“Grandma’s kidneys are failing, can you come right away?”

It was my niece calling. She and my sister had been true rocks in supporting my dad and caring for my mother during her decline. They had all already pretty much said their goodbyes and now the call was going out to my brother and me, both out-of-towners. It was our call to see her off on her final great adventure in life.

Eight years earlier we had accompanied her on her second greatest adventure: a week-long cruise to Alaska. Mom had wanted to take all her children, but my sister couldn’t get away from work for that long and was unable to make the trip. It had been a lifelong dream of my mother’s to see Alaska. She was in her eighties and her mind was beginning to fail. We all knew this was her last chance to accomplish her dream. My brother and I were honored to be with her on the journey.

It was an epic trip in which it seemed that the universe was laying out all the best for her. In Juneau, the three of us took a whale tour. The boat captain confirmed what I had already heard (my wife worked the cruise ships for several years): we might not see any whales at all and if we did we were not allowed to approach them. Instead, we had sighting after sighting, many of them swimming very close to the boat. Then a pod of orcas (according to both the captain and my wife, an incredibly rare sighting) approached our boat. Mom and baby swam within 100 feet of us, and dad (bigger than our vessel) swam underneath us a couple of times.

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There was a salmon bake, calving glaciers, a rowdy piano bar, sightseeing in cool Alaskan towns, but most importantly tons of quality time with our sweet mother. It was an amazing trip, but only one of many with her. Mom was always a great adventurer.

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She was a nurse in WWII (that’s how she met our fly boy dad). With dad still in the military, she and he traveled the U.S. quite a bit after the war. By the time I came along (the youngest of my siblings by ten years), dad had wearied of all the travel and didn’t go on all of the trips. I do have distinct memories of the entire family traveling to south Florida from the panhandle and stopping at roadside farm stands to eat watermelon slices or raw ears of sweet corn. I still remember how surprised I was at how tender and sweet raw corn could be while looking out at the fields it had been picked in that morning.

Mom never let it stop her if dad didn’t want to go on a trip. She’d just grab one, two, or all three of us kids and away we’d go. One of my favorite memories concerns a trip that just she and I made. I think I was twelve or thirteen at the time. We both prepped music for the trip: I compiled rock and roll tunes, mom picked religious music. We took turns playing our music and we had both made an effort to pick songs that we thought the other might like, or at least be able to tolerate. Two of the songs I picked were “Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” by the Doobies and “Spirit In The Sky” by Norman Greenbaum, both rockers with a message I knew she’d like.

We only made it about 60 or 70 miles out of town when the radiator overheated. Dad had to drive to us with multiple milk jugs of water and help us limp back to our mechanic. Gene was a born and raised southerner and a great guy who always took care of our family (and gave us many breaks on price). He gave us the bad news that the engine block had cracked. The trip was canceled for sure.

Not so, said Gene. He poured a can stop leak in and told us we were good to go. Mom looked at him with concern: “Gene, do you think we can drive it to south Florida?” In his typical southern drawl, Gene said: “Shoot, I’d drive it to California!”

He was right. The car drove fine for years afterward and we made the trip, again filled with wonderful memories I shared with my mom. There were Native American dances at the Seminole reservation, alligators in the Everglades, and tons of memories of her and me at Disney.

“Grandma’s kidneys are failing, can you come right away?”

It had been a two year decline and I had braced myself for this moment many times, all for naught. I had broken down and cried many times after previous ominous phone calls. I didn’t cry this time. I was in simple stunned silence. I had just been smashed in the head with a baseball bat.

Mom was always a great adventurer. Now my brother and I were being called to see her off on her final voyage.