Age, condition and ultimately . . . price

I've had the distinct advantage, in my life, of having had both parents throughout 100 percent of it. They were always together. They were always healthy. They were always there. Even at the times when I'd do something so completely stupid as to risk my life, and the lives of friends by driving the back roads of Hunterdon County in a rainstorm in the middle of the night after four Tequila Sunrise at the Shady Lane, just three months after crushing two vertebrae, my parents stood by me. Oh, they did NOT take the bullet for me, but they did support me through the tribulations I brought upon myself.

My mother was not Harriet Nelson. She did not appear at dinner with matching bracelets and earrings dispensing Rockwellesque meals on a long dining room table covered in clean, ironed linen. My mother worked outside the home. She worked for a local auctioneer, preparing the location of the next auction. She moved furniture, she emptied attics, disassembled kitchens and then she recorded each and every transaction on sale day. She was a laborer and she labored daily.

She also was a businesswoman. (I do not like the politically correct notion of calling everyone a "person", as it assumes that you believe being a woman is inferior to being a man.") She ran an antiques business for many years, and extended to me a love of things old and things almost forgotten. I know she didn't make a lot of money, as some do in that business. But it was her passion, and she plied that trade for most of my childhood. The tales that rose from her interactions with her colleagues used to be the main portion of all conversation that occurred in our house.

My life was filled with the characters of my mother's sideline. Odd men in dusty, work clothes would appear at our door with items they had procured at some auction in some town of which I'd never heard. Even stranger men in filthy coveralls smoking stinking ropes of cigars would pick her out of the crowd in auctions to ask about her last antique show. Eventually all these people would turn their attention to the day's purchases. Together they'd paw through boxes of items wrapped sloppily with newspaper and discuss ages, condition and ultimately, price. Sometimes these sessions would evolve into trading sessions. Sometimes explorations of discovery. Most often they ended with a smile and a wave as the visitor would back his aging truck out of our driveway, or disappear into a knot a people bunched around a fast talking auctioneer.

In my entire childhood, I never understood the attraction. In those days, the farms and old homes that went under the gavel were the places of previous generations, my parent’s parents and my parent’s grandparents. The stuff was old, and often dirty beyond recognition. And many times, its purpose was a mystery to me.

Those who know me will understand how far I've traveled since then.

Some years ago, my mother's arthritis robbed her of the pastime she reveled in through so much of my own life. No longer able to get through the crowds or sit for long periods in front of the main auctioneer, she began experiencing this love from greater and greater distances. I think that every once in a while now, she will attend one particular auction, but that is a rare event indeed. Coincidentally, my own interest waxed and I began to experience an unremembered joy of discovery of diving into box lots procured at nominal prices. My relationship with my mother morphed into one of mentor/student as she would check to see whether or not I had her eye. Alas, though she never told me this, I did not. But she still takes such pleasure in the conversations about age, condition, and ultimately, price.

Last evening my father called at 10:30 as my wife and I sat reading in bed. The convenience of Caller ID takes on an ominous nature when the hour is late and the caller is a parent. True enough, he related shortly, Mom was in the hospital and they did not know what was wrong with her. Pain in her chest, difficulty breathing, coughing, fever . . . all non-specific enough to make you freak at the prospects, yet all innocuous enough to let you convince your self that it’s nothing. With reassurances that the morning would bring more details, my father and I hung up and I drifted off into a quiet sleep.

When he called again at 8:30 and spoke with Diana, I could tell he was having trouble talking without breaking down, though from her half of the conversation, I could tell that Mom was still with us, so I waited until I received the phone from her and was able to hear his side of things. My father has become a very emotional man in his later years, or rather . . . I have come to recognize this aspect of my father in mine. Slowly, he relayed the glaringly insufficient information he had, that the doctors were looking for blood clots in her lungs, that she didn't want visitors, that she was uncomfortable and sick.

If he was nothing else, my father was a steady presence in my life. As predictable as the 12 noon fire siren in my hometown. Now I was trying to shore up the crumbling foundation of this rock as he caught a glimpse of life alone. "She'll be fine . . . she's in the best possible place she can be if something happens. You know her, she's too much of a pain in the butt to . . . "

But for the first time in my life, I caught a glimpse of life without her as well. And I guess the fact that it made my thoughts grim instead of teary made me know that I'd truly become my mother's son after all these years.

I spoke with her myself shortly afterward, and found that the comfort level of speaking with her is, as it always was, greater than that with my father. But we do not speak of the bad things that can happen. We are both aware of what they could be so we move on to other things.

I might not recommend this to my kids, or my wife, or even complete strangers. But this is how my relationship with Mom has always been. To my recollection, my mother has never uttered the words "I love you." to me. And I have only told her that only once in my life (the aftermath of the failed trip home from the Shady Lane that rainy night.) But I have never felt anything but loved by her. I have never required verbal confirmation of the continual act of love that was my life with her. I know as I write this, that I will have to break down and tell her one more time, and probably sooner rather than later. But as I look back on fifty years that always had my mother's presence as the first foundation of my existence, I know that if I don't ever get that chance, at the point when our souls once again reunite, she is more likely to ask if I ever finished that old postcard collection than why I never told her I loved her.

Age, condition, and ultimately . . . price.

My mother's love was for my entire life, abundant and . . . free.

I am quite certain she'd be uncomfortable with that conversation.

For those that do that sort of thing, prayers for her comfort and peace are greatly appreciated.