Mothers Day

My mom and grandma came to visit us in Australia over the Eastertime. 

I guess you never really know what to expect when matriarchs come to visit.  For some people, Mom and Grandma take on varied roles ranging from Queen Bee to trident wielding Ursula from the Little Mermaid.  Others mothers are content with having the role of their mother remain just as it always has since they were infants: mother is a comfort blanket, sustenance provider, source of all goodness and mercy - some mothers are quite comfortable never letting their children grow up needing to be 'mommy' well into adult years and at times, I watch with squeamishosity when couples who have been married five to ten years still make no decision together without consulting the bethroned maidens of the family.

My mother and grandmother ride comfortably down the middle; their role of matriarch is a title of honor that has been earned through years of toiling, taking care of tear-stained faces, cleaning up vomit at three o'clock in the morning, sitting in a terrycloth bathrobe holding a frightened eight-year-old child who can't understand why the fever is making him see things.  My grandma and mother have eased into their respective roles as sustainer of family relations, but they have ceased to be the 'everything' that children need when they are growing up.

Instead of everything, they are something special.  The very fact that they live nine thousand miles away on the other side of the planet makes their trip here something extraordinary.  My grandmother hadn't been on a plane for years, well before my grandfather died.  Whenever one thinks about making a big trip, there is always some anxiety about how the trip will go; but to make a trip to Australia at the age of 87 - that, too, is something special.

As Grandma fretted and worried the weeks before she came, my mother told me what she was anxious about.

"What if I get sick?  I don't want to interrupt Reid's family life."

"I don't want to get in the way.  They have a small house the way it is."

"Oh, Reid will be taking too much time for us.  Won't we just be a bother?"

If I were eighty-seven years old and traveling to the other side of the planet, I'd be worrying about things like, "Did I pack my extra toupe?  I don't want to be caught outside without my hair.  If I get sick, I'm not going to be able to do all the things that I want to do.  Where's my ticket?  Did we buy tickets yet?  We're going to go where?  We're going to see whom?  Snnnnncchhhh -( that's me falling asleep in seven seconds in the middle of a conversation)"

My grandma is with it.  Not like a cool, hip grandma that gets tattoos and colors her hair and pretends to be someone she's not (or some age that she's certainly passed), but she's got hearing like an owl.  In fact, sometimes I think she is part owl, not just because she hears everything - I purposely tried whispering a few times just to see how much she was absorbing - but when she plays cards, or games with the girls, when something goes right she kind of hoots.  She'll play a card and go "Hoo hoo" and giggle her way to victory.  Barn owl, she's got to be part barn owl.

My mom, on the other hand, is like a dingo.  Follow me into the strangest analogy ever, and no, I don't think my mother looks or behaves like a dingo, but most people, myself included, are told that the dingo makes no sound, has no bark, but that is false.  Even though the dingo makes very little noise, they do have distinguishing sounds but they are heard infrequently.  Usually, chuffing sounds, small moans and such. 

The week before Easter, we went to the Glasshouse mountains to enjoy it's close proximity to the beach while at the same time enjoying the wonderful hiking trails and parks that surround the area.  The second morning, we decided to hike Ngungun mountain.  From a distance, this variation in topography looks underwhelming, but when you start hiking it, it is more mountain than molehill.  Christine, the girls and I had undertaken the mountain at various times being exhausted by the time we reached the top but taken aback by the view once we reached it.  So, we decided to take my mom up for the view.  Grandma decided that the two kilometer hike didn't work very well with her cane so she stayed back with my in-laws to prepare for the eventual raising of the flag on the summit. 

We set out with vigor; my mother did quite well stepping up the steadily rising slope chasing my three daughters whose vast reserves of energy might have taken them on a step ladder to the moon if given a chance.  But halfway up the mountain we encounter the hardest part; a vertical climb littered with scree and old tree handholds at an almost seventy-five degree angle.  I didn't have to see my mother's face to know what was going on inside of her head, "What have I gotten myself into?"  And just as more, "I'm going to make this if it's the last thing that I do - and I think it probably will be the last thing that I do."

She started up the slope; I could tell that she was getting tired.  She was making chuffing noises warning us that perhaps, just a little bit, that she had bit off more than she could swallow.  We didn't push her or press her but she was more worried about holding us up than she was herself.  I think that trait runs mightily in the matriarchs. 

"Whew," she said wiping her brow taking a swig of water.  With great joy, she watched my daughter climbing up into the caves seemingly oblivious to the inherent danger that gravity can cause.  "This is going to take longer than you thought with an old lady along."

"It's fine, Mom," I said taking a seat beside her.  "This is vacation.  It doesn't matter how long it takes."

Chuff.  Chuff.  She wasn't going to complain.  In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard her complain before, at least not in my presence.  Maybe it's selective memory, but that's something I can be proud of her for.  Chuff.  Chuff.

"You all go ahead.  I'll catch up with you at the top." 

Nice try, Mom.  We waited for her to catch her breath and slowly but surely, we ascended one step at a time as families do, soaking in the sights of increasing altitude noticing the blueness of the sky, the greeness of the trees and bigness of the world.  Each step farther was one step farther into unchartered territory for her.  As we get older, we tend to always do the things that we've always done, to play it safe.  But Mom did not do that and when we reached the top the vista was powerful; the three hundred and sixty degree panaroma included volcanic plugs of mountains long since eroded, the ocean just a few miles away, pineapple and macadamia nut plantations...

And a swarm of gnats. 

As she came back from the peak, my mother was happy, but waving her hands in front of her face, scrunching up her nose trying to keep the insects out while maintaining breath.  "Let's go," she said as she smiled.  I think she had four gnats running laps on her front teeth.  (I just made that up, but embellishing a story is always better than the real thing.) 

On the way back down, it was not as tiring but I could hear a little moan escape my mother's voicebox.  Like the dingo, which moans when it wants to return home, my mother's small mewls were her readiness to return down the mountain to escape the quivering in her legs.  We had a good laugh part way down (after the vertical descent, of course) because Mom's legs felt as if they would be good egg beaters.

After descending the mountain, taking water breaks here and there, listening for kookaburras, whip-birds and any other aves that might be in the area, we made it back to the car where we all gratefully jumped in.  I looked at Mom who was as red-faced as I from exertion and read a silent 'thank you' in her eyes.  To be pushed past the boundaries of what is normal is a priceless thing.  I got to share a really good moment with my mom and my family.  Those are building blocks of memories - going past the normal.

For the next two weeks, the barn owl, the dingo and the offspring (I guess I would be a 'barngo') enjoyed hikes (my grandmother did two hikes that were well over three miles long), traveled, played games - did it all.  As I looked back at the pictures taken over the two weeks that they were here, I noticed that I was almost always walking behind them watching them in wonder, whether holding my children's hands, stopping to look at scenery or simply just breathing in life.  It is the beauty of life to behold generations that take time together. 

That's the specialness of Mom's and Grandma's.  Now, I have these memories for Mother's day this year.