1/24/05 RM Newsletter: A Twinkle, A Wink, and A Nod

Today’s Quote: “Life is mostly froth and bubble; Two things stand like stone: Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in our own.” Adam Lindsay Gordon


I didn’t suspect it. The young Brits—long defined by tradition as dignified, refined, and elegant—have been transformed by pop culture to yield traits much less flattering…or at least that is the way the media have portrayed them. (Monty Python loving fanatics that they are…) So when my mom and I spent last weekend there, I expected to find self-absorption and hedonism running rampant, given the reputation of their pubs, the amount of body-piercings and tattoos carried by its citizens on the plane ride en route, and the pink hair worn by more young adults than I could have fathomed. Yet with the exception of one youth encountered at the “Underground” way past our bedtimes last Saturday night, they surprised my mom and me with kindness, graciousness, and hospitality beyond the boundaries of my imagination.


I had given up all designs on going. My mom won a trip for two to London when the concertmistress pulled her raffle ticket stub from a box holding hopes by hometown youth symphony supporters, out-of-town well-wishers, and family members alike. All had thrown their support for an expensive April trip to Paris by the Ridgefield Symphony Youth Orchestra by purchasing raffle tickets at $25 a pop. In a generous show of support for two of her grandchildren, my mom had bought a bunch. When she found out that she had won the grand prize, she invited me to accompany her; she’s been widowed for over thirty years and had no traveling companion lined up. After I suggested she consider instead her single brother or sister, or one of her other two grown children, she decided that she’d really like to take me. I couldn’t have been more excited; having traveled to Europe on several occasions, I had never traveled there. And as my plans had already been confirmed to chaperone my kids on their symphony orchestra Paris trip, it made for a wonderful 2005 travel schedule.


One week later, Nick was diagnosed with leukemia. And my trip to London was not to be. No way would I fly over the pond during the intensification phase of his chemo protocol to goof around in London for a few days. But, as the story would go, a few weeks later, my dear friend, Newby, from Lexington, Kentucky (our “hometown” of almost twenty years), called me to see if there might be a good time for her to come and relieve me of my caretaking duties. Her own mother had had leukemia, and she understood firsthand the toll—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—that caring for someone with cancer inevitably brings. Long story short: she came so that I might accompany my mom to London.


My mom is not my usual travel companion; my husband and four kids are. Accompanying Ernie brings all the perks associated with business travel: business class airline seats, better meals, and grand hotels or quaint B&B’s. And traveling with our four kids has not only gotten incredibly easier now that three of them are teenagers (surprising even to me); it’s gotten more fun, too. Our trips bring adventure and high energy activities, whether we like it or not. But I have not traveled with my mom—now seventy-five-years-old and plagued by Parkinson’s (among other ailments)—for almost twenty years.


I knew even before we left that this trip would not look like the London trip I might take with hubby or the four kids. I knew well in advance that it would be colored with fatigue, a slower pace, and later morning coffee. I suspected that mom would complain frequently of pain, jet lag, and spells of jerky, fatiguing movements. And I suspected that the Brits would show little mercy: that bus drivers insistent on adhering to schedules might show signs of impatience as mom painfully walked up their stairs; that shoppers racing into Harrods’s for their famous January sale might bump her as she failed to convey similar signs of urgency; and that even businessmen scurrying to their offices might trample us on the “tube.”


Yet we found people lifting up gestures of hospitality everywhere we went. Small gestures. And large ones, too. The reservation clerk at the hotel immediately dismayed us—jetlagged after an uncomfortable night flight without sleep—with the news upon our arrival that our room wouldn’t be ready for a couple hours, only to surprise us moments later with a room that had just become available. He had a twinkle in his eye. A wink. A nod that he understood all too well the limitations that our weekend would hold, and that the ability to once again get horizontal might be the best news of our day. The optician who I wound up needing to visit did, too. My mother accidentally and unknowingly knocked over my eyeglasses, which hung by one earpiece from the pouch in the seat in front of me in the plane. Because we flew during the night, our cabin was dark. No one noticed my missing glasses until daybreak, especially me, and when after reaching for them and not immediately finding them, I panicked. Legally blind without corrective lenses, I felt like someone had just punched me in the gut. Would I visit London for four days—and lead my frail mother through the city—unable to see? My titanium frames, expensive and almost brand new, were found dismembered and bent horribly out of shape ten rows back. They had been run over by the food cart as the flight attendants served morning coffee. So after we took a two hour nap in our newly cleaned room, our first stop was an optician’s shop. He brought me the news I knew I would hear: my glasses were beyond repair. But he delivered it with a twinkle in his eye. A wink and a nod that he knew this would make an otherwise challenging trip practically unbearable. His scrap of tape helped a little bit; his attitude helped enormously.


And so it was. For all four days. The cab driver who picked us up at the airport also came to take us back. He treated my mother so gently, so kindly. He held her arm and balanced her step and soothed her anxieties, too. So did the husband of the tour guide on our ten-hour trip to and from Cambridge. He waited outside the loo while mom and I took our time there, and held up the bus until she arrived at her seat safely and securely. No complaining. No rolling of the eyeballs. The woman sitting next to her at lunch that day—in our tour group of fifty—cut her meat when she struggled; the guide at JFK airport knelt down at mom’s wheelchair and unzipped her boots so she could walk through security; a passenger carried mom’s duffle bags off the airplane so she could walk without being further encumbered; a gentleman at Heathrow stayed with mom patiently while I contacted the Ombudsman about my eyeglasses; another pushed her in her wheelchair all the way to the gate. In and around London people took care of us with twinkles in their eyes. With winks and nods that they knew exactly what we were both going through. Not just my mom as an ailing traveler, but me, too, as her guide, her right arm for balance, and her left brain for navigation through the city.


Traveling to London with a seventy-five-year-old woman with Parkinson’s showed me that we’re all in this together. That everyone suffers in one way or another. That none of us are immune. That we suffer with our kids or we suffer with our parents or we suffer with our own physical or mental limitations. That pain is inescapable and the journey through it is inevitable.


It taught me that there is still so much joy to be found. That people—everywhere—will always surprise us with generosity. With hospitality. That looking out for others is part of who we are. That we’re wired for it. It taught me to keep looking for those surprises. Despite Parkinson’s. Despite leukemia. To keep searching for the twinkle in the eye. The nod and the wink that says “everything’s going to be all right.” To persevere through pain. To seek beauty in people and places everywhere right up until the end.


I hope you are not discouraged by suffering. That pain—physical or emotional—has not gotten the best of you. That loneliness has not kept you inside, as it once did me during an isolating relocation. That you are willing to keep looking for the twinkle, the wink, and the nod. Everywhere.


Blessings,


Carolina


A Nick Note

Nick has finished two weeks of this next round of chemo and is doing beautifully; he has two more weeks to go on this grueling round. The doctors are amazed at his lack of severe physical reactions: he retains his hair (‘tho it is thinner), and has only occasional episodes of vomiting and severe fatigue. I told his doctor this week that we had “Connections,” which he immediately acknowledged. We continue to covet your prayers on Nick’s behalf for his complete and total healing, for minimal side effects from chemo; for zero long-term ill-effects of chemo; and for amazing results to eventually come out in Nick’s life as a result of this experience.


A Quick Note

Many of you have asked me to publish my weekly ROCKET MOM! Newsletters into book form. I am following up with your requests and hope to have a book available within a few months. Details to follow. Questions? 203.438.7164.