Sanka, Sweet 'N Lo, And Peanut Butter Crackers

(reprint from Skirt Magazine, May 2001)

I still expected long meaningful conversations, peppered with anecdotes from my childhood. I imagined my mother and I would sit for hours on a windless day as we watched my girls play in the yard. The days would seem endless. It would be just like a scene out of a Donna Reed show. We would smile, and pat each other knowingly on the shoulder, or better yet, on the well-manicured hand. Of course, there would always brownies baking in the oven.

In reality, things were different. We would plan my parent's visit around my mother's rheumatologist, oncologist and cardiologist appointments. I would clean for days then begin the ridiculous, yet completely self-inflicted, cooking ritual. After days of preparation, they would show up, thrilled to see us. My father and I would carry my mother in her wheelchair up the steps into the house. She would sit at the dining room table with her instant coffee, take all her medications and visit with her granddaughters. She would read to them, color with them, marvel at their creations. Then she would sleep. After a few hours of sleep she would be rejuvenated and come and join us again. Most of the time she was content to just be. To be with those she loved. To eat peanut butter and crackers and watch the girls - whether they played with each other or read quietly to themselves. She enjoyed them. She appreciated them not for what they did or what they wore, but just that they were. She and I spoke - in bits and pieces - sometimes something meaningful, sometimes nothing more than which one of my sisters and I liked hard boiled eggs, who had the stuffed elephant named Lisa and which one renamed her Ellie, a seemingly more appropriate name in the opinion of my two oldest girls. Then she would retire to the guest room to sleep some more, maybe to ward off the cancer, maybe to escape the constant pain of the arthritis.

Throughout their visit I would wonder when that moment would arise, that moment when she would impart her 66 years of wisdom. I would find myself waiting for the night we would sit up endlessly for hours, talking deep into the night about profound and meaningful things. Somehow the visit would pass and the most we would accomplish is a trip to Wal-Mart. This was immediately followed by a trip to Publix for more goodies. I would run in quickly while she sat in the car with my girls. We both thought that we got the best end of the deal. I was alone, free to gaze longingly at exotic foods and eat a candy bar on the sly. She would wait in the car, captivated by her granddaughters as they told her their thoughts and secrets.

No matter how mixed my feelings were before they came, I was always sad when it ended. I had anticipated the visit. I had stressed, cleaned, cooked and then stressed some more. The day would arrive and all would settle down into a soothing rhythm. Despite all the preparation before their visit, we both had few and insignificant requirements for our time together. She liked her instant coffee with Sweet and Low and some crackers with peanut butter on this side. I have an obsession for diet Coke. We would sit, sometimes, silently in the same house, passing the time together. Then she would sleep some more. Of course, inevitably the last night would come, no matter how hard I tried to pretend it wouldn't. She always said the same thing in a falsely happy voice making me promise not to cry, saying they'd be back again soon. She'd claim that the girls and I needed our routine and our lives back. Then she'd be gone. They would get into their car, loaded with suitcases, her medications, and her wheelchair, and would drive down our driveway, waving out the window. I stood on the front porch, tears streaming down my face, hoping my girls wouldn't see that saying goodbye to your mother never gets easier, and how difficult and sometimes scary it can be. The chance for the visit that I'd planned in my mind was gone. No endless nights, no long deep conversations, no Donna Reed moments.

Then one day as I watched her board the plane to leave us once again, I suddenly realized that we did have our moments. They were just in snippets - over a crying child, between the pages of coloring books, during the stirring of the pasta, and the sharing of peanut butter crackers. The most glorious thing about these visits and this woman is the continuity and reliability of her presence and her being. It is the thing that will remain with us long after she is gone from this earth. It is her appreciation for the simplicity in things around her, her love for her grandchildren, her daughters, and our father - the love of her life. These are a constant, never to be changed or erased, from our lives. For the very first time since I've lived away from home, I was much more at peace with my mother's departure. I was able to revel in her beauty, her spirit and the loveliness that is, and always will be, my mother.