I'll remember you," Intoned my mother in a threatening voice.
I groaned inwardly, hoping desperately that she would not say another word.
The six of us - my husband, two young daughters, and my mother and brother, who were visiting us from their homes in Calgary - had just spent a very pleasant two hours wandering the Vancouver waterfront. The day was sunny and warm and we decided to extend our walk into Gastown to listen to the Steam Clock. When we realized that our parking meter was about to expire, my guilt and worry about an expensive parking ticket kicked into high gear, and my mother, who is cut from the same cloth, decided we needed to head back to the car quickly. My husband, however, is stitched differently: he figured if we were meant to get a parking ticket, it would happen, whether we made it back two minutes or twenty after expiry, and he was not going to ruin a perfectly wonderful day with a mad dash for the car.
Any discussion was just going to waste valuable time, so my mother, brother, younger daughter, and I hustled off, thinking we would just make it back in time to either plug the meter or drive the car away.
We did make it, just in time to see the traffic cop busily writing up the ticket, just as the meter ticked over to EXPIRED.
"Please, officer, the meter just expired, and we were just going to leave," I said in a reasonable tone.
He kept writing and ignored me completely, as though I didn't exist.
The cop seemed just a trifle too keen to issue this ticket, and I had almost resigned myself to having to pay a fine - I had, after all, in front of witnesses, admitted the meter had expired.
But my mother had other ideas.
"Why are you not listening to my daughter?" she demanded. "She asked you politely."
No response. My mother was just as invisible, inconsequential, as I.
However, she was not going to go quietly. She stepped directly in front of the man, literally, right under his nose. He was probably 220 pounds and considerably taller than this small, elderly person who topped out at five feet on a good day.
Glaring up at him, she said those infamous words that made me wince and expect the worst.
"I'll remember you."
Forced to make eye contact with this fierce little woman, the traffic cop suddenly seemed to shrink in stature. Without a word, he slowly removed the ticket from his book, tore it into pieces, and walked away, vanquished. Perhaps the possibility of being cursed crossed his mind.
I had never seen my mother like that before, and although I can't recall exactly when this occurred, I believe it was around the time that she announced she would no longer step out of anyone's way on the sidewalk.
"I'm tired of always being pushed off the sidewalk," she announced. "It's time other people moved over. I am old and I deserve some respect!"
From that point forward, she walked everywhere with dogged determination, always keeping to the right side of the sidewalk, but never deviating from her set course when confronted by people walking towards her, sometimes two and three abreast. To my astonishment, she prevailed; even if a collision seemed imminent, people actually moved. I have tried this myself and it has never worked for me: I am inevitably forced to squeeze myself up against the side of a building, step off the sidewalk onto grass, mud, or worse, dive into a bush or leap off the curb, especially since the right side of the sidewalk rule seems to have been rendered null and void.
Perhaps the magical aura that sent the traffic cop scuttling from my mother's glare emanated from her on her daily walks. Whatever the explanation, she sailed on, unperturbed, in the face of the ill-mannered, the oblivious, old and young alike - and always with a cheerful attitude and a smile on her face. For my mother was not the glowering sort at all. She embodied what was once known, in the most positive way possible, a true Christian spirit, accepting all exactly as they were, making no judgments, and wishing everyone only good things. What she could not tolerate was injustice, which was why the traffic cop was treated to the sharp edge of her tongue.
Throughout her life, my mother was what her older sister called "ein Heimchen" - literally, a house cricket, little homebody, but a richly laden term suggestive of a meek, deferential, perhaps subservient, painfully polite demeanour. I would not have thought of her as subservient, necessarily, but she respected authority in all its forms and never saw authority in herself until long after she retired. For many years prior to that, she worked at service jobs to put food on the table for her family and ensure that her husband was looked after when he was no longer able to work, and she did so with a quiet dignity and grace.
The one thing she could never be accused of being was colourless: my mother loved brilliant, vibrant colours and dressed herself accordingly. She never left the house without being perfectly coiffed and made up. The world, she said, deserved nothing less than her best, and although that could be perceived as simple arrogance, it was precisely the opposite, and she loved when the world gave her its best back.
With all of these layers of diversity and complexity that made my mother such a compelling person, in a quiet, understated way, perhaps I should have noticed when she began to express her fierceness. Perhaps if I had paid closer attention, I might have perceived some signals that something was amiss, all the while that I applauded her emerging feistiness. She had, after all, evolved considerably since the death of her husband, my father, coming into strength, independence, curiosity, and adventure in ways not evident before.
