Take It With Both Hands

I wasn’t sure if mom could make it. I know how much she really wanted to and I knew I had no right to tell her no, but damn was I torn over it.

I knew her and my dad had some kind of connection during the eclipse in 1979, but she’d only ever told me that it was “pretty amazing” and nothing much else.

“I can do this Ronnie, I know I can. Let’s get the rest of this stuff in the truck,” she said a little breathlessly but full of her normal scolding tone I’d known since childhood.

I dutifully grabbed two more of her bags and shut the truck–maybe a little louder than I was trying for. Oops. She won’t miss that. She’s has a doctorate in passive aggressive behavior. 

From inside I could hear her annoyed voice. “People who slam trunk doors will break the trunk latch.”

There were so many things that could go wrong and we would be pretty far from her doctors if it did. Not one of them had told her it was a good idea but that wasn’t going to stop her.

I helped her around the truck and up and into the passenger seat and shut the door. Rain had started to fall which just added to my sour mood. 

I dragged my feet coming around to the driver’s side. Cold rain drops slipped right past the brim of my hat and through my open zipper onto my neck and down my chest. I shivered and hurried into the seat slamming the door as I went again. 

“I just don’t understand exactly why this is so important. You need to be around your care team mom. I can’t do their job–and God only knows what will happen to you off of your meds!”

She sighed long and loud. 

“Listen to me. I’m the one getting ready to leave this world and I’m going to at least have some say in how that happens. I need to see this eclipse. You will understand when you see it trust me. I told you I’ve been talking to your dad about it and he thinks it’s fine that I go.”

Oh not this again. Good God. This whole seeing my dad and talking to him thing.

Suddenly there was a tap on the window. What now?

Janis was standing outside the window. What on earth was she doing here now? I knew I told her we wouldn’t be home so she could take the next few days off.

Janis was my mom’s eccentric and pushy nurse. At four foot eleven she didn’t seem like much but the attitude made up for the height. I rolled the window down.

“Hey Janis what’s up girl? Didn’t you get my text about our trip?”

“Well I sure got the one from you. But your mom sent me her own and she insisted. And I’m not doing anything else so here I am.”

I looked down and there was a suitcase and her medical bag with and additional AED travel case with her. Well shit. I guess we will all see the eclipse together.

I looked over at my mom. “Were you just not going to tell me?”

She rolled her brown eyes and looked out the window. “I thought it’d make you feel better if she came.”

She had a point.

I got out an took Janis’s suitcase and put it in the back with the rest of our stuff. My mom insisted moving to sit in the back with Janis and I didn’t protest.

My mom and Janis chatted the entire ride up to Erie which left me plenty of time to concentrate and mull over the past week.

We arrived at the hotel and I lugged all of our stuff into the room while Janis checked all my mom’s vitals and made sure she was all set for the night. We all changed into our pajamas and watched Night Court reruns laughing till our sides hurt.

In-between episodes, my mom started coughing and Janis had to get her breathing under control with some treatments. We all decided to turn in after that.

Once my mom was settled down she cleared her throat again.

“I’d love to go laughing all the way out but there’s a total eclipse to see tomorrow. And so much more.”

What on earth does that mean? Why is she being so weird about this?

I ended up sleeping on the pull out bed in the couch. Every time I moved there was spring in my back and loud creeeeak from the bed. In the middle of my toss-and-turnathon I woke up to my mother sitting up in bed having a conversation while Janis snored in the bed close to the window.

She faced the side of her bed facing Janis—who was facing the window away from her.

“She doesn’t believe that you are visiting me. She always was so skeptical of these things.” Then she nodded and listened to thin air. I rolled over and sighed.

“I can’t wait until the eclipse tomorrow. I can’t wait for her to see it and finally understand.”

Warm tears rolled silently down my nose as my throat tightened.

Burying my father was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Seeing the casket lowered into the ground broke me. He was gone and that was that. A whole lifetime of memories built to just be gone in less than 30 minutes.

Five years ago my dad had died of a major heart attack while riding his bike with my mom on their favorite trail. He had fallen off his bike and she tried to do CPR but by the time the ambulance arrived he was gone. When they got there his head was in her lap and she was running her hand through his hair and picking the gravel off his cheek.

