The Light in Carol's Kitchen - Page 5
When she was done with her entrepreneurial restaurant career CtM moved into the celebrity real-estate business where she thrived. Selling beach houses, interior decorating, and living the glamorous movie life made her a star in her own right. Her famous saying, after hanging up the phone one day, is a testimony to her charm:
"Mom – was that 'The Mr. So and So' on the phone selling their house?"
"Darling, all my clients are named ‘The'."
So are all my characters – CtM, BtF, MtSF, DtB, MtHB, AtF, TtS
We are all named 'the' in my world.
I got that from my mom. The land of make-believe in myself.
Timothy the son, the foolish one.
When MtSF died in the early '90s, her career was on fire. She was 'the Queen of Malibu Real Estate' (in the Land of Make Believe). Approaching the cusp of the century CtM ran into bad luck. A bad wall, actually. On a wine tour of Tuscany her hire driver fell asleep and they crashed into a guard wall. That almost killed CtM. After a long, painful recovery she was her old self again before a fall and a stroke knocked her down a second time. That didn’t stop her from visiting TtS one more time, for a performance art adventure.
When CtM last came to DC to visit TtS and Nancy the daughter-in-law (NtDiL), she flew East with her wheelchair and Ben the nurse (BtN). First she got lost, and then we found art. In her weakened mind, she was ticketed on the flight as Janet the Travel Agent (JtTA). When JtTA and BtN deplaned at Dulles Airport, they were whisked away by a medical transport team as TtS and NtDiL watched the rest of the passengers deplane. CtM was missing. Per corporate policy, airport personnel refused to review the flight manifest unless we were calling from a police station. We sorted out this missing person crisis, around midnight, from a local police office.
The next day TtS and NtDiL met up with BtN and CtM for a final art gallery tour. I pushed her wheelchair through the FDR Memorial, near the Tidal Basin in Washington DC, and we took photos together next to the Eleanor Roosevelt statue. She liked that. She felt dignified posing with the former first lady, social reformer and caregiver to a crippled president and a struggling nation. We pushed on. At the East Wing of the Smithsonian Museum’s National Gallery we all rode the freight elevator to a fifth floor gallery where we toured the ‘cut out’ art of French painter Henri Matisse. At the end of his days, Matisse was also wheelchair-bound and directed his staff in creating the oversized, colorful floral and figure patterns that filled the enormous walls on display. I felt at home with CtM that day, like the pre-natal son in the early stages of life, touring a portrait gallery with diplomats. That day we said goodbye. A few years later, the lights went out in Carol’s kitchen. These are my prayers for you mom.