Meet Me in New York
“How’s Keri today? Want to meet me in New York December 23rd?”
My mom loved old movies and mad-capped schemes. So, her text was not necessarily a surprise. I was only taken aback because she asked me and not one of her boisterous gal-pals. To play in this scene, I’d have to fly during the holiday season from my home in Germany.
Ugh!
Physically, my mom lived inside the box, surviving in a basement apartment with stairs she couldn’t climb, yet she always had big dreams. She had chosen a two-bedroom apartment because she wanted to be a foster mom. She went through all the training, was told she was too old and invalid to do it, but, as she informed social services, there was no rule against it. She threatened ageism and bought bunkbeds. The surest way to get my mom to do something was to tell her she shouldn’t. For better or worse, I inherited that zany drive from her.
My mom kept a small Christmas tree up year long. Her obsession with Christmas likely had more to do with relishing in warm childhood memories than throwing a birthday party for Jesus.
New York. December 23rd. I couldn’t possibly do that. Could I?
It was August when she hit ‘send’ on her antiquated flip phone. I loved to travel, and New York City was magnetic. But being there with my mom? That put a different spin on the scenario.
August 2019. I was two years and three months into being a widow. I was seeing someone. Someone who was at the same time comforting and uncomfortable. Someone I wanted to both be with and not. I didn’t want to lose having ‘the other’ in my life. Because what was there if I was alone? I had two teenagers at home. But being a parent, a really good parent, meant first dealing with my emotions and taking responsibility for my own actions. It meant taking that good hard look no one ever wants to take.
The months rolled along, a constant push-pull of a relationship I didn’t want to label. It was a war between two Keri’s. The one who wanted vulneralibity and comfort and trust. The other who built a wall of ice to keep anyone from getting too close, especially herself.
New York. December 23rd. Would I do that? Just when I thought her plan couldn’t get any crazier, she told me she wanted to fly to New York City for a single day.
“How would you get from the airport to Rockefeller Center?”
“Taxi.”
“What if you had to go to the bathroom?”
“That’s what adult diapers are for.”
She had it all planned out.
Would she really go alone if I didn’t meet her?
Yes. Yes, she would. There was no stopping her once she had an idea.
The center for young adults was one of those ideas. She kept driving past an abandoned hospital and thought it would make a great place for teens who had aged out of foster care. The center would provide meals, education, a place to stay. She registered as a non-profit, and even made a successful bid on the place for next to nothing. And then, as her ideas usually did, the reality of the project set in. She couldn’t do it alone. She sought other non-profits who could use the space. A women’s shelter. A safe haven for those sold into the sex trade. That dream fizzled like so many others, and I never heard about it again.
New York. December 22nd.
I arrived bleary-eyed at JFK that afternoon and went straight to the nearby hotel. I was back at the airport when she arrived the next morning in her leopard-print leggings and sweater with the sequined Christmas tree. She was ushered through the terminal like a rockstar. The attendant rolled her over to me, and my mom pulled out a notecard. A bible verse was scrawled around the coin taped to the front.
“This is a prayer penny,” she said. “Keep it in your pocket, and when you see it, you’ll know I’m praying for you.”
The attendant looked genuinely moved.
“Five bucks might’ve been better, mom.”
“Oh, you,” she drawled, as I reached down to hug her.
“How many people did you save on your flight?”
“I witnessed to three,” she said, “and one of them started crying.”
“You have that effect on people.”
“I try!” she laughed.
“Do you need anything before we go?” I asked, thinking how hard it might be to find a handicapped bathroom in Manhattan.
“Nope! I used the pot on the plane! I’m ready to roll!”
I had booked a van, and there was the driver, holding up a little sign for Rene. I thought it would make her feel noticed. She often complained of being invisible because she was in a wheelchair. People wouldn’t look at her, though it’s hard to imagine because of the way she was. Loud. Compassionate. Sarcastic. She would get scolded when she worked the register at Wal-Mart because she would talk too much to customers. In three minutes with my mom, she would know your life story and probably adopt you. At the very least, you would come away with a prayer penny.
