive to Grass Valley to see Jack, spend the night with her and see Jack again the next day. After that, I would drive home to catch up on laundry, mail, and so forth, and then start over on the visits. I don’t remember going to her house that morning, but she said I did and that I actually slept for awhile before going home to Yuba City. I just don’t remember doing that.

CHAPTER ONE

1932

Jack Don Brown was born, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on December 10, 1932. He was the first of six children in this family. From his telling, he was born into poverty, even though you would never hear complaints from him. There may have been dirt floors, but he did say that the bathroom was an outhouse. One of his duties, along with that of his siblings, was to carry water uphill from the creek below.

When he was ten, he fell out of a tree and broke his arm. Something went wrong when it was set and he got gangrene under the cast. The doctors tried to take care of it, but it resulted in a deformed arm and hand. It was, of course, a hard life for a young boy to endure this deformity. He wore long sleeves all the time to hide the arm, and if he happened to have his shirt off he would carry his arm behind him. This had to be a hard thing to overcome; we know children can be cruel but we don’t know for sure what he really had to endure. He always said he had no memory of most of his teen years.

Soon after he graduated from high school he left home to work at a shoe store in Tulsa. He did a good job, and soon the management transferred him to Stockton, California to take over a floundering store and make it solvent.

While he lived in Stockton he married and fathered two Children, a son and a daughter. His father-in-law was a real estate salesman and introduced him to the manager of a title company there who immediately employed him.

He did such a good job that when his manager moved to Chico, California to become the president of Mid Valley Title and Escrow Company, he sent for Jack to be the title officer.

During his time in Chico, he joined a flying club, and learned to pilot small planes. He owned a cabin in the mountains, took up snowmobiling, and became the president of the Hillsliders Snowmobile club.

In 1962, Jack was appointed president of Mid Valley Title. He held this position for approximately 33 years until he retired. As president, he was responsible for three offices, one in Chico, one in Paradise, and a third in Oroville. He was also on the Board of Directors of other title companies in Northern California in which Mid Valley Title held a vested interest. He was highly thought of in both his business and personal life. You would never have thought such a man would come down with this horrible sickness.

Jack was a man to be proud of. He was a wonderful, loving husband and loved his children and grandchildren always.

1993 - 2002

I was being interviewed for a job as an escrow secretary at Mid Valley Title & Escrow when I saw a gentleman walking from the title side of the office towards the Escrow Department. He was stopping at each desk and spending time touching bases with each employee. The person interviewing me said that is our president and county supervisor, Jack Brown. The gentleman came into the office where we were sitting and was introduced