Heather Haldeman – “Pick Up the Phone!”

Pick up the Phone!

 

“There you are!” Mom would say, taking a slurp of her instant coffee. It would be 8:00 am, the
usual time for her morning call. I’d picture her in bed, the long powder blue coiled cord of her
telephone attached to the powder blue dial phone by her side, The Los Angeles Times on the
floor next to the bed cast aside like one of her tabloids. Once she’d read her horoscope and the
TV line-up, she was done with the newspaper.

It didn’t matter that I was getting my children ready for school. Everything had to come to a
screeching halt when Mom called in the morning. If I didn’t answer the phone, it would ring
incessantly until I finally answered to a, “Christ! I thought you were dead!”
If I didn’t answer her call, she’d call my sister, April. “Where’s your sister? Is she taking the brats
to school?”

April would let her have it, better than I could. “Quit, Mom!”

“She’s always doing the kiddies,” Mom would lament.

“And that’s a bad thing? Leave her alone.” My sister had my back.

If my sister didn’t answer when Mom called her, she’d ask me, “Where the hell is your sister?
She’s always down feeding her bloody animals.” She hated that April lived on horse property outside LA claiming it was “way the hell out there.”
“She loves her animals, Mom.”
“Tell me,” she’d sigh.

My mother’s calls weren’t just for mornings, though. Her calls came after every family event.
Christmas night we’d be five minutes away from her home when she’d call. I’d look over at my
husband, Hank, on the first ring on the car phone. “Like clockwork.” I’d say, putting her on speakerphone for all to hear. My mother wanted to be heard.

“It’s me!” She’d announce.

“Hi Nana!” The kids would call from the backseat. They loved their Nana.

“Did you all have a good time?”

“Yes!” they would chorus.

“Ok, close your ears. The adults need to talk. We need to finish the evening like dessert.”
Then, we’d debrief about the gathering we’d just left. Once home, April, our cousin, Jonathan,
and I would get on a conference call to debrief even more. There were no secrets in my family.

My mother’s calls weren’t just to check in on our lives; Mom needed to tell us about hers as
well. Before we even said hello, she’d start in: “Jesus, last night was a ringer.”

“What happened?”

“He’s driving me crazy,” she’d say of Dougie, her third husband with whom she had a great
marriage. “We’re old, stuck in our ways. He’s always planning golf things. Makes me crazy. I
hate golf!”

“At least he’s planning things,” we’d tell her.

“That and a dollar,” she’d say. “I go along with it, but it’s not my thing.”

She didn’t care a whit about golf, until he passed away. “I’d give anything to have him back with
the goddamn golf.”

When my children became adults, they got the calls, even at the office. She’d call every
morning. “Is he there?” she’d ask after our oldest. When he couldn’t come to the phone, she’d
chat with his assistant. After Mom passed away, his assistant told me how much he’d looked
forward to Mom’s calls. “We’d talk TV shows. She was the best.”

After our children left for college, I took a part-time job at a boutique. Of course, Mom called
every day, looking for me. One of my co-workers mentioned that she missed those calls. “She
always offered me tips to help me find a man!” she laughed.

My sister and I learned early on that spelling it all out, bringing in our family (and then some) on
Everything, was our inheritance from our mother.

Today, I find myself passing this on to our children and their spouses. I’ve become my mother. I
check in (not always at 8am), but I need to know what’s going on and that they are alright.
I picture them looking at their phone when the call comes in: Oh boy, here she is…
When did this happen? When did I become this, sitting in bed with my morning coffee? “Hi, it’s
me!”

And, just like my mother, when they call me, I start right in: “You won’t believe…” Blathering on
about my own things, barely taking a breath. Then, “You good?”

My daughter-in-law laughed on a recent call. By the time I finally took a breath, she’d forgotten
why she’d called in the first place. “No worry, I’ll call you back when I remember.”

“Oh god, I am my mother!” I said.

Over the years, like any family, we’ve had our challenges. My mother had passed away, but we
picked up right where she’d left off. All of us on a conference call. Together. Despite the fact
she’d never been the nurturing mother in a Peter Pan collar and with a bun in the back, she
taught us an invaluable lesson. Communicate and “Goddamn it, pick up the phone! We all need
to talk. Now!”

At the end of her life, my mother slowly wore down. She had trouble pressing our phone
numbers. Her 8am calls began to dwindle. I’d check the time in my car or at home. The silence
was like a thunderclap.

I’d give anything to have those early morning calls back. The calls I’d often avoided, too busy to
take. I long for her sage advice, for her voice.

Yes, I have become my mother, checking in. Needing to hear their voices. Hoping they will
inherit the gift I inherited: The “annoying” gift of daily contact. I’m not as funny as my
mother, nor do I have her one-liners or, sage advice. But I’ve got the love.

So, “Pick up the phone, goddamn it!”