Beth Ann Fennelly - The Proper Time to Eat

 

 

When I was growing up, if I asked my mother if she was hungry for lunch, the first thing she would do would be look at her watch. She'd look at her watch, because there was a proper time to eat, and that time was noon. So, if it was 11:59, no, she was not hungry, not for another 60 seconds. I offer this as an example of the very structured, very rule bound, very, very catholic family. 

 

I grew up in a Victorian house just north of Chicago. Victorian outside and inside as well. My father worked all day. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, ruled with an iron fist in her little talbot sweater sets and fluffy helmet of hair set at the salon once a week. My sister and I were disciplined to be ladylike, and pious, and chaste and quiet.

 

Frequent admonitions in my house included things like, children should be seen and not heard and don't speak unless spoken to first. Even now, when I look back on my childhood memories, I'm always a passive observer. I'm never an active participant. When I look back on those stories, I never hear the sound of my voice. 

 

There weren't a lot of models of self-actualized women fighting for change in my growing up, in my mom's friend group of stay-at-home moms or the nuns at catholic school. I remember in third grade, when a priest came into our class and announced a meeting for prospective altar boys. And I went. [audience laughter]

 

I think I wasn't partially trying to prove a point, but partially, I was into the whole altar boy thing. It seemed really dramatic. I liked the fashion. I liked the robes and the chains. I thought maybe it needed a belt or a little accessorizing, but I was going to work with that. But the priest came in, and saw me in the pew, and he pinched my arm and walked me across the church to the sacristy and pushed open this giant oak door to where a couple elderly women were ironing the altar boy’s robes. And he said, “This is where God calls you to serve.” 

 

So that evening, in my best penmanship, I wrote a letter tattling on him to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. And I ended, “And PS, women should be priests.” Years went by before I discovered that letter in my mother's scrapbook. And two things immediately struck me. One was my mother's heading in the scrapbook, which was our little women's libber. [audience laughter]

 

The other was only then did I realize my mother never sent the letter, and even that small protest silenced. So, I became determined to live another way, find another way. Two things really helped me. The first was poetry. I had always scribbled in my notebook and kept a diary. But when I got to college, I had my first real classes, and I got criticism, and I began to try to listen to that little whisper inside me and turn the volume up. 

 

The second was love. Meeting my honey, the first day of our graduate program for creative writing. We live in Mississippi now, and we teach there, and we have a much, much different way of bringing up our kids. We have a loud, messy, comfortable house and three loud, messy, confident children. Far from being told, they should be seen and not heard. I think if we were really quiet right now, we might be able to hear them. [audience laughter]

 

This was very perplexing and upsetting to my mother. When she'd come down to Mississippi from Illinois, which was often, she criticized our parenting style, which she found too permissive. She criticized our lack of structure, which she found chaotic. Nevertheless, my husband and I thought maybe my mom didn't need to be living alone anymore, because by this point, my father had died and my sister had died. We asked her if she wanted to live with us, and she immediately said, “No.” I was immediately filled with relief. [audience laughter]

 

But we began to see signs of mental deterioration and we said, “Oh, mom's getting dotty.” I think we chose the term intentionally, because it made it sound less dire, because in truth, it was becoming dire. We had the sense that maybe my mom shouldn't be driving anymore. The big constant in my mom's life is that she hated change. And she didn't want to change. And if she had to stop driving, her life would completely change. 

 

One time, my kids and I were visiting her in Illinois, and she wanted to take us to the zoo. We got in her car on the highway, and she just swerved into the other lane. That car was beeping at her. She swerved back into the other lane, and that car's beeping and giving her the finger. I'm jamming for the emergency brake pedal, and I look in the rearview mirror. My kids are clasping each other's hands in fear. 

 

I told my mom to pull the car over, and she did. We switched seats, and I said the sentence that I had practiced saying. I said, “Mom, I don't think you should be driving anymore.” And she said, “Humph.” And I said, “And I think you need to be tested for Alzheimer's.” She said, “I have been tested. I don't have Alzheimer's.” And I said, “Can I talk to your doctor?” And she said, “He's busy.” 

