Mom and Dad

Living In An Oven

Maybe it’s sick…surely it’s a bit creepy.  I don’t care.  Sometimes I hope my mom isn’t home.  I let the phone ring 5 times, the antique GE answering machine picks up with a crisp click, tiny metallic wheels engage, with a flea faint squeak, two micro-reel motors drag the streaked faded UPS brown recording across the dual tape heads.  A cotton ball soft, static hiss fades out…abruptly dad’s firm gravely voice, uncomfortably, with deliberation, speaks semi hurriedly and unrehearsed, “You’ve reached the Brand residence, we’re not home, leave your message at the beep.” Without fail, dad’s voice triggers a deluge of mass shadowy remembrances.  Following what feels like a full minute of near silent hissing, a rude, over loud beep, wrenches my heaped memories back to now.  I always leave a cheery message for mom.

My mom lives alone in an oven.  Actually…she lives inside climate controlled comfort three point seven miles near to my little brother Erich and my two young nephews, Von and Baron.

Except on the most scorching days, laboring air conditioners beat back the Arizona blaze…they are powerless when it comes to cooling radiation generated by mom’s remembrance of forty five years of marriage to Dad.  They fought like cats and dogs, loved like Romeo and Juliet and laughed like Rickey and Lucy.  Dad died and mom’s heart broke over six years ago.

On stage and in-motion she seems normal.  When the audience exits and quiet intrudes, I know mom mourns deeply.  Still.  Forever.

I jet in like a tourist.  On the flight back to my own family in Texas, in quiet contemplation, I always promise myself – thrice yearly visits – at least.  Priorities misalign, commitment dulls and actual visits slip to sporadic reverse “Cat’s In The Cradle” infrequency.  I am guilty.  I phone.  When the antique recorder picks up, I always leave a cheery message and wonder if she ever calls herself, just to hear the sound of dad’s voice.  I know my brothers and I do.

The End - May 2007