I Didn't Know the Tune, but It Didn't Matter

I was meant to hear it.

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Me and my mom, the day after her 85th birthday, trying on silly, almost-matching hats.

I rolled my bag past O'Hare airport's K and H gates, past two McDonald’s and three book-and-snack stores. My American Airlines app said it would be a 16 minute walk. I rounded a corner, saw someone had placed a TSA bin lined with plastic in the middle of the terminal with a "Piso Mojado" sign next to it. I passed the temporary leak solution and entered a corridor that looked like it was built in 1963. There were no vendors, no restaurants, no bathrooms, no art. Just walls. The corridor crossed over the road leading into the airport, and I continued to walk farther and farther away from the main terminals out over a lonely field of tarmac where I ended up in a lovely, new, quiet set of four gates and a single automated food vendor. In the time it took me to get to gate L18, I'd received three more texts with increasingly later departure times. I was now leaving an hour and a half late.

I'd woken up in the dark at 3:45 a.m. in Texas so I could get on a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago then connect to Indianapolis, to be with my mom by noon in order to celebrate her 85th birthday the following day. An hour and a half isn't that much, but also, I don't know how much time she and I have left together. There is nothing of immediate concern, she's in great health, but at 51, if I know anything about being alive, it's that drastic events happen on regular days, miracles and delights appear out of nowhere and I will never get enough time with my mom.

I found a long, tall, white workstation, pulled out my laptop, plugged in my phone, called my mom and explained the delay. I told her I'd call her again before we took off, sat in a warm shaft of sunlight and took off my sweater. I sighed, wanting to be somewhere I wasn't.

A few moments later, a man walked his bags up to the workspace one seat over and plugged in his laptop. As I researched a marketing proposal and responded to emails, I noticed the man was humming. I paused what I was doing to listen, but didn't look over. I didn't want him to stop. His humming was deeply comforting and my body relaxed as I listened. I didn't know the tune, but it didn't matter. Here was this man, stuck in the airport on a Wednesday morning, humming, and it felt like I was meant to hear it.

Humming releases melatonin, endorphins and oxytocin. It also stimulates the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve and second longest nerve in the entire body.

My mother has hummed her whole life, her granddaughter, not from me, but from my sister, hums too. I sing songs in my head, and sometimes out loud. I sing with the radio. But I do not hum. Have never hummed, though I've always associated it with contentment.

"I want you to know that you are the joy of my life, “My mother said to me this visit. “You being born, my getting to care for you. The joy of my life, Jocelyn."

I told her later that I cry every time I leave her. She looked at me in wonder and said, "Really?"

"Yes," I replied, "I hate walking away from you. I cry. Every single time." And in this moment, I realize the distance that was between us is fading.

Humming is good for the immune system and the cardiovascular system. It increases nitric oxide in the nasal passages and bloodstream, expanding blood vessels and lowering pressure on the heart.

As we were decorating her Christmas tree, my mom said to me, as she used my knee to push herself up from putting the skirt around the tree's base, "It's so annoying. It's hard to get up off the ground now. Everything works, but it's creaky and slow."

I hugged her and said, "You know Mom, it's pretty great that at 85 your big complaint is about getting up and down off the floor." She laughed at this and hung another ornament on the six foot faux tree that she'd dragged in from the shed out back before I'd arrived.

This reminded me of last year, as we decorated her tree and she told me about her hairdresser's mom who was ill and called her daughter in one kind of physical distress or another, on a regular basis. Before I could stop myself, I jumped up from my chair, and rushed to where my mother stood bending over a box full of ornaments. I pulled her into a hug, saying, "Thank you for taking such good care of yourself. I am so lucky and so grateful." She hugged me back and then pulled away just far enough to look at me and said, "I do it for you."

Giraffes hum to each other in the dark. They use complex visual cues of communication during the day, but when night falls and vision is poor, the humming may be their way to stay connected and communicate their physical and emotional wellbeing to each other.

I noticed my mother humming more than usual during this visit. I could hear her in the kitchen while I was in the living room, decorating for her party, or later, cleaning up from it. I kept thinking I’d put on some holiday music to make things festive, but I didn't want her to stop humming. I took longer with my tasks, then I sat on the piano bench and just listened. As if, somehow, I could make time slow down and stretch out, connecting this moment with all the other moments I've listened to my mother humming without paying attention to the preciousness, the ephemeral nature of it.

Next time we are together, I will record her humming, like they did with the giraffes.

And when the night comes that I can no longer see her, I will lay the sound of her voice against my heart and know that we were the joy of each other’s lives.