You are forever your mother’s child. There’s no way out, at
least for me, even more than four decades after she brought me into
this world. Though they might let go of the adult you have become,
they never let go of the child you were.
For example. There I was on a blustery, sunny spring afternoon
in the isolated berg of Choteau, Montana, tending to my bakery,
“ZuZu’s-It’s a Wonderful Loaf.” Blustery as in garbage cans
tumbling down the street and into the open plains and my building
trembling beneath and a cacophony of wind-whipped whistles, howls
and rumbles. Isolated as in two thousand miles away from my
mom.
A stranger entered the bakery and looked around the various
books and CD’s for sale in the gift section. An older fellow,
gentle, with a comforting, intelligent face.
“Where you from?” I asked. Funny how I had only lived in
Choteau, population 1500, for a year, but could already spot an
outsider a mile away.
“Colorado,” he replied. “Visiting my mother in the nursing home.
I was raised here.” His name was Bill Reiquam.
I gave him a cookie to nibble on. Funny how living in an
isolated town of 1,500, for only a year at that, you become hungry
for the conversation of outsiders. Reiquam’s was a comforting
voice. We chatted warmly on a number of subjects as I rolled out
the sourdough breads. He chanced upon an anthology CD of Moroccan
music (complete with a Paul Bowles poem, read by himself).
“I served in Morocco as a doctor when I was young,” he offered.
“I joined the Air Force after leaving Choteau.”
“No kidding! I was born in Casablanca. My dad served there, too,
at the U.S. Air Force Base.”
Needless to say, that coincidence clinched the Morocco CD sale.
I told him to drop by next time he was in town to see his mother at
the nursing home.
A short while later the door to the back room of the bakery
opened. Rather, Bill Reiquam pushed it open against the blustery
wind and stuck his head inside, panting. Funny how the wind can
steal your breath.
“When were you born?” he asked.
“September, 1955.”
He smiled. “September. Then I was your pediatrician. I held you
the very first minute of your life, at the Air Force hospital. I
was the only pediatrician there.” Funny how sometimes when your
mouth can’t find words, a few shared smiles, tears and hugs just
take over and do the communicating.
The good Doctor Reiquam told me he probably saw me at least once
a week for the first six months of my life. The many new American
mothers, all of whom lived in apartments scattered throughout
Casablanca, were lonely and homesick, and used imaginary illnesses
of their babies as an excuse to make the somewhat adventurous
journey out to the Air Force Hospital.
“There was nothing wrong with the babies,” he said. “I was more
of a psychiatrist to lonely mothers in a strange land than I was a
pediatrician. And they visited each other in the waiting room. It
was the only social gathering place they had.”
I had a crazy idea. “I’m sure she’d like to talk to you again.
Right now, in fact.” I called her on the telephone and
re-introduced her to Dr. Reiquam.
“Well,” he said softly, no more than a minute into the
conversation, “No, that’s really nothing to worry about. Many
newborns experience a red rash around the neck, where the chin
touches the chest. You weren’t doing anything wrong. Quite common.
It wasn’t a problem at all. Don’t worry.”
Almost fifty years later, and my mother is still worried,
genuinely concerned!, about a neck rash I had at six weeks of age!
Always my mother’s child.
It was only a short time later we learned my mom had lung
cancer, and only a short time after that when she breathed her
final breath. Every Mother’s Day since her passing (the windier the
better), I try to take a particularly strenuous bike ride or maybe
hike to the top of a mountain peak and make my heart pound and my
lungs gulp air so that I may savor the gift of life she gave me and
nurtured. For, I believe, her soul still keeps a careful watch on
me, forever a mother’s child.
