In my memory it was sunny. I was driving my mother-in-law's Hyundai through morning traffic. Mary, my mother-in-law, was in the passenger seat.
I flipped on my left blinker and switched lanes.
“You’re changing lanes?” said Mary. “My God. Are you trying to get us killed?”
Mother Mary, one of the nation's leading backseat drivers.
“Slow down! Crime in Italy, are you trying to wreck?”
We had left early that morning. I was carrying Mother Mary to her medical appointment in Pensacola. She had infusion therapy regularly, which took place in a sterile room with cushy recliners and patients with tubes in their arms. These were not joyous rooms. These were rooms that would break your heart.
Our long-standing tradition after these dreary appointments was to go out for barbecue.
When we arrived at the medical complex, I helped Mary out of the car and we shuffled across the parking lot, arm in arm. Me, a guy with clown-curly hair and lanky legs. Her, white-haired and arthritic, gripping me for support.
“Don’t walk so fast,” she said,
squeezing my arm tighter. “Are you trying to drag me on the pavement?”
We passed through the automatic doors, and when we approached the receptionist Mary dinged the desk bell. We signed in and within moments Mary was seated in that big recliner with the depressing tube snaking from her arm.
Soon, she was reading one of her paperback romance novels with the bodice-ripping covers. She was playing it cool, but I think it was one of the first times I realized how truly frail this woman was becoming.
The nurses told me to get lost for a few hours.
“Don’t forget our barbecue date,” Mary called out before I left.
“I won’t.”
When I returned, I found Mary waiting in a wheelchair at the hospital’s double doors. Mary was depleted, eyes heavy, but she was putting on a great show for her…