On Wednesday evening of the week before last, Lou spiked a fever. She’s been teething. So, it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, but Mike and I decided to go ahead and cancel my 30th birthday party, which was planned for the upcoming Saturday.
In the middle of comforting my sick baby, trying to get dinner ready, and to be perfectly honest, feeling disappointed (petulant) about having mah birthday party canceled, my mom instinctively called.
She just had a feeling, as she often does, that she needed to be in touch with us at that very moment.
I’ve mentioned before that my mom is a pediatrician, which was a blessing as a first time mom and a curse as her daughter. Having seen it all from the far-fetched to the mundane in her 35+ years of practicing medicine, the woman is the Wikipedia of Worst Case Scenarios.
So when I told her about Lou’s fever, she started listing possible causes such as… oh, bacterial meningitis, seizures, and pneumonia… as if it was nothing more that reading a grocery list. Eggs. Bananas. Milk.
What she calls “concern” and “ just being informed”, I’ve long dubbed “hysteria”. When she insisted that I take Lou back to the doctor and demand lab work to be done, I told her, “Stop freaking out!” as I have done many, many, many times in the past.
“Okay,” she backed down, “Just consider what I told you.”
I could tell by my mom’s voice that she didn’t want to stop “freaking out”. This was her granddaughter. Her only granddaughter living 1,679 miles away and whose tiny body is being ravaged by big, ugly GERMS!!!
I could tell that had we not moved so far away, she would already be in her car and heading our way.
I could tell that the only reason she did was out of respect for my boundaries when it comes to motherhood.
Still unnerved, I tossed a barb about my sister’s upcoming wedding. She brought up my own bridezilla tendencies. I rolled my eyes and told her I had to go and “why would you call me at DINNER time anyway? Ugh!”
Mike came home a few minutes later. Upon taking in all of the information relayed from my mother, he stared at me wide-eyed and as he has done many, many, many times in the past… sided with my mom.
Err on the side of extreme caution. Parking brakes in parking lots. Triple checking window locks. Pediatric Urgent Care at supper time with the older one in tow for a fever. Yup, there’s a reason Mike gets along so well with my parents.
On the way home, I sent my mom the following text, “Got lab work done for L. Will let you know results when we get them.”
She replied two seconds later with, “Thank you for paying heed…” followed by a list of which tests should have been run.
“U R crazy but I love you”, I texted back.
“PRAISE the Lord. I’m proud U R my daughter.”
(Oh, Mom. Always with the high drama. Ha!)
Within the span of one conversation (and across several miles), my mother and I went from genuine concern to pressing one another’s buttons to mutual adoration. It’s shorthand for rehashing everything that has gone before– every door slamming and storming out, every criticism, every insecurity– and a testament to the way in which we’ve been able to evolve and come full circle.
Is there any other relationship that can endure such blows and never suffer an ounce of love like a mother-daughter relationship?
I thought about this a lot as I read If You Knew Suzy. Although, I don’t how you can NOT think about your mother while reading this book… and want to hug her.
Faced with her mother’s death from lung cancer in 2005, Katherine Rosman embarked on a cross-country journey to meet people her mother affected– among them a former golf caddie, a legendary Pilates instructor, an eBay glass collector, and an immigrant doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
The result was If You Knew Suzy, a memoir chronicling the journey of cold calls, e-mails, and interviews in her quest to reconnect with her “healthy, vivacious, free-spirited, moody, pain-in-the-ass, nurturing, imperfect, perfect mother.”
Juxtaposed with the stories she never knew about her mother told by people some of whom she hadn’t previously met, Roseman tells a bittersweet saga about a relationship that was loving, but fraught. A relationship that I sympathize (commiserate) with all too well.
I never felt as close to my mother as when I became a mother myself. Holding my baby boy, and a few years later my baby girl, for the first time I finally understood what my mom’s “freaking out” was all about. I doesn’t stop me from rolling my eyes and begging her to “reeeeeelax already”, but at least I get it and appreciate her all the more for it.
It turns out Lou was perfectly fine, which I knew all along she would be. Ahem. All she needed was a little rest and some extra cuddles, and she was back to normal by the weekend. (Just in time for Scout to come down with something…)
Not that anyone is keeping score or anything, but if one were… there’s clearly only one winner is in this situation. Mother’s Intuition. Yea, Mom!
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman as member of the From Left to Write Book Club, which was created as a continuation of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog Book Club. The thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own. You can purchase a copy of this fantastic book here.
To read other posts inspired by this book, please click here.
Excepted from the front flap:
Faced with the loss of her mother to cancer at sixty, Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Rosman spent a year investigating the life of a woman she only knew as a parent. Along the way, Rosman discovered another side to her mother—a woman whose life was intricately connected to a host of characters her daughter hardly knew…
Blending humor, honesty and old-fashioned reporting, Rosman’s grapples with the bittersweet reality that sometimes we can’t truly know someone until after she is gone. At once comforting, candid and very funny, If You Knew Suzy is a heartfelt memoir against which readers can consider themselves and the lives of all those they love.
Follow
Ah yes, the struggles and joys of mother-daughter relationships! I loved this book as well. I agree – I don’t know how you can’t think about your own mother while reading this book. Hugs to moms everywhere 🙂
It has been my experience as a nurse that doctors always want more tests ordered for their own family members than they would ever order themselves for someone they are not related to. Maybe it is because the insurance companies likely won’t pay for the additional tests. Or maybe it is because they are not (as in your mom’s case) the grandmother of the patient? I wonder…
Hoping that Lou is feeling better…were the tests necessary?
They were just routine blood work, etc. so nothing too dramatic. It definately ruled out some serious stuff my doc was conserding 🙂