I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom lately. So many things
about where I’m living now, Belgium, remind me of her. We were together in
Germany for several years when I was a teenager, so my life and hers were
inextricably wrapped up in European scenery, food, art, people. Those who
followed this blog from its inception remember that I always wanted to bring
her back here, to relive some of our memories and let her see some places she
always wanted to see; I never got to do that, unfortunately.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to visit the Van Gogh Museum
there. It is an interesting city, not one of my favorites by any means, but
interesting nonetheless. It is both beautiful and ugly, in both literal and
symbolic ways, with its gorgeous canals and dramatic architecture on the one
hand, and its red light district and numerous druggies and street people on the
other. Fascinating is a better term than interesting, I would have to say.
When you’re in Amsterdam, you can’t help but notice the many
people on bicycles. Literally hundreds. They ride because the traffic is
terrible and because it’s cheap, I suppose. They are of all ages, from youths
to older people. They are evidently ridiculously fit. I saw one lady, probably
at least 70, bent over and bundled up in a coat and scarf with sensible,
old-lady shoes, riding her bike purposefully and carefully. I was amazed,
thinking back to how young Mom was when she died, just 67, and how unfit she
was, how feeble, at such a young age.
Later I saw another older woman, this one probably closer to
80 but even more fit looking than the one on the bicycle. She was very thin,
with very short, spiky white hair. She was wearing skinny jeans and running
shoes, and she was walking with great vigor. I thought, “Mom. How different might
your life have been if you had lived here. Or maybe if you hadn’t let your
world shrink so much.” From a vital, fun-loving woman who had traveled and
lived abroad, my mom became a homebody whose world was confined at best to
small regions of two southern US states and at worst, to two tiny counties in
the smaller and lesser of those two states.
Both my mom and her mother became unfit at early ages. I
suppose it was due to several factors. First, they smoked. That was probably a
big part of the problem. Second, they both moved when they were in their early
60’s to places where there were kind of isolated, where they didn’t have a lot
of reason to get out of the house much, didn’t have many friends. As a result,
they stayed inside, didn’t have much of a social life, and didn’t get exercise.
Finally, things happened with their health and personal lives that depressed
them and sucked some of the life out of them, and health issues made it harder
for them to leave their houses and the rest of their small worlds.
As happy as I am here in Belgium, I still think of Mom so
often, and I have so many wishes that she might’ve done things differently,
that she might’ve lived longer, better, and more healthily. Makes me think
about my own choices, about keeping fit, about not overeating or drinking too
much. But really, how much power do we
have over that part of our destiny? The
husband of one of my friends, a health-conscious, fit man, not yet old, died in
his sleep a few years ago. The truth is, when it’s time to go, it’s time.
Still, I wish Mom had been able to be like that woman with the spiky white
hair, walking with strength in her step and a light in her eyes, in spite of
her advanced age. We might’ve traveled to Europe again. I would’ve liked that. She
would’ve, too.
