Mom leaves tomorrow and we have a whole bunch of conversations we’ve started to finish today. I have a whole bunch of questions to ask that I need her answers to. She has a whole slew of stories of her life I haven’t heard yet that I need to hear. Not the ones she keeps telling me over and over and over because she's forgotten she's already told me them three times today. No, the ones like the time her roommate in college made bootleg raisin wine and she was the only one who drank it because it was too yeasty for the others but she likes the taste of yeast. My mom, the prohibition rebel.
It’s been a good visit. Like every conversation I seem to have with Husband, my mother’s visits are always peppered with “Did that just happen?” moments. Like at dinner on Friday when we were at a fancy restaurant talking about how my Aunt just surprised my Uncle with a trip to Australia using their airline miles and my mom said, “I don't know why she surprised him.” And then Husband said, “She must have misheard him when he asked her to go down under.” !!! And then Husband told us the story of a friend’s father taking him downtown to a hooker and swore up and down that the hooker’s name was Sally Sucker. We’re still laughing about that one. Moments like when we took my mom to our friend's 72nd birthday party and stood Mom too close to the birthday girl and her pot-smoking friends. Pretty much gave my mom, who doesn’t drink or smoke, a major contact high. So, of course, we then spent Sunday morning searching the Internet for information about pot and what part to smoke and what the difference is between hemp and the stuff that gets you high. Not because she’s planning on growing any, mind you, but because she wants to know. When we went on a boat down the Cumberland River, I kept trying to take a picture of the two of us, the Batman building in the background. Mom let me take one. Said, “That’s enough of that.” Turned around and refused to be in any other picture. All my pictures of the boat ride are of back of her large floppy homemade red hat and the inside of my nose. As I said in my post last year when Mom left: I am sad that I won't have her here for the everyday and the exciting. I’m depressed that she won't be here to share bizarre experiences shopping as we end up in weird exchanges with the folks that work at the stores. That we won’t be able to have the type conversations we’ve had that we start on one day and finish the next. …. We’ve solved the world’s problems and uncovered a few random oddities about people, places and things… She’s ready to go home. I am ready for her to go home too. But I am not ready for her not to be here. Today we’re spending the day wandering Target and having other mindless mini adventures while we babble the day away. I’m going to be listening hard, hoping to learn a bit more about this fascinating lady before she forgets herself. That day is coming all too soon.
3 Comments
Cindy Costell
10/19/2015 10:37:19 pm
ej, your piece has me teary-eyed. Back when you all were kids, I occasionally talked with your mom in passing but can't say I know her. How lovely to see how much you care for her. If she is still here in Palo Alto, if she needs a friend to stop in occasionally, tell me what she needs. She and I can certainly re-live Children's Theatre backstage mom times together.
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ej
10/20/2015 05:17:42 am
Cindy! Hola! So lovely to hear from you. I'd have to say that no one really "knows" mom, she's a quirky bird. She's still in Palo Alto, still puttering about her garden when she's not working. Odds are you'll see her around at some point if you're still there too. You could for sure share PACT stories - good and bad!
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Nancy Sauder
10/20/2015 05:46:52 pm
This is heart wrenching, so beautiful and familiar. You are so lucky to have this awareness and desire now. Mine came after my mom could hardly speak. And she didn't care for sharing anything about her past as it was, so let's just say I didn't get much out of her.
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
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