There was a small pack of us, early one morning last week, commiserating about the last minute flight arrangements that had us bouncing through Cleveland on our way from Chicago to New York. The layover was brief -- too brief, even, to accommodate both a bathroom run and a pass through the Starbucks line.
We traded war stories as we waited to board, again, each of us intent upon assuring the others that we would never have endured even the minor inconvenience of this stopover by choice. My story -- though not particularly tragic in the grand scheme of things -- evoked the most sympathy. My mother had broken her hip, less than two weeks before she was to travel to Chicago for her granddaughter's wedding.
I knew something was amiss when my daughter called me, right smack in the middle of the hour and a half time frame that she, her fiance, my brother, and my mother spend almost every Sunday having dinner together. Same restaurant, same table, same orders, same waiters. Sacred time for them, time that I always -- not so secretly -- envy.
My daughter had known something was amiss when her grandmother had not yet appeared five minutes before the appointed time. Grandma fell, she told me. Her voice was calm, purposely, so I wouldn't have a heart attack. Grandma fell. Empathy eluded me. My mind went immediately beyond any thoughts of pain or breakage or the possibility that my mother, a spry 86 year old, might not walk again. I didn't even dwell on the irony of it all, the woman who has worried out loud for the past twelve months or so about falling, obsessively taking every precaution. My mind went right to the wedding, and how she had to be there.
My ex-husband and I agreed it would have made a lot more sense for her to have missed our wedding, the wedding for which she had to pull her head out of the oven to attend. The ironies are endless.
I arrived in New York committed to doing anything that had to be done to get my mother out to Chicago for her granddaughter's wedding. I sat silently as physicians and nurses and physical therapists and social workers paraded through her hospital room, waiting for them to just be quiet so I could get to the real point. The wedding, I explained to each of them. I will carry her if I have to; their job is to make sure she is medically cleared.
My mother, uniquely intuitive and surprisingly practical, knew from the moment she fell that the wedding was out of the question. She knew, also, that we would all survive her absence. As for me, well, it took some time -- a bit of convincing, a slow evolution. A tree falling noiselessly in the forest, with nobody to bear witness; could it actually happen, without my mother there in her St. John suit?
I'm okay with it now. When friends look shocked that my mom won't be there, I feel shocked that they could even think otherwise. I used to think that way, I tell them. When I was delusional and naive.
I'm getting a grip. It's all about showing up. Not just for the parties, but for the "everything else." My mom has been there for the "everything else." She has been there for the journey that began 28 years ago, when her first grandchild was born. She has been there for the journey that began more recently, when my daughter met the person she would marry. She has been there for dinner every Sunday (except for the day they got engaged, but that's another story). She has been there for all the milestones (okay, there's a story or two in there too, for another time). She may not be at the wedding, but she has always been there, and will be there as long as she is able, always showing up when it matters, even if she has to skip the occasional party.
My fellow traveler last week, when he heard my tale of woe, laughed. All of a sudden the napkins don't seem all that important, right? So true.
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