Rolling with the Punches

“Good God,” my mother said. “We’ve arrived in hell.”

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. There was nothing I could say to make either one of us feel better.

Perfect Road Trip 2018 was not unfolding as planned.

Because I could not see the mountain peaks while we were driving through the billows of wildfire smoke in the valleys, I had assumed that the Skytram would elevate us above the miasma to a heaven of pure.clear air, blue skies, and sundrenched slopes caressed by refreshing breezes. Instead, it had disgorged us in a superheated wasteland that was even worse than the oppressive realm from which we came. Grey rocks, grey sky, grey air. Any possibility of exploration was nullified by the loss of visibility. If we wandered off, we might never find our way back.

As the Skytram faded out of my visual range, I realized, to my horror, that none of the other passengers had been foolish enough to disembark. We were alone.

The temperature below was 34 degrees centigrade. It felt at least five degrees hotter here.

I slumped down on a rock beside my mother. “The tram will be back in half an hour.”

If it comes back at all. Maybe they’ll decide to cut their losses and call it quits for the day.

Mam held up her phone. “Let’s take a selfie or two. Nobody’s going to believe this without visual evidence.”

I smoothed back my hair, put my face next to hers and tried to look awesome, or at least moderately sane. It would never do for me to look flustered on social media. I had a reputation to maintain, especially on the Lewis Family Facebook page.

Mam was the Matriarch, soon to celebrate her 90^th birthday. Dad, deceased since 1995, was the Remembered One, becoming more mythical every year. My brother Darien was The Ambitious One, a financial advisor with a fifteen million dollar portfolio. My baby sisters Darla and Denise were the Chronically Needy and Demanding Ones. Darien and his spouse Rhea had two daughters, Gina and Elaine, who rarely posted anything. Darla was single and living in California with no visible means of financial support. Denise, dissatisfied mother of Rose, Charles and Arthur, was selling real estate on Vancouver Island, navigating the labyrinth of her second divorce. 

I had lost track of the next generation long ago, but Mam’s memory was as sharp as a tack where her descendants were concerned. She took great pride in her five grands and two and a half great-grands. Her desire to keep in touch had overridden her suspicion of modern technology to the point of taking internet courses at the library. Her active presence on the Lewis Facebook page was supplemented by a daily avalanche of e-mails and texts. Her family was her life.

I was Arlene the Bossy, the Reliable One. Because I was the firstborn, Mam was obsessed with all phases of my development, and instilled in me the ironclad belief that her happiness, and the prosperity of the household, was my responsibility. By the time my sisters were born, she had subsided into a laissez-faire parenting style, and I felt compelled to take up the slack. I established myself as acting household manager, and did my job too well. 

My siblings never learned to cook or clean up after themselves. Whenever I tried to bully them into participating in household chores, they teased me for “ranting like a fishwife”, warning me that if I persisted in my attitude, no one would be willing to marry me. Even after we had all left home and had presumably become independent adults, the childhood drama continued to play itself out at Mam and Dad’s summer acreage near Jasper. My siblings whined incessantly about uncooperative weather and bugs and the cold water in Williams Lake. I cooked, cleaned, and picked up their wet towels on the bathroom floor. Darien’s behavior improved remarkably after he married Rhea, but the girls never evolved past the gamesmanship of spoiled three-year-olds.

After Dad’s death, Mam offered to sell the property to any or all of us at a drastically discounted price, saying that it was too much work and expense for her to maintain. Darien considered second-mortgaging his house to achieve his dream of owning a piece of Paradise whose value was sure to keep increasing, but Rhea vetoed the idea. She declared that she was not going to endure financial hardships and endless maintenance tasks for the sake of providing a free vacation venue for the rest of the family. Darla and Denise lamented Rhea’s failure to understand the importance of family gatherings. When Mam sold the property for $2.2 million, I experienced some twinges of regret, but mostly I was relieved. I had no desire to look after anyone but Mam.

I took early retirement, imagining that Mam and I would live together, but she declined. Eventually, we compromised, sold our houses, and rented separate apartments in a mid-range building with reliable climate control, en suite washers and dryers, and a swimming pool. She escaped my helicopter daughter initiatives by going on cruises and bus tours, while I worried whether she would have enough money left to provide adequate eldercare. She laughed away my fears and said that too much money was a headache.

After she stopped driving, we started going on road trips together. She was a model passenger and told me that travelling with me was infinitely superior to commercial services. “You know exactly what I want, even before I do.”  She insisted on paying all the expenses.  I took pride in my ability to anticipate all her needs and keep loose ends tied up.

My streak of perfectly planned and executed road trips was now ancient history. Summer heat and the wildfires had unraveled everything. My meticulous planning had failed to anticipate the nerve-wracking ordeal of driving through endless clouds of smoke.

“I’m sorry,” I told Mam. “I should have paid more attention to the fire reports.”

Mam, seemingly unfazed by the horror of the moment, was soaking her hat with ice water from her thermos. “This too shall pass.”

“I think we should go home and try again later,” I said. I was feeling a heaviness in my chest from the pollution, and wondered if she was too.

“No need,” Mam said confidently. “Artie and Rose are expecting us. We can’t possibly miss Helena’s birthday party.”

Helena was a four-year-old great-grand who lived on an organic farm near Vancouver with her parents, Artie and Rose. Rose, one of Denise’s brood, had turned out quite well, considering.

