Segways & Segues

There has been a big brouhaha regarding Segways discussed on, of all places, my food forum. Last week, someone rode a Segway into a restaurant and asked for his table while still mounted up on it. The hostess who was confronted with this patron towering above her wrote about the incident on my favorite food forum (here). Then, the Washington Post picked up the story (here) and it has only escalated from there.

What most people do not (or in the case many of the forum members, did not) realize is that Segways have become popular with people with mobility impairments. And those folks have come onto the food forum to point that out. Some of these Segway visitors are very nice and polite while others are angry. The angry ones make me think of my mother.

The last five years of her life, my mother had multiple serious medical problems and was in a wheelchair (she used a cane for the ten or so years prior). Additionally, she suffered from fibromyalgia which caused her to have constant pain in her back, across her shoulders and into her neck. To help deal with the pain, she attended a chronic pain support group and some of the new folks visiting the food forum remind of the people from that group.

I find myself wondering if my mom went to that group not for support but to keep her perspective. So many of the group were very, very angry. Angry that they were in constant pain. Angry that the doctors could do little or nothing to alleviate their pain. Angry that other people were not in pain. And I certainly understand why they would feel that way. But my mother (the only person in a wheelchair in the group) did an incredible job of not being angry. Sure, she had her bad days, but I think that witnessing the futility of the anger of the other people in her support group kept her from falling into that way of thinking.

Unfortunately, I never really had the chance to talk to my mother about this specifically. She was raised to “not to be a bother” and even discussing "bad" emotions such as anger was a definite no-no. My mother did an admirable job of not inflicting the way she was raised upon me – I have no trouble expressing my displeasure or being a bother (just ask RWT). However, my mother and I were still very much alike. Outwardly, our reactions to things were quite different, but on the inside, we usually saw things the exact same way.

About six months before she died, I took care of my mother for two weeks while my father took a much needed respite from being her primary care giver and went to visit his sister. The first night at my parent’s house, I spent most of the night worrying about how I would get my mother out of the second story bedroom of their house if there was a fire. She had an electric lift to get up and down the stairs, but I felt that it could not be counted on in an emergency. After much tossing and turning, the best I could come up with was lowering her out of a window using a bedsheet, but my mother outweighed me by more than twice as much, so barring adrenalin-induced feats of super-strength, my plan pretty much sucked.

The next morning, my mom took one look at the dark circles under my eyes and wanted to know what I had stayed awake worrying about all night. Well, it turns out she had already considered all the possible contingencies in case of a fire (including my half-assed sheet plan) and had determined her best course of action was to scoot down the stairs on her rear pulling herself along the track of her lift with her arms (my mom was always very strong and after she had one leg amputated, she had more upper body strength than ten grinches plus two). Not only did we think alike, we worried, obsessed and planned alike too.

Our similar way of seeing things enabled me to be a great caregiver for her. I always knew when to joke her into doing something and when to be the meanie. That time alone with her, caring for her, turned out to be a very special couple of weeks that I will cherish forever. It was the last chunk of time I spent with her outside of a hospital. After nearly six years of battling illness, she died on Valentine’s Day.

Yes, her dying on Valentine’s Day totally sucks. At first, when someone would come up to me in all the hype leading up to Valentine’s day, smile and ask what special thing I would be doing to celebrate that year, it would feel like they were laughing and joking at my pain. It made me angry, just like some of those mobility-impaired Segway users and like the people in my mother’s chronic pain support group. It took a lot of effort not to bluntly inform my good natured, but ignorant, friends and acquaintances that my mom had died on Valentine’s Day – just to wipe the grin off their faces.

Although my mother always wanted me to express what I was feeling, I am glad I witnessed her example that getting angry is not always the best course of action. Anger might be the only means of coping at times or a way to feel better for that moment. But for me, it is just ends up being a bunch of negative energy that does little to help an already difficult situation. Luckily, most of my anger over her death has dissipated over the last ten years and I can now sincerely smile and tell people that we’re not doing anything special for Valentine’s Day.

So on Valentine’s Day you won’t find me going to a romantic restaurant or riding on a Segway or being angry. We’ll probably just stay in again and have a quiet night. And I’ll be thinking of my mom.