How I make my 65 year old mom happy

Sledgehammer in retirement

Last year, I looked at my mother and saw that she was fading away. Previously, my mother was very needed to help with infant grandchildren, now they have grown up. Nine-year-old Stepan recently asked: “Is it possible to have sex on the same day after the wedding, or do you still have to wait?” Six-year-old Asya chooses outfits herself, and her grandmother’s opinion even annoys her. I moved my mother from Barnaul to Moscow about ten years ago. Here she has already got used to it, she does not want to go back, life has stood on the rails and rides without jumping. Once during this time there was an adventure, when my mother ended up in intensive care, the doctors said that there was little chance, but my mother quickly got used to it, lined up doctors, ordered her to be transferred to a regular ward. She didn’t give them a chance.

My mother is an ordinary standard Soviet person, a doctor by education, she went through the whole set: nothing to eat, nothing to wear, her husband is an alcoholic, a cold province. Well, that’s all. We sometimes lived in hunger, but my mother, like any Soviet woman, knew how to cook the first and second chicken legs from one chicken leg, she dressed me in the best at the market (when you have to stand on a cardboard box and the saleswoman says that this is factory tailoring, “look at the seam, cut the threads). Nothing like that, everyone lived like that.

And now time has passed. It’s all gone. I grew up. And she did something. And my mother now lives in Moscow. Mom is not waiting for a pension, mom eats well. She has favorite and least favorite sushi. She is beautifully dressed. She has an ideal renovation and an apartment in the center. She sets a condition for the doctors when she is brought by ambulance to the intensive care unit: “First I will smoke, and then we will go.” You can’t argue, even if the flashing lights are yelling and the doctors are looking at her with anxious eyes. She barely gets out of the car (“Yes, you don’t need to help me!”), Slips on the ice, falls and lies. The doctors and I look at her from above, and I say: “Mom, let’s decide already: in gastroenterology, as planned, or in trauma.”

I’m used to it. You can’t argue with your mother, you can’t say anything to your mother. It’s very strange to argue with a sledgehammer. She raised me (so smart), she is a doctor herself and knows best. I often look at her and say, «This woman will take my mother away from me.»

The anvil in her life has long been closed, in Moscow there is only one bosom friend Natasha, with whom she studied at the Barnaul school. Natasha’s mother is brainwashing, because with whom else to talk. You don’t need to survive anymore. Of her worries, only our family, where she wants to lead, but does not give. She doesn’t go to work — her mother has sore legs. The life of a former sledgehammer. Unpleasant silence and unaccustomed peace.

Mom has run out of emotions. And I had to come up with something like that. She will not go to sanatoriums (remember who the doctor is here). He does not want to get acquainted with pensioners (there are only grandmothers). She doesn’t want to get married (why is there a man here).

And I came up with!

Mama-theatrical

First, I bought tickets to the Obraztsov Theatre. There are two legendary performances that were shown on TV in Soviet times, and my mother adored them: The Divine Comedy and The Extraordinary Concert. She returned happy, said that she would never have thought how cool the actors play in the puppet theater. It was a delight! She said that she would not go anywhere else, stop spending money, everything else can be viewed on the Internet!

Then I decided to send her to the ballet (not to the Bolshoi, I had to raise the degree gradually), my mother loves ballet. She calls from the intermission and says: “Somehow they can’t dance, or something, I don’t understand. The costumes are kind of poor.” I say: “Mom, who goes to ballet like that? Go to the buffet and have a glass of champagne. It is necessary! And a caviar sandwich! It is important!» She says: “Stop spending money!” I say: “I already spent it, go finish it!”

Calls after the performance from a taxi so happy: “Aleska! I drank champagne, ate a sandwich, I felt so good!!! What costumes! How they danced, Aleska!!!

“Where could you watch it a hundred times? I ask. — In Barnaul? «Yes! Artists came to the Philharmonic and sang!” “Listen again at the Bolshoi Theatre!” «Oh, okay, I’ll go! Times need to!

Then came the organist from England. It was an absolute spiritual delight (“Aleska, I couldn’t even imagine what an organ was !!!”) There was a concert in the Catholic Cathedral, violins and cello (“Aleska !!! I couldn’t even think that violins talking!!!!”) Then there were operas and a musical, there was “La Traviata” at the Bolshoi (“Aleska !!! You should have heard the singer sing this: AAAAAAaaaaAAaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa …”)

The Sretensky Monastery Choir… The Alexandrov Ensemble… Kuban Cossacks… She says: “I just go into the theater and think that Yevstigneev played here, and here Efremov, Vysotsky walked on this stage! And now I’m sitting here ”… I take her the most expensive tickets, the best seats. Once she was sitting in the front row in the center, it seemed to her that she was right in the orchestra, because the cellist led the bow right next to her knees, and the violinist winked. Maybe he blinked at her, they say, move away, we are uncomfortable, but she sat in delight.

mom and taxi

An important point: for mom’s trips to theaters, only business class is called for a taxi. It is important that the suite starts from the very entrance and a beautiful carriage returns the queen back. I myself do not drive such cars, but here you need to create an atmosphere from the very beginning.

