Visited a friend the other day; a new mum. She’s called her beautiful daughter Mae. This isn’t about my friend or her
daughter. This is about me and my aged
parents.
My parents live a ninety minute drive from me, so I don’t
see them as often as I’d like. In
hindsight, pity that fifteen years ago, they sold the house, five minutes from
where I now teach, to make a sea change.
Was a good move for them, back then, when they were in their
sixties. Now that they’re elderly, and
my dad ailing, they’re a bit far away.
Nonetheless, most days I call my mum to keep up with the
minutiae of her days and to keep us both in each other’s loops. This is the thing: despite being brilliant, hilarious and the
very archetype of what a mother should be, age is taking its toll and my mum’s
memory is going a bit. Which led to
this.
“Visited my friend and her new baby this arvo,” I said. Minutiae, as I’ve already said. The stuff of conversation.
“Oh, lovely! What did
she have?” Mum sounds genuinely pleased
with the news of a former colleague of mine, someone she has only heard of in
passing.
“A girl.”
“Lovely! And what has
she called her?”
“Mae,” I say.
“May?” Mum sounds
incredulous, for some reason. She raises
her voice to enunciate her thoughts more clearly. “May?” she repeats. “M-A-Y?”
She spells it out, in case you hadn’t worked that out from how I’d
written it.
“No, mum. M-A-E. As in Mae West.”
“Mae West? What Mae
West?” She sounds puzzled as if I’m
deliberately trying to trick her by throwing some gobbledegook into the
conversation. “Mae West? I don’t know anything about Mae West.”
“Of course you do, Mum.
Mae West, the film star.” Why am
I explaining?
“I’ve never heard of her.
Must have been before my time, “ says mum. And why don’t I let it go there?
“She was a sexy platinum blonde.
She said ‘Come up and see my some time, big boy’.” I do my best Mae West impersonation. “And ‘Is that a pistol in your pants or are
you just happy to see me?’”
“Never heard of her.”
Mum is dismissive. If she hasn't heard of Mae West, I must have invented her.
“Mum, she was as famous as Marilyn Monroe. Of course you remember her.”
“I know Marilyn Monroe.
But I’ve never heard of Mae West.
Dad! Dad!” She invites my dad - never calls him by name -
into the conversation. “Dad, do I know Mae
West?’
“Lusty Busty,” pronounces my
dad in his profound bass voice with its Yorkshire accent. He'll be sitting in his chair, his walking frame to one side, a glass of
red on the table beside him.
Laugh at my dad. He does the memory for both of them these
days. My mum’s as fit as a trout and we
laugh about the fact that for the first time in her life, she is, due to memory
loss, living in the minute, like everyone says you’re supposed to do all your
life. My dad’s still good on the
one-liners, but it takes him all his time to get around and his fine motor
skills – dental technician, talented musician, carpenter, a man who could
repair anything – have gone. And now I’ve
made myself cry.
