An appeal from the author Why you should become a Salon member. By Anne Lamott

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T A B L E++T A L K

Did you have trouble potty training your kids? Share your tips and stories in Table Talk's Mother's area

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R E C E N T L Y

Turkey fry
By Jennifer Reese
An old lover taught me the sexiest type of Thanksgiving cooking and how to do something sacrilegious and preposterous to a national symbol
(11/24/98)

Faraway, so close
By Debra Gwartney
Coming home causes my oldest daughter to withdrawinto corners, turn her face and back up toward the door until she can run awayagain
(11/23/98)

"The Rugrats Movie"
By Andrew Leonard
These babies rule! A 4-year-old and her dad give the new "Rugrats" brand extension a bigthumbs-up
(11/20/98)

Second Thoughts: A modest proposal
By Sallie Tisdale
Hurricane Mitch offers U.S. troops the chance not to show force, but to help others -- especially those we've hurt before
(11/19/98)

Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets
By Hillary Rodham Clinton
What kids want to know about Buddy and Socks
(11/18/98)

BROWSE THE WORD BY WORD ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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Salon Columnists

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THANKSGIVING | PAGE 1, 2
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But she'd already forgotten that there was anything to work out, which really pissed me off. I sighed and took her hand, and we left.

We drove to this wonderful store with lots of cool used furniture, and it took quite a long time because my mother walks so slowly now, petit-pas, like a wind-up toy missing a few cogs. She always carries a Kleenex in one hand, a purse in her other, a curly springy wire on her wrist that holds her house key. So sometimes I hold hands with her Kleenex. But I don't mind: I used to clutch a wadded-up Kleenex in my fist when I was afraid, so it would feel like I was holding hands with God.

At the furniture store, we took our sweet time, as we still had over an hour left together. The best dresser was upstairs, and it took 10 minutes to get my mom there, but the woman who owns the store was very encouraging. I believed this was because my mother is so befuddled, and maybe it was touching for the owner to see a daughter being so tender with her mother. Also, I know that she desperately misses her own: I happen to own a rug that used to belong to her mother, that I bought nine years ago right before I became a mom, and when I end up at this store and remind her of this, she cries because she misses her mother so much.

I have offered to give it back, but she says she does not need it -- it is just a thing, and so it cannot fill the hole in her heart that her mother's passing left.

We bought the dresser and arranged delivery for the next day. It took a while for my mom to understand that we wouldn't be taking the dresser with us -- that it was too heavy, I couldn't carry it, and too big, since my car is very small. First, she looked mad, as if to say, did I have any other cheap excuses? Then she looked sad, like she might cry.

Then, because she's Coyote, she bounced right back. We were driving home when I glanced at my watch and discovered I still had nearly half an hour before I needed to leave to pick up Sam. I asked her if she wanted me to run into Safeway and pick up a few things for her.

She said, "I do need toilet paper and cat food."

"So, let's stop then, and go get you those things."

"But I want to come in myself," she said. "I only like certain brands."

A siren started going off in my head: RED ALERT RED ALERT, it was crying.Don't do this, it's a trick, it's Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. Something will go very wrong. Do not let her get out of this car.

"Mom?" I asked. "Couldn't you just let me run in?"

But nope, she needed to go in -- she only likes one kind of toilet paper, but she couldn't think of the name. So I sighed and put a good spin on things: Jesus is coming, look busy. Our pastor said we are Jesus' presence here on earth and so we need to act like Him. Besides, how can you not take your mother shopping when she needs toilet paper and cat food? Also, with 25 minutes to burn, how wrong can things go?

We parked and got out of the car, which only took 10 minutes. Then we did petit-pas to where the shopping carts were lined up outside, jammed into one another. And they were stuck but good. "Mom," I pleaded, "we don't really need a shopping cart, do we? Don't you just need toilet paper and cat food?"

My mother turned to look at me and she looked just as mad as a hatter, her lips pulled tight into a bad smile. And I recoiled, crying out silently, Where's my mother? What have you done with my mother?

She blinked, returning to her old self. I tugged at the carts for a while like some grumpy mime, until one came free. I looked at my watch.

Sometimes having an elderly mother is like having a toddler with a marvelous new toy, only you feel like attacking them. Breathe, I whispered, there's lots of time, and I fell in gamely behind her.

Once we were inside, it occurred to me that I actually had a small shopping list in my back pocket, and that I might as well pick up what we needed, because otherwise I was going to have to repeat this all later, but with Sam in the Coyote role. So I said to my mother, "Mom? The cat food is right here, in this aisle, and the toilet paper is near the produce."

My mother looked at me out of the corner of her eyes and smiled.

I got the things on my list, and then I went to look for my mother. I checked by the cat food and by the toilet paper, and when she was not there, I went to wait in the express line, because now there was barely 10 minutes before we should be at her house in time for me to leave and pick up Sam. Then I noticed her over in the deli section. "Mom," I called to her with exasperation. "We have to hurry now. Come on."

"OK, honey," she said, but didn't head over toward me. Instead, she headed away from me. "Mom, come here!" I said. I did not want to lose my place in line, because there were already people behind me.

"I still need toilet paper," she said.

I looked at my watch. If we were to leave right this minute, without paying for our things, I would still be late picking up Sam; the parents would be exasperated when I finally arrived. I was furious. Then I looked as far away as you could, into the Siberia of the produce department, and my mom was there, with her cart, and two Safeway employees. She appeared to be dealing cards to them, like when we were young, playing penny-ante poker at our cabin. For a moment I believed my mother was now playing a stand-up game of draw. But then, as the clerks took what she had dealt them and fanned out through the store, I understood that my mother was dispensing coupons.

She had coupons hidden in her purse! In an instant, I saw myself in the housewares department, picking up a hammer to kill her with. I'm sure this makes me look a little angry. But I just stood there quietly, partly because I didn't want to lose my place in line. Now there were six people behind me, and one had recognized me as having written a book she'd read once. She was exclaiming over this, and I smiled grimly.

"Mom," I called as nicely as I could manage, "come here now," chuckle chuckle, as if admonishing a mischievous little girl, and she tottered toward me with her cart, scanning for any clerks who might be returning to her with items, like it was a scavenger hunt. Then she turned her cart down an aisle and called to me gaily, "I just need the Sara Lee Pecan Cheesecake Bites." And she waved to me. She waved bye-bye.

I was at the head of the line. I had to let the woman who'd read my book go ahead of me. Then I had to discuss my oeuvre with the man behind me. "What kind of novels do you write?" he asked. "I wonder if you've written anything my wife has read." If my mother came right then and still qualified for the express line, we were going to be an hour late. I pictured the parents of Sam's friend tapping their feet with impatience. But there was nothing I could do, and so I prayed.

I prayed to see her through God's eyes, but nothing happened. It was too much of a stretch. So I prayed to see her through the eyes of a friend, the eyes of someone just watching the movie of my mother shopping. And I got to see this short sweet woman with a badly pleated memory, working hard to keep herself in independent living. I saw an elderly English woman cadging coupons so she could pay her own way and not have to ask her skittish children for help. And then this woman popped back out of the waves right beside me in line, goggle-eyed, blinky, and I know this is not clinically a miracle, but it felt like one, because I finally started laughing. So maybe not a miracle, but grace. Grace means you go from slavery to freedom, freedom from the bondage of self -- from small and in a hurry, tapping your foot with impatience, to holding your mother's warm hand.

"Mom!!!!!" I said, but she could hear in my voice that I was not mad. And she turned to the man behind us and said, with her nose in the air and her eyes squinched shut, "This is my daughter," as if introducing him to the queen.
SALON | Nov. 25, 1998