A Good Life
I Can’t Give Mom a Good Life, But I can Bring Chocolate
Lately I’ve been remembering how much Mom enjoys Dove dark chocolates. She used to ask for them, and then she just seemed to forget. For a while I was glad because chocolate isn’t a healthy food. Lately, though, I have been bringing Mom chocolates simply because she enjoys eating them. Hospice may focus on having a good death, but it’s also helping me develop a new idea of what constitutes a good life for Mom.
In between school and feeding Mom Dove dark chocolates, I am working on something I call The Photo Project. Thirty years or so of family photographs should be culled, arranged, labelled and digitized. I got a deal for the scanning, and thank God, because the sorting part is taking forever.
Amongst the pictures of birthdays, field trips and just clowning around are photos of our family of six spending a month each winter with my parents in California.
Each year, we saved up for airfare, bought tickets, made an agenda. Mom and Dad made room in their smallish house in Orange County. When the children were little, we all slept in the guest room. Later, when Dad bought a trailer to take on camping trips, the children slept out there.
Mom didn’t cook, but she shopped. So every year I sent her an extensive grocery list, and she bought everything I asked for without question. Her deal was, “I shop, you cook.” I didn’t mind. I like cooking. The children remember the bacon (which we they rarely enjoyed at home)’ Oreo cookies, strawberries fresh from California’s fields. One day Mom came home with an entire flat of strawberries. As we exclaimed over our bounty, she told us they were on sale at a local grocery store. We ate all of them in less than half an hour. When I saw Mom getting ready to go out again, I asked her where she was going. “To buy more strawberries,” she replied.
When she came back, we ate all those, too. She marched back out and bought a third flat. She said,“I just wanted to see how many y’all would eat.”
Mom did all our laundry for the whole month. I didn’t have to wash a thing except the children. I have a photo of Mom sitting in the laundry basket, mugging for the camera.
Mom watched the babies and toddlers while I got my hair done, met with my friends, took walks. I have photos of Dad taking us camping in Joshua Tree. I have photos of our trips to Legoland, Disneyland, the San Juan Capistrano Mission. Through it all, the only compensation my parents got was the pleasure of our company. They weren’t much for going out and they had everything they needed. Once or twice we took them out to Sizzler, the one restaurant they enjoyed because of the vast all-you-can-eat selection.
I need to see these pictures. I need to remember who she was and what she did for me. Mom not only gave me birth and nurtured me. She tried, in her way, to give me a good life. She didn’t demand. She gave. She opened her home, loved me as I was, did what she could.
For years we lived apart. I left home and married, had children. She lived her middle aged life, pursuing her pursuits and being independent. I couldn’t make a life for her any more than she could make a life for me. We didn’t need each other for that.
When I wonder if I am wasting my time trying to give Mom a good life as she lies in her bed, I remember that she tried to give me a good life. I can’t make everything okay for her. And she couldn’t make everything okay for me. But isn’t it nice that we can give it a good shot, each in our turn? Isn’t that just love?
