It's one of those days that has always stayed with me, and when I asked my mom whether she remembered, her broad smile assured me that it has stayed with her as well. It was uncharacteristically impulsive for my mom, who, for as long as I can remember, has always tried to adhere to some sort of plan, to take a tram ride for no reason at all, particularly when there was still good shopping to be done. My favorite memories of her always seem to involve veering from the plan. I remember we giggled when we took that tram ride to nowhere, back and forth, just for the fun of it. Me and mom, feelin' groovy.
I find myself yearning to tell the nurses, the doctors, anybody here, really, about that day in 1976 when my mom and I sailed through the air across the East River, the intricate frame of the bridge close enough to almost touch. I want to tell them about that groovy day, and all the other unexpectedly groovy days in between in an otherwise overly orderly life. Like the time she zip-lined over a canyon (in her seventies). Or when she laced up a pair of ice skates and seemed surprisingly graceful and at home. Or when she flew out to Chicago for a day just to see her grandchildren when my father was ill.
There is somebody new in the bed on the other side of the curtain in mom's room today. I glanced at her as I walked in but I didn't really see her, did I. Like all the others who have come and gone in that bed, in all the beds here, she is sick. She is alone. She is utterly without history or context, other than whatever medical notes are in her chart. I don't know what might make her smile, what memories she holds dear, what she has done in her life to make herself feel groovy, if only for a little while. Nor do the doctors and nurses. It's not their business, and it is, quite legitimately, not relevant.
Last week, during a brief stint in the emergency room, it took me hours to realize that the woman languishing in the bed next to mom, still wearing her boots and street clothing, was somebody other than a woman languishing in a bed. It was only after I realized she was about to drift over the side of the bed that we started to talk. I learned of her husband, recently felled by a horrible dementia. How she grapples with what has happened to him, the man who practiced law for so many years and took such good care of her. How they lost a son 18 years ago, and how she is only now able to talk about it without bursting into tears. Her surviving son showed up later, seemingly as annoyed with his mother as I tend to get with my own. We both need reminders, I thought, of who they are and who they have been and how they have lived and what they have lost. What we stand to lose.
A little over two months ago, just as things began to unravel, we took my mother out to dinner for her 91st birthday, and had to put her in a wheelchair to make the journey feasible. Still, she could walk shorter distances, and take care of herself. Still, her hair was perfectly coiffed and she was wearing her impeccable designer clothing and her favorite jewelry. My brother is the one who noticed, as we wheeled her the few blocks to the restaurant, that she had become invisible. People always remark how beautiful she is (and with good reason), but in a wheelchair, as beautiful as she still was, nobody saw her. Oddly, from my vantage point behind her, I was pushing a veritable queen, or at least a force of nature.
As I stare out the window of her hospital room now, I can see 59th Street Bridge, in all its splendor, and I can see the tram lumbering by every so often. I can see me and my mom through the windows, giggling, feelin' groovy, taking it all in just for the hell of it.
