If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
~Booker T. Washington
My mom’s a worrier — an all-the-time, worry-about-all-things worrier. But she especially worries about my sisters and me. Nothing changed when we grew into adults. In fact, I don’t think she really noticed.
I’m the baby of the family, the youngest of three girls. Mom stayed home until I was about nine, when she went back to work part-time.
I was a radio, TV and film major in college. When I graduated, I did a short stint in Boston, where I worked at a local music video station. Mom called every day. That’s right, every day. Don’t get me wrong. Whenever anything happened, I would call her. I once banged my head on the corner of a fuse box at work and needed stitches. Before I got in the car with my colleague to go to the hospital, I called Mom.
I moved to L.A. to pursue my dream. Mom still called long-distance every day. In those days, we had to wait until 8:00 p.m. when the rates went down. And I still called her. There was the time I was living in a studio apartment in Sherman Oaks, and I couldn’t find my checkbook. I called Mom. Yes, I called my mom on Long Island and asked her to help me find my checkbook. She said, “Did you look under the couch?” And, I kid you not, that’s where it was!
Maybe that was why she worried about me so much. But the time she called the police on me was a bit much. I was living in Hermosa Beach in the 1990s before cell phones. My roommate didn’t pay the phone bill, and the phone was cut off. I knew where my checkbook was, I didn’t need stitches, so there was no reason to call home. I didn’t call for five days. I was in my bedroom when I heard a very loud, self-assured knock at the door — more like a pounding than a knock. It scared the pants off me. I opened the door, and two very tall, uniformed police officers were there.
“Dana Klosner?” one of them belted out.
“Yes,” I cowered.
“Call your mother!” he said.
“What?” I quivered.
“She hasn’t heard from you in days, and she’s worried. Call your mother!”
“Okay,” I said, still not really sure what was going on.
“Have a nice day,” the other one said. And off they went.
I went downstairs to a pay phone to call collect. After all, I didn’t want to go to jail.
Then there was the time I was in an airport coming home from a long trip, and I was catching a connecting plane back to New York. My plane was canceled, and I was trying to figure out how to find a hotel, when I heard an announcement.
“Dana Klosner, pick up a yellow courtesy phone.”
All I could think was, No, it can’t be.
I went to a counter and found a yellow phone. I picked up the phone and said, “Mom?”
She said, “I had to let you know, there’s a big storm here, and your plane has been canceled!” She always knew how to track me down!
When I drove across the country from New York to Los Angeles, Mom wouldn’t let me go alone; she made my older sister go with me. It was a great trip, but every night, from every hotel, we called Mom. After all, it was both of us on that trip.
I was living in L.A. for a few years when I went up to San Francisco to meet a friend. We did a crazy road trip, driving up and back to Seattle in one weekend. And, of course, every night I called Mom. My friend, who grew up as a foster child, couldn’t believe I would do that, or that she would even want me to.
“I have to,” I told him. “She worries.”
And when she worried, I felt bad. That same friend moved to New York City. I was home from L.A., and I went into the city to see my friend. I didn’t make it home from the city until about 2:00 a.m. It turned out that Mom called my friend over and over to see where I was, and my sister told me Mom was crying. How could I not feel guilty about that? At that point, I was used to living on my own and not checking in with anybody.
The tables turned when I got married. My husband was a Naval Officer. After a few years, he was stationed in D.C., and we moved to Maryland. We already had a little boy, and while we were in Maryland, we had a baby girl. My parents love their grandchildren; they already had four by my sisters in New York. So Mom and Dad would make the drive down to Maryland every few months to see the grandchildren. As they would get in their car to trek back to Long Island, I would tell them to call me as soon as they got home, and I would worry for the five hours it would take them to get there.
Another time, I was in New York with my kids visiting, Mom and Dad were out, and it was snowing. They were out too long, so I called the police non-emergency line to make sure there were no accidents. My parents couldn’t believe I did that.
Now, my family and I are back on Long Island. My son is in school five hours away, and I make him text me when he takes the bus back to school.
My daughter took a trip to London on her own when she was sixteen to stay with her friend and her family. She would text two or three times a day. Then her friend’s dad took the girls on a trip to Paris, and I didn’t hear from her all day. I was “this close” to calling the American embassy. I was ready to get on a plane and go find her.
When I finally heard from her, she said, “Oh, sorry, Mom. My phone was on airplane mode!”
At that moment, I understood.
~Dana Klosner-Wehner
