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.