They had been married 40 years and as far as I knew their life together started at the 1979 total eclipse in Helena, Montana.

I knew they had driven all night to see it with a group of mutual friends and that the clouds had cleared for the event. Some kind of spell had been cast in the moment of totality and they were inseparable since. I understood the nostalgia of it for my mom and why she would want to see another eclipse but throwing off all her meds and trekking up to Erie with me was a bit much.

She was in hospice care—it wasn’t something you just stop doing.

My mind wondered about it and everything went black to the rhythm of snoring and low words to someone I missed who I had never fully let go.

Next morning we ate breakfast in the hotel cafe quietly listening to all the excited people coming and going discussing their plans for the day.

“You would think the lord Jesus Christ was coming back the way these people are talking,” Janis said in a low voice.

The news had been droning on about all the crowds and the cloud cover. We were south of Erie and it was raining which had me doubtful we would see anything at all. It was tapping a monotone morse code of dread on the large picture windows that overlooked the closed pool.

We finished up and went back to the room to read. My mother had been coughing again and Janis had gotten her comfortable with some pillows and she took a nap while Janis watched tv and I read. The rain finally stopped and seemed like it was clearing up some.

Well good. Mom will be so happy.

Around one thirty my mom woke up. Janis checked her vitals and logged everything. People were outside the hotel in chairs with telescopes, binoculars, and eclipse glasses.

“Not us!” mom said excitedly.

We all piled into the truck. Janis brought her medical bag and travel AED kit again.

“Can you play Dark Side of the Moon as we drive over? Your dad loved that album and it obviously fits today.” My mom was chipper and filled with more energy than I had seen in a long time. I cued the music and away we went. As the album played we all quietly took in the damp plowed fields and silver grain silos. There was a farm nearby that was hosting people for the eclipse and my mom had bought tickets for us including t-shirts. As we pulled into the lot they scanned our phones and handed us t-shirts--scratchy cheap things with a partially eclipsed sun and the date. These won’t last long I thought to myself.

We pulled into the field and I got all of our chairs out. I set my moms up with her seat pads and foot rest.

“Can you grab my jacket? The sun feels good but it’s going to get chilly when the sun goes dark! Just you wait!”

I took her jacket out of the back and helped her get it on. She’s shockingly skinny. I’m never going to get used to it.

Next I got Janis set up nice and comfortable. The sun was coming out and it was two o’clock so we all got our glasses on and started looking. The moon was visible in the lower corner of the sun. It was pretty cool but nothing amazing. I had seen partial eclipses before.

My mother’s lean frame was vibrating with excitement. She was talking a mile a minute.

“This is just like in 1979. Except I was a teenager and truly not prepared for what was coming. We didn’t even look that much at the sun before it went dark because your dad and I were too busy talking and flirting.” She kept looking at the sun as she talked. “He had this really long hair that was in braids—braids! His hair was longer than mine that summer. And that ridiculous beard!”

Janis piped up, “He had a beard? At his age?”

“Yup. It was unnaturally thick. The other boys were jealous!” She let out a giggle, “ I didn’t like it but it did give him an aura of maturity. He was smart too. And so easy to talk to.” My mom looked down and took her glasses off, “he still is.”

Janis patted my mom’s back and I put my hand on her arm.

“Mom, dad is gone. He’s been gone for five years. Why do you keep talking to him?”

Janis tapped me on the shoulder and nodded a clear knock it off to me behind my mom’s back.

“Well Mrs. Cheswick I believe you. I’ve been in nursing for 15 years—ten of them in hospice care all over in hospitals and in people’s houses.”

Here it comes.

“And people see their loved ones on the regular. It’s even documented at this point—over 40 years of research backing it up.”

“Thank you Janis,” said my mom, “I appreciate at least someone believing what I see—on and off my meds.”

She looked at me and our eyes locked. They softened and she pushed a lock of hair back from my cheek and into place.

“I love you so much. We’ve lost so many people we love haven’t we? Your sister and then your father. I can still see you as a baby when I look at you. You were such a good baby. You looked just like your dad when you were born.”

