Funny how you can spend a good quarter century or more raising your kids with every
once of blood, guts, tears and bottomless love. Then one day something changes and you
find yourself without out a clue as to how to keep your family together. And then, finally, you
begin to think maybe it’s not your job anymore.
When my mom was fifty she was left with a daughter in her first year of college and
three older sons who were pretty aimless at times. All of us were trying to figure out our young
adult lives without Dad. But what about Mom?
I didn’t get to really understand my mom until I was close to 70 – only seven or eight
years before she died at 96. Before that it seemed we were always disappointing each
other. She’d forget my birthday or, when she remembered, she’d give me a bargain sweater
always much too big. I was never quite exuberant enough for her when visiting with my family
at her home in Mount Desert Island. My hugs were too brief. She needed many more
compliments than I could ever muster.
I am not saying I didn’t love my mother until her 90th year. No, l always loved her. And
I always knew she loved me unconditionally. But what I mean is that it took very long for me
to truly get to know and like her – which is really different than simply loving her.
Eventually I started appreciating her independent spirit and quirky personality, as well
as the harder stuff – her annoying forgetfulness, her disappointing prejudices, her selfishness.
And finally, towards the end, I could almost see all of her. By then, as Shakespeare wrote,
she was “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste.”
And then we started having some fun together even when things were hard. Something
I learned about Mom those last few years was how much she loved Frank Sinatra who she
dreamily recalled seeing in concert long ago. After a fall, I rushed her to the ER suspecting
another stroke. While she was lying on her back on a stretcher, I played Witchcraft on my
phone, and, like magic, she lit up and started dancing with only her hands and arms. I took
her hands in mine and we danced together, neither of us caring if anyone came into the room
and saw us.
Anything is possible when you understand and love and like someone all at the same
time. Just look harder. My disoriented, scared, proud, spirited mother, sans teeth, sans eyes,
sans taste was beautiful. At the very end of her life, my beautiful mother, on her deathbed,
while looking up at me and my sweetheart with a tiny smile, said she was ready for her next
adventure.
How do families make it through the hardest times? I honestly don’t know. But love,
while probably necessary isn’t enough. I think it may also require liking each other and getting
to know one another to the best of their ability. And forgiving. We can’t wait too long though.
After all, life is short. Our next adventure may be just around the corner.
