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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2016 Mummy’s boy waits, pondering nine decades of wrinkles By PATRICK WEBB For The Daily Astorian Q ueen Elizabeth II is 90. English theaters have received instructions on how to make the announcement if her death occurs during a performance. Mum is the same vintage as Great Britain’s longest-serving monarch, born in a rather less -afÀ uent /ondon neighborhood eight months earlier. There will be no 21-gun salute when Mum dies. Mourning will be limited to a younger gen- eration; no contemporaries survive. What a life she has had. The el¿ n daughter of an of¿ ce cleaner and a crane operator was so underweight she wasn’t expected to sur- vive her youth. Rough- housing around her was forbidden. Instead, she emerged unscathed from Hitler’s blitzkrieg, then endured postwar auster- ity, the Swinging ’60s, the Falklands War and the Thatcher Years as a wife, mother, housewife, dressmaker and sports- Patrick woman. Once her boys Webb had grown, she worked in the complaints department of the Ronson’s cig- arette lighter factory, and later as an assistant in a betting shop. Nine decades have passed. She has outlasted them all: her parents, obviously, but also hus- band, sister, brother, in-laws, indeed all relatives. In the last few years, friends’ funerals occurred almost weekly. Now she is the last survivor of her generation. But the last one standing is wobbly. Indestructible. Until now. Care staff from the county social services department visit her brick duplex south of /on- don three times daily, assessing if she can fend for herself after a mini-stroke and other woes that torture her bony frame. They attend to her washing, pill-taking and unmentionable practical tasks with a studied detachment. Though all are reasonably cheerful, most are minimalists, one spending just seven minutes at Mum’s bedside before scribbling arcane details in the log book and driving off in a tiny hatch- back. Another, Pom-Pom, whose Thai accent is straight out of central casting, behaves as if she were tending to her own beloved mother. She regularly exceeds her allotted half hour, chatting constantly, but always on task. As this kindly vis- itor departs, Mum beams with À eeting happi- ness, despite the pain of an aching back that dou- bles her over. At 90, there is no single ailment, instead a catalog . Macular degeneration has devastated her eyes; she can no longer read, her favorite TV quiz shows appear blurred, and she scribbles her signature on checks, allowing a trusted friend to ¿ ll in the details. Mother and son looking cool in their sunglasses in the 1960s at a beach on England’s blustery east coast. Characteristically, Pat- rick is wearing his sweater despite the heat. May Webb now is 90, having outlived all her contemporaries. I have come to help for a month. It is not long before I realize my role is lim- ited. I wake to fetch weak Yorkshire brand tea and two slices of toast, dutifully cutting off the crusts and tossing them onto the back lawn for the birds. As inactive days drag, I brew end- less cups of tea, fashion reasonably creative hot meals at lunchtime, and drive off to replenish the pantry from expensive Tesco and Sainsbury store shelves. I arrange the Maribel Sweet Marmalade jars in the pantry, aligning their labels perfectly. I cope with what goes in the pots and pans then wash them up afterward; but I cannot cope with my thoughts. I cannot make Mum better. As a kid, my weak lungs gasped ¿ tfully amid asthma, pneumonia, and health troubles galore. I sampled every pill our village chemist stocked. In my tiny, box-shaped upstairs bedroom, a spe- cially shortened bed became my nest; I endured and eventually À ourished, a world atlas in one hand and a teddy bear in another. Is it any won- der I revere both? I dreamed of traveling the globe and I cuddled my bear tightly. Stroking his fur soothed me; it still does. Together, they saved my life. As did my nurse. I grew up a Mummy’s Boy, distant from a rather plain Dad, a cavernous four years younger than my lone brother, living in a com- muter subdivision attached to a village in rural south England. Fast-forward 50-plus years. For me, two countries, ¿ ve states. One happy marriage. One career. Eight newspapers; three lost jobs. Sports memories, mostly with a whistle. A À ooded house. And, more recently, a life-changing opera- tion that went wrong and forced early retirement. /ike Mum before me, this cheeky weakling survived childhood. For me it was study, work, study, work, succeed, work, go bald, work, love, work, marry, work, prosper, work, work, work, ail, struggle and retire. Now I ¿ nd myself at my mother’s side, dreading the inevitable, trying to be strong. I am still a Mummy’s Boy. May Webb was always a keen sportswoman, playing tennis and badminton then learn- ing lawn bowls when she was older. Submitted Photos During the 2000s, May Webb and son Pat- rick enjoy a vacation in Devon, the coun- ty in the west of England where May and Bill Webb honeymooned on a tandem bi- cycle in 1946. Except today, I am waiting for Mum to die. I have never written those words before, barely thought them. As I type them here for the ¿ rst time, a knot in my core tightens. Of course, I have known her 58 years. Without her, will I still be the same person? She nurtured me and gave me the greatest gift of all: the love of reading. I thanked her once and she replied, “Don’t be daft, Pat.” (My English family does not put gratitude, praise or love into words.) Trained as a dressmaker by Norman Hartnell, who would later ¿ nd fame creating 4ueen Eliz- abeth’s wedding and coronation gowns, it was ironic that Mum bore no daughters. Instead, two sons swung through the ’60s and ’70s in every shade of purple, hand made bell -bottom pants, shirts with rufÀ es and pointy collars, leather waistcoats and suede jackets. No kid in our vil- lage dressed so ¿ ne. “Exclusive” was the word Mum used for her designs; had she gone pro, we would have lived richly. She never did. I’d like to think we appreciated her then. She nagged: no male of any age left our house without wearing his undershirt and carry- ing a hanky. She warned: there is no convert so zealous as a reformed cigarette smoker. Imagine the tone of the conversation she had with an asth- matic son! As Dad bowed 40 years to the grind- stone of the power company, whose revenue he tallied, Mum was at home, cooking-cleaning, cooking-cleaning, cooking-cleaning, caring in her own way, never demonstrative, always avail- able to peel open a Band-Aid and press it on a scraped knee. hen 4ueen Elizabeth shufÀ es off her mor- tal coil, they will dim the lights at the 44 W theaters in the West End, /ondon’s equivalent of Broadway. The British papers will print Extras, celebrating the reign of the hardest-working woman of her generation, an anachronism for sure, but the Briton whose singular life of service has formed the enduring backbone of an island nation grappling with its lost Empire. There is no such hoopla in store for Mum, whose life has paralleled her queen with less majesty, but equal dignity, until irreversible decline became daily reality. Every hard year that has passed since 1925 is etched on Mum’s face; her skin has barely room for another wrinkle. It cannot be long now. Back on the North Coast, I wait. When that phone rings, and my brother breaks the news, this Mummy’s Boy will hug his bear tightly, hoist an already packed suitcase, and À y halfway around the world to something unimaginable. English-born Patrick Webb is the retired managing editor of The Daily Astorian. STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager • CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager • DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Founded in 1873