She always chats with the drivers all the way, finally has ears except for her friend Natasha. All the drivers then say to her: “You are so interesting, it is so easy to talk to you!” They do not know that my mother has worked with women who have just given birth and are at the peak of hormonal psychosis for more than thirty years. Mom can talk to anyone she wants about everything in the world.

My favorite moment, everything is for this: my mother returns home after the theater, her beautiful car rushes through bright evening Moscow, and she enthusiastically tells me how the hall applauded, how the actors played, how they sang, how they danced, what a beautiful conductor he was! How she cried, how she laughed!

And how a mother, having arrived home, calls her friend Natasha and repeats everything for an encore. I can’t go with her so often (and she goes often), I can’t buy two expensive tickets, but thanks to her stories I was everywhere and heard how “Mr. Kalinka” sang in a white tunic in the Alexandrov ensemble, saw how in the ballet “ Spartak, the dancer jumped over the entire stage with three jumps. I seemed to be everywhere! So does my friend Natasha. And with us all the taxi drivers.

Drivers of «business» meet her near the car, open the doors of their Mercedes. At first she was afraid of these gallant men in suits, then she got used to it, now she got used to it. Recently she said to a young driver when he brought her home: “Yes, you sit, child, I myself will open the door, do not go out into the cold, you will catch a cold.” He says that he smiled and replied that he was so pleased, such care, his mother lives in another city, he is here to work, and for so long no one has simply taken care of him.

“God forbid, Taskina is near!”

Somehow, once again, I was flipping through the next performances and saw that a concert was taking place in one house of culture. Songs by Valentina Tolkunova and Anna German will be performed. I think it’s great! Coming down! Will sing with artists, cry. No one could have imagined how it would turn out.

It was not in the center of the city, it was a long way to get there. I guess what’s the difference? The main thing is to sincerely sing mother’s songs. After the concert, I’m waiting for her call to call another prince in a black Mercedes and listen to how she liked it.

Does not call. Does not call. Does not call. I started to worry, I’m typing it myself. I hear it sobbing out loud. I got scared!!! I say: “What are you? Did you sing so well? And she almost screams: “Get me out of here! Not! I’ll go myself! Metro! I want to smell the subway! I won’t stay here!!!» And I can’t understand what happened.

She says: “Can you imagine, I came, sat down, the concert began. They sang well, but that’s not the point. Intermission began, went to the buffet. And suddenly I was overwhelmed. I suddenly found myself in that life, you know that. How I used to live. Suddenly, these women in thick knitted tights… These sweaters, these scarves, in which for some reason they wrapped themselves, hairstyles, as if from the past. I stand in line at the buffet and see how they began to get food from the trays, which they brought with them.

I return back after the intermission to the row, and how memories rolled over me! In Barnaul, we went to the Philharmonic with Lyuba Taskina, and suddenly I imagined that I would turn around now … «

I listen to all this and continue mentally for her: “… and suddenly I imagined that I would turn around now, and Taskina was next to me …”

And my mother continues: “… what am I going to do now, and God forbid close to Taskin! How I don’t want to go back to that life! Understand? In these torments! When your father drank and mocked us! When there is nothing to eat, and you are small and you want everything, but I can’t do anything! How hard and scary it was! I don’t want back! Lord, how bad I felt! Can I take the metro to smell Moscow, to make sure that I’m here and not there? .. «

It was the cheapest concert I’ve ever bought her tickets for. And the strongest emotionally. The artists who sang Tolkunova’s songs could not imagine why this little woman was crying so much in the front row.

mom and eyebrows

Mom said: “All such beautiful people go to the theater, but I don’t have eyebrows.” She has said many times that she wants an eyebrow tattoo. She says that everyone in Barnaul had it, but she never had it. Even the nurses went with eyebrows, and she is the head of the department, she also always wanted to, but there was no money. And then she became old, what eyebrows, what tattoo? Yes, and I told her that tattooing is no longer fashionable, she doesn’t need it, it’s unnatural! And my mother agreed.

Mom was driving from the next theater and told me: “I want eyebrow tattooing, period.” And we made her eyebrows in some fashionable spraying technique. Then she said: “Clutch! And a clutch! I need a clutch! I won’t go with this bag again. All women have a clutch, but I don’t.”

Another life

Mom continues her creative tour of Moscow. Was on the «Seagull» in the Taganka Theater. He says not much. Today I launched her into space, and she is listening to Vivaldi, The Four Seasons. I’m looking forward to her return! What will he say? Every time she goes to a concert, as if to a slaughter. Then so happy!

