Skip to main content

My Mother

 My Mother/Missing family




This is my mother circa early 1950s sitting on my dad’s bike after they had won a few awards during a motorcycle rally in NH. She always bragged about winning first place in the clothesline competition, an event that required her to stand on the passenger pegs behind my father and hang clothes on a line.  He had to ride slowly and with precision, shifting through the friction zone at dangerously slow speeds, keeping the bike upright. Not long after the photo was taken they gave up riding.


For the last seven years, the photo shows up on my social media accounts every October. I am always somewhere other than “home” when the image pops up, but it always reminds me of the family events I have missed because I have chosen to live and work internationally. I rationalized that I could be home within 24 hours should something go awry.  


On October 11, 2014, my sister phoned me. Come home. Our mother had fallen, and it was very bad. Five hours later II was on a flight, determined that I would not miss saying goodbye to my mother. I made it to Paris and learned the airline had canceled my flight. I scrambled, trying to book a flight on another airline that could fly out that day. No success. I flew out the next day, my son and sister met me and their smiles made me think I had made it in time. But I hadn’t. My mother had died a few hours earlier.  I had missed saying goodbye.


I  wish I had known my mother when she and my dad roared down curvy New England roads at the height of their youth, untethered from responsibility and obligations.  The USArmy. Three girls. War.  Separation. Anxiety. Depression. Unhappiness.  Sickness.  Maybe I wouldn’t have stayed so far away for so long.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Tragedy of Human Despair

  The Tragedy of Human Despair in South Africa I came across this scene while running errands. The person, a man, I think, sat on the dirty, tar road at a robot, straddling the center and right turn lanes on a busy street. The light had turned red, so I was forced to face the human tragedy of poverty, hunger, and hopelessness.  It’s not like I hadn’t seen people on the streets begging for food, clothes, jobs, or anything to sustain them for another day, but this was different.  He rested in a fetal position, head bowed and covered by a white t-shirt juxtaposed against black clothing. And what about the books? I couldn’t see their titles; maybe one was a bible.   He was as still as a statue and as quiet as the dark before the dawn. He did not flinch or moan, nor did he have pleading hands reaching out for a tidbit of salvation.  The human was simply there, a tableau worthy of a production by the Ontological-Hysterical theatre company in New York City’s lower...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Baboon Family

  A Baboon Family This baboon family makes me happy. The setting is peaceful, all four calmly sitting on a rock, at rest. Except for the baby looking directly at our game vehicle with curiosity, the other three's eyes gazing elsewhere.  Despite their sharp as daggers canine teeth, nut-crushing jaws, naughty opportunistic foraging of camper's food, and a hierarchy of dominating male bullies, baboons can be quiet and peaceful, going about their daily business in a well-defined social order.  These old-world monkeys thrive in friend and family units; females form strong bonds to raise and protect the kids, forage for food, and stay loyal to the troop for their entire lives. Like human families, they comfort each other, play, and squabble but ultimately come together for the good of the community and protection from predators - for the most part. Yes, there's a bit of infanticide by the males, beating females for the heck of it, violently tossing little ones to the side when ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Giraffes

  A couple of things are going on in this photo.  First, the ubiquitous bush butt shot. The rear-angle view of animals is so common that a friend of mine has a series of animal bottoms framed and hung on her bathroom wall.  I have about a million bottom shots languishing on a flash drive, I hate to get rid of them, but I’m not sure what I should do with the backside collection. Secondly, have a look at this trio of male giraffes. Elder, younger, and the one in the middle.  In this photo, the animals seem like pals. The three were playing rather than foraging on the treetops for food, so the sighting was special. Playing around to male giraffes looks like a neck-swinging dance and is weirdly elegant. The behavior is called “necking,” and it can cause damage if the play turns aggressive. It’s a dominance thing, a way to sort out who’s the boss of the females in the tower (or journey if they are moving).  As it turns out, male giraffes, like human males, have testo...
Post a Comment
Read more