Mother on my mind

Woke up this morning thinking about my mother and wishing she felt better.

I told Steve last night that the worst thing about watching your parents decline is that it makes you re-think everything you thought you knew about them. He said, "Not me," and then he said, "Wait. Yeah, it does."

I guess that's not as tragic as I think it is. I mean, I spend most of my life re-thinking what I think I know about something or someone. Why should it be any different with my mother?

Tried to call her last night and this time someone who answered passed the request along to someone who knew who she was and that person went to find her and then came back with the message that Mom would call me back. She wasn't feeling well.

So, maybe she thought it was Mary, because Mary calls more often than I do, or maybe she thought it was me, thinking that I was overdue for a phone call, or maybe she thought it was me the same way that I thought it was time to give her a call. Some people are just connected to each other that way.

I don't like to think about her there. At the psyche unit, on the 8th floor. Joe told me that there are more nurses and doctors running around there than there are patients.

If she'd only. If I'd only.

I spend a lot of time thinking about four years ago (or was it five?) when I found her in her room, stretched out on the bed, hands folded on her chest, like she was laid out for a wake. I stared at her and she opened her eyes and looked at me. "Marie? I tried to kill myself last night." And all I could think to say was, "It didn't work."

If I had said, "Let me give you another opportunity at it, shall I? I'll be back in an hour," then maybe this would all be done. Betty would have gone out when she wanted to.

Instead, there is all this wriggling on the end of a hook going on.

I know she's crazy because a sane woman wouldn't put her kids through this. But how crazy is she?

Because, I think that craziness must be on a continuum, like autism and diabetes and pregnancy. I think you can be a little bit crazy, or only crazy in one aspect of your life. Mom seems to be crazy by turns. Like, she's normal, or at least, placid, for a few months, and then, she's nuts, and wants to die.

I envy my friend's grandmother, who still lives alone. I think it'd be easier to die, or at least, to quit living, if you lived alone.

Mom's wish to quit living is being carried out in front of a live audience, and it's an audience that wishes to have a vote.

Is this being very cynical to wish that she could just get on with dying?

If only she'd taken pills other than blood pressure medication. But that was only because she wanted to show her doctor who was boss.

I remember thinking that it was the most clear sign yet that she was damaged. Because who in their right mind would take blood pressure pills to try to kill themselves, especially if they had sleeping pills right there?

Someone who just needed attention?

But I seem to be incapable of giving that attention to someone. I hoard it, dole it out in bits and pieces. I think Mom needed more love from me than I had to give her.

I wonder if my lack of demonstrative loving made her want to do something to get my attention and the doctor's attention. Made her want to do something like threaten suicide but not actually do it.

I think, What is it you want? and it's like I'm screaming into a big wide dark hole. I don't think there is any answer coming out of it.

But I think that I must know what it is that she wants already and I can't give it to her.

Joe College

It's almost noon on Wednesday morning and I'm driving my son to the community college campus where he's dual enrolled for the summer in English Comp and Introduction to Sociology. He doesn't seem very enthusiastic about this latest adventure in learning. Maybe it has something to do with the layover he's got between his classes.

"What am I supposed to do for 2 1/2 hours?" he whines.

"Explore, why don't you? Go in and out of all the buildngs. Find the library, check out the bookstore, see where everyone hangs out," I say.

He looks unconvinced.

"You could do your homework," I offer.

"Pfft," he says. "Maybe I'll just find a place to sleep."

I know he was up late the night before, talking online with his friends. Not for the first time, I find myself wishing his friends' parents were better at enforcing bedtime curfews than I am. I think about asking him if he'd like to stay home today. But I have a policy about calling in sick for school. You have to be throwing up to stay home. If you're not throwing up you don't get to call in sick. My son looks bone tired this morning but he's not sick. Besides, this is the first class of the summer semester. He has to go.

He leans his head against the window and pretends to be asleep. "Whoof," he mutters. I ignore him.

I know what his problem is. I recognize the signs. He doesn't want to go to school at the community college. He wants to cuddle up to the computer in his bedroom instead, talking and typing with his friends online. It's warm and familiar on the internet. He knows everybody there and they know him. Community college is scary. Anything can happen to you out in the real world.

My son has always had trouble fitting into the role of brilliant student that I wanted for him. He ignored all attempts to help him organize his work, instead crumpling and jamming his papers any old way into his books. I could spend any amount of money on school clothes every fall and it wouldn't matter since he wore his shirts inside out and backwards anyway, claiming it was "his look."