Of course, we don't really see our parents as people beyond our limited scope of experience with them, as their children, even as adults with children ourselves. We imagine them, in our wilful blindness, living forever, or at the very least, always being with us somehow.
It might have been around this time that my mother became more and more steeped in her routines.
Until she was 79, she travelled to Europe on her own, stood up to her domineering older sister, looked after her grandchildren whenever she could, performed weekly altar duty at her church, taught quilting classes, and was the computer guru for the seniors who lived in her condo.
With all of the many things she could and did do, I probably was not paying attention to those she didn't - or refused to - do. I chalked up oddities to momentary lapses, always an easy thing to do when they are mostly few and far between. Ascribing some apparently frugal tendencies to her unwillingness to spend money was also not a large leap, although her frugality was sporadic and unpredictable.
My mother the quilter never hesitated to invest in spectacularly beautiful fabrics for her stash; in the most innovative electronic sewing machine designed for quilting, at a time when most of us were toiling away on basic machines that could sew straight and zigzag seams; in the latest cutting wheels, cutting boards, scissors, and other tools that were simply beyond the ken of mere mortals. Her sewing room was a wonder of creativity, gadgetry, and technology, and she always had multiple quilting projects, at various stages approaching completion, festooned on every available surface in the room. And even with a stash that would have made her favourite quilting supply store owner drool with envy, when a new idea struck, she had to rush out and purchase just the right fabrics to make the idea manifest.
However?.
"Mom, what is that godawful racket?" I yelled, with my hands over my ears.
The howling, whistling, whining buzz stopped abruptly.
"What racket?" she asked from the other room, from which the noise emanated.
"It's stopped now," I replied, "but it sounded like something was being tortured."
The howling started up again, so I looked around the corner into my mother's bedroom. I was staying with her for a few days on a visit from Vancouver and, although I had never heard anything like it, it was clearly a familiar sound to her.
My mother was standing in front of her mirror, calmly drying her hair with a blow dryer that could best be described as being in the last throes of its existence. Not only was it emitting the horrendous cacophany of howls and shrieks, it was also giving off sparks - fortunately not at its business end that she directed at her hair, but from the end that served as the air intake at the back.
I yanked the cord out of the wall.
"What on earth are you doing?" she demanded, wheeling around to face me.
"What on earth am I doing? What on earth are you doing??" I fired back. "Are you crazy? You could have started a fire with that thing! How long has it been doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"Making that godawful racket! And making sparks!"
"It's always sounded like that. There's nothing wrong with it," she retorted. "Sparks? I don't know what you're talking about!"
"I can't imagine it's always sounded like that. This thing is deadly!"
"Go away and let me finish drying my hair."
"Oh, no! Let me show you what it looks like when someone else handles it." I plugged the
cord back into the outlet and the dryer immediately began to caw and bray and spark.
"Good heavens!" my mother exclaimed in astonishment. "What have you done to my blow dryer? It was fine until you got your hands on it!"
For the moment, I gawped like a stranded fish. She was quite serious. When I caught my breath again, I took the opportunity to persuade her that I would buy her a new blow dryer, since the old one had given up the ghost and presented a fire risk.
"Well, thank you," she replied, imperturbably, "since you broke it, I'll accept your offer to replace it."
With considerable relief, I purchased a new one for her that day, and returned to Vancouver a bit easier in my mind that a significant danger had been averted. My mother had never been good at spending her hard earned money on essentials.
*********
My phone signalled an incoming text message. It was 2014, my husband, two daughters, and I were in Calgary for my brother's wedding and, while my husband and I were staying in a hotel, our daughters had opted to stay with my mother, their Mema. She had always enjoyed having them stay with her, even though they were no longer the little girls she had spoiled in years before.
"Mema's toaster has INCINERATED our bagels, Mom!" my older daughter's message read.
I called my mother.
"Are you having breakfast?" I asked carefully.
"We are!" she exulted. "I'm glad I bought extra bagels, because the first ones were a bit burnt."
"What do you mean, a bit burnt?"
"Well, I forgot to pop the bagels up in time, so they came out a little dark."
"What do you mean, a little dark?" I persisted. "And why do you have to pop them up yourself? Can't you turn down the toaster and let it pop them up when they're done?"
"Well, they were black. I opened the window, though."
"You. Opened. The window," I repeated, slowly.
"Yes, of course. The smoke wasn't going to clear on its own," she replied reasonably.
"What's wrong with the toaster, Mom?" I asked pointedly.
"Nothing at all. I manage fine. It just doesn't pop things up on its own anymore, so I just do it myself when the toast is done."
"Except you didn't today?"
