
We’ll never make it.
“I’m never going to make it,” mom said from her seat on a bench in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Eight days into an eleven-day trip to visit my brother in the middle east, my mom, who had never left the country, not even to visit Canada, was over it. And for good reason. First, there was the whole business of our flight out of Cleveland getting cancelled. We’d spent all of five minutes in the airport when the ticket agent at Air Canada announced the news, then quickly left us to deal with the fallout.
“We’re never going to make it,” mom said.
Then there was the whole issue of our rescheduled flight getting delayed, while we sat at the terminal watching the minutes and our chances to make our connecting flight out of Chicago flight tick away.
“We’re never going to make it,” mom said.
Then there was the ordeal of making our next flight by mere minutes after running for what felt like hours through Chicago O’Hare. Mom and her husband Gordy, huffing and puffing behind me, surprisingly spry for two 60-plus year olds. Me, running interference through tribes of never-ending sojourners.
“We’re never going make it, “mom said out of breath clutching her backpack.
Then there was the actual flight. Twelve glorious hours spent stuffed into a little seat while a college student behind us hacked up a lung into the re-circulating air.
“Oh brother,” mom said.
Then there was the business of our luggage getting lost. But just for a day, mind you. So not too bad, all things considering.
“This is stupid,” mom said.
Then there was the calamity of mom coming down with a cough, presumably the gift of that college student, that led to a fever, that she tried to hide from us, which almost sent her to the hospital.
“I’m fine,” mom said as she stumbled up the sidewalk.
“She’s so dramatic,” I said to my husband Dave.
“I think your mom’s really sick,” said Gordy.
“I’ll be fine,” said mom in a whimpering voice.
Then there was the enterprise of finding mom something to eat that 1) she would not immediately hurl and 2) wasn’t made of chickpeas. This landed us in an upscale American-styed café in the Christian quarter of Old Jerusalem, where contrasted against a sleek, high-backed leather chair and ultra-modern lighting, mom sat bedraggled wearing a powder blue hoodie.
“I can’t eat another bite of hummus,” she said.
Dropping her menu, she raised her little fevered face. Hair pointing to the four corners of the earth, she looked like a woman living exclusively on food stamps.
“I haven’t felt this bad since chemo.”
At the word chemo, I jumped. Ten years ago, mom had battled breast cancer. It was a scare that never quite subsided. Now it roared back at me like a bad case of PTSD. I would do anything, anything to keep her safe. I would give her my last drop of blood. I would take the city apart brick by brick. I would negotiate a satisfactory resolution between Palestinian and Israel — if that’s what it took to find her a dish without chickpeas.
“Get me an order of something American to go,” I called to the flustered waiter. “And make it fast,” I demanded like the blue-blood I am.
With creamy pasta alfredo in hand, we hailed a cab, packed mom into it, ordered Gordy to make sure she ate her food and sent her on her way back to their hotel with the promise that if anything got worse, Gordy was to immediately take her to the hospital. Meanwhile, my brother Aaron texted me from 7,448 miles away.
“She better make it Rachel,” Aaron said, as if I had intentionally given her whatever it was she was sick with.
Had I done enough? Would she really be okay?
“She’ll make it,” I said watching the taxi disappear.
Three days later, we found ourselves in the Istanbuhl airport headed home. Walking to our gate, mom hobbled along grasping Gordy’s arm like two elderly lovers caught in the human riptide of Concourse D. A little less than two weeks seemed to have aged her by 20 years. I drowned in guilt wondering if I could have done more, thinking I should have known better. It was too much.
Back in Ohio, mom slowly recovered her old self. The fever broke after a few days, but the cough and weakness stuck around for a month. A few weeks after our trip we visited and with a little bit of distance we could see a glimmer of humor, with mom calling it, “The trip from hell,” and me saying, “Or the trip of a lifetime?” We were both right, of course. It was both.
“Well, we made it,” she said with a laugh followed by a hacking cough.
“Want to go back next year?” I asked.
“I’ll think about it,” mom said.
