T Minus Two Weeks
A lot of people have asked me how my mom has been handling the whole “selling all my belongings, packing what little I have yet and moving across the country to move in with a guy” thing.
That’s a fair question.
She’s been calling me a lot, as expected. And, because deep down I am a masochist, I have decided to start visiting her more often.
Mom: Ernie! Now that you’re home, I need you to burn these CDs from my computer so I can listen in the living room.
I’m in Fremont, burning music for my mother. Because “visit your mother before embarking on a life-altering journey across the country” still means “run her errands.”
It should be said, that yes, I’m aware of AirPlay. I realize there is technology that can easily play the digital music from iTunes I purchased for her from her computer - located in the guest bedroom where my dad slept before he moved out - to speakers in the living room with a touch of a button. I also realize that teaching Mom how to use AirPlay would be extremely difficult, as Mom is in her seventies and I don’t know how to say “AirPlay,” “Speakers”, “Wireless” and “Don’t Press the Purchase Button” in Chinese. I imagine her running from the spare bedroom to play Baby Elephant Walk, then walking down a hallway to the dark cave of her living room, where she would sit on her thirty year old plush sofas. “That’s too much work. Why would I want to do that,” she would ask, “when you could just burn me a CD?” And then I would nod silently, cursing technology under my teeth.
Anyway.
Ernie: Okay mom, I’ll burn some CDs for you. Which ones?
Mom: Andrea Boccelli and these other albums. *points to computer screen*
Ernie: Here you go, ma. *Burns Andrea Boccelli, hands it off to his mother as she heads towards the living room, proceeds to burn the rest of the albums*
[Mom starts listening to “Time to Say Goodbye” by Boccelli on her stereo. She has it on FULL FUCKING BLAST, and you could probably hear the song from the School for the Deaf a half a mile away. The deaf kids from the School for the Deaf could probably hear the song a half a mile away. By the time she song has repeated itself three times, I run in from the bedroom.]
Ernie: MOM!
Mom: TIME TO SAY GOODBYE, ERNIE.
Ernie: Mom, I’m not dead.
If Mom is going through the seven stages of grief, I think she’s at the “acceptance” phase.
