All Together Now

I put my mom on a plane after 9 years of living with us. She got a free ticket and she had to leave in a day and a half, so that last day I didn't really see her, she was mostly in the garage freaking okay, not really, just gathering her stuff. Mostly I was gathering while she was pointing out what she needed.

We had just moved her into the house, into Emma's room, because in the midst of cleaning out the garage, we had decided to expand Moose's room so Poppa could move in, since Moose had said she was out of money and had to move out. She said that like 2 years ago but it came to reality this month. Only she didn't move anything. She didn't move a single thing, it came down to the last day we could possibly move and I had to move everything while she stood there. It was like she was on a deserted island and the tide was coming in and everything of hers was getting wiped out by ocean and she didn't understand, she kept backing up into the middle as the island got smaller.

Then she was in the house, and in the middle of us, and it was awful for her. Her neat little oasis of clean, her spic and span room, gated off to keep the dog off her bed, and it just was too hard, with kids running in and out and dirt and tumult everywhere, and she slept different hours, and she was always walking around with a dust pan, and I knew it was too much for her. But mostly it was the sadness and anxiety she carried with her, everything was unhappy, there was no pleasing her, she kept looking for the things that were missing, if you didn't say goodbye at the door or if you didn't answer a comment she made, it was too much, I officially couldn't keep up trying to make her happy. I was just getting mad.

So when the ticket came she was standing in the living room with music on and cleaning some pile of dust and she was sad because she didn't really want to go and I was relieved because she was hard to please and I saw relief coming my way. But then I spent a day and half getting her ready to go and then in the car ride to the airport I was trying to memorize her voice and actually look at her without being mad or irritated because you never know when you're going to see your mom again, and I was feeling guilty for all the nights after I put the kids to bed, instead of talking to her I'd sit at the computer and look at horses or waste time and she'd sometimes come scratch my back, and I wanted her to love me but not need anything, so I had to tune her out because having a mother is complex.

And even though she's noisy and talkative and picky, she's also been in and out of our daily life for 9 years, I can't even remember being a regular person without my mom there in the next room. I figure it's going to take time.

When I dropped her at the airport and walked her in and helped her get through the line and the security line and the dog dropped off into baggage, and we didn't know if she'd get on the plane so I had to wait 20 minutes after leaving her, and she's not an easy person to leave, she could get lost on the way to the bathroom - so I left the airport crying but then I was on the bridge over the traffic, to get to the parking lot, and I just stopped there because I had 20 minutes and I just lost it. I started crying because that's what you do when you're in limbo, on the bridge between there and here,when you're losing something that you thought you would pay anyone to lose, but then in reality, I didn't want her to leave, I just wanted her to be less. Bigger, but less. So I cried and she got on the plane and I cried and she flew away and I cried because it's a long way across the country and I wouldn't be going there, rarely if ever, with three kids. And I don't want to travel like that, to be stranded across the country like in my childhood, split down the middle, not knowing where I belonged, east or west. Airplanes are not a good thing, except for romantic travel, where the whole trip is a dream, a vacation.

I want people to be there, now. I want to see people's faces that I love, and hear them and be part of their living world. I don't want tattered. I'm better at solid. Boring. Steady. Meaty. Real.

So now I can be on the computer and there is no one in the kitchen trying to be quiet. I miss her noises. But then I talked to her on the phone the first time the other day and she sounds happy. She sounds like maybe she was dwindling into hell at our house, she was having no life. She had us, but we weren't doing it for her. She was missing herself. That cheered me. Maybe life is leading us all the right directions. It just feels bad to tear away a parent. Even a quirky one. I've spent so much time caring for her, and worrying. And then poof, bye. But maybe she's building herself there. I hope so.

I guess I just wish all my people were in one place, and that it was a little more beautiful where we all were, a little more open land. I wish I could see my niece Ruby do her ice skating and go out for pizza, because we live nearby. I wish I could walk over to Lukey's house and play Scrabble. I wish I could track mud into my mom's clean rug and string popcorn for her Christmas tree. I wish Chris would braid my hair while we watched Jane Austen movies.

Just feels like life dashes by, and I know it does because Nathan is almost as tall as Barry. Even though that's not saying much. I know we all need each other, because in the end the people we love define us. All that matters is standing in the misty rain, like we did today at the farmer's market, after eating too many bagels, and watching my dad dance with my two little girls to Dixieland, in his blue jacket that matches his sparkly blue eyes. Lilly's hat kept falling over her eyes, and Emma's only 9. And we're all together.