"Well, I got distracted doing something with the girls and forgot. It happens sometimes, but I usually remember when I smell something burning."
"How burnt, Mom?" I asked in an ominous tone.
"Very black. Close to ashes."
"How long has this been a problem? You could have burnt the place down!" I raged.
"Oh, not very likely. The toaster works fine, as long as I don't forget to pop the toast up myself," she repeated reassuringly.
"Unplug that toaster and eat your bagels untoasted," I texted my daughter. "We will buy Mema a new one and bring it over when we pick you all up for the wedding."
*******
"I discovered a new trick," announced my mother on our weekly phone call.
I groaned inwardly, wondering what new discovery she wanted to share.
"You know that I like to drink my coffee piping hot, so I always heat a cup of water to boiling in the microwave, and pour the water out before pouring my coffee into the hot cup. The coffee stays hotter much longer that way," she enthused.
"That is a good trick," I acknowledged.
"That's not the best part! I figured, why waste a cup of water? I can just heat up the empty cup in the microwave and skip the water altogether!"
"Mother! Promise me that you will not skip the water! It's dangerous to heat an empty cup in the microwave. It could cause a fire, or even an explosion!"
"Well, it hasn't happened so far this week. Seems perfectly safe to me!" she retorted archly.
"Please, Mom," I begged. "Even if you don't agree, humour me, okay? Put water in the cup! Better yet, if you don't want to waste water, put your coffee in the cup and then nuke it for half a minute and it will be as hot as you like it."
"Maybe. But it'll taste awful. I don't like nuked coffee."
"Go and have a word with our mother TODAY!!" I texted my brother. "Tell her you will take her microwave away if she ever nukes an empty cup or plate in it again!"
*******
"What is that godawful racket?" I called up the stairs at my mother, who was visiting us from Calgary for a few days.
The noise stopped.
"What racket?" she called back down the stairs.
An earsplitting mechanical screech from the upper floor had me racing up the stairs, presumably to save her from a fate worse than death.
I stood in the doorway to the guestroom, my worst fears realised, staring at my mother, who was wielding?
?her old blow dryer.
The small appliance from hell that I had relegated to the garbage had been resurrected. It sounded, if anything, more demonic than ever, and now spat, not sparks, but flames from its nether end.
"I thought I'd thrown out that old blow dryer and bought you a new one?" I yelled over the din.
My mother turned it off. "Oh, you did, dear. But I can never stand to throw away things that are in perfectly good shape, so I rescued it before I took out the garbage. And I never liked the one you bought me, so I brought it along to give back to you," she explained serenely. "It's in my suitcase."
This time, I was grimly determined that that old blow dryer would never make the trip back to Calgary with its owner, but I would have to be devious.
The next day, as she was packing her suitcase, I watched carefully to see where she put it. Then, when her back was turned, I quickly slipped the old one out and replaced it with the newer one that she had returned to me, hoping that she wouldn't notice my subterfuge.
Once again, I experienced a great sense of relief when we deposited my mother's suitcase on the baggage conveyor at the airport and watched it tumble out of sight. After we'd said our good byes, I told myself that she wouldn't stay angry with me for very long once she discovered I had tricked her.
She called a few days later to say she was settling back in at home, although she missed us all very much.
"And, you know, I'm so glad that you didn't argue with me about my blow dryer. It sounds so much better now that I have it back home again. Maybe Vancouver is just too humid, and that's why it made such an awful noise there."
********
"Eleven jars of Nutella!" my brother texted me one Saturday morning, not long after our mother had her cataract surgery.
He usually took her grocery shopping on Saturday mornings, but since she was recuperating, he had taken her list and done the job himself, returning to put his purchases away in her kitchen.
"Why buy eleven?" I texted back.
"I bought one," came the reply. "She had 10 in the cupboard."
"So why did you buy another one?"
"It was on the list! I didn't know she already had 10!"
A tiny alarm was beginning to sound for me. "What else didn't you know?"
"Obviously quite a bit. She wanted vinegar. She already has vinegar. Ditto rice."
"Anything else?" I wondered.
"I think you'd better come. This is all a bit much for me." I could see him throwing up his hands in exasperation and decided it would be a good idea to go for a short visit.
I couldn't really fault my brother, who for years had been a devoted, attentive son to our mother, well beyond the call of duty: he took her grocery shopping weekly, drove her to medical appointments, the hair dresser, church on Sundays when it snowed. Our mother had never driven a car, and had walked or taken the bus wherever she needed to go, except in her later years when some of those treks had become too challenging, especially if things needed to be carried. She had developed painful arthritis in one knee and, while waiting for surgery, found her ability to walk those distances that had once been routine seriously curtailed.
