Incontinent on the Continent

by Jane Christmas

  A trip to Italy was the reward for two old prizefighters.

  What better place to hash out mother-daughter matters than in Italy? The country positively invented motherhood— worships it, in fact. It is the backbone of Italy’s dominant religion; it is woven into the social fabric; it is an iconic feature of the culture. You cannot picture Italy without visualizing a robust mother smiling at the head of the family dinner table or smacking the head of a misbehaving adult son or pinching his cheeks with her chubby fingers out of love and pride.

  Italy seemed like the best place to view our relationship from a safe, therapeutic distance; a place where we could assess the past as if it had been some kind of psychosocial experiment whose results had been submitted for peer review, and where we could regard the hurt, the rage, the what-ifs, the sharp words, the crushing disappointments with breezy dispassion.

  Who was I kidding?

  Still, nothing can silence my mother like the sight of a faded tapestry or an ancient ruin, and that was another reason I thought Italy would be perfect for us: When we ooh and ahh over stone follies, pastoral views, oil paintings, and antiques, we give voice to a common denominator that confirms our familial tie, a tie frayed by too many years of tugging.

  Our shared interest in antiquity was the reason we gave when well-meaning friends, aware of our contentious history, carefully inquired as to why we were going on holiday together. But the unspoken reason—one that my mom and I could barely admit to one another—was that we were going to use the background of the Italian Renaissance to spark a renaissance of our own.

  I WAS stretched out on my tummy on the living room carpet like a teenager, legs bent at ninety-degree angles and crossed at the ankles, elbows propping me up as I pressed the phone’s receiver to my ear. My favorite book, the National Geographic Atlas of the World, was open in front of me. My index finger was languorously following the contours of Italy’s curvaceous coastline while my mind dallied with fantasies involving stiletto heels and a swarthy hunk named Giancarlo. Then Mom’s voice spoke sharply across the phone line.

  “And make sure you tell them I need a wheelchair. Those airports are too big, and I can’t make it from the check-in counter to the plane without one.”

  Poof! Giancarlo and the stilettos vanished.

  The words “wheelchair” and “Italy” seemed incompatible, almost as incompatible as my mother and I. The mere mention of a wheelchair caused my chest to tighten and brought my vocal chords to the brink of a scream. I had only considered pushing my mother around Italy in a purely metaphorical sense.

  “And I’m bringing my walker. The red one.”

  I hate the walker. It makes me feel seriously old, even though I’m not the one using it. I do not like to think of myself as being old enough to have a mother who uses a walker. And of course when you walk with someone who is pushing a walker, you unconsciously adopt the walker shuffle: a slow, deliberate one-step, the type of gait you use when you’re recovering from a C-section or hysterectomy.

  The wheelchair was but one consideration in planning this trip.

  My mother is at an age where myriad health issues are gradually clipping her wings. (She has threatened to cut me out of her will if I divulge her exact age, so let’s just say that she is younger than one hundred and older than sixty-five.)

  Seating on the plane had to be near a washroom: my mom is incontinent.

  The hotel rooms had to have ensuites for the same reason.

  The hotel could not have too many stairs: my mom has osteoarthritis in her knees.

  The distance from the lobby to the hotel room could not be too far: my mom has asthma and heart problems.

  Food to nibble on needed to be packed: my mom has diabetes.

  No-fish meals had to be requested: my mom is allergic to seafood.

  Rental cars had to have enough storage space to stow the walker.

  Mom also has two canes: a fold-up cane for travelling and a non-folding cane in case she loses the fold-up one. (She only brought one to Italy.)

  Did I mention that she’s hard of hearing? (At times I think this affliction is selective.)

  “Other than that I’m perfectly healthy,” Mom cheerfully told me.

  “Are you sure?” I asked as we discussed our trip.

