The cell phone jangled. It was Deirdre, my daughter in law. “Well?”, I breathlessly answered, “how did it go?”. “We’re home!”, she chortled. “Easy peasy!”. She had met the biggest challenge of her motherhood so far, other than her labour of course, and travelled solo beyond Victoria’s city limits with Cedar, my grandson. Her mission? To visit her family in Chilliwack.

Hers was a simple excursion really, a morning ferry from Victoria to Tsawwassen and some hours tootling along the Trans Canada through the Fraser Valley. But I had imagined every dreadful possibility. In my mind’s eye, I could see Deirdre dripping milk as she popped starving Cedar off her nipple at the ferry. I could hear the surly flagman hurling abuse for the holdup, honking, baby screams. Vividly I imagined the traffic jams, the sun burning Cedar in his carseat and making him squall, Deirdre distracted. I envisioned her fender bender or worse, the sickening crunch of a head-on collision. Deirdre had seen adventure. I had focused on catastrophe. Even in that safety seat…

This contraption would work in a space capsule. Every tiny appendage is strapped down like a load of lumber. Cedar’s head can only wiggle a few degrees. He’s muffled in thick padding. The apparatus faces backwards and is welded to the car frame. Deirdre can glimpse her boy through strategically placed mirrors but can only soothe him by shouting over the din of the road. This car seat makes any road trip a precision affair, but a safe one.

Now on the phone, Deirdre announced that Cedar had snoozed to the tune of the car’s vibrations and the ferry’s hum. Her father had been mesmerized by his grandson, and her stepmom had been a competent pair of hands. Deirdre had basked in the glow of their admiration and had a good rest. My mind rolled back to my first solo voyage as a new mom.

It was 1978 and I was headed on CP Air from Ottawa to Calgary. Six hours in the air with my six week old Jamie, Cedar’s dad. I remember how I yearned for my parents to groove on my masterpiece. Ed said good luck as he clunked Jamie’s unwieldy carseat onto the scale and it was whisked away. State of the art at the time, it was plastic and uncomfortable. “Are there seatbelts in the back of your parent’s car?” he asked. “It’s not the law in Alberta, you know”, he added. “Of course!”, I snorted, silently kicking myself for forgetting to ask. Later, mom poo-poohed my concern as I clutched the baby seat to control it as we swooped down the steep airport parkade exit ramp. No seatbelts. She recalled that I had loved to perch on a flip-down plastic platform hooked over back of the front suicide seat, my lolling infant head propped with towels. She said I had a good view of the road, and only grudgingly acknowedged any danger from dashboard shrapnel in the event of a sudden stop. “Life is risk”, she concluded.

Now I smiled, thinking back to Jamie mewing on my chest in his Snugli that day in the preboard line. How I glowed when people said, “what a nice baby” and how I stared down those who looked askance, hoping I would not be beside them on the plane. On board, I tried in vain to change my middle seat. I remembered how the businessmen on both sides sniffed as they flipped open their Globe and Mails. Fully shrouded, I had bared my breast whenever Jamie whined, hoping he wouldn’t slurp. “How did I manage to change that smelly Pamper on the wet bathroom floor?” I wondered. As we got off the plane, an old lady had wheezed, “You are a good mother”. I glowed. “Talking to your baby will make your baby talk early, you know”, she added. It was true, I had babbled to Jamie every minute, filling him in on every move the stewardesses made, describing every detail of every passenger, telling stories about the cloud formations, and even reading from the dog-eared in-flight magazine. Though the old lady was impressed, my businessman seat mates had rolled their eyes.

We filed out, and there were my waiting parents. My heart took a loving leap. I waved. They stood apart from each other as they saluted back without enthusiasm. Jamie peeked out from mama kangaroo as I offered clumsy sideways hugs, sensing trouble.

Even before the mega car seat had rolled off the carousel to my father’s consternation, Grandma and Grandpa had spilled the beans. They had decided, they said, that very morning in fact, to live separately. So they had a lot to do, breaking up my childhood household. They hoped I wouldn’t mind tagging along. They would be busy. In wary denial of the air growing thick with tension, I said of course I didn’t mind. It was their life, after all. It was good I had come and yes I could help out. I suppressed my rage.

The strain of my collapsing family built all week. I parried mom and dad’s verbal fisticuffs with my rambling small talk. “My how Calgary has grown”, I observed as we hunted in ugly suburbs for mom’s apartment. “What tiny toes, eh?!” I gushed to dad as he squeezed too hard in a tense rendition of “This little piggie”. I agreed that it was a lovely sofa as mom scribbled a cheque at the Brick, and the salesman glared at Jamie, his index finger pressed against pursed lips. “Can you make him stop crying?”, my mom asked testily. I could not. My little charmer had sucked in the sour mood that was marinating us all, and mirrored it in unrelenting fussiness. When it was time to board the flight home, my parents waved enthusiastic good byes, and Jamie immediately stopped crying.

I’m wondering how other women remember their first solo voyage as new moms? How did their first presentations of their offspring to their parents go? Was it a dream come true like Deirdre’s experience, or a nightmare like mine? And how do our memories shape our grandmother identities?

Janet Dunnett
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