Margaret, If Only You Could BE Young Again.

Less than a year ago, my sister Gwen called me and said I should probably go see Mom in the hospital.
I will be very honest and say that my Mom and I have a complicated relationship…or very simple, depending on the way you look at it.
I won’t go into any details, but suffice it to say that after a lifetime of struggle, I’ve gotten myself to a happy place in which I usually only see my Mom at family gatherings.
I don’t fight with her, I don’t harbour a grudge about anything…I’ve done and keeping doing the work…and we always have a nice time when I see her, but it took me a long time to establish some good boundaries AND my life just functions better when I keep them.

When my sister told me that Mom was not doing well, I went.

And my Mom was indeed NOT doing well.
I know how it looks when people are about to go, and she sure looked just like that.
When I asked the nurse what kind of treats I could bring her, she told me to bring her whatever she wanted…which I ALSO know is never a good sign.
It’s hard to lose a parent, and an added really strange challenge to lose a parent that you have an imperfect relationship with.

Either way, I kept going down to Hamilton when I could, to see her in the hospital.

When I found out about two weeks later that she was being sent home…to a place she’s lived for the last twenty-four years…ALONE…I plotzed.
My sister told me that Mom would have care, and that she and my other sister…who lives close by…would be there every day to check up on her.
My Mom said she didn’t want to die in the hospital…she wanted to die in her home.
I live an hour away, so the ball was out of my court.

Mom told me she didn’t KNOW she was dying until my entire family paraded through her hospital room that week…and when my brother-in-laws and her cardiologist showed up Mom got wise…she decided to dig in.

My Mom is ninety-one and she decided to stay.

At every family function I’ve seen her at since, she’s looked better and better.
It’s kind of shocking, really.

Anyhow, I’ve been working on a couple of projects that’ve kept me busy, and then last week I started to see Mother’s Day advertisements.
I didn’t know if I would call, send flowers or what I would do…but then yesterday, I decided to go and see her, by myself…with my dog.
I know this is not a controversial thing to some…but it was a big decision for me.
I just kept thinking about her age and how she almost, sort-of died…and I decided to live in the moment with her.

I buzzed her when JO and I arrived today, and when she answered the buzzer, she screamed into her phone that she could not hear me, until I yelled my name so loud that someone near said “JESUS CHRIST!”.
She told me she’d be right there and hung up before she finished the word THERE.
When I looked through the window into the hallway, she was walking fairly briskly towards me with her walker.
Honestly, she’s not looked better in a while.
She had on a crisp white button down, jeans with a black belt, black ankle socks and white sneakers…and her butter silver hair is cropped short.
It’s…astounding.

We had such a nice time.
It was really lovely.
I stayed for a couple of hours.
Jo played with her ball and ran around.
We talked about everything and nothing at all.
Then I showed her pictures on my phone from my recent my travels.
She looked at them all and asked about the places I went, the things I saw, did I take Jo, who did I see while I was there?
She put the phone down at one point and said that she worried about me out there, alone, something she always says that used to frustrate me…but I get it now, I do.
I told her that I carry coyote spray, that someone always knows where I am, that I try to make smart decisions, and that I don’t want to live my life scared.
I like to do things on my own, I said.
It feels really…cool…and powerful.

She kept scrolling through my pictures, but she was afraid of fucking up my phone, so she scrolled tentatively.
She started to talk about how much she used to love it when we went to cottages and the beach.
She reminded me about the time she visited me in Washington, DC when I was in Les Mis, and how my friend Jason took us to see some caves in Virginia that were near the Appalachian Trail.
Mom pointed to a picture on her sideboard of a 30-ish year old me and a sixty-seven-ish year old her standing in front of a guide post for the trail.
I told her about my trip to Manitoulin and Tobermory, about how I had to carry Jo up a ladder when I took a wrong turn on the Cup and Saucer Trail and I showed her pictures of Hearst Mansion in San Simeon on the California Coast.
She told me she would have NEVER considered going anywhere alone when she was my age.
Her trip to Washington was one of her first trips on a plane by herself.
AND She tore UP that town while I was at rehearsal.

She flipped through my pictures, and she whispered:

“Oh Margaret, if only you could be young again.”

And I felt that in my gut.

“What would you do, Mom? Where would you go?”

“Oh Sharron, where wouldn’t I go?”

And I saw where I got it.
I saw where I got my wanderlust.
Then my Mom said something that I didn’t expect.

“You’ve really made yourself a wonderful life. Really.”

I looked down at my pants and nodded, for some reason I didn’t want to cry.

I wanted to take a picture of us.
I set up the camera timer, got Jo over to us, and after the picture went off, I felt her run her hands through my hair.

I think I will remember that forever, complicated relationship or no.

We kept chatting and somehow we got around to how she wanted to die in that apartment.
I told her that my sister Kim’s always worried that she’ll be the one who’ll find her (odds are good) and my Mom says she knows.
Mom laughed and said that when Kim arrives, she opens the door just a smidge and says,”Mom?”, waiting for Mom to answer…and she said that sometimes, just for fun, she lays in her chair with her eyes closed and her mouth open.
Just for fun.

I fucking laughed.
We laughed and laughed.
Poor Kim.

hhhahahahahahahahaahahah

Jo was getting a bit rangy, so I took my leave.
I hugged Mom twice.

Then I got in my car and drove Jo and I to a hiking path…because I’m twelve years younger than when Mom took her first solo trip, and I’m not going to waste one minute.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the complicated relationships out there.