When my mom came to see me for two weeks, my hair started falling out. It was mid-November and I tried to cover it up with funny hats. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, it’s like no one is watching me. Not at my job where I manage an optometrist’s office all day; I’m just a faceless guy in work clothes. When I’m not at home, it feels like I’m always talking to the top of my sons’ heads, their backs, or their closed bedroom door. I’m the only one who sees my hair falling out in clumps in the shower, staring down at handfuls of hair like I’m watching a horror movie. That was when I was at my lowest. My rent is always late. The dog is sick. The kids are getting further and further away from me. I’m lost.
Until my mom came to visit me from her daily life in California and became my wife for two weeks.
When my youngest son was about six, she moved five hours away. This meant that her visits went from weekend visits to at least a week or two, which I admit I resented at times. To me it always felt too long, too much, too graphic. “Is your room clean or grandma’s room clean?” I would scream upstairs to find my boys as I nervously tried to wipe the dog piss off the carpet. I want to be happy to see her, want to take care of her, and make sure there are enough of her favorite foods in the house, a bottle of wine for her arrival, a comfortable bed and clean sheets for her to sleep in. I wanted to be the host for her visits, but the truth was, I could barely be the host for my own life. Her visits sometimes just remind me that as a single mother, I failed in front of my former single mother.
I didn’t have time to help her clean this time. I have no energy. She rented a car to visit, and since we didn’t have a car at the time, the kids and I walked to school, work, and the grocery store, no matter how far. That night, when she pulled up after dinner, I was still wearing my work clothes, my hair in a ponytail trying to hide my thinning hair, and the sink was piled high with dinner plates.
Thus began my mother’s two weeks as the kind of 50s wife I knew on the classic TV show. She took one look at me when she arrived, and although she said nothing about it, I assumed she had made some kind of decision. Every day she gets up in the morning and we make school lunches with the groceries she buys and puts them in my suddenly clean refrigerator. She walked our dog while I got ready for work. She drove the kids to school and me to work, on two separate trips because there were so many of us.
When I walked home at the end of the day I found the kids had eaten and the drawers were full of clean clothes instead of the baskets being full of clothes that could have been dirty or clean, I will never remember . She handed me a glass of wine and told me to take a shower and that our dinner would be ready in about 30 minutes. We ate adult food that the kids hated. She did the dishes for me even when I feebly offered to do them. Before bed, we all curl up together and watch a movie or TV, or even play cards together, finish our homework and dust it off.
“No wonder men love having wives so much,” I thought over and over again when my dog stopped peeing on the carpet, my kids started helping with the laundry, and my hair stopped falling out. Who wouldn’t want that, at least for a while? My home is organized and my life feels easier. I do my job better because I’m not always thinking about what I have to do at home. I’m easier on my kids.
When she left at the end of her two-week visit, I cried more than I had in years. I was afraid of losing all support. But my mom actually gave me an easy life for over two weeks. She gave me a new start. Better systems for our houses. She showed me that I could actually do all of these things. Even happy. She helped me get back on my feet and showed me that I could handle things – without some tough love talk. Instead, she just gave me love.
She told me that when she got home, she slept for two weeks straight. Being my mom/wife really makes her sad.
Jane McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with her four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she’s not traveling as much, she tries to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.