I remember when he going through a particularly slovenly period in middle school and I put my foot down and told him he had to change his shirt and underwear at least once a day. It was months later that I discovered he was layering on five t-shirts at the beginning of the week, then taking one off every school day. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have let him get away with it, but it seemed funny at the time.

Today we get to the campus and I walk to the bookstore with him to get his book for his sociology class. There's a line at the checkout that reaches nearly to the back of the store. This is not good. My son is already nervous about college. If we have to wait here for very long it means he's going to be late for his first class of the day. But there doesn't seem to be any choice. He needs this book for his evening class.

After a while we become aware of the muted commentary offered by three girls standing behind us and realize that they're directly contradicting everything one of the cashiers is telling her current customer.

Cashier: "You have to pre-pay for us to order the book for this class."

Girls: "Huh-uh." "Don't do it." "Ain't happenin'."

Cashier: "We'll call you as soon as it comes in."

Girls: "No way." "Huh-uh." "I'm warnin' you."

Cashier: "If it's not the right book, you can return it for a store credit."

Girls: "Don't believe her." "It's a lie." "Huh-uh."

By the time we leave the store, my son is laughing out loud, much less worried, and indeed late for class. I could kiss those girls, but they'd likely not stand for it. ("Huh-uh." "Don't do it." "Back off, yo.")

As we head towards the building where his English Comp class is he separates from me and runs up the stairs to the second floor. "See you later," I call and he turns and waves, then takes the remaining steps two at a time.

I walk to the car and tell myself it's going to be fine. He'll like his classes, he'll enjoy his professors, and he'll find a place to fit in. That's the good thing about community college. There are all sorts of people here. Older people trying to improve their situations, younger people being prodded by their controlling parents. He's bound to find people like himself. Friends in the real world to go along with his virtual ones.

It's not like it's the first time I've watched a child grow up and become more independent. It's just the first time I've seen it happen with this particular child. It's hard letting go of the kid you think you know in order to for him to become the person he knows he is. It's okay, though. We're going to go through this learning experience together.

Nick Armstrong, boy of steel

One day, when Nick was a sixth grader in middle school, he came home and I asked him how it went.

"I'm sore."

"Really? Why is that?"

"Well, we had to do the President's Physical Fitness test today in P.E. and so Coach told us all to do 25 push-ups. And I said, 'Twenty-five? That's not hard. I can do fifty!' and Coach said 'Oh, you can, can you?' and I said, 'Yes, I can. As a matter of fact, for seven points, I can do 150!' and Coach said, 'Okay. But if you don't do 150 then you lose 7 points," and I said, 'How about 300 push ups for 20 points?' and Coach said, 'You're on!' so then I did 300 push ups."

"You did 300 push ups?"

"Yes, I did. And Coach said, 'Well, Nick, you sure surprised me. I didn't think you could do it,' and he took out his little notebook and wrote down 'Nick Oliver - 120 points' in it. Some kid wanted to give me a high five but I had to hit his hand with my head because I couldn't lift my arms."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, Mom, I managed to get up off the floor without using my arms, but when I got to the locker room, I couldn't get my padlock open to get my clothes out. I turned the combination using my teeth and I was trying to push it open with my nose but I wasn't having any luck and some kid came in and saw me and asked me if I needed any help and I said, 'Sure,' and he opened my padlock and I got my clothes on. Then I backed into my backpack and ran for the bus."

That night I gave him an ibuprofen and made him soak in the tub. He slept like a rock. Next day when he came home I asked if the kids had started calling him "Pushup Boy" and he said, "No, Mom. They're calling me 'Armstrong.'"

What I've learned (since yesterday)

Living on a budget is a lot harder than I thought it would be and even though the little budget monitor in Quicken with the colored bars says I've overspent in six categories with two weeks left in January, I'm in the yellow in six more and green in the other twenty so it's all right.

My herbal tea tastes a lot better with lemon in it and it's worth $3.99 a bag to have the lemons in the house so I can drink it that way.

My family prefers to talk my ear off at the end of the day when I'm flat on my back in bed and hovering between guilty attentiveness and desperately sought after oblivion.

Some days my boys are perfectly ready to sit at the table and study math or listen to French tapes but other days they only settle down once they've been outside and beaten each other over the head with foam wrapped pvc pipes.

Darning a sock using six different colors of embroidery floss is a lot more satisfying than using just plain white. Sometimes I wish the holes were on the tops of my socks so I could more readily admire my patch jobs.

