The Intersection of 16 and 43

It’s Sunday.  This morning over eggs and bacon, I informed the family I’d be going on a long walk, as I often do.  Did anyone want to go?  They normally don’t.  No. No. No. My husband would out of kindness or duty, but honesty would keep him home, too.  I do appreciate the gesture, though.

I haven’t left the table, but an acute awareness of the difference between my children’s childhoods and my own has joined us there.  I have a poor memory, but can’t remember receiving or declining any invitation, ever - to hang out with my parents, go to the lake, or anything that would have gotten a quality timer out of the house to spend quality time with a parent or anyone, really.  

I mention my observation, and they mention theirs.  Like I’m a girl, and of course I didn’t walk with my Mom, because my Mom can’t walk.  

It’s a fair attempt at humor because they know that wasn’t always the case.  But, it is true.  They have never known my Mom as a person who could walk.

I can’t help but realize, again, that my oldest son is 16-years-old.  The same age I was when my Mom had a car accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down.  The same age I became a nurse, caregiver, grocery shopper, meal preparer/food-picker-upper, and a grown-up.  My brother was between the ages my other sons are now, and he could say the same.

But now, I actually am a grown-up.  I am 43-years-old.  The same age my mother was when she had the accident that claimed her mobility.

Sitting across the table from one another at these ages feels significant.  A little like a bell ringing from the outside in.  Like being at an intersection with the same street names in a different city.  Like a breathing time machine, as I heard in a song while making breakfast.

I left for my walk in a new and unexpected headspace.  I paused at my normal turn around spot to jot a few things down, and didn’t turn around there at all.   

I kept walking, thinking about all of the Prom pictures flooding my Facebook feed and remembering my own.  I marvel at the beauty of the girls, their dresses, the backdrops, and Moms with cameras.

I wore a handmade dress, lovingly made by my stepmom with red shoes to match.  I took pictures at the end of a hallway and in a living room, before and after the one hour drive to visit my Mom who was still in the Rehabilitation Hospital, so she could see us in all of our glory.  No one had cameras there.

It would be another month before she would come home in her wheelchair and enter our house using the ramp the Knights of Columbus built while she was away.  

Twenty-seven years have passed.  My Mom still battles with her body to stay well and a 16-year-old still wants to make sure his brothers did their share of the dishes, to make sure that everything is fair.  Ha.

The 16-year-old daughter of that 43-year-old mother is now a 43-year-old mother with a 16-year-old son.  She is grateful for and amazed by it all, but most especially by breakfast conversation that can create a time warp and at how you can walk six miles and never leave an intersection. 

Mom's Heart

I am reposting this with permission of the author, the daughter of one of our hospice patients.  She sent it to me by email earlier this week.  I appreciate her allowing me to share it here, so you can allow her Mom and her writing to inspire and bless you, too...

Life lessons come in unexpected packages. I have long known of a company Artful Ashes in Seattle. They take a small amount of your loved ones cremated remains and hand blow either a heart or an orb incorporating the ashes into the glass. They are extraordinary and there are many color choices for the glass. After much consideration, I chose a heart with brown and amber gold swirls. It reminded me of her.

The heart arrived this week and it is beautiful - and comforting to have a bit of Mother with me. After the first day, I noticed that the heart is more than just a bit asymmetrical as one side is decidedly bigger than the other. My first reaction was that while the heart is beautiful, it was not perfect. I wanted it to be perfect. In anticipation of my call to Artful Ashes, I was prepared to tell them that of course they never knew my Mom, but perfectionism was something she was known for.

I have a vivid memory of accompanying Mom on a visit with her alteration lady, Mrs. Simmons, at her home. She had a fitting room complete with a three sided tall mirror on a raised platform and all the fascinating accouterments of sewing - pincushions of all sorts, one of which was worn on her wrist, and a skirt hem marker that with a squeeze of the rubber bulb would make little horizontal lines of chalk as the client slowly turned. Fascinating stuff indeed. The purpose of this visit was to correct a back zipper in a skirt that did not lay completely flat against Mom's backside. This newly purchased suit still had the tags, but Mom absolutely would not wear it until the offending zipper was replaced with one that laid properly. In my child's mind, and perhaps in Mrs. Simmons' as well, was the thought - who cares, the jacket covers it! I can still see Mom on that raised platform in her stiletto heels patiently saying to Mrs. Simmons, "It simply does not lay right." It was not perfect.  Mother struggled with this idea that all had to be perfect for most all of her adult life. A notion that also dovetailed with the "I'll be happy when . . . " issue.

So as I gazed at this imperfect, asymmetrical heart I thought that Mom simply would not want this to be how a part of her spent her eternity - in this decidedly one sided heart. And then I began to think. I thought about how Mom was in the last few years and I started to form this realization that she definitely had two sides to her heart. Almost to the very end, Mother could be demanding, petulant, and critical. She could make you wish you were anywhere else on the planet rather than have to deal with her! But more and more in those last few years, that side of her heart got smaller and smaller, and the side of her heart that was kind, generous, and loving got larger and larger.

Daughters inherit many things from their Mothers and both my sister and me inherited this desire for perfectionism - we struggle with it even now. When I would call Mom with some complaint that something I had attempted to do did not come out as I wanted - that it wasn't perfect - she would say, "Oh honey, I'm sure it's beautiful. It will be okay just like it is." And then I thought - she was always like this with us - loving us in spite of our imperfections.

This heart, that I will look at every day for the remainder of my life on this earth, will be a reminder to me to let the good side of my heart always be bigger than the other. So Mom, thank you for the life lesson. You continue to inspire me.