In 2003, I realized that my formidable mother was losing some of her power. Like her own mother, she was seeing the onslaught of macular degeneration. I knew that the car keys had to go. The problem was the yellow streak down my back. Being an only child has both perks and pitfalls, the biggest of the latter being that there was no-one to put in then line of fire. It was summer, so with my usual decisiveness, I decided to go visit a friend at the beach. The inevitable phone call came from my son.
"Mom, you know that fence at Dr. Heros' office? Well, you own a piece of it." Yes, mom had been taking her sister-in-law to the dentist and had hit the gas instead of the brake. He felt very guilty ratting out his grandmother, but he also was not going to be the bad guy here either.
"What are you going to do?"
A fence post (a steel one) had taken out the windshield. Their plan was to get it repaired before I found out. So at 4 A.M. the next morning I started the 10 hour drive home, hoping to grow a backbone on the way. All it took was one look at the car.
"Interesting new look for the car. Where are your keys." Three days later, I sold the car.
Not one to take things lying down, Mother made sure that I understood that if she couldn't drive, then I would have to do it. The passive aggressive campaign was on. One high point, or low point depending on your perspective, was a trip to Dillard's for shoes. Mom had tried on every possible pair and had decided on style and color. As we waited, an elderly lady, quite obviously older than mom, walked by, pausing to speak to mom. As she walked away, mom, said. "I'll bet SHE drove HERSELF here." I replied, "She probably did. And I'll bet she doesn't realize that her blouse is wrong side out either."
Enough said.
No comments:
Post a Comment