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06/18/2001 Entry: "Driving Miss Daisy and Her Friend"

My mother is visiting for a couple of weeks. I got to spend the last three days traveling around with her and her buddy visiting various sites and people in Northern California. I drove the two women, who have something in excess of 150 years of life experience between them, as they reminisced and joked their way around Oroville, through redwood forests to Eureka and back to Oroville.

Driving
First, it should be noted that both of these women are perfectly capable of driving and do so on a regular basis. It was decided by them that they would rather I ride along with them and drive due to the long, mountainous, winding nature of the drive from Oroville to Eureka. They dubbed the event (experience), for me, "Driving Miss Daisy and Her Friend."

My mother and I set out for Oroville from Berkeley on Friday morning. We arrived early in the afternoon to be greeted by my mother's friend of 56+ years, "Willie" at her Oroville home. I've always been impressed by my mother's ability to connect with old friends and renew relationships as though they haven't been living 3,000 miles apart for more than 30 years. Willie was, perhaps, my mother's closest friend as she transformed from a young woman from a small town in Arkansas to a self-confident, life engaged adult. The two of them went through a three-year nurse training program through Sparks Hospital in Fort Smith, Arkansas together. In the late 40's, they found their way to San Rafael and a life that embraced and romped through the many things to appreciate in the Bay Area.

As I was gifted with the opportunity to eavesdrop on and participate in their reminiscences and laughter, I began to understand both my mother and myself better. It was an incredible experience to hear them as their memories coincided, but not nearly as amusing as when they didn't. Their grace and engagement with their aging and the changes in their lives, bodies, minds, friendships and families were inspiring beyond my ability to capture with words.

Husband Swapping
I think my favorite little bit of family history I learned is that my father was originally introduced to my mother and Willie by someone who was intending to fix him up with my mother's friend. And Willie's husband, Paul, was originally intended for my mom by the friend who introduced him. If I understand things correctly, I exist in my present form because my mother worked on the 1st floor of the hospital and Willie worked on the 2nd. My dad was coming to the hospital at the direction of a friend to meet Willie, but ran into my mom on the 1st floor first. Paul was directed over to meet my mom, but she had already met my father, so he met Willie. As things evolved, my mother and Willie, continued their lifelong friendship and through them my father and Paul developed a close friendship with each other that would last rest of their lives.

"Life Begins @ 40"
I slept one night in a room at Willie's house that I had visited 34 years before. As I was there, I remembered the visit in 1967 on the occasion of my mother's 40th birthday. I remembered her riding a motorcycle around in the back yard laughing and proclaiming that "Life begins at 40." I felt some connection with her sentiments in my own focus on reclaiming my life as I've turned 40. I also thought of the times that my father had visited, long after being estranged from us, and slept where I was sleeping. I wondered if Willie saw my father in me, my actions or my personality as we interacted. I struggled a bit with my desire to somehow have seen in me whatever positive aspects of my father there might have been in him. I wanted her to see those parts of my father that she had appreciated in me. This despite the fact that I drive my myself and my development as a human with energy derived from not wanting to be like my father. They spoke of my father several times during the weekend in the course of fond remembrances, but I could also hear the unspoken acknowledgement at times of his harshness and sometimes hurtful ways. I wondered if Paul, Willie's husband, had had similar failings.