Memories

A few smart people commented on this post that the hard last days with my mom were not the sum of our relationship.  The suggestion was made that I might find some comfort in stopping every day for a few minutes, and remembering the good times.  You know what? You people are smart.  I’ve been doing this, and it’s been helping.  Not a cure all, of course, but when I start remembering that last visit, I shove my brain over to other visits, other times, and it cheers me right up.

I’ve shared my pain and frustration with you, so now, I’ll share some of the good times as well, OK?

Back in 1999, when Maya was 4, she and I went up to Juneau to visit.  Ted stayed home, as he was working on his dissertation, and the fact that both my mom and Richard & Kathy have cats, and he has terrible allergies, would have meant not going to their homes, etc.  The trips Ted has missed out on because of my family’s fondness for cats.  It sucks.  Anyway, up to Juneau we went, and we had a wonderful time.  At that point, we weren’t sure if Maya was allergic to cats or not, so we stayed in a little bed and breakfast hotel.  And by little, I mean that my mom’s apartment building had a small apartment on the ground floor, and the owner at the time was trying her hand at renting it out by the week, and we stayed there.  The breakfast part of the B&B was that they stocked the little fridge with yogurt and milk and juice, and the cupboards with granola bars and cereal.  Which was fine with us.  It was nice to be so close to my mom, and have Richard and Kathy just two blocks away, and yet still have our own space and not be sleeping on someones floor.

Happily, Maya had no reaction to the cats (everyone in Ted’s family is VERY allergic, and no one on my side, so it was a toss up, we figured), and we were able to go to R & Ks house for dinner sometimes, Granny’s house for dinner sometimes, and out to dinner a few times.  One night, we went out to the valley for yummy Thai food.  The only Thai restaurant in Juneau, I think, and very popular.  They don’t take reservations, so we put our name in, and went out in front of the restaurant to wait.  What to do to pass the time while waiting for your table?  Why, play catch with the baby doll, of course!  This is a slightly blurry action shot of Maya and her Granny tossing baby back and forth.  (Baby’s name changed over the years, from Baby, to Samanda (my favorite), to Kendra, which stuck.  At this point, I think she may have been Samanda, but I couldn’t swear to it.)  They had a great time.

One thing I learned on that trip is that grandparenting is totally different than parenting.  We went to breakfast one morning at my mom’s favorite breakfast restaurant, and they had a few toys there for the kids to play with.   Maya was enjoying playing with Ducky (a character from Land Before Time), and I had told her that she couldn’t keep Ducky, Ducky belonged to the restaurant.  Maya was accepting of this fact, but not thrilled.  My mom, however, wanted to spoil her granddaughter, something that she rarely got to do, living 1,000 miles away.  So she asked the kind people who worked there if they would sell her Ducky for her visiting granddaughter.  They kindly did, and in this picture, you can see Granny, Maya, and Ducky hanging out on the park bench across the street from her house.  My mom would NEVER have done something like that with Richard and I, but see, grandchildren are different.

Another day, Kathy and I decided to go fishing, as the salmon were running, and we thought we might catch some for dinner.  We had a great time (except for the part where you have to kill the fish…that part wasn’t fun), and while we were gone, Maya stayed with Granny in our little hotel.  Well, when we left, Maya was in her jammies and watching TV.  I thought mom would get her dressed and take her out for a walk or something, because that’s what she would have done with me.  But grandchildren are different, and what Maya wanted to do was stay in the room, show Granny things, play Candyland and watch TV.  So that’s what they did.

That was a wonderful vacation, very relaxing, and full of wonderful memories.  We took a tram up the side of a mountain one day to have breakfast, overlooking the channel and Douglas Island.  On the way down, we saw a humpback whale in the channel.  Amazing.  We went to the fishery, and saw the salmon running, so many salmon pushing and shoving to get upstream that the water looked like it was boiling.  We went to the local glacier, where we saw dirty snow in summertime, a real live beaver dam (don’t see too many of those around here), and Maya and Auntie Kathy ‘fished’ with sticks, hoping to catch some crab for our dinner.

Remembering this trip, remembering my mom’s enjoyment of showing off the beauty of town that she loved, remembering her delight in playing with her granddaughter, is a real balm to help heal the memories of the more difficult times that came later.