1.

“Bill, I want to see a bear before I die.”

I have my nose buried in my phone, checking email, so what my mom said doesn’t really register. I look over at her ensconced in her usual place, slouched in one corner of her sofa, her diminutive body swaddled in a throw blanket. At one time, she was a solid, sturdy five foot three, but she’s shrunk to just four foot eleven, 89 pounds last time the nurses at River Run Assisted Living weighed her. “What’s that?” I say.

“Put that damn phone away, you’re not listening. I said, I want to see a bear before I die.”

I hear her that time. “Okay, maybe we can go to the zoo this weekend. They have a new cub named Fuz—”

“I don’t want to go to the fucking zoo, Bill! I want to see a bear in the wild. You promised we would go to Yellowstone for our honeymoon, but of course you had a work emergency and, at the last minute, couldn’t take the time off. I’m not complaining, you’re a good man, you’ve given us a good life, but here we are all these years later, and no Yellowstone, no bears.”

Well, shit. I clock now that she called me Bill twice, not Billy or William. That means, at this moment, I’m my dad, not her son. Mom has dementia. It doesn’t always rear its ugly head. It’s insidious in that way. Someone who doesn’t know her could have a perfectly pleasant conversation and not even know it, but her memory is often unstuck in time. It’s especially bad when she gets one of her frequent UTIs. Then she’s prone to wild, chaotic flights of fancy, like seeing prowlers with wings staring at her through her fourth-floor window.

This isn’t that. This is her regular, everyday dementia. Whenever she calls me Bill instead of Billy, she’s time traveling.

When this happens, I have to make a choice. If it’s not important, if her thinking I’m my dad won’t materially matter to the conversation we’re having, then I won’t correct her. In this case I feel like I have to. “Mom, it’s me, Billy. Your son.”

Her annoyance is visible in every downturned wrinkle on her face. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know who you are, William. I want you to make an old lady happy and take me to Yellowstone. Your father never got around to it, so now I’m asking you.”

Here’s the thing…my dad never got around to a lot of things. He was not outright abusive to Mom and me, but he was a cold, distant man. He spent more time at the office than he did at home, and I’ve always been convinced that he had something going on the side. It doesn’t matter now, I guess. He died a little over three years ago, cancer from a lifetime of smoking, and Mom had to go into assisted living soon after.

Mom’s not bitter about how he treated us. Time and dementia have sanded down the rough edges of her memory, and she misses him. To be honest, and I’m not proud of this, it pisses me off a little bit. Dad was a real bastard most of the time, at least in my own memory. Yes, he had his moments—bringing Mom flowers (probably when he was feeling guilty about something), surprising me with Yankees tickets (probably got them for free from a client)—but those moments were few and far between. Every time it feels like visiting her is a chore I don’t want to be bothered with, I think to myself, don’t be like him.

Right now, though, she’s annoyed with him/me.

Time to deflect. I ask her about Carol across the hall, who, rumor has it, is having a hot and heavy affair with Marvin on the third floor. Marvin fancies himself a ladies’ man, although women in this facility outnumber the men six to one, so he doesn’t have much competition. Mom is not above a little gossip, and she takes the bait, spilling the sordid details. Is any of it true? Who knows, and it’s not important. We’ve stopped talking about bears.

Chances are she’ll forget this conversation completely by tomorrow. Hell, she’ll probably forget by the time I leave in fifteen minutes.

2.

She brings the bears up again the next time I visit.

I live in Greenwich Village, and River Run is in Brighton Beach, an hour subway ride each way. I visit her every other day, keeping her little fridge filled with Boost and Pepsi, her kitchen cabinet stocked with Hershey’s chocolate, Pringles, and pretzel sticks. The facility provides three meals a day, but Mom likes her snacks.

This is now a problem. Her memory is usually like a colander, conversations and daily occurrences flowing through like water from a pot, but once in a while something sticks. When that happens, Mom is a little dog with a big bone, refusing to let go. Growling is sometimes involved. At least today she knows who I am.

