Mom: Do I Know You?

Along Route 12, the highway connecting North Idaho to Montana, there’s a pullover, and that’s where I run my roadside stand. I only open on Saturdays, but it’s a hobby of mine, and it brings in both cash and friends. Local industry is trendy these days.

A Toyota minivan pulls up in a puff of dust. A mom unfolds from the driver's seat, her purse slung over her shoulder. Kids emerge like popcorn from both side doors—one, two, three, four, five, six. I’m not sure where they are all coming from. Mom in the lead, they crowd under my shade tent and circle the display table. Mom slings an arm around a scrawny little one. Smiles revealing the gaps from wiggly teeth turn to laughing exclamations as the kids study the food selections. Mom welcomes the kids’ input on pie choices, pinching a smudged cheek as one of them whispers something in her ear. They argue good-naturedly. Mom offers each kid a smoothie: strawberry, banana, or mixed berry. I have a blender on the side table, and it roars to life. The kids change their minds several times, but their slurps made with colored straws circling the bottom of the plastic cups, are the happy noises of summer.

Mom opens her purse. We’re both terrible at math, but after a banter of jokes and raucous laughter, she generously forks over a hundred and says, “We’ll make it two apple pies. Keep the change. Kids, take a cookie on your way, and be sure to say thank you!”

My heart stops for a second while I tuck the bill away. “Do I know you?” I whisper after the mother. It’s not her face so much, nor her stature. But her voice, her outsized heart, that selfless attitude, and all those kids. It’s like I’m one of them again.

I’m woken with the phone ringing. It’s dad, from England. Has he forgotten the time change?

“Sandra, it’s your mom. She’s passed.” He’s crying. My mom was everything to my dad. They were a team. They had to be to raise the likes of us, each a little crazier than the one before, and two years between us like steps on a staircase--four boys, four girls. My mom always told us we were the perfect family.

I remember when my last little brother was born, and I was only four. My dad came home from the hospital and said, “Someone is coming to join our family. Can you guess who?” My parents had not talked to me about the upcoming arrival of yet another baby. I proceeded to guess every old aunt and stray bachelor in the area. After all, my parents often took in people who needed a place to stay. I remember my dad laughing uproariously. I wondered what was so funny.

Then, with a beaming face, he said, “You have a brand new baby brother!”

A large unwieldy camper sways to a stop. A couple, perhaps in their fifties, steps down and walks over to inspect the stand. I’ve put chairs out under the shade tent, danglers flutter and sparkle, and even the geraniums in the corner tub look red hot. They choose a cherry pie and decide to stay for smoothies. Most customers are glad for conversation as they wait for the blender to work its magic. Teachers on vacation, this pair. They’re from out-of-state, and we get on the topic of local history, the Idaho gold rush, the Nez Perce. They are reveling in the scenery—the canyons, rivers, and snow-capped peaks in the distance. They ask for suggestions, “What’s not to miss around here?”

“We love our summers,” the woman says. “We just want to enjoy every day.”

I am jolted again--that voice, those words. My mom’s face appears in my mind’s eye and I feel her warmth tickle the recesses of my heart. My mom’s same curiosity, love of conversation, love of life—it’s there again.

I wish them well on their travels, and they leave in another cloud of dust, happy and fed.

My mom loved the outdoors and (probably because of the sheer number of us kids) we often took picnics and excursions—up mountains or to lakesides and rivers. Whenever we beheld something extra beautiful, she would say, “Lock it in, guys, lock it in!” My siblings and I often quote this to each other now and chuckle at the memory. As kids she always wanted us to remember the beautiful things in life and to savor each moment. Not an easy thought at the time in the rush and rumble of family life.

And later when they were older, she’d tell my dad, “If either of us die, we should never live with regrets. They’re a waste of time. Dad, we did our best, didn’t we?”

Well into the afternoon a Chevy pulls up. Its once-white coat of paint is encrusted in dust, and although its license plate is unreadable, I know it’s a local. Its engine sputters and stops. An older woman emerges with grayish-white hair pulled back in a bun. As she approaches my table, I see her work-worn hands, a gardener for sure.

I greet her warmly and compliment her beautiful floral top. Then noticing the eager nose of a canine sticking out the back window, I ask what kind?

“Purebred mutt,” she says and laughs. “Got any cherry pies left?”

It’s cherry season, and I have a couple left. We get to talking about where to find the best pie cherries to pick. The conversation turns to the elusive huckleberries, Idaho’s state fruit, and the secret places where they can be harvested. Around this area, they can be sold for eighty bucks a gallon.

“Best be on my way then,” she says. “Been seeing your signs and had to try your stand today. Sure’s been nice meeting you. Thought when I saw you first, we’d met before…”

“Don’t think so,” I said.

“Just seems like we’ve known each other before.” She laughs and shrugs.

“Maybe we have,” I say. “I’m a bad one for remembering names and faces.”

“Going over to babysit my grandkids, and thought I’d bring them a pie this time.”

“Enjoy!” I call after her as she slams the truck door.

Growing up, my mom often told us kids, “Treat every older person like they could be your parent.” I ponder that wise advice.

I was born on Mother’s Day Sunday, on her birthday. We always shared birthdays, a fact I always loved. “Others first,” she’d always say. Not only say, she lived it in the tiniest details of life, every day, always.

The sun sinks toward the horizon, sending the last bright sunrays slanting under the tent where I sit. I’ve made about two hundred smoothies and sold almost fifty fruit pies, tens of cookies, and several loaves of sourdough bread today. I should be tired, but meeting so many people from dozens of states—travelers, campers, firefighters, loggers, fishermen, and locals invigorates me.

I bag up the trash and box up my blender. I load my collapsible table, signs, and cooler boxes in my little trailer and head back up the grade for home, my farmhouse on the canyon rim.

With everything washed for next week, I fix dinner, get ready for bed, and grab my book.

As I head to my bedroom, I glance in my mirror. For the third time that day, my heart skips a beat. I look back, but the image has changed.

It was my mom, I’m sure of it. But on second look, it’s me, same old me. I pause.

My mom died suddenly and unexpectedly 3,000 miles away in England after a double knee replacement.She died a day before Thanksgiving, and her funeral was two days later. I had five small children and a full-time teaching job at the time. I couldn’t make the arrangements that fast to travel across the ocean. A trip like that was beyond my means.

That said, I often wonder if I have yet come to grips with her death.

Is she truly gone?

For years I had always looked to my mom and my grandmother (she lived to be 107) to cushion the great divide between me and the world beyond. Now they have both passed, my mom much too soon. I ponder my mortality, realizing for my kids and my first grandkids, I’m that person now.

I close my eyes and take comfort, remembering my mom as a mother, best friend, and finally grandmother. I hold her spirit close to me, a spirit I know is not far away, a spirit that visits me in uncanny, yet wonderful ways.

“Treat every older person as if they were your parent.”

I’ll keep trying, Mom.