Rebecca Barry - Just Put Your Pants On!

 

So, I'm a worrier. I worry about my kids, I worry about my husband, I worry about the planet. I've been doing it for a long time. I'm really good at it. [audience laughter] But the person I've probably worried about most in my life is my mom. It's ironic, because my mom is really one of the strongest people I know. She's been a psych nurse for most of her life. And in her 70s, she decided to go to prison to teach nonviolence. Her volunteer work is driving people to and from jail who don't have cars to see their loved ones. 

 

It's not just what she does that makes my mom so amazing. It's the way that she is. She's kind of like Buddha. She has this really calm and compassionate way about her that really quiets people down, and makes them feel really safe and calm. Except me, [audience laughter] because I'm her daughter and I worry about her. I've been worried about her health. My worry about her was always about her health, because my mom was overweight for most of my life, and she had high blood pressure and she worked in the psych ward where there was a lot of second-hand smoke. And I worked in New York writing and editing for magazines. So, I was reading all these studies about how obesity and second-hand smoke and high blood pressure are really dangerous. And so, I'd worry. 

 

My mom thought that was funny, because she doesn't worry at all, which I think is easier when you have somebody to do all the worrying for you. So, she's driving all over the place. She's going to Africa on safari. She goes to China. She does all this stuff. I'm following her around, saying, “Mom, do you need to be so busy? Mom, could you slow down? Mom, have you gotten checked for diabetes?” And she's like, “Oh, Becky, I'm fine. You worry too much.” We're both kind of right. 

 

Like, there were times when she ended up in the hospital, because she was doing too much and she had a surgery that nearly killed her. But for the most part, she was okay. But we were locked in this dance. And then, she got diagnosed with kidney failure. Kidney failure is manageable. You can live with it for a while, but it's a chronic disease and it will kill you. The thing that can happen is when your kidneys really stop functioning, is you can stop eliminating fluid and you can fill up with fluid and drown from within. 

 

And so, one day I get a call from my dad saying, “Mom's in the hospital, and she was having some shortness of breath and they think they found fluid in her lungs.” I leave the house, and I go to the hospital and I get there to my mom's room right around the time that my dad is coming back from the cafeteria. He's got a little sandwich in a plastic bag and I've got my purse and we meet at my mom's room. And the doctor had just been there. So, we come in. 

 

I think at that point, my dad and I were both hoping that it was maybe her medication or something. And so, we go in and my dad says, “Well, what did the doctor say? What is it?” And my mom goes, “It's the progression of the disease.” And my dad goes, “What does that mean?” My mom just looks at him, and he looked at her and they looked at each other for a long time. It was such an intimate look. I almost felt like I shouldn't be there. It was two people who've been married for 50 years looking at each other, and I'm thinking, what it means is this is the beginning of the end.

 

And then, around Thanksgiving, I call my dad to see how she's doing and he says, “Not well.” And this time, I say the words I've never dared say. And I say, “Dad, is she dying?” And he says “Yes. The doctors say she won't make it to Christmas.” And I thought, damn it. The thing I've been worried about my whole life is finally happening and it's awful. And I said, “Dad, what are we going to do without her?” And he said, “I don't know, Becky. I don't know.” So, I got off the phone. I was up all night. I'm making like 25 million deals with God, like, “I will never say a bad word about anybody again. Please, please, please let my mom stay past Christmas, please, or just five weeks. I don't care. Just make her live longer. I'm not ready.” 

 

The next morning, I'm trying to get my kids ready for school. My younger son won't get ready, he won't get dressed. And my younger son has a way of gauging the stress level in the house, and then reacting to it by sitting down and refusing to put his pants on. [audience laughter] And so, he's standing there. I can roll with this. He's been doing this for a long time and I can roll with it. But this morning I'd been up all night, I just got this news that my mom's dying and I can't handle it. And so, I just lose it. “This kid is sitting there, he won't get dressed,” and I'm just-- I lose it. I say, “Dawson, get your pants on. What's wrong with you? How can you be a nine-year-old who doesn't know how to dress himself? Get ready for school. You're going to be late. I can't do this today. I just can't. “

 

Dawson's standing against the radiator in our hallway, and he's not looking at me and he says, “Is Grandmama okay?” I looked at him and I just said, “Just go to school.” Dawson put on his backpack and he walked out the door. I watched him walk away and he had this resigned nine-year-old walk, like, “Adults are so stupid.” I watched him go and I thought I didn't handle that very well at all. What did I just do? That's my kid. It's not his fault. And he left his lunch at our house. So, I thought, okay, I'll take the lunch to school. 

