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Travel with mom yanks out Boomer lesson
Daughter discovers her 78-year-old mother isn't ready to slow down yet
 | Emma Fisher, 20, left, her grandmother, Mary Foley, 78, center, and aunt, Cecelia Thompson, 45 are seen waiting at the bus stop outside Hacienda Baru for a bus into Dominical in Costa Rica. |
Maria Fisher / AP |
DOMINICAL, Costa Rica - My 20-year-old daughter Emma has been following me on strange trips all her life — Beijing on a bike, rural Romania, the frozen Boundary Waters in January and campouts at 10,000 feet that left her sick and dazed because of the altitude.
Now that she's in college and her own wanderlust has kicked in, it's my turn to traipse after her.
But my trip to visit her while she spent a semester abroad in Costa Rica turned into a three-generation adventure when her grandmother and aunt decided to join us. And it was there, on a jungle beach, that I learned a lesson about backing off. But I didn't learn it from Emma; it was my mother handing out that lesson — her and her unlaced tennis shoes.
After one year on campus Emma couldn't wait until the typical junior year to study abroad. So as a first-semester sophomore she left for Costa Rica in August to study ecology and Spanish.
Her college doesn't encourage family and friends to visit the students in Costa Rica. But how do you resist the lure of traveling with your child in a tropical setting? In December. Did I mention she was on the Pacific coast near great beaches?
I found reasonably-priced airfare. Emma found me really reasonable lodging in a wildlife refuge a short bus ride from the home of the family she was living with near the grungy surf haven of Dominical.
I mentioned the weeklong itinerary to my sister, Cecelia, and my mother, Mary, and presto, another strange trip took shape; three generations together in the rainforest. No one, except Emma, speaks Spanish. But we're all pretty hardy. In fact, when Mom read about Hacienda Baru, where we would be staying, she said she'd forgo the canopy zip line over the jungle. But not out of fear.
"I just did one a few months ago in Mexico," she said. Sure she's 78, but, so is Clint Eastwood.
All sorts of neurotic mayhem ensued from the moment we landed. There was the usual bickering and simmering that happens when people with too much shared DNA spend a lot of time together in a hot place with unreliable transportation.
But things didn't get ugly until one morning — I think it was Day Three — when we took the public bus from Hacienda Baru to Marino Ballena — a national park with a beautiful, deserted stretch of beach.
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Maria Fisher / AP The beach at Marino Ballena National Park in southwest Costa Rica is seen. |
Mom stood up, seemed a little shaky, and pulled on her pink and white tennis shoes. She looked like she was struggling with the laces.
"Here," I said. "I'll tie them."
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From the consternation and mumblings that only an irritated grandmother can muster, it was clear that instead of offering to tie her shoelaces, I had actually told her I was going to put her in a nursing home, tether her to the bed and have Gustav the nurse feed her peas the rest of her life.
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I don't remember what we had for lunch at the little restaurant about a five-minute walk from the beach. But I know there were red table cloths, and the food came with beer and a side of loathing from me to her and back. My sister Cecelia, brainy soul that she is, steers clear of our dust ups. Her lifelong motto is something like "tie your own damn laces."
Things got worse when Mom said she wanted to take the early bus back to Hacienda Baru rather than wait for the 4 p.m. bus the rest of us were taking.
You'd think I would have learned, but I offered to go with her. I don't know what possessed me. Chalk it up to the sun. I thought she was tired. Blah. Blah. Blah. Wrong again.
"You have GOT to be kidding!"
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