Precious
posted in Family, OmegaMom, OmegaGranny |Many years ago, when I was growing up in Chicago, my mom and I would go to the Jewel on Clark Street to go grocery shopping on Saturdays. We’d take a taxi off to the store, do our shopping, then I would hang out with the filled shopping cart while mom went into the drug store to buy cigarettes, and then we would call another taxi and head home. (Keep in mind that this was many moons ago, when the taxi rate was something like 5 cents per one-sixth of a mile.)
Normally, mom’s foray into the drug store wouldn’t take too long, so I’d sit perched by the cart on the metal railings cleverly designed so that you couldn’t get the carts out into the parking lot, and daydream. Cars would come and go, people would squeeze through the openings in the railings with their bags of groceries, the sun would dart in and out behind clouds.
Once in a while, though, she’d take "too long", as measured by my ten-year-old mind. At which point, my daydreams would take a distinctly dark tone.
She’d been kidnapped.
There’d been a robbery, and she was shot, lying in the store by the cashier’s counter in a puddle of blood.
I knew I would sit there for hours before anyone would think to tell me that she was in the hospital on her death’s bed.
Something Dire (but unspecified) Had Happened. My life was about to come crashing down. Stuff like that.
And then she’d show up, purse and purchases in hand, and anticlimactically we’d await the taxi. I was always very relieved, though I kept it to myself.
To this day, when someone precious to me takes "too long", as judged by my forty-mumble-year-old mind, I go off into that panic zone. This is, of course, very silly. "Too long" is extremely subjective. But if, say, OmegaDad informs me that he and the dotter are going off to Home Debit to get some specific drill bits, my brain puts a fuzzy-logic time limit on that expedition. Home Debit + "specific drill bits" = Not Too Long. So, if the expedition expands to include, say, a stop at Greasy Fast Food Palace for burgers, fries, and sodas without my knowledge, a swirling mass of evil starts emerging around their heads (in my imagination). It starts small, then grows.
When it reaches a crescendo, when I’m just about to start asking myself out loud, "Okay. Is it time to start worrying for real yet?", this is, of course, when the garage door opens and the dotter comes barreling in, junk food in hand, with OmegaDad behind her.
"Precious" is one of those words that has been devalued and marginalized by pop culture. "Oh, isn’t she just precious!" is the saccharine coo that the word conjures up these days. Or–worse yet–gooey sweet big-eyed pastel figurines. In our society, "precious" is something oh-just-so-darling-and-cute. Oy. Now, take Gollum–Gollum knew how to treat something precious: he obsessed over it for centuries. That is "precious". Something very important. Very special. Very loved. Something you are protective about. Something to be treasured and cherished.
For some reason, now that Great-Grandma is gone, the idea of my mom gallivanting around the U.S. on her own is much more disturbing than it was. Before, mom was the "accompany-er", the travel companion for Great-Grandma. As such, the focus of any worry, the need to care for and cherish, was Great-Grandma. Now, however, mom is planning to travel off to visit OmegaBro and family, and OmegaCuzes and families, in one fell swoop. The outer, more mature part of me is delighted, is glad that mom no longer has to stay in town to worry about her own mom and can be free to do such traveling.
But there she is–my one and only mamasan. I have one aunt and uncle left alive, and mom. None of the other forebears are alive. She is doubly–triply–precious these days. My safety net of elders has thinned, and I find my over-imaginative ten-year-old coming to the fore with Visions of Disaster.
Not too often, mind you. But there it is. Because she’s precious to me.
