Family Time

My brother, sister-in-law, and little niece were going to be in Orange County for two days on their way to someplace else, so we organized a reunion of sorts with my sister and my mother too. When people you love come from faraway for a too-short visit, you have to make the most of it, even if it requires delicately negotiating a minute by minute schedule in which each whim and logistic adds exhausting layers of complexity. Or is that just the way it is with my family?

With us, the ramifications and implications of every possible permutation must be closely examined before we get rolling -- behind the scenes, between the lines, and all along the way. How will it be perceived if we meet for coffee at the place closest to the motel where I am staying? Doesn’t that mean everyone is sort of coming to me? But isn’t my motel in a more central location?

Then again, isn't this my sister's home territory, and isn’t she going through some very hard times, so shouldn’t we try to focus on her? But wasn't this supposed to be about our elderly mother meeting her grandchild? What does she have to look forward to, after all?

Are we bad people, though, if we bring our mother right back to the assisted living facility immediately after lunch and take Rose to the Discovery Museum? And will we all be in the mood for dessert at my sister’s house now that she has bought ice cream, cake and decaf for the occasion? Will each of us have adequate time with little Rose? And honestly, don’t some of us tend to be a bit controlling?

To add to the mirth, I broke my toe the other day and I’ve developed a rather comical gait. You wouldn’t think a tiny toe could cause so much discomfort, but whenever I forget and step down normally I experience a momentary surge of agony and it’s back to the limp. Monte has been calling me Festus, which doesn’t help.

And so we converged at my mother’s residence. She had forgotten we were coming and we found her asleep at 11 a.m. and guided her up and out. She wore a bright red sweater and carried her cane, dragging it behind her or swinging it about recklessly. As I hobbled along beside her, my sister observed that I had a triangle-shaped tear in the seat of my pants that occasionally flapped like a sail and revealed a bit of buttock. I tied my sweater around my waist and tried to reclaim my dignity.

At the restaurant, my mother sat at the head of the table looking slightly bewildered. Since her hearing aid never seems functional, I have taken to communicating with her in writing. I asked her in a note how she was doing, and she wrote, in quite coherent cursive: I am too surprised to speak but happy to be with my family.

Rose, meanwhile, took out her tiny diary, undid the little lock, and began to draw what she explained were ‘abstract pitchers’. Then she asked me to tell my mother that at night the dolls come to life in her room to dance and sing in the moonlight. My mother thought this was nice but not particularly unusual. Apparently her own dolls and stuffed animals have a bit of life in them too, but mostly they just listen.

“I sing myself to sleep every night,” she told Rose.

My brother had very much wanted my mother and Rose to meet. “Maybe I’m crazy,” he said, “or too sentimental, but it somehow feels important.”

I agreed. It did seem important, and not something he needed to explain in rational terms.

Our history is complicated, you see.

And it turned out to be a good experience that yielded tender memories in a setting where a few of those were needed. It was delightful to see a tiny little girl in pink shoes walking through the corridors of my mother’s residence. Old faces leaned over from wheelchairs and walkers, trembling hands extended, and Rose was shy but gracious, carrying a brightly colored tote bag from which one of her model horses poked his head, and clutching her doll Sarah, otherwise known as Saddie-Gladdie. My mother gave Rose a little stuffed kitten, and Rose sang America the Beautiful in a voice as pure and sweet as clear spring water.

Later, at the Discovery Museum, my sister, my brother, and I entered a booth that simulated the feeling of an earthquake, starting with a deep-throated rolling and escalating into sudden jolts that startled us into inappropriate giggles. Sitting in an earthquake chamber with my siblings just seemed funny and familiar somehow.

And then I went to an exhibit that invited me to lie down in a bed of nails, and the guide said, “It will feel a little prickly. Is this your first time?”

“Hardly,” I said, as I climbed on board.