"From Lively to Sin Vacas" © May 2008 Stu Jenks
[Images from top to bottom: "The Last Chair, Lively, Virginia", "The Flowering Oaks, Lively, Virginia, "Ancient Oak, Lively, Virginia", "Harriman, Tennessee", "Minnie Pearl's Hat, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee", "Mary at the Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas", "The Very Large Array, New Mexico", "Panoramic Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas", & "Cattle and The VLA"]
We had just had a perfectly nice little box lunch at an Interstate rest stop in the Valley of Virginia. No harsh words. No crazy comments. No imagined slights from us. Then, as my mother was getting a scarf out of the car, preparing to walk over and get back into the Penske truck, she said to me.
"You know, after Pamela was born I had a miscarriage and I fought to have another child, so remember that, the next time you get upset with me!"
I shrugged my shoulders, gave Annie a crooked smile with a slight shake of the head and walked my elderly mother back to the truck.
And this was Day Two of what turned out to be a week-long journey, driving my mother and her things to an independent living place, near my home in Tucson, Arizona.
I thought it would be fun, driving Miss Daisy across the country. It was anything but. When Annie arrived, ten days before we were going to leave for Arizona, she was prepared to do a lot of work, packing my mother up. What she didn't know was that in the months leading up to the move, Mom hadn't done a thing. When I arrived three days before we departed Virginia, Annie had done an amazing job, in spite of everything.
Even though I had been to The River to visit at Christmas, I had no idea how much my mother had begun to fade. She started out the day as a woman in her eighties and ended the day as a six-year-old child. When friends would ask me, on the phone, how my mother was, I would say she was 'petulant'.
But my mother’s old, and it's not her fault that she has become more of a spoiled brat. She has always been this way. But now, she was ruder, more insulting, and more manipulative that I've ever seen her. She’s never been one to apologize or try and walk in anyone else's shoes, but now it was all or nothing, black or white, good or bad, with no gray in between. And the All was All Her. We either loved her or hated her, and she wasn't shy to say anything now. [Like she ever was.] And even though it was never her intent to be hurtful, that didn't mean it didn't hurt. [Whether a truck runs over you by accident or on purpose, you've still been run over by a truck.] Add to that the entitlement issues in her DNA and the occasional histrionic tears and you've got a nightmare for Annie and I.
Miraculously, we got the 26-foot Penske truck on the road on Friday Afternoon, with Mother and Annie following in Mom's Buick Le Sabre. We made it as far as Charlottesville, Virginia that night.
Besides the little adventure caused by me getting the truck stuck in the parking lot of the motel, (I embedded the rear end into the pavement while trying to go up a little hill. Had to get a tow truck to wince it free), the first day's drive was uneventful and rather pleasant for me. For me. Not for Annie. For Annie had Mom in the car with her, for hours. After Day One, Annie and I traded off my mother. Day Two, Mom rode with me. Day Three, she rode with Annie, etc. That way, we each had every other day without the presence of my mother.
When Mom doesn’t get her way, either she is wrong, you are wrong, or all of us are wrong. There is no simple difference of opinion in my mother's world. If you disagree with her, you hate her. If you are angry at some behavior of hers, you hate her. If you ask for something that she doesn't want to give, you hate her. I wish I could say this was new, but it isn't. It's just more so.
Also, Mary puts people into two groups, those she considers family and those she doesn't. If you are considered family, then you are obligated to do what ever she asks. You are her servant, her peasant, her slave. And if you refuse, politely or no, she gets mad and either insults you or tries to shame you into doing what she wants. Again, not new. Just more desperate and pitiful these days. (Then again, my mother’s ancestors did own slaves and she was raised by black servants. Perhaps I expect too much.)
The manipulations and criticism started long before we left Lively, Virginia.
By the time we reached Tennessee, Mom was saying she wanted to go back home to Virginia or go to Raleigh and live with my sister, Pamela. (Not an option, now or ever.)
In Nashville, she thought she was in Richmond, Virginia. Truly. She thought we were on Broad Street, seconds after we had left the Ryman. Thought the Mosque was just up ahead. ‘What the fuck,’ I silently mouthed to Annie in the rear view mirror, as we drove back to the Interstate.