 

That was January of 2020. In March, we started hearing this strange new term, coronavirus, killing the elderly people, which meant that mom couldn't visit us and we couldn't visit her. Her activities began closing down. One time, she called me, she was upset that no one showed up for bridge. 

 

And I said, “Mom, they didn't show up because it's not safe. You shouldn't be cruising for bridge partners. You shouldn't be sitting at a small table passing cards.” She sniffed, unconvinced, didn't like that. But that bridge cancelled, and ladies lunch bunch canceled and St. Mary's book club canceled. And then, St. Mary's, the mass went online, and she couldn't figure out Zoom. No matter how much time I spent with on the telephone, she couldn't figure out Zoom. She was alone, and lonely and depressed. 

 

All these canceled activities were more than just a dreaded change in routine. They were doors closing to the world beyond herself, and to the neurons that would have been firing when she was counting bridge tricks or discussing Oprah's book pick. I began to see the lights in her beautiful brain going out one by one. 

 

One time, I called her and I stopped her just in the nick of time from sending her money to an internet scammer. Another time, I called her and the phone rang. It just rang and rang, but where could she possibly be? She couldn't leave her house. Well, she'd gotten locked out. And I said, “Mom, what did you do?” And she said, “Well, I just walked up and down the street, knocking on doors till someone's called me a locksmith.” It was eight degrees in Chicago that day. 

 

So, one day, well, every day, my husband and I kept having that same conversation, “What should we do about my mom?” And the phone rang, and it was my mother of the stiff upper lip, my mother who had never admitted to having a problem of any kind. And she said, “Beth Ann, you need to come home. I think I'm falling apart.” 

 

So, the next day, I flew home to O'Hare, and I got a car service to my mom's house. When she opened the door, somehow, I was still surprised to find her so changed. I took her in my arms. She was small. She felt small. Her little talbot sweater set was stained, and the house was messy and she said, “What time is it, Beth Ann?” And I said, “Oh, mom, it's just past 06:00.” And she said, “Past 06:00? Well, then it's past time for dinner.” 

 

She led me into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. This wave of odor hit me, and I could see all these little rotting nuggets of food. And I said, “Mom, it's okay. You don't have to feed me. I'll borrow your car. I'll go get us some food. You just stay here. Just rest.” 

 

She was following me out to the garage. She was protesting, but I just kept going. I pushed open the door to the garage. That's when I found that her car was smashed up like a tin can. She had gotten in an accident and had hidden it from me. I turned to her over my shoulder, and she was cringing like the teenager I had been getting busted for coming in past curfew. I had heard of that moment when the parent becomes the child. And right then, it seemed like the transference was complete and her life did change very quickly after that. 

 

I got a hold of her doctor, who said he'd been trying to get ahold of me, but she had been telling him I was too busy. And he agreed she shouldn't live alone. So, that next day, I had her car towed away for parts and a for sale sign stabbed in the lawn of that big Victorian house. My husband and I moved her to an assisted living, not a mile from our house. What I think about now, what I wonder at, “Is why I didn't step in sooner? Why I had to let my mom get in an accident before I took the keys away?” I think it can be so hard to shoulder aside the roles we inhabit in our childhood. 

 

That voice I was so proud of developing, that precious voice I had nurtured, was nowhere to be found when I needed it. I'd always faulted my mom for her inability to change. But really, at that moment, it was me who was unable to change, because I didn't take action and protect her. And I failed her. 

 

Well, she likes the assisted living. It's a very structured schedule. She likes when I visit her, and read her poetry and hold her hand. She likes to come to our house for lunch and dinner. She seems to tolerate the noise and chaos better than she used to, maybe because her vision and hearing aren't as good as they used to be. [audience laughter]

 

Or, maybe she's changed a bit. Maybe I have too, because I've noticed when she comes, I always try to serve her lunch at noon or dinner at 06:00, because it makes her happy and because that is the proper time to eat after all. Thank you.