"Two?" the host asked, not waiting for an answer, instead turning and leading us back, into the bowels of Ryan's Steakhouse. He moved at a pretty good clip, not noticing or caring that Mom, using a walker, couldn't keep up. It was difficult, in this crowded den of hungry suburbanites, for her to make her way through.
Eventually we arrived at the tiny booth. "Is this all right?" the host asked.
Mom snorted. "Do we have a choice?"
He looked surprised by her reaction, and started to say something, but Mom assured him, no, this booth was fine.
This was last Thanksgiving. Mom had been torn, kind of wanting to do something for the holiday, kind of wanting to ignore it. I had suggested the possibility of me coming up and spending the day at her house, though I knew she probably wouldn't be up to fixing much of a meal, and options for dining out in Perry were limited. She went back and forth with that idea, and finally decided that she wanted to go out, get something to eat and maybe go to a movie afterwards.
So she came down to Des Moines and we took off from my place. I was in a foul mood at first, I remember that, but I don't remember why. (Probably related to a woman, but I can't say for sure.) We drove around for awhile, trying to think of a place to eat, nothing coming to mind.
Mom, surprisingly, kept saying she was hungry. Recently, her appetite had noticably diminished, but there were times when she could put food away with the best of them, and clearly, she wanted to eat. We drove past the usual places that offered no-frills Thanksgiving dinners--Village Inn, Baker's Square. We decided on Ryan's because...Well, no real reason, but I'd never been there, and was unprepared for the ambience, people crowded so close together it was almost impossible to breathe.
Surprisingly the food wasn't bad, and after we ate, we drove around trying to decide what movie to see. There really wasn't much choice: We knew we were going to see Walk The Line, because Mom and I were both huge Johnny Cash fans, and because Mom had a weird thing for Joaquin Phoenix. (Best not to think about that.) I had problems with the movie, as I always have problems with cliched biopics, but Mom cried all the way through it.
When it ended, she blew her nose, sighed and pushed her walker silently to the car. We talked about Johnny Cash a little, and how nice it would be if people you admired never died, but when she said, "Oh, and Joaquin Phoenix, he's just so...", I quickly changed the subject. Soon we arrived back at my apartment building. I live on the third floor, and even with an elevator, it was a burden for Mom to come up, so we said our goodbyes and she drove back to Perry. When she got home, she called me, just to gush about her beloved Joaquin some more.
At no point did we talk about the possibility of this being her last Thanksgiving. She was just coming off a terrible summer, during which intestinal blockage led to a discovery of an advanced, inoperable cancer. In November, she still hadn't paid any return visits to the doctors who had sent her home to regain her strength after a lengthy hospital stay. She sensed time was winding down, but she didn't know, or didn't want to know, how sick she was. In December, she would see a doctor to formulate a treatment plan. In January, she started chemo. In February, she died.
Had I known last year that it would be our final holiday together, I guess things would have been different. There would have been a large family gathering, and Mom would have been the guest of honor. But she would have hated that. She prefered to continue her life the way it had always been, free of grand gestures, right up to the end. Murder, She Wrote reruns, a Will Shortz crossword puzzle, a Bootsy Collins song playing while she'd go for an aimless drive--a life marked with small rituals that gave comfort, and quiet pleasures. She needed, and wanted, nothing more. Her life, as she put it, suited her just fine.
