George Hodgman's Blog, page 3

'Bettyville' Author George Hodgman On The Fate Of Small-T...

'Bettyville' Author George Hodgman On The Fate Of Small-Town Missouri
kcur.org
George Hodgman is a writer and editor who's lived in New York and worked for places like Vanity Fair and Simon & Schuster. After a childhood spent

Betty's home. She has a lot of problems, but some aren't as bad as we feared. I...

Betty's home. She has a lot of problems, but some aren't as bad as we feared. I guess. The doctors can be���frustrating sometimes and generous at other moments. She's having to use a walker. She hates it. Coming into the family room last night, she announced, "Here comes the old bitch with the walker." One day at a time.

Tonight in KC, a wonderful woman named Amy Beaird brought this fabulous new dog...

Tonight in KC, a wonderful woman named Amy Beaird brought this fabulous new dog collar for Raj. The tag has his name on one side and a quote from Bettyville on the other. Thank you so much for this generous, special keepsake. He will wear it happily the minute I collect him tomorrow. XO

Winstead's, KC. Thank you to Vivian, Sandra, and love to my new friends in one o...

Winstead's, KC. Thank you to Vivian, Sandra, and love to my new friends in one of my favorite places.

For one night, I am far from my troubles. Where am I?

For one night, I am far from my troubles. Where am I?

Hospital Report, Betty Hodgman: "I'm not going to die here. I'm going to wait fo...

Hospital Report, Betty Hodgman: "I'm not going to die here. I'm going to wait for someplace with better food."

Long night: Betty admitted to Boone County Hospital in Columbia, Sixth floor, No...

Long night: Betty admitted to Boone County Hospital in Columbia, Sixth floor, Norm Stewart Cancer Center. She'll be there until at least Tuesday.

Taken by a photographer for the Moberly Monitor-Index, my favorite picture from...

Taken by a photographer for the Moberly Monitor-Index, my favorite picture from the tour--me and Bette. She looks great.

Thanks, Danielle Trussoni and the Rumpus… http://therumpus.net/…/the-rumpus-in...

Thanks, Danielle Trussoni and the Rumpus���

http://therumpus.net/���/the-rumpus-interview-with-george-ho���/


therumpus.net
therumpus.net

For weeks I have been stewing about what to get my mother for Mother’s Day. She...

For weeks I have been stewing about what to get my mother for Mother’s Day. She is 92 and, after all the years and holidays, it is hard to come up with anything to delight her, to make her smile. Older people often want only what it is not possible to give. I get very sad when I think about what my mother really wants.
A few weeks ago, when the lilacs were really blooming, Carol—who takes amazing care of Betty—braved incarceration and irate exclamations to steal some lilacs for my mom. I always forget how much I love that smell of lilacs, but as the days passed and the fragrance drifted through our house and into my mother’s room, I asked myself, “Why in the world would anyone not have a lilac bush? The smell is too good to go without.” So I thought that for Mother’s Day I would get some bushes and plant them under her bedroom windows.
I am hoping she will be around to smell them blooming when she wakes up in the mornings, but next year is hard to think about because I am worried now that our luck has run out.
“Just one more year,” I ask as I watch her, more bent over than ever, making her way down the hall. “Just one more year.” I am greedy. I am unrealistic. For more than fifty years I have rebelled against reality. I am not the type who can ever see death as a blessing if it visits someone I love, no matter how old. Willfully, I refuse to consider what she wants, how it feels to not feel like oneself anymore.
Is anyone ever ready to lose a mother?
Maybe Christina Crawford.
A week or so ago, Betty broke her rib and every time she leans back in her bed to go to sleep, she screams. Usually I am there, helping her, but it happens all night long when she gets up as she does, again and again. I hear her on the monitor we have installed in my room. I always run t o her and the dog looks up, wondering what is going on. When I get back in bed, Raj has always taken my spot and I heave him—heavy as a sack of large potatoes—back on his side. Usually, by the time I get him situated, she has screamed out again and I go and when I get back, the dog has moved over again. Some nights we go through this time after time. It doesn’t matter. It’s worth it. It is nice to have something to hug at night.
Sometimes my mother talks to herself all night long. I hear her. Sometimes she babbles rather happily. Sometimes, in a bad mood, she interrupts herself. “Will you shut up?” she asks. “You don’t make any sense. You just don’t make any sense.”
Because I want to get the lilacs and get Betty out of the house, Carol and I plan an outing to the nursery on a beautiful day. We get Betty ready and take the dog. Betty has on a new pair of pink Capris. I tell her that on the way, we will stop and look at new cars. Betty has been dying to get a new car. She always loved to drive, to move, to know that if she didn’t feel just right she could go somewhere where she felt better. Now she seems to believe that a new car will bring it all back, that she can slip behind the wheel of a reasonably priced sedan with her favorite luxury feature (heated seats) and go back, back, back.
By the time we get to the dealer’s, it is eighty- seven degrees, but Betty lets me haul her out of the car and rides along when I test drive two Buicks. The whole thing tires her out. “I can afford a new car,” she keeps telling herself because she never believes she has enough money left to pay for anything. I wonder if the trunks of the cars we see are large enough to hold a wheelchair. All she cares about is the heated seats. She wants to make a purchase soon. Before time runs out. Her desire for this car is our first sign of hope in so long. I am ready to buy the Buick then and there and floor it out of that lot like we have just robbed the place.
At the nursery she stays in the car, but I bring hanging baskets for her to inspect before I purchase them. As I approach, I see that Raj has hopped up into the driver’s seat. For a year and a half now, my mother has pretended she hates the dog. She just won’t admit she cares. Raj looks up at me as if to say, “I tried.”
I tried, too, but she doesn’t seem to be excited about the lilacs. I really wanted her to be happy about the flowers, but maybe she knows how long it takes for them to grow. Maybe she knows she will never get to inhale their fragrance.
Maybe it is not too late to find a bracelet. She still loves flashy new jewelry. In another life, I think she dated a lot of gangsters.
Two weeks ago, when some TV people came to our house for a filming, I walked into the kitchen to find her flirting with the crew. “That one is the best looking,” she said of the interviewer.
On the way home, we stop for Mexican food. There is a restaurant near where Carol goes to church. Her family goes there on Sundays. Hearing this, Betty looks appalled at the notion that one would follow a sermon with an order of quesadilla. It violates her sense of propriety somehow. She drinks a huge frozen Margarita, but hates everything else we have ordered.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” she says when we get back into the car, “If that’swhat they eat, I’m sure glad I’m not a Mexican.”
That night before I go to bed I find myself hugging that dog so hard that he yelps.
Happy Mother’s Day from Bettyville. What you have to hang on to in the end, I think, is gratitude for everything that has been, things that not everyone has had the good fortune to know.
I guess I have to accept finally that no one can change the rules of this life, but maybe, if we hurry there will be time for one more car for her to ride away in.