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  Most women my age planning a six-week holiday to Italy would be conducting forensic online research into the precise location of every Ferragamo or Prada outlet in the country. My research consisted of figuring out how much room a package of incontinence diapers would take up in a suitcase and whether a smorgasbord of medication and asthma puffers would be an issue at customs.

  Travelling with a senior is not much different from travelling with a small child. Same preparation time, same cargo-ship’s worth of paraphernalia in anticipation of every manner of disaster, same dashing-back-into-the-house routine to retrieve a forgotten item. The gear is essentially the same; a pale blue or pink carrying bag is replaced by one in a more dignified sage or black. Walkers or wheelchairs replace strollers, books and magazines replace toys, peppermint candies replace cookies, sweaters and shawls replace blankies, eyeglasses and hearing aids replace pacifiers—and diapers are replaced by, well, bigger diapers.

  Then there is the medication.

  I dropped in one day to help Mom with her packing. Her bed was heaped with bottles and jars and crinkly packages. It looked as if she and her neighbors had taken the contents of their medicine cabinets and dumped them.

  “What’s all this?” I said with mild horror.

  “My medication,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  I’ll admit, not proudly either, that whenever Mom launched into a description of her health problems and prescriptions the information waltzed in one ear and out the other. As soon as she uttered the words “I was at the doctor’s the other day,” I would politely say, “Keep talking,” and leave the room to pour myself a large glass of wine.

  That behavior ended when I became the person who would be carrying her luggage to, through, and back from Italy.

  I looked down at the array of pills on her bed and shook my head. There was a prescription for everything short of leprosy.

  “Don’t worry,” said Mom. “The pharmacist is making up dose-ettes for me.”

  “What?”

  “Like this.” She held out a cardboard platform with small plastic bubblelike compartments arranged in a grid, containing all the pills to be consumed that day. Across the top row was marked, in large type, the days of the week; down the left side was the time of day—morning, noon, evening—the medication was to be taken.

  “Why do you need a prescription for vitamins?” I asked, peering at the label of one medicine bottle I had picked up at random.

  “Because the doctor gave it to me,” she said in a tone of voice reserved for addressing morons.

  “You should check whether your doctor isn’t getting a kickback from the pharmacist,” I said. “You can buy this stuff over the counter and save yourself the dispensing fee.”

  “Don’t interfere,” she said petulantly. “I know what I’m doing. Besides, it’s hard to get a doctor these days.”

  My packing required less attention to health concerns; I am, touch wood, in good health. I don’t believe in taking medication of any sort—not even vitamins—except when something like sudden depression or a freak infection hits me, and then I am all for prescription drugs.

  Without the worry of drugs and walking aids, I loaded my suitcase with clothes and makeup. And shoes. I seem to require a lot of shoes whenever I travel. I also cannot leave home without a small arsenal of face creams, cleansers, shower gels, hair conditioners, and body lotions to fend off dry weather. Whenever I pack and review my heaving case of toiletries, I realize with a heavy heart that I was born in the wrong part of the world. My skin and hair are at their best in tropical climates.

  All the guidebooks and Web sites I had perused before heading to Italy mentioned th
at during the winter months the weather was moderate and mostly warm, especially in the south. I happily packed light skirts, sandals, T-shirts, and—because there would be a pool at one place we had booked—bathing suits and silky pareos.

  Mom left all the arrangements and decisions about the trip in my hands (“Wherever you want to go is fine with me”) and then insisted on seeing a printed itinerary of the sort found in travel brochures or issued by tour operators.

  Rarely do I travel with a plan. I’m like Robert Louis Stevenson, who once said, “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.” But since Mom was expecting something more than “Get on plane; fly to London, then to Bari. Rent car,” I cobbled together a basic plan to keep her happy.

  This was it: We would f ly from Toronto to London, transfer to a flight to Bari, rent a car; and drive from Bari to Alberobello, where we would stay for two weeks. From there we would drive to Sorrento and stay for four days, then drive from Sorrento to Viterbo, our base for three weeks. Our flight home would begin in Rome, with a connecting flight in London.

