The Tables Are Turned

Quick bit of background, my mother has had this problem with her foot/leg for a month now and it's making life quite difficult for her and me. If any of you are thinking my mother is this decrepit, dying, old woman, you are way off base. She's vivacious, beautiful, upbeat, a bit controlling and not dying. But, there is nothing worse than seeing your mother in pain, not knowing what is causing it, and not knowing how to fix it. I guess the only thing worse would be having a child in the same situation.

One night last week I even drove to mom's and sat outside her door frantically phoning all over looking for her while my brother drove around searching for her. It all started when she mentioned she had to get a friend to drive her in the afternoon because her foot was hurting so much. Having said that, she then mentioned she was going out that evening to a lecture, and I asked if she needed a ride. She said no, so I assumed someone was picking her up. Ten p.m. came and went with no phone call from her, so I called. No answer. 10:30, still no answer, 11 no answer 11:30 NOTHING. Okay by then I was starting to panic since I thought she would have been home by 10 at the latest.

So I decide maybe she's fallen and can't get to the phone, maybe she's unconscious...maybe she's in pain just inches from the phone and unable to move and crying her eyes out! I couldn't take it anymore so I decided to drive over to her place. Since she had just moved I had loaned my keys to her carpenter so I called my brother and asked to borrow his, but he only had a key to the main entrance, not her suite. I go pick up his keys and now I've worried him too.

11:45 I'm at her door knocking away, no answer. I go to the garage, er....her car is gone. Okay so she was not well enough to drive this afternoon, but now she's gone, it's midnight and her car is gone too? I was getting a bit freaked, so I called the person who had sponsored the lecture. He said she had left around 10 pm (fortunately he was still awake and was entertaining the speakers.) Then he told me to check with another friend who was sitting next to her at the lecture, so I make another call just after midnight.

Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be phoning people after midnight looking for your mom on Thursday night? Again I got lucky, this time the people I called were still awake because they were waiting for their son's flight to arrive. However, still no mom and no closer to knowing where she was. By then my brother was calling me every five minutes to see if I had found her. I finally figured I knew where she was, but I couldn't figure out why she would be out so late. When Dad was alive, he and her would go to this little pub around the corner from their house and have something to eat and a drink. Dad loved to go there and it's a family run place and the waitress was one of his patients and man did she ever love Dad. So anyway, when I realized mom would have driven right by that spot upon leaving the lecture I figured maybe she went there. What I couldn't figure out was why she would still be there since my mom just wouldn't go to a pub alone other than to stop in for 15 minutes to chat....but it was my best guess, so I told my brother I would drive there and check it out. He vetoed that and said I should stay at her door in case she came home while he went and checked it out.

So I sat in the hallway of her condo while my brother drove off to find her. All of a sudden my phone rang and it was my brother saying he just spotted my mother driving home. He turned around and started following her. Apparently this freaked her out, so first off she tried changing lanes, but then my brother changed lanes and that freaked her out too, so she started weaving in and out of traffic, so my brother followed suit. Finally he realized she was acting like she was trying to escape him, so she must not have recognized him or his car, so he decides to drive up next to her and let her see it's just him. So he pulls up next to her, but will she look at him, nope. He's waving like crazy and she refuses to look over then drives off like a bat out of hell and heads for her garage. At that point he calls me and says she is safely in the underground parking and should be emerging upstairs any moment now and he's heading home.

So there I am at 12:45, irritated, tired and cranky standing at her door like a mother waiting for her kid to come home 3 hours after curfew when in strolls mom. The look on her face was not at all what I was hoping for. I think somewhere in my mind I figured she would feel remorseful and almost scared...after all she did just think she was being followed by some weirdo and now she'll see me standing at her door all upset, this should scare her a bit shouldn't it? But nope. She walks off the elevator, sees me, and breaks into a huge smile and is overjoyed that I've come for a late night visit. Then when I tell her I've been worried sick, and that the guy following her was Neeraj, and what does she do? She starts laughing her head off. Then she goes on to mention that my brother looks like a terrorist now that he's grown a beard, laughs some more and then decides that it's so late I have to spend the night at her place. And the final kicker...before she goes to sleep, she gives me a kiss and says, "You know, I should make you worry more often if it means I get to have you stay over."

Man, how can anyone be mad after that?

Btw, mom explained that she was the only one in the pub so she just sat there reminiscing about dad with the waitress for hours. Dad used to call mom the Queen of Cliches, and we always would tease her and try and use them on her. Dad's favorite was to catch her doing something she said she never would and then would yell, "Tables are Turned, Tables are Turned!"
Guess Dad's up there watching us and laughing at me now.

-Swapna