Mother’s Day: a Rant

Last night, I dreamed several of my closest friends died.

I’m at the point in life where I attend memorials with increasing frequency and weddings hardly at all, but the dream was not about that. It was about a Mother’s Day visit with family. We are not close. There are no bad feelings that I’m aware of. We just don’t talk outside of holidays and the occasional birthday.

About six weeks before the visit, the younger of my two sisters (sister #2) texted me that she and the other siblings were gathering in Tucson for Mother’s Day, which is about an eight-hour drive for my husband and me. This sister was coming from Alaska, so I can’t say I was coming from the greatest distance.

Our mother is 83. She, my brother, his wife, and their daughter live in Tuscon. Our father died young. My sisters’ father and Mom divorced many years ago, and she never remarried. My sisters’ father died some time ago. I had not spoken to him in some thirty years.

Mom lost her older sister (with whom she lived when she first immigrated to the U.S.) a long time ago. Both her brothers are now gone also. Her parents died before she left her native country.

When my husband and I arrived at the hotel in Tucson Friday evening, hot and tired, I texted Mom, my brother and his wife, sister # 1, her wife, and sister #2—the one who’d sent the invitation. We had plans to visit the Air and Space Museum early Saturday. They would visit the Farmer’s Market. Rather than go out on Sunday—too many other people with the same idea—my brother’s wife would host a lunch at their place.

On Saturday morning (not too early), I texted that we’d probably be done with the Air and Space Museum by 11 and asked what the plans were. “Should we meet at Mom’s?” I suggested.

“We are at the Farmer’s Market,” sister #1 texted. “I’ll text when we are leaving.”

That was the last I heard from her.

“We’ll text when we leave here,” sister #1’s wife texted. “We’ll find a place to meet.”

That was the last I heard from her.

At 12:42, I texted, “Back at the hotel watching the Weather Channel. Any news?”

Crickets chirped.

I gave up and texted my brother to ask what time the Mother’s Day lunch was the next day.

“Twelve o’clock noon,” sister #1 texted back.

My husband and I went to lunch at a nice Mediterranean restaurant and returned to the room again. We checked out the pool at the hotel, as the temperature was in the 90s. Unsupervised kidlets had the run of the place. We returned to the room, watched TV, and had dinner at the hotel. We caught a biopic of Marie Curie.

Outside of a friend of my brother’s who invited me to dinner as a joke, thinking I didn’t know he was in town, none of the family contacted us. Yeah, pretty damn funny.

I was steaming. We’d booked a hotel room and driven eight hours, only to sit around while the family was out somewhere partying. Uh, yeah. Thanks for the invite.

We did make it to the pool Sunday morning before the kidlets took over. For a while, we had it to ourselves.

We attended the Mother’s Day lunch and socialized, catching up with almost everyone. My mother said having everyone together was the best Mother’s Day. We left after a few hours—the first to bow out. I thanked my brother and sister-in-law for their hospitality. We returned to the hotel room and watched a little more TV while packing up.

We left early the next morning for our eight-hour drive without talking to the family.

I’m glad we went. It meant a lot to my mother. She won’t be around forever.

But hell (or maybe Tucson) will freeze over before I return to Tucson.