Just For Fun

A Honduran Tale
This has been a year for adult children to reconnect with their parents, at least in my corner of the world.  In September a client  was distraught about an impending visit from her mother.  "My mother has always tried to buy my love.  She knows I am angry at her for how she didn't protect me when I was growing up.  Now, she tries to take care of me in monetary ways.  It isn't love to me.  It is buying me."  How was this an issue now, I asked.  "Next week she is coming to visit me. I've always refused her gifts in the past, trying to make her see that she can't buy my love.  It hasn't worked.  What shall I do?"  Clearly, this was a direct request for advice.  I leaned toward her and said, "let her take care of you". When she resisted the idea, I said those same words again:  "LET HER TAKE CARE OF YOU".  In two weeks I saw her again, and asked how their time together had gone.  "I took your advice", she reported, " I did let her take care of me.  It was wonderful.  I didn't fight her at all, and we got along better than we ever have."
 
Several months later, this same client asked me where I was going for Christmas.  When I told her I would be with my daughter in Honduras for two weeks, she asked how I would fare in a third-world country. "Well, I'll need to rely on my daughter to do much of the translating for me, but I'm sure I'll be okay on my own."  Then I told her how, when Melanie was three years old, she had vowed to take care of me when she learned of her father's death.  "No, Melanie", I had said, “I'm the parent.  I am here to take care of you".  Much of the next 15 years had been a struggle between us. Melanie became headstrong and determined to have things her way, while I was bent on being the best mother and father in the world.  Often communication resulted in stalemate, particularly when she became a teen.  When I shared this with my client, she put a hand on my arm, looked me in the eye and said, "let her take care of you in Honduras, Mary".

I flew to Guatemala City with those words in my head.  When I arrived, it was 6:00 a.m. I went through Customs.   Melanie was nowhere to be found.  I experienced a moment of panic, so walked alone to the middle of a large rotunda.  I looked up to the faces of a hundred strangers looking down from a balcony.  Suddenly the air exploded with "MOM! MOM! MOM!” and I looked up to see Melanie waving her arms.  Moments later she and her Honduran friend were beside me.  I felt so grateful.  They had traveled 200 miles to meet me; I wasn't alone after all.

The next 15 days were the most relaxing of my life.  Melanie translated for me, took care of hotel reservations, handled all the Guatemalan and Honduran money transactions, arranged for food and transportation, planned where we would go and when.  Whenever I would begin to stumble on centuries-old cobblestone streets, there was even a hand under my arm.

Most of the time we stayed with families. I couldn't lift a finger.  When I was asked to prepare the Christmas (wild) turkey and stuffing and fruit salad, I was exuberant with enthusiasm.  Finally, I could return some of the kindness my daughter and these people had lavished on me!  Never mind that my favorite ingredients were nowhere to be found.  Never mind that the roasting pan was too large for the oven.  Never mind that I had to guess how much this shrivel-breasted turkey weighed. (I was to learn later it was eight pounds.)  The fifteen people at our table ate every morsel and gushed their compliments.  "Que rico!" they said, over and over again.  I felt blessed to be giving.  Later, when the exchange of names brought gift giving and "mille gracias" (the people thanked each other before they opened their presents!) I witnessed a kind of Christmas love I'd never seen before.

Being taken care of is not a familiar role for me.  I was as proud of myself as I was of my daughter.  Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

Fired From Exercise Class
"Did this really happen to you?" queried my daughter as I read her the following account.

"Just this morning," was my reply, as I  continued reading.........

My sin was in bringing up the rear.  Each time I walked with the 6:00 a.m. Walk for Health class (and there were four times so far:  I'd joined after it started), I brought up the rear.  The other women were simply more experienced walkers.  I kept pace with them by "retrograde":  their halting, about facing, then walking through the ranks to come in behind me.  That certainly made me feel special   So did the early mornings, all crisp and cool and pine-scented.  Few people along the way, it was close to home and familiar.

But I didn't do it well enough.  Our leader, Martha, focused on me the first morning.  "Keep your head up!  Arms straight at your sides:  If you put them in front of you, you'll slow your stride!  Walk from heels through toes!"  The first round of instructions had me with chin in air, arms in sync, feet feeling they had wings.

I thought I was following instructions, but I must have fallen into my old pattern of walking after a few minutes.  Back she came, her voice more strident.  "Chin up!  Look at the space ten feet ahead!"  My eyes snapped up.  "You're crossing your arms in front.  Keep your elbows by your sides."  My elbows snapped open.   I had to try harder.  That thought offered me new resolve.  I stepped off a curb, one foot sliding as it hit a patch of mud.  I staggered.  Martha came jogging back.  "What happened?", she asked.

"I stepped in a patch of mud," I replied.

"You should avoid those," she announced.

The third morning we were to walk to the local high school track, there to pace ourselves for a timed mile walk.    Since it was uphill all the way to the school, I took the advice of a fellow walker, a kind soul who had been a beginner once herself.  I drove to the high school, parked my car and met the group on the track.  Martha was not happy, I could tell.  Rules stated that I was to start and end with the group.  I had visions of the kind soul being reprimanded for her triangulating behavior.

The fourth morning Martha announced the route to be "several hills".  Determined to keep up, I huffed and puffed behind them, happy to be outdoors, eager to finish if not with, then behind the group.  Soon she was coming toward me.  "We can't retrograde today because of the hills," she said.

"That's okay; I'll manage," I replied.

"This is going to be a lot of hills," she said.

"I'm okay," I responded.

"You know, it would be easier for you if you joined the 6:00 p.m. group.  They're entry level."

I flashed to a picture of kids flipping hamburgers at McDonalds.  I am much more alert for morning exercise than evening.  I remained silent.

"We will leave you behind and I don't want you to get lost,"  she was dogged in her pursuit.

"I live around here,"  I said.

"You can walk that way...there's a little hill, but it becomes flat," Martha went on, as though she hadn't heard me.

"I live around here," I said.

"If you sign up for the entry level class, you'll have an easier time.  Just go this way on your way back," she went on, pointing, "and you'll come back to the club where we started."

"I live around here," I said.

She turned and ran to catch up with the others.  The conversation was over.  I had failed.  It was clear I had flunked exercise class.  I felt like I had been dismissed, indeed had been refused an invitation to my favorite sorority tea.   At my age.

As I watched Martha join the others and stride up the next hill, I took a deep breath, straightened my back,  and walked in the opposite direction.  Might as well pick up my mail at the post office and go home.

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