“Billy, it shouldn’t be that hard,” Mom says. “You can drive me to Yellowstone. Supposedly, there are a lot of bears there. Easy peasy.”

Not so easy peasy, I think. Mom’s right about one thing, we’d have to drive. She’s always had anxiety about flying, and the dementia she doesn’t know she has, has only exacerbated it. She also has mobility issues. She needs a walker to travel more than a few feet. In truth she could use a wheelchair, but she hates them. They’re for old people. Finally, she suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis, and sitting in a car for more than four or five hours at a time is painful for her. Spending hours on an airplane is a no-go.

I try to be reasonable, knowing all along it’s futile. “Look, Mom, I don’t even own a car. No New Yorker in their right mind owns a car. Our family has never owned a car. I’d have to rent one. Then it would probably take us two weeks to drive to Yellowstone, another two weeks to get home. I can’t take that much time off work. And there’s no guarantee we’d see a bear in Yellowstone, even if we got there. Besides, I hear that the new bear cub at the zoo, Fuzzy, is super cute…”

“Billy, I want to see a bear before I die. You’re a good boy. Make it happen. Soon.” Like a dog with a bone.

“Mom, you’re as healthy as an 85-year-old woman can be. The cancer hasn’t returned. Even if I can figure out a way to make it happen, it will take a lot of planning. What’s the rush?”

Mom gives me a look I’ve been intimately familiar with since I was a kid, a look that says, more eloquently than words, shut the fuck up and do what your mother says. “I don’t think I have a lot of time left, Billy. I can feel it in my bones. Take me on a bear hunt.” It gives me pause when she says this. Mom really is relatively healthy given her age, but when she thinks there’s something wrong with her, she’s usually right.

3.

I’ve reached my favorite part of the train ride to River Run—passing over Calvary Cemetery in Queens, The City of the Dead, more than three million New Yorkers buried in humble graves and ornate mausoleums—when my phone rings. The screen lights up with Healthcare, and I don’t want to answer because I know it absolutely concerns my mom. I hear her voice in my head say, put on your big boy panties and do what you need to do. I answer.

It’s my mom’s oncologist. She’s seen something in Mom’s most recent scans that she doesn’t like, and wants to bring her in for additional tests. Mom beat cancer about ten years ago. She gets regular tests as a precaution, which she bitterly complains about. Her oncologist is wonderful, warm and empathetic. Mom is not a fan. She hates doctors, hates tests, hates, as she calls it, that fucking place. I listen to the doctor while looking out at hundreds of acres of dead folks, many of whom I’m sure had a conversation similar to this, and I think, of course this is when and where I would get this call. Well played, universe.

When I tell Mom, I expect tears, or confusion, or for her to ignore me completely and go back to watching reruns of The Golden Girls. Instead, she looks thoughtful, then smiles. She doesn’t smile often, because as she’s shrunk and lost weight, her dentures no longer fit well, and she’s self-conscious. This smile is unsettling.

“Fine,” she says. “Bring on the tests. Schedule them just as soon as we get back from Yellowstone.”

Shit, shit, shit. Dog with a bone. And now that I know Mom might not have just been trying to guilt me into taking her, that there really might be something wrong, the pressure’s on.

4.

My office was shockingly accommodating about granting me a leave of absence. So much so that I’m no longer sure they value me. In fact, I’m not sure they need me at all, which stings a little. I’ve worked at the same Midtown ad agency for more than thirty years, and I don’t hate it most days, but I don’t love it most days, either. Maybe a road trip with Mom would do me some good, too.

According to my research, if all goes well, Mom and I will be gone about three weeks. That includes several days in the park itself, because my research also tells me that bears are the most elusive of Yellowstone’s wildlife. If Mom wanted to see a bison, a moose or an elk, no problem. We could be back on the road before lunch. Finding a bear within more than two million acres, only a tiny fraction of which are accessible by road, is like finding a furry needle in a tree-covered haystack. Mom wasn’t the most patient of people even before she had dementia.

I don’t believe in God, neither does Mom for that matter. But I’m willing to pray my ass off if it will help.

