“Nothing special,” Mom’s voice mail message said. “I just want to make sure you’re OK. That’s the most important thing. You and George. Well, you, George, and Sara. Nothing special, I just wanted to check in. Love, Mom.”
Listening to the now very soft voice of my 100-year-old mother, it hit me that the “nothing special” moments are, of course, special. They are the reason I write this column, a reminder that our moments are our lives.
I knew how difficult it was for her to physically make a phone call with her half-closed arthritic hands. I pictured her in her nursing home bed, reaching for the rotary phone on her bedside table, using a magnifying glass to read my name that George had printed carefully next to our phone number. He had programmed the phone so that she just had to push the button. And he patiently taught her how to use it.
Nothing special, Mom? Hardly. It was very special. She died a year after leaving that message on my phone. Even now, nine years after I said good-bye to her, I hear her voice, and I wish I could tell her how special it was. Actually, I will tell her during our Mother’s Day visit.
Sara and I will bring my sweet-toothed mother a carefully wrapped goody from brunch and stones from Descanso Gardens, where we celebrated many happy Mother’s Days with her. We will place them on her grave, a Jewish tradition to signify that we have visited.
Again, I will remind her how grateful I am that she came out from Virginia to help take care of me for many months during my cancer treatment. How happy I was when she opened her suitcase and took out the decades-old potato masher to make the soupy potatoes that I called Manna from my childhood. How she would arrive at my bedside at 6 a.m. every morning with my medication carefully crushed in a spoon with strawberry jam to mitigate the bad taste.
During that time together, we wordlessly mended some past hurts as she dedicated herself to caring for me. “There is nothing more important than I have to do in my life than help you get well,” she told me and showed me each day.
If I thanked her, she would say, “Nothing special, that’s what mothers do.” But she would be wrong. Very special, Mom.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.