How will we manage when mom goes away
Now we’re on our own. For a couple days at least. The two of us – my daughter and me. Trying to manage by ourselves. Whew! Heaven help us.
My wife had to travel out of town on Easter Sunday. Sadly, her aunt passed away last week. Her family was gathering on Long Island, New York, to lay her to rest at a cemetery near the North Shore. It happened just before Easter, and that Sunday we drove her at five in the morning to put her on a flight. We said our goodbyes at the departures dropoff and wished her luck. The two of us got back in the car and looked at each other. Kind of lost.
Now what do we do.
Our little family is rarely apart. You take one member out of the mix and it becomes a strange troop of disoriented monkeys. The rhythms and routines altered. The noises different. The needs different. The household emptier.
Add to that, so many things we know nothing about.
I looked at my daughter and said: “I think we’re doomed.”
“Yep,” she replied. “We better get on with it.”
There’s so much around the house I don’t think about. Or know anything about. It’s kind of funny, actually. Because I’ve spent so many years working on my house and putting my house back together and learning the ins-and-outs of nearly every nook and cranny.
Yet, this time apart has made me realize there are a lot of mysteries.
For instance, did you know that there’s a whole room in your house where machines wash AND dry your clothes?!? This is truly remarkable. I must commend the inventor of these so-called “wash rooms.” I don’t know how they work, but I’m quite certain I’m not going in there for fear of messing something up.
Also, I have no idea what a good temperature is for the air conditioning. I look at the thermostat and think, “77 degrees? No, that doesn’t seem right. Isn’t it supposed to be 42?”
My daughter and I have been wearing winter coats and gloves inside for two days.
I keep coming across things I feel I should know, but just don’t. How often we’re supposed to take the kitchen garbage out to the trash cans. Weekly, right? Or how to make the pillows on the bed each morning. Why do we have so many pillows? There must be 35 or so! And how do you arrange them perfectly so they resemble the Great Pyramid of Giza!?! Maybe there’s a YouTube video on this?
(I carefully pull back the covers on my side so as to not disturb the other. This way I’m at least half way there in the morning.)
I was given a long list of things to do, remember and take care of while she was away. Like caring for the chickens. Who knew there were so many steps to caring for chickens. Now, mind you, these are the easiest animals on the planet. Typically, you can throw some food on the ground and they’ll be like, “We’ve got it from here. Get your eggs around 2.”
But not our chickens. They’ve got a list like NASA running through a rocket launch.
I stood there wide-eyed listening to my wife explain it all to me.
“Then, if there’s been a hawk within a two-block radius, you have to go outside and soothe them and explain to them they’re bigger than the hawk and could probably eat it. And tell them not to eat the hawk if they catch it.”
“Riiiiight,” I said. “Soothe the fowl.”
I’m not sure if I’m doing it right.
“Did you take care of the chickens?” my daughter asked on the first day.
“Yeah, of course,” I said, incredulously. “I mean … like how?”
“You know, like did you give them enough food and stuff?” she replied.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I think so. But they’re pretty fat and should be OK. Which reminds me: Have you seen any injured hawks around?”
Everything was topsy-turvy. Like living in an upside-down world. There were strange things. Like how on Easter, my daughter and I decided to go catch a Flashback Cinema showing of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.” It seemed slightly sacrilegious on one of the holiest days of the year. But that’s what happens when you leave the two of us up to our own devices.
Or how I didn’t even bother to brush my hair. “Do I look alright?” I asked my daughter. She replied, “Sure,” without looking at me. And I was fine with it! I haven’t walked out of the house without checking my hair for more than 25 years. Who have I become?!?
Most of all, I realized I miss my wife. All her quirks and lists and mastery of the strange “wash room.” Our regular walks. Her laugh. How she soothes the chickens in the face of imaginary dangers. How whenever I sit down to read the newspaper or a book, she decides it’s time to tell me a story.
It’s only been a few days, but it feels like an eternity. Soon we’ll drive back up to the airport. Have our reunion in the arrivals area. Then get back to normal life with all three of us together again. The way it’s supposed to be. With our air conditioning no longer producing snow flurries and our pillows in a perfect Pyramid of Giza. Which reminds me, I better get up there and work on that!