I’ve rented a Honda CR-V. I’ve had several in-depth conversations with River Run’s Executive Director, Wellness Director, and Director of Nursing, as well as Mom’s oncologist and primary care doctor. All of them think this is a bat-shit crazy idea. All of them are also intimately familiar with Mom, so they’re not surprised. I have a month’s worth of Mom’s meds, just to be safe, and a very detailed list of what to give her and when. She has no limits on her diet—did I mention the chocolate, Pringles, and pretzels?—so that helps.

When D-Day arrives, I pull up in the Honda just after lunch time, and Mom is already waiting on the bench out in front of the facility, her favorite aide sitting beside her. She has her walker and a big suitcase next to her that the aide, Molly, helped pack.

“Hold on one second,” Molly says. Mom is still wearing her call pendant on a lanyard. She’s never without it unless she’s sleeping. Molly gently lifts it from around her neck. “You won’t need this while you’re gone. I’ll leave it on the nightstand in your bedroom.” She kisses Mom on her forehead.

“Thank you, dear,” Mom says.

I load the suitcase and walker into the trunk, load Mom into the front seat, and hug Molly goodbye. She whispers, “Good luck, Billy. Please find her that goddamn bear.”

“Do my best,” I answer.

We are still in Brighton Beach, roughly six minutes into the ride, when Mom starts singing in a surprisingly strong voice:

“We’re going on a bear hunt—come on Billy, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud, sing your part—we’re going on a bear hunt.”

I reluctantly join in. “We’re going on a bear hunt.”

“I’ve got my binoculars.”

“I’ve got my binoculars.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”

There are roughly twenty-seven verses to this camp song my mom used to sing when she was my Cub Scout den mother. Somehow this woman who often puts the TV remote on the phone charger remembers every single damn one.

It’s going to be a long trip.

5.

I wake up to my mom screaming.

I pushed it a little too hard our first day on the road, driving nearly five and a half hours. Mom started out strong, singing along to the radio with hilariously wrong and inappropriate lyrics and munching from the large bag of car snacks that sits between us. But as the hours dragged on, I watched her slump down in her seat. She stopped singing, stopped talking. By the time I pulled off the Pennsylvania turnpike near Clarion into a Motel 6 parking lot, I was feeling ashamed for not paying better attention to how she was doing. Mom didn’t want any dinner, said she had filled up on snacks. I think she was just bone tired.

Now she’s screaming and crying—great, racking sobs. I turn on the little lamp on the nightstand between our beds. I can’t find her at first, she’s so wrapped up in bedding, her head buried.

Mom claws the blankets off her face and looks around the room wild-eyed, but I’m not sure she even sees me. “Where am I?” she yells between the tears. “This isn’t my bedroom. This isn’t my bed!” She slaps at the nightstand next to the bed. “My pendant is gone! Where’s my pendant? Where’s Molly? I have to call Molly! Molly! Molly!”

“Mom, Mom, it’s me, Billy. You’re okay. You’re okay.” I gather her in my arms and marvel again at how small she is now, how diminished. She weighs nothing.

“Billy, where the fuck am I? Why am I here? Why are you here?” She’s still crying, but quieter.

“We’re in a motel in Pennsylvania, Mom. I’m taking you to Yellowstone to see a bear, remember?” Saying remember? to someone with dementia is always a crap shoot, because chances are, no, they most certainly do not remember.

Luckily, it works this time. She stops crying, noisily snorts up a nose full of snot and swipes a thin arm across her face. “We’re going on a bear hunt,” she says, and smiles.

She’s fast asleep minutes later. I clearly have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.

By morning, Mom is fine, no memory of her middle-of-the-night freakout. Sometimes dementia is useful that way. We check out and walk to the small diner just across the parking lot from the motel. I say walk, but with Mom and her walker, it’s more of a scurry. She starts out slow, but honestly, when she gets up a head of steam, she’s like the Energizer Bunny.

Once I sit down and look at the menu, I realize I didn’t have dinner last night either. I order French toast and a side of sausage gravy and biscuits. My tiny little mom orders a full stack of pancakes, home fries, and crispy bacon. And a slice of banana cream pie. “Please bring the pie first,” she says to the waitress.

