MOM AND THE HELM

MOM AND THE HELM

 She swept them away

!  !  !

Mom had the whackiest sense of humor. She enjoyed making others laugh and often at her own expense. She said that if you can’t find humor in yourself, you shouldn’t look for it in others.

 Yep, mom was something.

 I remember how she’d stand over her ironing board on a Saturday afternoon when my brother and I were little. She’d have her old wooden radio on, tuned to the country music station with the volume turned up loud. She always laughingly admitted she couldn’t sing but there she was, singing loudly with the music – and, naturally, off key.

 Even though my brother and I didn’t know the words, she encouraged us to hum along. We usually did, but it didn’t take us long to pick up and word or two and without even realizing what we were doing, we were singing along with mom and her radio.

 During the summer, we’d spend one Sunday afternoon each month, having a picnic at the lake with mom and dad.

 Mom rarely went in the water above her thighs. “Mom, I thought you were a good swimmer,” I said one afternoon. I remembered hearing her tell stories of the times when she was a teenager and went to the same lake with friends. She’s swim to the small stationery raft, then dive off and swim back to shore.

 “That was then. This is now,” she said, then told us of the last time she dove off the raft. One of her friends lowered herself in the water and grabbed mom’s ankle. She said it scared the “living daylights” out of her and in her panic almost drowned. Never again did she go into deep water.

 “It doesn’t help that I get seasick so easily. I feel queasy just sitting in a bathtub.”

 “Mom,” I replied, “that water doesn’t move unless you move it.”

 “But it still moves.”

 I gave up the idea of talking about the lake and swimming.” (No, I never learned how to swim, but that’s for another day.)

 That was the past; we’ll fast forward to a few years ago.

 My cousin called and said that his sisters were visiting, and they all agreed that they would like to celebrate mom’s birthday by taking us on a ninety-minute ferry ride around the harbor.

 I hadn’t seen his sisters in years and thought it was a fantastic idea. I mentioned this to mom and explained that I would get some Dramamine from the pharmacy and to double its effect, purchase some seasick preventative bracelets.

 Mom hesitated but eventually agreed.

 A few Saturdays later, my husband and I took mom down to Naples (Florida) to meet my cousins. He’d already purchased the tickets for our short ninety-minute trip. By this time, mom was using a walker.

 Getting on the ferry wasn’t difficult but then Dan had a crazy idea. He told the First Mate that it was mom’s ninety-first birthday and was there anything special he could do to make the trip more memorable.

 Next thing I knew, the First Mate came down the stairs (the help was above the travelers’ area) and said that the captain would like to meet her – upstairs!

 Yikes! The staircase wasn’t very wide, so my first thought was, how?!

 We left the walker at the bottom of the staircase, the First Mate took hold of mom’s one hand as she held the banister with the other. I was squeezing next to her with my arm around her waist. My husband one on the step right below with my cousin one step behind him. The girls waited at the bottom – just in case we all went tumbling down.

 The trip up the stairs, since we needed to be careful, took about three minutes but we finally walked into the helm.

 The First Mate said, “Captain Ralph, this is Mary. She’s ninety-one today!”

 Captain Ralph walked over to mom, gave her a hug, then lowered his head and kissed her cheek.

 In my entire life, I’d never seen my mother blush, but I did that day. Her eyes glowed with wonder, embarrassment and a thrill that would last her a lifetime.

 For the next fifteen minutes, mom and the captain conversed about their families, the fact that she spent her life as a teacher and how good she looked for her age.

 Then the First Mate nodded to me that it was time to take her downstairs.

 Gulp!! With fingers crossed for a good outcome, we retraced our steps and successfully got mom carefully down the narrow staircase and in her seat near the window.

This was a trip mom spoke of often before dementia robbed her of her memory but now, I keep that memory alive by periodically looking at the photo of mom and her captain.

 That calm, warm day in February (yes, down here in Florida, our Februarys are usually balmy) will be something I’ll remember for a very long time.