an umbilical connection

The airport feels empty, lifeless, like it's in need of bustle and hurry, not what I expect on the Saturday before Christmas. There's a bit of a line at the Horizon desk but security is wide open, just a several minute wait. At any time I can or could have stopped, changed my mind. Gone home. When I reached MasterPark and found there was no place to park my car. When I left behind the strap for my carry-on when I went through the TSA security check point. When Cougar and I pause to eat a Wolfgang Puck pizza in the Concourse C lounge--Cougar watches from the mesh window of his cat carrier as I eat the pizza, all of it. When I leave behind my (pricey) Baby & Co woof scarf on the tarmac and watch a woman scurry away with it in her grasp. At any of these moments I could have said--I'm not going after all. But I don't. I just keep on moving towards Idaho and away from Mom.

It's not until I feel the plane shudder and lift off the runway, its wheels groaning back up into the plane's belly, that I know for sure I'm not changing my mind, not turning back. Only one decision seems possible.

When the stewardess, her name is Jane, comes by with beverages--no snacks it seems, another casualty of cost cutting measures--I opt for Talking Rain, though the complementary Cabernet sounds tempting. There are no window coverings in the Q400, so late afternoon sun heats the glass, my knees, the collapsible table I've set my drink on. It's a swelter in Row 4, my own private sauna, despite how cold it is on the other side of the glass, at least thirty below.

I can't feel the plane move, but I can see the progress we make as rivers, wintered-down crops, roads winding into wilderness pass beneath my bird's-eye-view, a strange compression of time that transposes Washington, Oregon and Idaho into an hour-and-a-half commute rather than the 850 mile, twelve hour drive it really is. By the time we reach the Snake River Canyon, I feel a million miles from Mom. I've traveled so far there's no possible way of turning back, even if I wanted. It's the abstraction, I think, how six miles above sea level, separated from the normal commotions of our lives, we've no context to understand ourselves. Just the plastic faux-leather seats...the recirculated, pressurized air...the disconnected snippets of conversation between strangers we manage to decipher above the grind and whirl of the twin engines--"When I went to Vegas...my daughter is five...I'm meeting my son for the holidays..." Suddenly we are cut free from our lives and for ninety minutes become unburdened of who we are.

Who is my mother, I wonder up here in my cocoon of flight? Who am I in relation to this difficult, complicated, often loving mother of mine? I've collected so many pieces of her life these past few months, secrets she has chosen not to tell me. Recently I came across ten sheets of paper, all of different sizes, obviously torn from ten different notebooks of paper. Written on each are the answers to four questions: "words to describe," "things to accent," "things to disguise," "suggestions." These appear to be questions asked and answered within the context of an exercise at Mom's workplace in the fashion marketing department of F&N. I'm fascinated as here are ten different people's impressions of my mother, Dorin Schuler--who she is--in the early 1950s as a young married woman. "Tiny, dark, very brown eyes, mild mannered and quiet," writes one observer. Another writes, "Feminine, petite, poised, not fussy feminine, but more tailored. Depth, sensitivity." Another co-worker with the initials "VH" (is this the Vi of Mom's unmailed letter?) writes, "Modest, executive, conservative." Under the suggestion portion of this same answer, VH admonishes Mom--"Don't be conservative! Your coloring is exotic and you can accent it by wearing bright colors...Use that bright smile all you can!" Words that appear repeatedly are--"shy," "reserved," "nice figure," "feminine," "pleasing personality," "self-conscious," in need of more "color." The consensus seems to be that Mom needs to be more forth coming, more self-assured, not as reserved. As one co-worker writes--"Come out to people more often, we like it when you did" (original emphasis).

These F&N comments are revealing, as they prefigure the mother I have come to know so many years later--stylish and beautiful but at the same time overly private to the point of secrecy. Even then, in the heyday of her marriage to my father, in the years before so many disappointments accumulated and before the responsibilities of motherhood, Mom was reserved, private...an enigma to those around her.

Who is my mother? Is she the over-achiever thirteen year old who writes in her diary (just one entry) that "today is a good day" because she receives an "A" on her geography test, a "B" on an English drill and a "B+" on her science test? In this same entry, she's carefully and systematically "planning my Christmas presents" with their projected costs: "$1.00" for Dad, "$1.00" for Mom, with a note of "lemonade tray," "$1.00" for Marguerite and "$.25" for each of her friends, Dorothy, Catherine, Betty and Mary. She calculates she has "$2.25" so far and has "$2.00" yet to earn.

Or is she the petulant, letter-writing lover abandoned by my father during the war to face the rigors of her own mother's illness and eventual death? "It's awful," she writes, to sit with her hour after hour watching her suffer as she does."

Or is she the newly married woman who revels in the pleasures of her marriage, writing to a friend Vi that her favorite hour is 11:00 at night when she and her husband talk intimately about their day over coffee or tea?

