“Are we picking up The Baggage on our way?” I would ask my mom. Or, I would receive this phone call from my mom….“I won’t be there until later because I have to pick The Baggage up first”
Widowed suddenly at 64 years old, my grandma, Zora (Lulich) Uzelac, went on to live 30 years longer than my grandpa. Until she moved to Valparaiso, Indiana, near my Aunt Nancy, we would pick her up and take her everywhere with us.
At the time, seat belts were becoming the law and my grandma wanted no part of wearing one. So, she would only sit in the backseat of our car. This is when my mom started to refer to her mom as “The Baggage” — just throw her in the back seat and away we go. Sounds terrible, right?
Relationships between mothers and daughters are the most complex and beautiful relationships to navigate. I was lucky to be able to experience my grandma as a daughter and my mom as a daughter. It showed me a different side to them and taught me a lot. Observing a woman with her mom exposes another aspect of their self not normally visible for all to see in the wild.
My dad used to make fun of how my mom acted when we would visit The Baggage. Always moving, cleaning and in charge at our house, my mom became this relaxed, easy going, lazy person at my grandma’s house. “You were so relaxed that you accidentally chewed your tongue!” said my dad after a visit.
At the same time, I also witnessed how annoyed my mom was with her mother. In fact, my mom parented to make sure she didn’t do the same annoying things my grandma did. I am here to say that my mom had annoying traits completely unique to her.
I also watched as my mom called her mom almost every day, talking about the most menial details of life. They would spend entire Sunday visits discussing/critiquing the last wake or funeral. I still miss listening to my mom and grandma trying to figure out if someone was dead or alive or what year someone died. Every conversation went the same way….
“What year did Millie (fill in any name) die, Ma?” “Well my brother Puck died in 1954 and she was there so it was after that”. Everything was based on the year Puck died, everything.
When I became a mom, I called my mom almost everyday. She listened as I described all of the most boring details of my life and she made me feel like I was so important. “I don’t know how you do it, Dawnakins” she would say and that was all I needed to keep going.
With all of this togetherness and time spent in these multigenerational relationships, there was one day I did not look forward to — Mother’s Day. My husband would say, “Mother’s Day should be for the active duty moms” in support of me as I woke up early on that Sunday to make sure the kids all had nice outfits, were bathed, fed and put in the car for a day of driving and visiting. After visiting my grandma in Valparaiso, IN and my mom in Frankfort, IL, I would make it home in time to get my kids ready for bed and prepared for the school week or daycare. Once they were asleep, I could clean up everything at my house and prep for my week ahead at work before pouring a glass of wine and enjoying the Sunday night shows I had taped, being so very happy that Mother’s Day was over.
A few years before my mom got sick with cancer, my sister and I started a new tradition. At some point during the week prior to Mother’s Day, I would take the day off of work, pick my mom up (like baggage – ha!) and bring her downtown. We would walk around some place in Chicago she loved and then meet Julie at a really nice restaurant for lunch. Game changer!
At this same time, I arranged for another day to take my kids to visit the Baggage. This left Mother’s Day for me to stay home and do nothing. I finally owned Mother’s Day for myself. Rather than a day running around, I created special days for my mom and my grandma, making Mother’s Day all mine for about 3 years.
Little did I know how quickly the holiday would have become all mine anyway….my grandma died February 1, 2013 at 94 years old. My mom died January 29, 2015 at 73 years old.
My mom never got to be the baggage – she was still driving most places until she just got too sick to go anywhere. I think she would have loved riding along in the backseat, being a part of our lives as we lived them. I can picture her sitting in the backseat, all relaxed, chewing on her tongue, taking it all in.
I will think of her when I am the baggage…one can only hope.
Growing Up 80s 
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