You’ll leave the milk out.
The basement door wide open.
When the call comes, you’ll drop everything and run.
Ambulance and mom are words you’d rather never have any association.
Such things, however, are inevitable.
But that doesn’t make it any easier.
Ambulance and mom are words you’d rather never have any association.
On the drive over, a strange fog will settle upon you as you refuse to think what might happen.
Parking. Parking. Dammit! Why is there no parking?!
You’re told to follow the red line. Or is it the yellow line? And there she is, propped up on a gurney. Every one of her children is present. Several of her grandchildren, too. No surprise there.
She’s stable; chipper and cheerful – her usual self. It appears, however, that they’ve let some air out of her tires. She’s smaller somehow. Or maybe it’s that all that vitality is now, somehow, compressed?
The nurses love her. They chat away with us, saying “This is how I want to be when I’m her age”.
She’s being admitted to a ward. As she is wheeled out, the nurses call out to her: “Come back any time!” We all chuckle at the duality of that invitation.
I sit with my son while the ward nurses do their thing. He squeezes my hand as I lower my head to his shoulder.
I can’t imagine a world without her in it.
Lord knows, I’ve tried. Especially in my teen years. But here we are and it’s a whole other subject.
I watch over her as she sleeps and my stomach churns with long-forgotten memories.
She used to sew many of our clothes, and her own, as well. The black velvet dress with the crisp white collar she made for me to wear to my first high school dance flashes in my mind. I remember, too, the raw silk drapes she ‘ran up’ for the living room.
She can fix just about anything.
My mom is a do-er. She can fix just about anything. Mechanical or vegetable. And that includes people, too. I was used to coming home and finding my friends seated at her kitchen counter, discussing the intricacies of their lives. Strays and orphans; vagabonds, widows and widowers – they somehow gravitate to my mom.
To that end, she is an excellent and inspired cook. She’d pour over the Time-Life Foods of the World series at our local library, churning out Moroccan tagines, Senegalese soup, or homemade bannock on any given Wednesday. Dinner for 24 on short notice was never a problem. If you could find an empty perch on the staircase, you were welcomed.
My accountant dad would come home late during tax time and, unfailingly, find both her and a hot meal, waiting. From my bedroom, I could hear their murmured conversation. Their load was a heavy one. They’d both grown up poor with distinct disadvantages. They would have four children of their own but still manage to look after not just their family, but her parents and his mother, as well.
An inheritance of $3,000.00 combined with a government incentive program meant that they were able to build their first home. Painting and landscaping it themselves became a multi-year project. It’s funny what you remember about such things. A seagull we named Danny would beg for table scraps at the window over the kitchen sink. In the unfinished basement there was a train set up on sawhorses. Neighbourhood games of Red Rover in the backyard with cookies and Kool-Aid to follow. No one ever used the front door.
Another memory: I’m in third grade. The notion of life being finite is somehow front and centre in my mind. I’m crying. My mom asks what the matter is. I tell her I don’t want her to die. She draws me up onto her lap and tells me that one day I’ll be so busy living that I won’t have time to think about death.
That moment is a crystal in my mind.
That moment is a crystal in my mind. I was satisfied with her answer.
But today I’m not.
Today, all I can think about is that I don’t want her to die.
Ever.
This week’s question for readers:
WHAT DO YOU WISH HAD NOT BEEN LEFT UNSAID?
Leave your Comments below!
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Submissions to last week’s question:
WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THE SUBJECT OF PUNCTUALITY?
Punctuality is a western concept. In the Middle East or Hispanic world, my experience is that time is a relative concept, as in if you arrive within the half hour, it’s all good. Personally, I don’t like arriving late for a lecture, an interview or dinner invitation. To some extent, it is seen as disrespectful. Similarly, a performer shouldn’t keep an audience waiting for the show to begin. The same goes for a wedding, although we always forgive the bride – after all it is her day. So, I set my watch to GMT and will always arrive five minutes early to your dinner, or maybe sit outside until the appointed time +/- 1 minute.
Ken Bergen
I try desperately to be on time because it is rude to waste other people’s time. Sadly, when I am ready ten minutes early-that’s just enough time to paint my fingernails or check email (not!). Mom said my gravestone should read: “Here lies the perennially late Lorna Blake.”
Lorna (Krahulec) Blake
Anyone who gets tied up in knots about five minutes is too tightly wound. Of course, there are occasions when punctuality is important – a job interview; a flight – but let’s not expect people to leap out from behind the bushes on social occasions at the precise moment just to show how virtuous they are. It isn’t a competition. Also, long-standing etiquette dictates promptness for weddings and funerals but says that within 15 minutes after the stated start time is perfectly acceptable for dinner parties, et al.
C. Costello
The way I read this, being five minutes late is not being late at all, however those you like the least are the ones who arrive one minute early. Personally I would rather see my dinner guests arrive one minute early rather than half an hour late. My experience with people I know who are notoriously late, is that they have zero patience when being put in that position. I take it that their time seems to be much more important than mine.
Gloria Bramucci
There is a difference between being late for reasons beyond your control and being late because you’re too lazy to get your act together. Even then it has to be a major event in order to justify being late. Plan to be early or on time! Some people are habitually late which is extremely rude and puts everyone behind schedule.
Stan Strahl
I’m an old-fashioned guy who was brought up in Germany with Prussian parents, and punctuality at home and at school was paramount. Since 1956, when I became Canadian, I slowly mellowed in my need for punctuality. However, still to this day, more than five minutes late makes me uncomfortable.
To accomplish punctuality only requires that you leave 30 minutes earlier than you normally need.
Henry Neugebauer
Sadly throughout my 72 years of life so far, I’ve noticed that lateness has been the cause of soooo many traffic deaths – including one ex-student aged 15, a few years ago. The drivers usually say they never speed, this one time they were just a little late and running faster to make…”. Being late has always seemed to me to simply be a matter of not being organized.
Try driving at the speed limit today dealing with those who drive 60-80 in a 50 zone because they always leave too late, then we all get stuck in a traffic jam because an 80 year-old lady is struck and killed by someone travelling at excess speed due to lateness. Benjamin Franklin placed ‘Order’ at Number Three in the virtues. Being on time is just generally being well organized in life. I would place it first.
RL Read
My parents taught me that being late is rude. Late people are essentially saying, “My time is more valuable than yours.” Ducklings and traffic can excuse occasional tardiness, but those who are habitually late and think it’s “no big deal” show disrespect. If I’ve invited you for drinks at 7:00 and dinner at 8:00, then I expect you no later than 7:30 p.m. Putting a meal together can involve careful planning to ensure that several dishes are ready at the same time.
Leanne Campbell
I would rather have someone arrive for dinner at our house at 6:59 than 7:15. I consider it a matter of respect to arrive on time whether for a dinner party at home or meeting at a restaurant. We know people who are chronically late; they’ll show up 20 minutes late and claim they’re less than ten minutes late. It’s a family joke and we have learned to work around the issue.
Linda and Gerry Moore