Doing embroidery is the best way to watch a scary movie because I'm so concentrated on what I'm doing that I can't see the graphic torture scenes that seem to be prominently featured in every dvd we get the the library lately and which will haunt me until the day I die.

The mail does get delivered on Martin Luther King Jr.'s actual birthday so this year my quarterly tax payment for January 15 will be one day late.

I don't need to print out my favorite color palette to use for a reference because it's in my head.

Drying sheets on a clothes line in the sun beats tumble drying every single time even if it takes two days on account of rain.

When I call my mother and there's an awkward silence in the middle of our conversation it's because she's holding the phone away from her ear and she can't tell that I've stopped talking.

I can sit on the couch for three hours at a time watching a football game between two teams that I couldn't care less about.

Sometimes when a child gets up in the middle of the night it's not because he's in agony from a muscle cramp or having an asthma attack or sleepwalking but just because he needs to use the bathroom.

As long as my son wants me to stop whatever I'm doing to come admire his computer animation project I will do it, even if I don't share his same fascination for mechanical killing machines and stick men.

Popcorn with butter and salt and Parmesan cheese will never take the place of Lay's Potato Chips with sour cream but it's pretty close.

The little signs indicating the changing seasons in northern Florida include: lizards and window frogs disappearing sometime around Christmas; red maples putting out new leaves at New Year's; seed packets going on sale at Walgreen's ten for a dollar two weeks before the Super Bowl.

Driving like a jerk just happens when you're in an SUV. When I drive my Natural Disaster other drivers slam on their brakes anticipating that I'll cut them off, so I usually do because when everyone is going 80 mph it's not a good idea to be messing with people's expectations.

Quality time

Today was the usual grab the stack of newspapers from the porch, the wagon from the garage and a pair of drink boxes and cookies and run out to the elementary school to pick the boys up from the bus stop kind of day. It's a good break for me. I fold the papers and listen to Nick and Sam tell me about their respective days at school. A little island of quality time in a hectic sea of work-related stress.

Nick is first in the car and I ask him how it went.

"Terrible," he says.

I immediately suspect the worst but I try to see if I can put it in perspective for him. "Was it a terrible day the whole day long, or just in the morning? Or maybe just before you left?"

"The whole day."

"What happened?"

"Some kid knocked me over."

"On the playground?"

He nods.

I think about how some people’s kids shouldn’t be allowed out on a leash. "What did you do?"

"Told the aide."

Relieved he didn't haul off and punch somebody, I praise his levelheadedness.

"What else happened?"

"I had to stay in for study class."

Dreading the advent of another behavior report, I ask, "How come?"

"We were writing something in class and I didn't finish it."

My heart plummets. "Oh, no, Nick, you're kidding."

At this point, Nick, carefully noting my reaction to this recital of the day’s events, can’t contain himself any longer. He starts laughing uproariously, holding his belly and rocking in his seat, shouting "Pulled your leg! Pulled your leg! Hahahahahahaha! You fall for it every time! Hahahahahaha."

"I hate you, Nick," I say between gritted teeth.

Now Sam announces that he's got his finger stuck in the bolt hole for the trailer hitch which has been rolling around on the floor of my car since spring. It weighs about 10 pounds and he's starting to panic because he can't free his now swollen and hurting finger.

I sigh a long suffering sigh and tell him to come with me. We leave Nick in the car and walk into the school in search of a soap dispenser. Everyone we meet along the way smiles a greeting. Nobody notices that my son is attached to a trailer hitch even though Sam is doing his best to bring it everyone's attention by saying things like, "It''s not my fault," and "It was an accident."

I locate a classroom with a sink and dribble soap on Sam's finger. Then, a little twist, and voila! he's free. He smiles a relieved smile and I begin to see how I can use this to get even with Nick. "Put your finger back in the hole and follow me," I tell him.

We get back to the car, Sam looking convincingly morose and me more grim than usual.

Nick asks, "What's going on?" and I tell him we have to take Sam to the hardware store so we can buy a hacksaw to cut his hand off with. "What?" "Yeah, the soap didn't work." "You're kidding, right? Are you really going to cut his hand off?" He's a little apprehensive but more clearly fascinated by the idea, which is right where I want him.

"Hahahahahaha! Got you! Hahahahaha! You should've seen the look on your face! Hahahahahaha!"

"Aarrrgghh!"

I love quality time.