It’s so cool to launch mom into space! And watch how she returns from other planets. He says: “The buffet is expensive! But tradition is tradition, I drank and ate, if necessary. It must be so. She endured, but did not give up. Got it and did it!

Mom says: “I am sitting in the Bolshoi Theater on the second row, everything is beautiful around, such an audience, such a performance! And suddenly it’s like a throw back: I’m a young doctor, I’m standing in the city of Rubtsovsk near the balcony, it’s winter, there is a huge frost on the balcony door inside the room, a lump of ice that will be until spring, I look out the window, there is a private sector, houses, houses, and pipes stick out of the houses, straight columns of smoke come out of them, you are still sleeping in another room, you have a sore throat, there is no one to leave you tomorrow, I have to go to work, because I am a novice doctor and no one puts me in anything, the record is playing Yuri Antonov. I am standing there, listening to Antonov, looking at it all and understanding that this is forever, it will always be like this and nothing else will happen. It’s for life. She will be just like that. Heavy and difficult. And all of a sudden, I’m sitting fashionably with a haircut on the second row in the Bolshoi Theater, in the center of Moscow, and a Mercedes will come for me after the performance!

«If not for you, we would never live like this»

In December, my mother and I went on business. The city was in pre-New Year’s traffic jams, a taxi had to wait thirty minutes. I say let’s go to the bar. There were no seats, only a couple of chairs behind the bar. I say: “You can’t climb into such a chair, let’s get out of here.” She says, «Come on! I’ll climb in!» And how she ran.

Mom was sitting at the bar, dangling her short legs. I ordered her a large multi-colored cocktail, and suddenly she says: “I have never sat at the bar in all my 65 years. It always seemed to me that this is a luxury world, the bourgeoisie, it’s like in the movies, it’s only for the rich. I was stunned, I didn’t know. I say: “Let me take a picture of you!” She was so happy! I say: “Come on now together!” And we began to take pictures, like some two provincial women who came to Moscow and sit in the city center in a bar. Although that’s the way it really is.

He sits, turns his head, says: “We are sitting like in a movie! You see it’s all cinema!» He sits again, pulls a bright cocktail through a straw, stirs the ice and suddenly says again: “Aleska. If it wasn’t for you, I would never live like this.» I told her: “Mom. Without you, we would never live like this.”

I understand for sure, I know for sure that there was a certain moment in our life when my mother could get scared and everything would go wrong. It was after school. I was considered stupid in all sciences, I did not know how to add or take away. My only skill is to write fluently, but where could this come in handy, because I even wrote with errors (and still do).

Mom was already the head of the maternity hospital and a respected person in her field. She could have put me in a medical school, because everyone said: “Lyuda, Aleska studies poorly, she won’t get anywhere, then she won’t find a job, she’s an average girl for you, you see, nothing will come of her. Soak it in honey and then take it to work.» Mom was cool in her place, I would have been baptized, but they took me.

Honey, I would finish. I would go to work in her maternity hospital. In some department where you do not need to see women in labor and babies. And both of us would still work in Barnaul. And they wouldn’t be sitting in a bar with new eyebrows, and I wouldn’t write here. Somehow my life would have turned out, I’m sure it’s not bad, but not like that. We wouldn’t have gone to the movies with her.

One evening, my mother and I watched NTV, it was the same legendary NTV, which has long been gone. And suddenly both said: journalism! It was an excellent specialty for a person who does nothing but write fluently (and the editor will correct the mistakes). Then there was a whole chain of events and people, I wrote the best on the course, but I studied the worst, then I left for Moscow, and again a chain of events and people, now I’m working on the set, but I could say this: “Maternity hospital number two of the city of Barnaul, Operator Kazantsev is listening.”

Star with a bouquet

Recently, my mother went to the theater and gave a famous actress a bouquet of flowers. It was a very spectacular bouquet (I know where to get it), my mother was worried about how she would pick it up at all. Her legs do not walk well, she does not bend her knees when she sits down, but bends all over. She called at intermission: “Are you crazy? Who goes to the theater with such Ekibans?! What are you up to again?!»

She says that when there was a standing ovation, she was so overwhelmed, there were such emotions after the performance, the actors played so that she forgot everything, sat down, bent her knees, grabbed this bouquet and handed it to the actress. The bouquet was so big that the audience began to clap even more, even louder, the applause intensified! And my mother said: “Aleska! I spoke so much at all sorts of meetings in the city health department with reports, at medical conferences with reports, but I have never been clapped like that! (To her, of course, not to those losers on stage.) I was a star! I still want to walk with such bouquets!”

Happy childhood

All this is akin to how an adult throws a child into the air, and the child flies these couple of seconds and laughs, laughs, and then they catch him. And he wants to be thrown again, but it’s scary, but he still wants to.

Now I’m dropping my mom. I toss, and I toss, and I toss. And she laughs and laughs. And laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

For the New Year, she gave me a lot of tickets for six months in advance. And four clutches.