Now my perfect schedule is bed at 1:00 a.m., up at 9:00 a.m. Such a civilized routine. Unfortunately, my best working hours seem to be when people want to call and chat. They are done with their day while I'm just hitting my stride. Sometimes I have to be firm.
My mother is the queen of night owls. She used to stay up till 2:00 a.m., sitting quietly in the family room, smoking cigarettes and reading library books under the dim glow of a floor lamp. It always felt kind of creepy to me, but then I was doing much the same thing (minus the cigarettes), huddled under my bed covers, reading Nancy Drew in the silent night. No wonder I don't remember my childhood: I was walking dead sleep-deprived. Books were more real to me than reality.
Speaking of the maternal parental unit, last night she called for no apparent reason. We'd talked the day before, so her call was unexpected. (We don't talk every day.) I let her babble on, patiently waiting to find out why she was calling. I knew she would get to it eventually. She never just calls to idly chat. There's always a reason. It's either because she wants to tell me how I should live my life, or she wants me to help her with something so she can live hers. So what would it be this time? It wasn't my old laptop, that was working fine (except it doesn't have mahjong). It wasn't the condo board; that bunch is hopelessly misguided and even my mother's wise counsel can't save them (according to Mom). This time it was something unexpected.
“I've been thinking about what will come next,” she said matter-of-factly.
Bemused, I waited for her to explain.
“Mary and Paul Norberg live at Willamette View, you know,” she said.
“Right,”
“I can't afford Willamette View.”
“Okay...”
“Marge Iverson lives at Cherrywood,” she said. “They have a workout room and a pool.”
Okay, now I was starting to get it. She was thinking about where she will go when the condo is too much for her to handle. My stomach started clenching, but I kept my voice calm.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“And they have a garden.”
“Great.”
“I want to think about this before it's too late and I run out of time,” she said.
“Okay, Mom. That makes sense. Let's see if we can take a tour, how about that?”
“That might be a good idea.”
After she hung up I looked at the Cherrywood Village website. The photos looked lovely, like a posh hotel. The prices were as expected: way too expensive for my siblings and me to handle. I calculated how long we could keep her there if we sold her condo for a reasonable price. Not quite five years. Huh. She's only 84. What if she lives longer than five years? Hell, her aunt lived to be 100.
When I contemplate the future, I have feelings I can't identify. Too much uncertainty makes me want to go back to bed.