 

I take it to school, and I go into the front desk, and the secretary's there and I say, “Can I see Dawson? I have his lunch.” And she's like, “Oh, sure, I'll take it.” And I said, “No, I need to speak to him. Can you please bring him? Can you send him in?” She says, “Sure.” So, Dawson comes out and I give him his lunch and I lean down next to him and I say, “Listen, Dawson, I'm so sorry I yelled at you. Are you worried about Grandmama?” And he goes, “Yeah.” And I said, “Oh, me too.” I put my arms around him and we're both crying and we're hugging each other and the woman at the front desk says, “Do you two need a room?” [audience laughter] 

 

So, we go to the room, this break room, and there's a microwave and all these different Bigelow tees. I sit down and I say to Dawson, “It's true, your grandma isn't doing well. She is 80 and it's sad, but there's a lot of love in our family and we're going to be okay.” I thought that was kind of mature. Dawson looks at me and goes, “Yeah, but I don't want to hear anything more, any more details about being sick or dying, because then you spend all this time being sad before you need to be sad, and being sad before you need to be sad is the worst.” 

 

I look at him and I'm like, “Leave it to the kid who won't put his pants on to [audience laughter] tell a 47-year-old woman what she needs to hear.” He's nine. And so, it didn't actually stop me from worrying. I think I'm wired that way. But it did really help me shift that sentence. I need to spend as much to enjoy my mother as much as I can, because she doesn't have much time left to. I want to enjoy my mother, because I love her. And so, once a week I drive her to dialysis-- That doesn't sound like much fun, and in some ways it's not. But the great thing about it is that I get to have all these hours to talk with her. 

 

It's just made it so clear to me and reminded me that the thing that I think is so amazing about my mother, aside from all the other things, is that she is the kind of person that you cannot, you cannot sit down next to her without telling her everything that's in your heart. You see people at a party, and mom will sit down and they'll say, “Hi, I'm about to get a divorce.” [audience laughter] It's like, you can't do it. Mom just says, “Yeah, okay.” 

 

The other day I went over there. It was a snowstorm, and I spent the night at Mom's house, which is the house I grew up in. My husband took the kids home, and so I'm there with my mom and my dad. We're in the stove room, which my dad put together in the 1970s. My mom's in her blue chair that she likes to sit in and I'm on the couch. My dad's in a rocker. Mom and I start talking, dad goes to sleep. We started talking. I was telling her about how I see all these other mothers who are so good with their kids. They're so patient and soft. And she said, “You're a great mother. Your talents are different. [audience laughter] You're special. [laughs] 

 

And that got us to talking about marriage and raising boys and then that got us into fixing up old houses and then we got on our favorite topic, which is psychological disorders and who has them, [audience laughter] which we can talk about for hours. And then, it was 02:00 in the morning, and I go, “Mom, I got to go to bed. I have to drive you to dialysis tomorrow.” So I go to bed, and the next day we're driving, and I say to Mom, “I can't believe how late we stayed up last night.” And mom goes, “I know. I felt like a school girl. I felt like I was in college.” And I said, “I know. That's how I felt too.” 

 

It made me think, that time I was worrying about her. What I meant was, don't die. I don't want you to die. Because if you die, who will be the person that I will just be able to sit down next to and say whatever in my heart. Who will do that? Don't go. Stay as long as you can. I didn't say that. I said, “Why don't you try water aerobics?” [audience laughter] which is not the same thing. [audience laughter] But I can say it now. When you go, I will miss you so much. [sobs] But you're here and I see your brightness and it's so beautiful, it lights up the room. Thank you.