“There will be other birthday parties,” I protested. “What if we get trapped in a fire zone?”

Mam patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t catastrophize,” she said. “If there’s anything I have learned in 89 years, it’s how to roll with the punches.”

She offered me some of her water. The coolness soothed my throat, but exacerbated my guilt because she was looking after me.

The smoke cleared as we approached our stop for the night, a lakeside cabin with a kitchenette, shower and fire pit (which could not be used because of the fire ban). Our cooler was filled with salads, iced tea, and healthy snacks. Mam had brought along her favourite indulgences, Turkish delight, kettle-fried potato chips, and locally roasted gourmet coffee. 

There was no air conditioning in our cabin, but the atmosphere cooled considerably as darkness fell. I was beginning to relax, hoping that it might be possible to salvage our expedition after all. Then the thunder and lightning began.

Lightning strike after lightning strike lit up the lake and resort, making sleep impossible. All I could do was sit on my bed and watch helplessly, waiting for the world to end.

Despite the calming breathwork techniques I had learned at an Elevated Perception seminar, it took only a few minutes before I was five years old again, trembling with terror. All the failures of my life surfaced to taunt me. I started to sob.

Mam posted herself beside me with a fistful of tissues and held out her arms. “It’s pyrocumolonimbus,” she explained. “The heat from the fires is creating its own weather system.”

I hid my face in her chest until the noise stopped, and then fell asleep in her arms.

When I woke up, the sun was shining brightly and birdsong filled the air. Mam had made fresh coffee.

“Artie and Rose are smoked in,” she announced, “so there’s no point going to their place. I’ve booked a family suite in the Harvest Inn in Vancouver for four nights. That was a lucky break – a cancellation came up just at the right moment. Helena is having two friends for a sleep-over, but we’ll have lots of room for them. There are two king-sized beds, two bunk beds, and a sleeping nook in the igloo.”

“The igloo?”

“It’s a theme room. Arctic Dreams. A good choice in weather like this.” 

“What about the birthday picnic? I made cookies.”

“We can have that in the igloo.”

“And then?”

“They have a pool with a water slide, an indoor playground, and a mini arcade and casino. There’s a Bouncing Babes right next door, with a Mickey Dee’s. They might enjoy some junk food for a change.”

“Bouncing Babes? That sounds like a burlesque show … or worse.”

Mam chuckled. “It’s a trampoline facility. The entire ground floor is bouncy, and there’s a nice lounge upstairs where non-bouncers can watch the fun.”

“How in the world did you manage all that?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I did what you young people do whenever you have a problem. I consulted Google. All we have to do now is wait for a civilized hour to inform Artie and Rose of our revised plans. I’ve made a supper reservation in the Harvest restaurant. A bit much for a four-year-old, maybe, but the children’s menu is whimsical, and they supply crayons for decorating the place mats.”

“What if Artie and Rose have other ideas?” I asked.

“The weather forecast predicts 35 degrees today and tomorrow, and they don’t have air conditioning. They’ll come. One of them will have to shuttle back and forth to look after the goats and chickens, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

I felt my body relax. I was sixty-seven years old, and I was blessed with a mother who could pull the proverbial rabbit out of a hat. I would just have kept banging my head against the wall, cursing the weather.

“Sounds awesome,” I said. “I wish I had your superpower for transforming disaster into delight.”

She smiled. “Google and a credit card are great game-changers.”

The change of venue was a huge success. Helena and her friends loved the trampoline park, and declared that this was “my best birthday party ever.” Rose shed tears of gratitude because she was pregnant and ready to trade her soul for respite from the heat.

Over the next three days, the smoke cleared. The temperature dropped and we were free to enjoy everything Vancouver had to offer. After we checked out of the hotel, we toured the farm and were showered with hugs, kisses, and organic produce.

Our trip home was disaster-free and relaxed. I no longer felt the need to maintain perfection. We did exactly what we wanted whenever we felt like it, and arrived home two days later than I had planned.

In 2020, Mum bought a condo in a full-service senior building, with restaurant-catered meals and hot and cold running attendants for hire. My self-imposed caregiving was no longer needed, and Mum and I were finally able to become friends.

She died peacefully in 2023. She left me a beautiful letter, thanking me for my efforts to take care of her, which she appreciated even when they were irritating. If you want to honour my memory, please take the same excellent care of yourself as you lavished on me. I love you, and I want to be happy.

She also left me the condo and its contents. 

I was overwhelmed. Her gift allowed me to enjoy a lifestyle that would have been beyond my means. Taxes, insurance and condo fees amounted to less than the rent I was paying, leaving resources for some of the luxury services I coveted, as well as the occasional road trip.

The bulk of Mam’s remaining fortune went to charity. My siblings were outraged, and accused me of taking advantage of our gullible and defenseless mother to feather my own nest. They insisted that I sell the condo and divide the proceeds with them, or face dire retribution. I told them to address all questions and concerns to Mam’s lawyer and executor. They did not follow through on their threats to sue, but they kicked me off the Lewis Family Facebook page.

The severing of family ties was not as heart-breaking as one might imagine. I am still in close touch with Artie, Rose, Helena and baby Gordie. I have a rich social life, which I was forced to develop when Mam fired me as her chief caregiver. Two gentlemen have requested my hand in marriage, but I turned them down because I didn’t want to get caught in the caregiving trap again.

Life is not perfect, but it is better than I imagined possible. Thanks to my mother, I have learned to roll with the punches.