The driver would take us past some of the sights before dumping us at Rockefeller Center. What the hell would we do? Freeze our asses off and watch people ice skate? I didn’t quite see the point in it. It was like part of some old film from the reel in my mom’s head.
I had the driver’s cell. He would rescue us when I called. It would cost a fortune, this hair-brained plot.
“I never knew you wanted to go to New York, Mom,” I said.
“It’s in some of my favorite movies,” she answered.
“You wanted to be an actor.”
“Did I? I don’t remember.”
I had been a little kid at the time, but I remembered. Another spur-of-the-moment trip, only that time it was West not East. She and some guy who claimed to be a Hollywood producer. Her California dream turned nightmare. Not long after our less-than-triumphant return to Iowa, there was divorce court and the sudden conversion to born-again Christianity, the piety smudged by vile diatribes about my father. While my dad remained fairly quiet on the subject, his sisters had plenty of opinions about my mother. The word “kidnapping” floated around, which sounded much more romantic than it had been. Kidnapping had to do with pirates or something and not sleezy porn producers. The divorce was chaotic to my young psyche and filled my soul with the black sludge of uncertainty. I didn’t want to talk about that fateful trip to L.A. Not now. Not in New York City at Christmas.
As my mom sat there, bundled up watching the skaters, her eyes glistened like a child’s. And she was. Christmas filled her with the love and joy she had as a kid. Her own parents’ divorce had also been a battle, in which she had watched the grenades fly both ways from her position in no-mans-land. But at Christmas, there was no yelling, no parents fighting over custody. No mother and paternal grandmother each taking your little hand and pulling in different directions. Christmas contained magic and kindness. Christmas was the ceasefire and the gentle refrain of ‘Silent Night.’
I pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Want some cocoa?
She slapped her mittens together and smiled. Realizing she was a child somehow made a little of my own bitterness melt away. For all of her faults and mistakes, I did love her, crazy as she was.
August 19, 2019
Want to meet me in New York Dec 23?
I can’t, mom. Will is coming from Canada and Katie is coming home from London. We should do it next year!
What a special Christmas, to have all UR kiddos back home under your wing, home and at the family table! SO happy for you!
That was my real answer.
I can’t mom.
Or rather, I won’t.
I know it’s not selfish for me to choose a Christmas at home with my kids over meeting her for one day in New York, and yet, I can’t shake the feeling I’ve failed her. I didn’t know it would be the last thing she would ask from me, aside from a slurp of water from the end of a sponge.
December 26, 2019. Cedar Rapids Iowa.
I am in hospice, laying next to my mom on her last night on earth.
Her impending death had cast a shadow over Christmas. My oldest daughter had done the cooking. Presents were wrapped. It was a blur of candles and food and colorful scraps of paper. My mind working at half speed. My heart icing itself up once again.
My rational brain tells me that even on December 23rd, she wouldn’t have made it to New York. She was already in the hospital by then. She was waiting for me to return. Hanging on to see me one last time, so I could hold her hand, as she departed on her final journey.
There was no time to give her New York.
I can only give it now. On the screen you’re reading. In the new novel I’m writing. In a chick lit realm of happy endings.
Meet us in New York.
*Post Script
This article has been in my edit bin for a month. The irony, or rather miracle from God, as my mom would have called it, is that I will be in New York in December.
For real.
I applied for a place at a small writers’ conference there and just received an acceptance letter. I will pitch my first novel (and maybe my second) to a panel of editors from different publishing houses. My goal is to walk away with an agent, followed by a book deal.
Regardless of the outcome of the writer’s conference, I will be in New York City during the Christmas season. I will see the things my mother wanted to see — and I will try to view the city through her eyes. Macy’s window display. The lights along Fifth Avenue. The giant Christmas tree at Rockefeller center.
I plan on ice skating.
And crying into my hot chocolate a little.
Meet me in New York.