While his willingness to run errands and take our mother to appointments was laudable, my brother had little interest in meddling in our mother's more personal affairs, which included what she kept in her cupboards or fridge, which doctor she was seeing when he drove her to the appointment, whether she paid her bills on line or on the phone, what she watched on television, and how often she did her laundry. He was happy to set up her television and VCR so she could manage them on her own, and to place little stickies on the remote control keys. But he was not prepared to monitor her activities, quite confident that she was capable of running her own life. She was fine.
But those eleven jars of Nutella had given him pause, and he was suddenly uncomfortably sure that someone needed to do some meddling, but that someone would most assuredly not be him.
And so it was that I found myself in my mother's apartment, ostensibly because of an irresistible urge to spend a weekend with her, which made her incredibly happy, although what I was really there for was to confront those eleven jars of Nutella. Among other inexplicable conundrums, responsibility for which my brother had been blocked from taking by our stubbornly resistant mother.
I confess with some shame that my patience was sorely tried that weekend, and I very likely upset my mother greatly by laying bare all of her foibles, eccentricities, helplessness. We do have unreasonable expectations of our parents to always be present, and to function to the high standards they have always led us to expect of them.
The weekend angered me. I cleaned out all of the kitchen cupboards and the fridge. Threw out long expired food. Organized pots, pans, bowls, dishes, cups. Matched lids to containers, threw out anything without a mate. Was mystified by opened packages of crackers stuffed into the cupboard with cleaning supplies, and threw them in the garbage. I tackled the medicine cabinet and discarded expired medications ruthlessly.
Once all my reorganizing and cleaning and grouping and regrouping was complete, I labelled every single cupboard, so she would know where things could be found and put, all the while respecting her original organization of everything: PLATES, CUPS, BOWLS, BREAKFAST FOODS, SOUPS, CONDIMENTS, SPICES, RICE AND PASTA, SNACKS, CLEANING SUPPLIES, POTS, PANS, JUNK DRAWER. All the while asking, Why, why, why? My mother was an intelligent, independent woman, and I was baffled by the incomprehensible confusion and mess tucked away behind closed cupboard doors that had once been tidy and reflective of my mother's innate sense of order and fastidiousness.
I wish I had been kinder. I wish I hadn't shown my impatience. I wish I had understood that she was not responsible for the disorder, that there were other forces at play that I was neither able nor ready to grapple with.
She cried. I lectured. She subsided into silence. I believed I had made my point and that the new order would prevail.
We hugged and made up, neither of us wanting to part on unfriendly terms. I love my mother and only wanted the best for her. She promised me she would pay attention to everything and try harder. Thanked me for all my hard work. When I left to fly home, I was convinced that she understood everything I had tried to impress upon her, that all my labelling of cupboards and updating all her best befores would make life easier and allow her to carry on as before, since all I had really done - so I fondly believed - was re-establish her systems from Before.
"I think you must have forgotten something here," my mother announced in her phone call a few days later. "It's this strange thing that you plug in, and when you turn it on, it makes a terrible whirring noise."
"I don't think I forgot anything, and I can't picture what you mean. Can you describe it for me?"
"Well, it's white, And it has a switch to turn it on. And it makes a terrible whirring sound."
All of the attempts to elicit some information that would help me to identify this mystery object failed utterly. I could not imagine what I might have left behind.
"Maybe you should put it on the kitchen table for when K comes over on the weekend. He can have a look and tell us what he thinks it might be," I suggested to her, and she agreed.
K, my brother, texted me a few days later: "Mystery solved. It's her hand mixer."
I texted him back: "Find the beaters and donate it to the Sally Ann. If she doesn't know what it is, she'll never use it again anyway."
An efficient solution, rational and unemotional. And yet.
I understand now the source of my impatience and anger: my mother was no longer the person she used to be. Whether I was ready to accept the person she was becoming was a problem of a different order. Whether I was prepared to abandon all rational thinking to help my mother retain a small sense of an ordered world was a question I had not even begun to formulate, much less answer. Whether I was able to embrace a necessary magical thinking in the moment was a conundrum that still makes a fool of me. I know I was not gracious at the time. I also know that my mother forgave me, as she always has, my thoughtlessness and stubbornness, and that, whatever she has become, the glimmers of her deep Christian spirit remain.
It has been a long and painful good bye. I have missed my mother for a long time. But I know that when she fades out of this world, the person she was will remain with me, as that person shaped me, even as she forgot who I was.
