Guess Who's Coming to Visit? or A Perfect Day...
Guess Who’s Coming to Visit? Or A Perfect Day
by Anne Basting
Brad planned to join me on a Sunday afternoon adventure to see Mom.
It was a perfect summer day, and we had grand plans. It felt precious. 75 degrees. Light breeze off the lake. The general hum of summer euphoria.
We planned to take Mom on a picnic - to get her out of her room for a while to feel the fresh air.
This would mean
preparing the food in advance,
taking her to the bathroom first and bringing just-in-case supplies,
notifying the staff that she would miss dinner,
figuring out a place that would be accessible, without too much walking, beautiful, not buggy, and not too distracting. And not too far from a hasty return or bathroom break.
All of it is totally doable.
“Hoo Hoo” - I call rounding the corner into her room.
“Hoo Hoo” - she echoes.
She is watching TCM, as she often is now in the afternoon before dinner.
I’m thankful someone comes in and turns on the afternoon movie - something she definitely could not do herself.
It is Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
As we sit down in our usual chairs, she barely looks at us. She is clearly riveted by the movie, studying the actors’ emotional responses, bursting with laughter at awkward moments, reading cues, asking me “what did they say?” when she misses a word or an entire concept. She is working hard to take it all in. I think of her 40 years of dutifully studying French with her weekly study group. She was, and is, a diligent student.
Pivot.
No perfect picnic.
We will simply stay and watch with her.
How quickly the plan evaporates.
“I’ve never seen this,” says Brad, the filmmaker.
“Neither have I,” says I.
I rub her hands with lemongrass and lavender lotion while Spencer Tracy is berated for being a senile old man.
I hand out three pieces of chocolate as Katherine Hepburn’s eyes fill with tears at the thought of her beloved forgetting the power of their youthful passion.
I file and polish her nails while Sydney Potier tells his father “I love you. I will always love you.”
An hour passes. None of us budges.
It is past dinner time. I can hear Teresa coming around the corner to fetch Mom.
“We are all riveted by this movie - and it’s almost over,” I say with apology.
“That’s fine - just bring her when you’re ready,” she says.
As Teresa stands in the doorway, I can see the picture-perfect day behind her, just outside the windows.
“That was so good!” says Brad as the camera slowly zooms out on the family, at long last sitting down to dinner, “and surprisingly relevant.”
Is it an old movie to her?
Can she hold time in two hands? Then and now? And compare the two?
Can I resist holding time in two hands?
Mom then. Mom now?
And simply, fully be in this perfect day?
a sketch of mom’s tv