Sue Mellins: The Lost Mother

My father phoned from Switzerland, I don't remember the hour.

"I lost your mother, Jill."

"Lost her...what do you mean?"

"We were out walking in the village. I asked her if she'd mind slowing down a little, on account of my sciatica. For some reason this enraged her. Next thing I knew, she hailed a cab and was gone."

I could picture the scene perfectly. All eighty-five pounds of my legally blind mother racing to escape the love-of-her-life whose every wish she had catered to for more than sixty years. It was the macula degeneration -- there were times I was sure it befogged her mind as well as her vision. My ninety-year old father walking with a severe limp. Unable to keep up with her but still able to see the snow capped Alps that rose behind the village, still clear-headed enough to assume that my mother would be waiting in the hotel lobby when he got back. Where else could she go? She had no money with her, no identification.

"She hasn't come back yet," he said. "This is a very small town, you know. We've alerted all the hotels, as well as the cab companies."

"Where are you now?" I asked.

"In the bar. Drinking hot chocolate." A good sign, I thought. He must not have been too worried.

He phoned a few hours later to let me know they'd found her. He sounded more anxious now. "She's in one of her states...won't stop crying. Keeps saying she wants to go home. What do you think I should do?"

I ran my tongue around my dry lips. All my life I'd counted on his certainties.

"Hopefully it will blow over," I said. "Is she there with you now? Would you like me to speak to her? Think it would help?"

"Who knows? I'll put her on."

"Enough!" her tear soaked voice wailed. "Jill, I've had enough of this, do you hear?" How I used to dread hearing those words as a child. But at least she had called me by name. She wasn't entirely lost.

Three weeks earlier, I had stood on a pier and watched the, my game, ancient parents ascend a gangplank. The old way of seeing people off -- champagne in the stateroom, a short tour of the ship, was a thing of the past. Not realizing, I'd brought a small bottle of brut along. "You'll hae to pop the cork without me, folks." It made me proud to see the two of them turn and go off by themselves, their cottony white hair blowing in the breeze. I waved and called out "Bravo!" when they reached the top of the gangway.

But now here was my mother, weeping and wanting to cut the trip short, to go home.

"Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow, Mom," I said. "If you don't, it's okay. I'm sure Dad will do whatever you like."

"Will he? What makes you think so?"

"Come on, Momma, you know he will. You know it as well as I do." Momma, the word on my tongue startled me.

When the phone ran around noon the next day, I rushed to answer. It wasn't the call I'd been expecting, though, not my father phoning to let me know where things stood.

"Mrs. Mellins, this is Swiss Air," the voice informed me. "Your mother is a passenger aboard one of our plances. We're sorry to notify you that she collapsed a short while ago. But there is a doctor on board who's been looking after her, and she's doing a little better. We've arranged for an ambulance to take her to Jamaica Hospital after we land."

Like a lot of people, I seem to be sturdy during a crisis; afterwards is when my knees go weak. I thanked Swiss Air for letting me know, poured myself a cup of coffee, and phoned my husband.who canceled his patients. Believe me, being married to a doctor helps -- helps me, at least, to stay calm.

It was only later, when I saw my mother lying on a gurney in the E.R. -- they had strapped her down; her hand felt like ice in mine, and her eyes stared fiercely in the direction of my voice: "Shame on you!" she hissed, "shame on you" -- that I began to shake. What had I done?

----
Sue Mellins is a New York City writer.