Don't Wander Off

How many times have you heard that in your life? “Don’t wander off.” Often? Never? For me, it started when I was a toddler and continues to this day. Take the case of Aunt Rose. The older I get, the more I remind myself of Aunt Rose. My children swear I’m turning into my mother but they didn’t know about Rose’s rich interior life. She was a woman who was always thinking about something else. You know the routine. You’re talking to someone, your full attention riveted on them, while in your head you’re telling yourself that as soon as they stop talking you’re going to start washing the dishes, or you’re wondering where you left your keys. Rose and I shared the habit of having running conversations with people who were not in the room. After she died, I found slips of paper stuck everywhere in her apartment, filled with snippets of information, written down so she’d remember to tell stories to dead people. My very favorite example of Rose being elsewhere in her head was when she and Ma were returning from a senior outing to Las Vegas. As their bus reached the California border, an officer stepped aboard to make certain no one was sneaking forbidden fruit into the Golden State. I’m not talking about recreational drugs; I mean actual fruit, as in oranges and apples that were banned from import lest they bring fruit-devouring bugs with them, G-d forbid. The officer made his way down the aisle, asking everyone “Do you have any fruit?” He reached Aunt Rose’s seat. “Did you bring any oranges or other fruit?” No answer, just a blank stare off into the distance. My mother remained silent, sensing what was coming. Once again, the officer repeated his question, this time in a less patient tone. Her response was a blank face turned toward the ceiling. Finally, he got louder. “Lady! Do you have any fruit!!” Rose turned toward him with a beatific smile and sweetly replied, “No, thank you. But I would like a coke.” Whenever Ma and my father took Rose with them on their travels and Dad had to attend to business, such as signing them up for a bus tour, he would sternly say to my mother, “Keep an eye on Rose! Make sure she doesn’t wander off!” Then my mother would get distracted, because watching other people was way more fun than watching her sister. My father would finish his business, turn around, and say, “Where’s Rose?” As soon as they found her…sometimes before, sometimes after…the tour bus left, he would admonish Rose with, “I told you not to wander off and get lost!” Her reply was invariably, “I wasn’t lost. I knew where I was. I went to see the (fill in the blank).” Just because she’d forget to mention to anyone that she was stepping away for a minute didn’t mean she was lost. She always knew where she was, even if we didn’t. Rose was tricky but Ma was worse, especially when she decided to wander off from the old folk’s home. Picture this: I’m walking into my Chicago hotel room after a hard day working at a trade convention, when a printed message pops up on the television: “The facility where your mother lives says she wandered off today but the police found her and brought her back. She’s fine.” Great. What could I do from Chicago? Hope she doesn’t repeat the adventure? No such luck. I heard the full story a few days later when I headed straight from LAX to her retirement haven, hoping she was still there. There’s two things you need to know about Ma. First, she was a paper napkin hoarder. I don’t know why. Maybe the Great Depression or something. She was always stuffing extra paper napkins into her pockets to take back to her room. The other thing is she absolutely loved it when handsome young men paid attention to her. Old men, too, but young was better. As she told it, one afternoon she decided to take a stroll and get some fresh air. She got a little confused about how to get back, so she was happy when two very handsome young policemen stopped to ask if she needed any help. (My guess is they were responding to one of the daily missing person bulletins sent out from the senior homes in our community.) Unfortunately, when they asked where she lived, she couldn’t remember and she’d neglected to bring her purse with her for identification. Fortunately, she had napkins with the home’s name on them jammed into her pocket. Sometimes hoarding pays off. The joy of being personally escorted by handsome, kind, attentive young men was so intoxicating, she repeated the same adventure the very next day. This time the patrolmen knew who to spot. She would have kept this up indefinitely if I’d not showed up on day three. “Yes, Ma, yes. I’m sure they were extra specially sweet to you because you’re so adorable. Yes, it certainly was nice of them. But, Ma, where were you going?” “I was walking to your house.” “My house? “Yes.” “Why?” “I wanted to see the kids.” What was I to do? How could I keep her from walking off again? Escorting her to the front entrance of the center I said, “OK, last time you headed in the wrong direction. Here’s what you have to do to walk to my house.” “See that intersection there, the one with the lights?” She nodded yes. “Walk across the street and then turn left, down that way. Keep walking for six long blocks, cross a street named xxx, the second one with a stoplight, and then turn right. My house is two doors down.” She looked at me and said, “That’s a long walk. Maybe I should just stay here and wait for you to pick me up.” I replied that was a much better idea and then we both went in to dinner. I swear, you can’t make this stuff up. I more than deserved this torment for all the times I’d wandered off as a child or stayed out after dark and scared my mother to death. But she really didn’t need to get even with me this way. I had two children of my own. My son was a heart attack waiting to happen, what with disappearing, flying leaps, and no shows. My daughter, on the other hand, was pretty good about staying put. Nonetheless, it was to her the baton was passed. Now that I sometimes travel with them, when she has to step away for awhile she tells my son-in-law, “Make sure you keep an eye on Ma. Don’t lose her if she wanders off.”