Or is she the tender soon-to-be-mother of baby Christine who writes her two young sons a goodbye letter as she's going into labor? "Dear Peter and Eric," she writes, "Daddy and I are leaving now to go to the hospital--and you boys are fast asleep, so I cannot say goodbye. Perhaps by the time you wake up you will have a new brother or sister. Or it might take a little longer. Anyway very very soon you will have a new member in our family. I will miss you boys while I am gone in the hospital, but I will be home after a few days rest at the hospital...Be good boys and help Marguerite all you can. She will be very busy with five boys to take care of. Remember I love you very much."

Or is she the loving, grieving daughter who has yet to get over the death of her mother, experiencing each day--even now--as an opportunity for regret, for all the things she should have but didn't do for her mom.

Or is she resentful, widowed woman whose comment on sex is "not fun" and who views marriage as something she'd rather not engage in twice, though she's quick to say that her marriage was "fine."

Or is she the exuberant woman of eighty-five who, despite her infirmities, can yowl like a coyote when we bite down hard into the pleasures of the Bread Queen's latest culinary wonder?

Or is she the angry, unforgiving mother who insists her eldest son is an "ugly" man who needs, even to this day, to be taught a "lesson."

Or is she the Mirabella patient in Room 201 who all the staff and aides love? They come to her room every day just to say goodnight, to give and receive a smile from her, to ask about her day, to share their Filipino delicacies. The outpouring is phenomenal.

Or is she the Alzheimer's stoke victim who cannot get through her day without an out-rush of tears and a dosage of Lorazapane or Serequel, the same woman who tells me, between sobs, "I don't...don't want to die."

Or is she the woman who reports with a smile, or a semblance of a smile, that she's "still here," still alive and that really this is okay. Life is okay.

Which mother is she?

The stale recycled air whispers nothing in reply. There's just the chatter around me from my cabin mates, anonymous noises that wing themselves across aisles, over arm rests and seats.

"I'm going back," I say to myself, to the tray reclined in my lap, to the new Lorrie Moore novel I've opened but haven't begun to read. "Back to my life." There's anger there in my voice, resentment, despite how softly I've spoken. What I know but can't quite say aloud--that under all my kisses, my lipstick moons, Mom's still the same difficult, unforgiving, fascinating, exuberant, sometimes-loving mother I've always known. Nothing has changed.

And yet everything has changed.

Later, after the plane touches down at the Freidman Memorial Airport, after I've taken the A-1 cab and listened to the driver, Bubba, recount his version of what's been happening in the Valley since I've been gone, after I've dragged my suitcase and Cougar's cat carrier through several inches of new snow and into my house and waited for the heat to turn on, the humidity to rise, I call Mom.

Over the phone, I feel our disconnection. The phone line's there, but she's not listening or maybe just not talking. I can't tell which.

"Mom," I say, "Mom?"

Silence, but I can hear other voices, maybe aides in the hallway or Lorna talking on her cell phone, so I know we still have a connection.

"How was your day?"

Silence.

"Did you have any visitors?"

Silence.

"There's not much snow here--just a couple of inches. But it's cold. 8 degrees."

Silence.

"I miss you Mom...wish you were here."

And when I say this, I realize this is true--that I do wish she was here... that she was well and could travel and walk without need of a wheelchair...that the cold didn't bother her like it does...that she and I could drag out the Christmas ornaments from her garage and garland a tree...that we could go into town, looking for last minute presents at our favorite boutiques, Deja Vu, Sport's Connection, Theodore's...that we'd stop off at Atkinson's to order our Christmas turkey and wait in an interminable line to purchase our groceries for dinner, just like all the other shoppers...that she could turn to me and say, amidst all the chaos of our family's Christmas dinner, "I love you, oh daughter of mine." Christmas will not be Christmas without Mom. Not from here on out.

But instead, there's just silence. And more silence. And the noisy racket my tears would make if Mom was listening, really listening on the other end of the line. What am I feeling as we both breathe into the silence, into the vacuum where our tongues should be speaking instead? Fear...regret...loss...abandonment...loneliness? All of these?

"I'm never going to earn your love," I whisper into the receiver, so quietly I'm sure she's not heard. Her forgiveness, her approval, her affection will always be held in reserve. I know this now. No matter how many hours I occupy a chair at the Mirabella, laughing with Mom, crying with Mom. No matter how many doctors and nurses and nurse's aides I oversee, making sure Mom is safe. No matter how many cards we make, slices of bread we eat, kisses we exchange. Because it's not about this. Not about taking or receiving.

"I love you Mom" I say to the silence, between my sobs. "I'll call you...tomorrow. I promise."

And I will.

An umbilical connection keeps us like this, mother and daughter.

No matter what.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--