She touched my cheek and stood up to hug me. I had to help her out of her chair.

Her hug was fierce and she clung to me.

“Is everything alright mom?” I said as we let go and sat down. Janis was concerned too. She plucked her glasses off and got her bag out and checked my mom’s vitals.

“Oh yes everything is fine today. It’s all good.” She put her glasses back on and leaned back to look at the sun. Janis and I exchanged looks with raised eyebrows.

I shrugged and put my glasses on and took a peek. The sun was covered by half and looked like Pac Man.

Mom took my hand and Janis settled herself back in her chair and started nibbling on some corn chips.

“Ronnie you want some chips?”

I held out my free hand and Janis poured some in it. “Thanks Janis.”

She winked at me and offered some to my mom.

We snacked and laughed and my mom told stories about my dad. Excitement began to grow amongst everyone around us as the sun got darker and darker.

Children were squealing with delight and pointing and everyone was looking at the sky.

A truckload of millennial men siting in the truckbed were playing music and drinking and yelling excitedly.

I looked around completely astounded at how dark it was getting. I had seen partial eclipses but this was something altogether different.

“Here is comes honey! Keep watching!”

“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Look at that will you just look!” Janis kept exclaiming.

Then everything got very dark and the birds stopped making noise and the stars came out. It looked like sunset. Frogs started peeping at the edge of the field by the small creek that ran along the farm.

Whoa.

So this was totality.

I took my glasses off and looked at the sun. The deepest sensation of connectedness to the universe and my mother and everyone around me came over me. Then I looked at my mother and standing right behind her was my father. And next to him was my sister—but she was fully grown into the woman she had never become in life.

My mother squeezed my hand and an electric current went through me. I put my head back and looked at the eclipse. Then I saw past it—through and into the darkness and out the other side like a tunnel.

On the other side I saw all my mother’s memories in succession only in reverse. I watched myself grow up. Watched all the funerals, weddings, and me and my sister as kids. Saw all the special moments my parents shared before we came on the scene. I saw it all—all the way to the 1979 eclipse—all through my mother’s eyes. My dad and her had looked at the eclipse and kissed and had seen their lives together all at once—everything I had just seen.

Then I went through the tunnel and back out and was looking at the eclipse in the present moment again.

We were still in totality and I could still see my dad and sister. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. My mother was looking at the eclipse and looked at me and wiped my tears.

“You see them both don’t you? You know they are ok don’t you? You see how everything comes full circle—our births and lives and deaths? Your dad and I were gifted with seeing everything that could be at that eclipse and we chose it anyway. Most people imagine that but we actually saw it.”

I started sobbing as I looked at them. I missed them so much. My sister I had put out of my mind as much as possible because it was always too hard to process.

“You see now that is why for us anyway, the eclipse was beyond anything even a normal person experienced that day.”

My father and sister were looking at me so full of love I could feel it in every part of myself.

Janis was looking between us and the eclipse with her mouth wide open and tears in her eyes.

My dad and sister came over and hugged me and thugh there was no bodily touch I could feel their energy and could smell my dad’s cologne.

“I love you Ronnie. We will be waiting for you whenever you are ready.”

“I love you daddy. I love you so much. I miss you and Beebee so much.”

The diamond ring hit and they both smiled and were gone as the light returned.

We all looked at each other in amazement. I got up and hugged my mother as hard as I could without hurting her. I was full of love and peace—in a way that couldn’t be explained.

After I sat down and started drinking some water my mother looked at me with a huge grin.

“Now do you understand why I dragged us here? I told you I was seeing your dad.”

I nodded. “So are you the only ones that experienced that at the eclipse? No one else? That’s pretty intense for two teenagers!”

“Wanna know a secret Ronnie? Many of us are gifted with at least a hint of all of that but we are too blind to see it. The eclipse just opened all of it up to us that day and we grasped our future with both hands. You have to do that with life--at every moment you can do it if you are brave enough to look at what you are being given in the moment of totality—which is every day.”

That night I slept deeply and saw my dad, sister, and mother in my dreams. I dreamed of when we had all gone to an amusement park and all the roller coasters I rode with my dad.

When I woke up the next morning my mother was gone.