  I was especially proud of the accommodations I had booked.

  In Alberobello we would be staying in a renovated trullo. Trulli are the traditional small shelters built about eight hundred years ago by field workers in Italy’s Apulia region. They look like little white stucco beehives with conical slate roofs. As a field worker’s family grew, so did the trullo, and more beehive-shaped units were added. Eventually some trulli consisted of three or four buildings, each cone serving as a room. Trulli are the latest real-estate craze, especially among the Brits, who are flocking to the area and snapping them up as income properties. One of those Brits happens to be the brother of my beau, Colin. Mom and I would be his first clients.

  In Sorrento we had booked a family-run hotel that had been recommended by an acquaintance.

  Our Viterbo digs consisted of a medieval town house I came across on the Internet. It was located in the center of the old quarter, and its Web site promised antique stores and cafés right outside the front door. It would be perfect for my antique-loving mom, and for me since I love soaking up the historical atmosphere in out-of-the-way places.

  “And of course we’re going to Tuscany and Venice,” said Mom as she scrupulously reviewed my itinerary.

  Neither of those places was part of my plan. I was so sick of clichés about Tuscany and its amber-colored, manufactured romanticism that I had lost interest in the place long before preparing for this trip to Italy. As for Venice, a friend who had recently returned from a visit had told me it was dirty and dismal. I nixed Venice, too.

  “We’re not going to Tuscany or Venice?” Mom asked loudly. “What’s Italy without Tuscany or Venice?”

  “Exactly,” I replied firmly. “We are not going near the tourist traps.”

  “Look,” she said, fixing me with a dark, penetrating stare. “I’ve never been to Italy, and this is the one and only time I’ll be there. This is my last trip to Europe. Make no mistake: We are going to Tuscany and Venice!”

  “Well, we might go into Tuscany a bit,” I allowed.

  “And Florence,” she said emphatically, not quite grabbing me with both hands by the lapels, but you get the picture. “We have to go to Florence.”

  “Yes, of course,” I sputtered.

  I felt myself shrinking into a ten-year-old version of myself, so I squared my shoulders, straightened what remained of my backbone, and said, “Listen here. This isn’t going to be one of those holidays where we’re rushing from one end of the country to the other. I am not going to be forced to drive like a lunatic all over the place. Do you understand?”

  “I know,” she said, her eyes refusing to meet my gaze. “That won’t happen.”

  2

  En Route to Italy

  IT WAS a bitterly cold late afternoon in February when we arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Minus twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, according to an electronic billboard we passed on the highway. It was so cold that when I inhaled, the tiny hairs inside my nasal passages turned to icicles, and I felt the onset of hypothermia around the frontal lobes of my brain.

  Certain things in this world test my Christian soul—cell phones, airports, the United Nations, the spattering, earsplitting rev of motorcycles, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie—but nothing tests it more than winter. It was no coincidence that I planned our trip so that we would be out of Canada for as much of the winter as possible. It’s not just the snow; it’s the cold, the dry air, the feeling that every drop of moisture is being sucked out of me. I could hardly wait to be in sunny, warm Italy. The weather forecasts there, which I had been monitoring multiple times a day, listed temperatures around seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. I imagined myself attired in an outfit of gauzy fabric, strolling down narrow lanes bordered by tall, blindingly bright white stucco walls and occasionally darting into a sliver of shade to escape a searing noon sun.

  At the entrance to the airport terminal I wrestled with a luggage cart from the trolley stand, and was piling on our suitcases when I glanced around and saw Mom hailing nonwhite travellers, assuming they were porters.

  I was caught for a split second between screaming “No!” and melting in a puddle of shame on the sidewalk.

  I watched her for a moment as she waddled unsteadily along the sidewalk before stopping, with a somewhat bewildered look on her face, and raising her hand for attention. There was a frailty and vulnerability to her that I had never noticed before. At that precise moment I knew that the balance of our parent-child relationship had completely shifted.