In Arkansas, she tried to jump out of the car. We affectionately call it The Arkansas Incident. We were driving slow and it was at night, so no one got hurt.
By Oklahoma, we couldn't stand to even think of eating dinner with my mother. We prepared food for her to eat and brought it to her room at sundown, and then Annie and I went out and had our own dinner.
I took some pictures of Mom at the Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas that turned out to be somewhat iconic. Thanks God for that.
By Santa Rosa, New Mexico, she was weeping in the hallway of the motel, saying we were abandoning her.
The Very Large Array was fun for Annie and I, and we even had one lighthearted moment with Mom. The sustained winds were 40 miles per hour that day and as we were walking Mother to the Visitors Center, one of us on each arm so she wouldn't blow away, Mary said, with a bit of wonder in her voice,
"Son, you are really taking me on an adventure."
We all three laughed. The one and only time that would happen in 2500 miles.
I could say more. I probably should have said less. Bottom Line: Mary is all settled in at Sin Vacas, an upscale retirement village, where all the street names are in Spanish for nutty things. ('Street Without Sin', 'Street Without Denial', 'Street Without Danger'. Mom lives on Calle Sin Envidia: 'Street Without Envy'. And Rancho Sin Vacas, the gated community where the elderly village is, means Ranch Without Cows.) She’s making some new friends and going to church. She's slowly learning how to get to the bank and to the grocery store. And she’s even saying thank you to me when I come up to help connect the computer or put together a lamp (Even though I know her 'thank yous' really mean 'please don't leave me all alone'.)
Mom and I don't really get along. Haven't really for years. I tolerate her and she probably tolerates me too.
But one piece of advice or rather a warning to all.
Don't say to me "You're being such a good son."
I'm not. And if you say it to my face, I’m probably going to get pissed off.
I didn't move Mom because I'm being a good son. I did it because Mom begged me to move her to Arizona, and that we had few options left, for Mary can't really take care of herself anymore without help.
I told Mom a number of times, that I really didn’t think it was a really good idea to leave 100 friends in Virginia behind, to live near her son and her 92-year-old sister and her son's ex-girlfriend in Arizona. But we have a saying in my family: "Mary does whatever Mary wants to do." Her so-called friends in Virginia, most of them rich, white, arrogant fucks, call Mom ‘a force of nature.’ They are not complementing her.
No, I'm not a good son.
I'm not doing this because I want to, or that I even think it's the right thing for her to live in Tucson, but our choice are limited now.
Retirement places in Virginia are much more expensive there than in Arizona.
My sister Pamela lives in Raleigh, in the Old Home Place, but she is fighting cancer and is really in no condition to be around Mom, in a number of ways.
It's by default that I'm doing this, have done this.
I'm not a good son.
I'm just the person who’s doing what needs to be done.
That's all.
If I had my way, Mary would be living in Virginia somewhere.
But you rarely gets your way if you are with my mother.
It's Mom's way or the highway, pretty much.
Even though she would deny that.
“Your hair is so beautiful,” she says.
“You’re as handsome as your father was,” she says.
Mom is over the top with her compliments now. I’m repairing a chest-of-drawers in her new apartment. She’s following me around.
She may be a bit sun-downy these days. She may be her normal Narcissistic self, but she isn’t stupid. She knows she fucked up. She knows Annie and I are pretty tired of her shit.
Phase One is done: Mary and her stuff have been moved across the country.
Phase Two is mostly done: Unpacking Mary’s shit and getting her settled in.
Now, on to Phase Three: Maintaining Mom in Tucson.
Once-a-week visits and occasional chats on the phone is the plan. My plan. Her plan would be for me to be at her beck and call, 24 / 7 / 365. That ain’t going to happen.
The view from her balcony is fabulous. City lights in the distance at night. An arroyo filled with birds and their songs during the day. I close my eyes and hear the quails’ sing. I feel sad. Mom doesn’t even notice the beauty right in front of her. I open the sliding glass door and reenter her apartment. She yells something at me from the bedroom. I can’t hear what she is saying. I don’t really care.
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