“Pie first?” I say. “What’s that about?” Mom was always a no-dessert-until-after-you-eat kind of woman.

“William, like I told you, I have a feeling I’m on borrowed time. I’ve always liked dessert best. From now on, I eat it first, and if I’m still hungry, I’ll eat the rest of the meal.” She waves to the waitress and raises her voice. “Where’s my pie?”

6.

From then on, Mom sticks to her guns and eats dessert first. Sometimes she eats the rest of the meal, sometimes not. Eventually I think why the fuck not, and join her, and it’s a revelation. Ten of ten, no notes.

7.

For the rest of the trip West, we stick to a schedule that my mom and I can both tolerate—drive for four or five hours, then find a motel near the highway. No lunch, as Mom likes to snack, and now she has me snacking. Mom rests and watches TV. She used to be a big reader, but that ship has sailed. I try to do a little work, if there happens to be Wi-Fi, which is not a given and depends in large part on how many corn fields you’ve just driven past. It’s like there’s a Wi-Fi/corn field algorithm. Then dinner at the nearest diner, and bed. Mom gets meds twice a day, plus a pain patch on her lower back each morning for her arthritis, which the extended car time isn’t helping.

We get up in the morning, have breakfast, often at the same diner we ate in the night before, and hit the road. Rinse and repeat.

I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying the ride. It’s late October, and living in the city, I think I forgot how beautiful the Midwest is this time of year. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana are just showing off.

Several days into the trip, as we’re getting settled for bed, Mom sighs theatrically and says, “Billy, we have a problem.”

“What problem, Mom?”

“I need a bath. I smell like a gas station bathroom. One of those with a key attached to a toilet seat. Can you help me, please?”

This is indeed a problem. Mom has always been a fastidious person. She’s also a very private person. When she first moved into assisted living and realized an aide would be helping her bathe, she adamantly refused. Luckily an angel named Molly forged a real connection with her, and Mom grudgingly accepted her help. Since then, Molly is the only aide she’s allowed to bathe her. The fact that she asked me is a big deal. This will be a new experience for both of us.

The bathroom has garish pink tile and harsh fluorescent lighting, but at least it’s clean. I fill up the tub with water. Mom asks me to turn around while she sits on the bed and undresses, then wraps a scratchy white motel towel around herself. I hover along behind her as she walkers into the bathroom, then help her sit on the edge of the tub. I support her body, slide her as gently as possible into the water, dropping the towel as she goes.

Mom is so clearly miserable, so clearly embarrassed as I begin to wash her body, and I’m so clearly embarrassed that I have to stifle a laugh.

“Is this amusing to you, William?” Mom says.

“No, no, I’m sorry.” And at this moment my brain remembers a song my mom used to sing to me at bath time, a song from The Lord of the Rings of all places, Mom was a Tolkien buff, and I can’t help myself. I begin to sing:

“Sing hey! for the bath at close of day, that washes the weary mud away!”

“William, I will drown myself in this tub if you sing another word!” But now she’s laughing, and the embarrassment, at least for the moment, is forgotten.

When I wash her hair, thin and white and as soft as cotton candy, I feel tears prick the corners of my eyes. I visit Mom often, but I’m usually just going through the motions, my mind on other things. I’m rarely fully engaged like I am now. And that’s a damn shame. I think I needed this time with Mom more than I knew.

8.

I’m worried about Mom. She’s been extra quiet the past couple of days, and not eating much—not even finishing her dessert, let alone the rest of her meal. Her breathing sounds a little more labored to me than usual. I’ve mentioned this to her, but according to her she’s fine, that’s that, mind my own beeswax.

She perks up as we enter Cooke City, Montana, a small town just a couple of miles from the Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone. There isn’t much to recommend Cooke City as a destination—its main claim to fame is its proximity to the park—but it’s charming in a rustic kind of way, I guess.

