As I Watch My Mom Traipse Off, I Feel Both Fear and Delight

Notes From Life With an Aging Parent

The tables turn.

Parents who once cared for small children become elders cared for by their adult child. The role reversal feels both as natural as summer flowing into autumn, and as bewildering as when a crisp night falls too soon. As the days unfold, I find myself yearning to change the rules of time.

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It’s mid-July, and I make plans for dinner out with Dan, Mom, and my sister-in-law Sheila. We head to “3rd Thursday” – where half a dozen bands are playing up and down a blocked-off road called California Avenue. We pick an outdoor table at a French restaurant and enjoy some food and wine. Bluegrass floats on the breeze from the left, the strains of an 80s band play from the right, and in between them a sole singer-songwriter vies for a bit of airtime as pedestrians amble by.

When dinner is through, the four of us meander up and down the avenue enjoying the vibe and the bodacious nighttime light of July. “Mooching about,” my mom would call it.

We arrive at an intersection where a good size crowd is gathered behind a barricade cordoning off a set of musicians offering a cocktail of jazz, blues, and folk. Mom stops and gazes, so the rest of us stop, too. Mom begins to nod to the beat, shimmy her shoulders, and press her feet into the ground as if the pavement is her dance partner. The rest of us steal delighted glances. We linger a bit longer then walk on to discover the next band. The light wanes. On the drive home, I think to myself Mom needs more dancing. But by definition, third Thursdays only come once a month.

My sister-in-law Sheila picks up the yearning I feel, and tells us about a weekly concert series up the road in Redwood City called “Music in the Park,” which takes place throughout the summer on Wednesday nights. It sounds like a very plausible way to get Mom a regular dose of live music. Better yet, they showcase a different genre each week, and this coming Wednesday is a swing dance band, which I know will evoke in Mom memories of the 1950s when she was fresh with the freedom of youth and possibility. It feels perfect.

That next Wednesday, Mom and I head up to Redwood City, with a plan to meet Sheila there. The roads surrounding the concert venue are thick with cars, so I’m thrilled to find a sliver of street parking a few blocks away which shouldn’t be too onerous of a walk. I sling two folding chairs over my shoulder and grab the tote back with snacks and water in the other hand, and begin walking toward the event. It’s a hot day, the sun is bright, and when we arrive at the park I can see that the regulars have taken all of the shady spots up front. I’m torn. I want Mom to be protected from the sun, but I also see a dozen people dancing in front of the bandstand, and I wonder if Mom will want to join them. I decide proximity to the band is more important than shade, plunk our gear down in the sun, and make a mental note to be sure that Mom brings a hat next time.

It’s not long before Sheila arrives. She takes one look at us and says she thinks she can find us a spot in the shade. Soon, she’s beckoning us to come about thirty yards farther back from the band. Sheila’s right, of course. The sun is quite strong, and what’s the point of wincing in the glare and heat of it when we’re supposed to be trying to enjoy ourselves? We get settled in our new spot. Mom starts eating a salad. Sheila passes us some homemade egg rolls and some vegan oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies she found at Trader Joe’s. Then she opens a bottle of wine. I think to myself This is good enough, and next week we’ll get here earlier and find seats closer to the band.

Mom’s not going to wait for next week.

Without a word to me or Sheila, she gets up from her folding chair and picks her way diagonally through the sizable crowd and around the roots of redwood trees until she makes her way to the edge of the park where she keeps walking forward toward the band. I want Mom to have every independence possible, and I know she wants that, too, yet I don’t like the idea of her falling or getting lost. Sheila and I nod at each other with the same thought: Is this going to be okay? I decide to keep a sight line on Mom the entire time. When she disappears behind a tree off in the distance, I have to hold my breath. Then she emerges and I watch and exhale as she walks toward the dancing crowd.

Mom begins to dance. A woman in her sixties, perhaps, with long thick straight salt and pepper hair, and a black and white dress to match begins dancing with her. I think about how I would never do this, never dance in public sober on a sunny evening. It’s not me. Never has been me. I’m asking myself what would it take to be the person who could join her? And, where is the boundary between what I should do and can do and will do?

I get up and follow the path Mom made and pick my way to the front edge of the crowd nearest the band. But I choose to stand off to the side by the hamburger stand where I can record a video of my mother looking far younger than she did mere minutes ago now that she’s dancing with a stranger on a Wednesday night. I feel an odd mix of pride, like that of a parent watching a child’s performance, and wistfulness, knowing mom has always loved to dance and here she is at eighty-four drawn like a magnet to the things that bring her true joy. I also feel gratitude to the stranger swirling and twirling with Mom, both appearing to have the time of their lives.

What’s the word for watching someone else enjoy themselves? What’s the word for delighting in someone else’s revelry? Whatever the words are, that’s what I felt in Redwood City that Wednesday night.

Music in the Park is an unadulterated hit. Sheila, mom and I make plans to come again next week, this time for Zydeco. But life intervenes, and then it intervenes again, and we can’t go for a few more weeks.

Then comes a Wednesday in mid-August, and this time it’s not just me, Sheila, and Mom (with a hat!), but also Dan, and our twenty-four-year-old son Sawyer. We make a row of our five folding chairs and settle in. Sawyer wants to go for tacos and Dan plans to get hot dogs, and both ask mom if she’s ready for food. “Not yet,” she says. Then moments later she just gets up and walks away. This time, Sheila and I know for sure where she’s headed, and that she knows how to get there. The lead singer announces, “There’s a tiny person up here with a big spirit.” And I’m not sure if she’s talking about a small child or my Mom.

With fifteen minutes to go before the music ends, Sawyer picks his way through the crowd and heads toward the small lady in the straw hat otherwise known as his Gaga. I Zoom my camera in on my son and my mother, wishing I could see their faces instead of their teal and blue backs. Imagining her delight that her grandson has joined her. Delighted – grateful – that my son does not share my aversion to dancing in public. Happy for him – and her – that he loves it. That this is where he wants to be.

And just like that, it’s over. They come back to us and we pack up and go home.

What’s the word for a grandson choosing to dance with his grandmother? What’s the word for daughters becoming caretakers for mothers in the waning summer sun? What’s the word for picnics in parks and lines for tacos and wondering where we’ll find such pleasures when autumn comes?

xo

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