Perhaps
mothers never mean to sound disappointed in the frequency or duration of the
calls. Perhaps they simply share
information, like a weatherman who simply states, “Today it will rain,” because
there are clouds in the sky. But
somehow, even the simplest statement of, "I haven’t talk to you in awhile…"
seems as laden with potential guilt as an upswept Bosnian mind field.
So,
over the years, through the updates on various illness and aches and pains as
my mother has grown to accept her aging, I have tested rituals to help myself
stay calm during these calls with varying degrees of success. Breathe
deeply, I tell myself. It probably means nothing, when I
anticipate her disappointment of yet more plans cancelled.
She
is 82 now, and I approach my fifties with an eager anticipation of the joys of
midlife and with some trepidation of her advancing years. We joke that at 110, she will still be
saying, "We really should take
another road trip before it is too late." But in my heart I know that her days, as for
us all, are numbered. And that one day,
there will be no phone call to both dread and welcome.
I
am reminded of this today when she calls, excited as a teenager with a first
prom date, to tell me the good news that her sister in Germany, who has not
written in years, finally sent a four page letter. Her voice is so bright that I can actually
hear the shine in her eyes that sets her so far apart from others her age…that
absolute enthusiasm for life and eagerness to literally suck the marrow out of
every moment.
In
the midst of translating from German to English the words of her prodigal
sister, she remarks that she needs to
find a new harmonica. It seems she has
been sitting in her chair playing her old harmonica, the one with only one
octave, for her parakeets. "They are very mystified," she
tells me with the glee of an elementary student on a field trip. "Do
you want to hear me play?"
Stifled
in my grown-up ness, I almost stumble and fail to honor the moment. But then I recall those selfless moments when
she eagerly came to my elementary concerts, or suffered my 3 a.m. wake-ups when
a new song would appear in my mind, and I would walk over in the middle of the
night to play it from her.
"I would love
to hear it…"
I manage to spit out, and I hear her lay down the phone as she bumps across the
room to grab the old harmonica and bring it to the phone. In only a moment she is playing the chorus to
some German hymn from her childhood and the notes rift across the lines and
across the years. "I can play Street of Laredo.
Want to hear that?"
I
listen again as she plays the songs of my childhood, wishing with every fiber
of my soul that I could record those songs for the times when I would long have
her here to call. It is one of those
times when you wish with all of your soul you could freeze the moment and hold
it forever in your heart, to honor and remember this indomitable spirit that
gave you life.
She
plays on in the company of parakeets.
Twenty miles away, connected by the invisible notes traveling through
space and time, I sense her joy at living and weep alone on my couch for the
loss to the world when she passes on.
"What do you think?" she asks as the notes fade, and I can only stammer a response through a throat choked by a paroxysm of tears. I remember all those times when I didn't want to talk, all those times when it seemed such a bother to take ten minutes out of my busy life and just listen patiently to her stories…all those times when I wished for her silence. In that instant between the question and the grasping for words to speak, it hits me that soon there will be a time when I would give up anything just to hear her voice again.
"Call me any
time you want, Mom" I hear myself say.
"I love to hear the sound of
you playing that harmonica."
Call me… any time you want.
Published February 2008 in Journeys of Love: Voices of the Heart - (Paperback)