  “Where are the porters?” Mom demanded imperiously, pounding her cane. A black man in a very smart tan suit was walking briskly in her direction; she started to raise her hand in a gesture to hail him, and he shot her a disapproving look.

  “Come on, Mom,” I said gently, catching her by the fold in her jacket sleeve. “They don’t have them anymore, or not many of them. They’re for special cases.”

  “Aren’t I special?” she pouted.

  “Of course you are,” I soothed. “C’mon. Let’s get our tickets, shall we?”

  With one hand on the luggage trolley and the other on her shoulder I slowly turned her around and aimed her toward the check-in counter. I placed one of her hands on the cart’s push bars and then covered it with one of my own hands. It was something I had done countless times with my children to keep them from wandering off. Gosh, was that really more than twenty years ago? The memory of it had all but fizzled out.

  At the airline check-in counter a wheelchair was promptly summoned. It arrived with a porter—an efficient, older Indian man.

  Mom regarded him with a moment of suspicion before letting him assist her into the wheelchair.

  He left us on the other side of the security cordon, and thank goodness, because that’s when my cringe-o-meter went into overdrive.

  “Look at all the immigrants!” Mom exclaimed with childish awe when she surveyed the security workers.

  Being of a certain generation, my mom figures that if you are not white then you are automatically an immigrant. Yet this is a woman who reads books and newspapers and who watches tv. Had she mistaken the nightly news for serialized episodes of National Geographic?

  Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, during one of his many election campaigns, commented that all incoming immigrants should be shot in their boats. I decided not to share that with her.

  I did consider jerking her hand and telling her sharply to hush, but people have a tendency to react differently when you do that to a senior than to a child. I did not want to be cited for elder abuse.

  Of course, it works the opposite way for seniors. They can apparently abuse their caregivers and make demands with impunity.

  Mom’s worldview aside, there was the issue about her physical ability. Based on the few hours we spent in the airport lounge, it was clear she could not do anything without my help. When she dropped something on the floor, I had to pick it up; when I was reading a book o
r working on a Sudoku puzzle, she would mew about being thirsty, so I would fetch her a drink. Then she would spill some of it and I would have to jump up and get a cloth to mop it up.

  The upside of flying with a senior, as I pleasantly discovered, was priority boarding and lots of fussing-over by normally ice-queen flight attendants.

  We settled into our seats, and I arranged my little conveniences in the pouch in front of me. Through the small oval window beside my seat I watched the ground crew, huge puffs of frosty breath emanating through the scarves lashed around their faces, finish deicing the plane’s wings. It gives me no comfort to know that a plane that I am sitting in is being deiced.

  I turned to my mother. Her tongue was curled around her upper lip as she struggled for a small eternity with the cellophane wrapping on a candy. A thought began to weave and wind itself through my mind: This could be the longest six weeks of my life. I had seriously miscalculated her ability to do anything without assistance, a miscalculation largely borne of her cheerful insistence, “I’m capable of doing anything!”

  Her endless stream of questions began on the tarmac and continued thirty thousand feet into the air, regardless of whether I was reading or listening through headphones to the in-flight movie. “Why was the plane delayed?” “Why do so many people travel at the same time?” “Why are there so many immigrants working at airports?” “What’s ‘deicing’ mean?”

  After a handful of hours in the air, during which I looked longingly at the emergency exit, she drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, she denied having ever slept and proceeded to complain about everything from the airline food to the too-busy stewards to the location of her seat (I had purposely selected her upgraded seat for its legroom and proximity to the bathroom).

  By the time we reached London’s Gatwick Airport, I was wound up tighter than a yo-yo and began second-guessing my staunch refusal to take mood-enhancing medication. I was considering cashing in our tickets and taking the next flight back to Canada when a heavyset porter wearing a turban approached us with a wheelchair. Mom shot me a worried look.