Dear Kim:
My mother is having a hard time with the move.
Yesterday, when we were waiting for a cab from the airport, some unsuspecting
person—probably a tourist—inadvertently cut into the line.
The cab organizer cussed him out like he had committed grand larceny.
We're not in Kansas any more, Dorothy, I said to my mother. She smiled
wanly and leaned against me as we rode in the cab, flinching at the
sounds of jackhammers and people shouting in the streets.
Ohmigod, she kept repeating. Ohmigod.
I suddenly flashed on what I like about the Midwest. We are not hicks
or dullards, as so often depicted by Easterners. We are warm but polite.
(Kim: Strange how we think of polite as not warm.)
We wait our turn in line and do not assume that our lives or
needs supersede anyone else's.
I wrested myself away from that geographic valentine as if to read my
mother's mind.
This isn't loud, I said. It's vibrant. The city is alive.
She sighed and began to sweat profusely.
Why was she wearing a long sleeved sweater at the end of May? Where
were her summer clothes?
Before we could get inside at my brother's, her diuretic suddenly kicked
in from all the excitement and she had an accident.
She was almost too exhausted for me to help her bathe and change her
clothes.
That worried me. My mother is fastidious. I decided to wait until tomorrow
and see if this sudden change in behavior is temporary. Circumstantial.
Come talk to me, she said.
I went into the guest room to lay next to her, put my hand over hers
and she fell into a pained open mouthed sleep.
Today, she walked slowly and unsteadily as we went to see her new home,
happily, amazingly located just down the block and around the corner
from my brother.
My brother, ever on a schedule, bounded through the apartment, calling
out various changes and improvements.
Just a minute, my mother said, clinging to my arm as we stood in the
foyer, a few feet from the doorway.
(Kim: My
parents always fought us living our lives for them, or even helping
them in anyway. Even to the end, my dad wanted to be left alone to
his own devices. You are really able to share this difficult time
with and for your parents.)
I'm overwhelmed, she said
to me. Am just overwhelmed.
I know it is not the old place, I said.
And I am thinking, it is not the old place on the old block in the old
city with your old friends near my sister.
But I am saying, I can understand that you feel overwhelmed. I feel
a bit overwhelmed, too.
Look how beautiful the floors are. Ian did a great job sanding them.
Imagine how nice it will be when we put in your own things. The
paintings from Haiti and your old leather couch.
(Kim: Did
Ian really sand the floors. It doesn't sound like something a Jewish
scientist would do?)
Then she and my brother and
I went to the lower east side to look at light fixtures.
Later,
Joan
Thursday, June 1, 2006