As we’re driving down the main drag, Mom points and yells, “There! Let’s stay there!” The Beartooth Motor Lodge is pure, unadulterated western cheese. Picture a long, single-story L-shaped row of rooms, built of cinder blocks, but with an exaggerated log cabin facade. The sign is what I’m sure attracted Mom, an oversized cartoon bear wearing a cowboy hat and holding the neon name of the motel in his big, meaty paws.

Mom always waits in the car while I get us a room, but one look into the small lobby/office and she asks me to get her walker. Inside, wedged in a corner next to the manager’s desk, is a taxidermied grizzly bear rearing up on its hind legs. It’s ratty, threadbare, with one glass eye missing, but the sheer size is still surprisingly menacing. It’s a ghost of the creature it once was, but even ghosts can be intimidating. I take a picture of my beaming mother standing next to it, one hand on her walker, the other clutching a long bear claw.

Our room looks like a suburban rec room from the seventies, if your dad was a Bonanza enthusiast—wall to wall knotty pine paneling decorated with framed prints of cowboys fighting in a saloon, rampaging bison chased by Native Americans on horseback, and a lone moose silhouetted against a blazing sunset. Surprisingly, both beds are equipped with Magic Fingers vibrating bed frames, but I don’t have any quarters. It’s just as well, I don’t think either of our backs could handle it.

As I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear a whispered, “Thank you, Billy.”

9.

I’m paying the ranger who mans the Northeast Yellowstone Entrance and Mom leans over and says to him, “We’re going on a bear hunt!”

“Good luck, ma’am. You should see plenty of elk and bison, pronghorn antelope and coyotes, but the bears in the park are as tricky as the wolves.”

“I told her that,” I say. “But she’s always wanted to see a bear.”

“I don’t blame her,” he says. “They’re beautiful animals. Enjoy yourselves, and fingers crossed for you. Not too much traffic in the park this morning, but it’ll pick up later. And remember, keep safe distances—one hundred yards for bears and wolves, and twenty-five yards for bison and elk.”

“Yes sir,” I say.

“Thank you, young man,” Mom says, and we drive into the park. “He was very handsome,” she says to me, and I swear she blushes.

The main roads in Yellowstone are two loops forming a huge figure eight—today we’re going to tackle the northern loop. Before we reach the loop, however, we drive thirty miles through the Lamar Valley. In my research before embarking on this foolhardy mission, I read that this is one of the most spectacular drives in the world, and…Google in no way did it justice. We’re greeted by thick forests of lodgepole pines, vast, rolling meadows, the Yellowstone River meandering along beside us, and overlooking everything, the stark, snow-capped peaks of the Beartooth Mountains.

Mom is sitting up as straight as her bent body and arthritic back will let her, glued to the window. She may be here for the bears, but she’s never seen nature as wild and up close as this. Neither have I. I realize I’m holding my breath and laugh quietly at myself, a city boy in big sky country. I’ve traveled a bit over the years, but my destination was always this or that city. Dad certainly never took me camping. Nature for me has always been a stroll through Central Park, or a walk down the Coney Island boardwalk with a Nathan’s chili dog in hand. I’ve heard, and even used, the term “awe-inspiring,” but I don’t think I ever truly understood it until now.

We’re swinging around a long, blind curve when Mom yells, “Billy, stop!”

A herd of bison crosses the road, raising a cloud of dust that briefly obscures the sun. Mom howls with laughter as their huge, furry bodies thunder past, so close that they brush our bumper, rocking the car. Toto, we are not in Kansas, or New York City, anymore.

For several hours we ride the northern loop, each turn presenting a new vista more breathtaking than the last. By the time we make it back to the Beartooth Motor Lodge, Mom is exhausted but smiling. We have dinner at Stockman's, the restaurant next to our motel, and Mom not only eats a big slice of huckleberry pie, but half the steak and baked potato she ordered as well.

Still, I’m worried. I listen to her as she sleeps, and her breaths are shallow, halting.

Yellowstone, northern loop, day one animal count:

Bison: Too many to count.

Pronghorn Antelopes: So many. A large herd runs alongside our car, keeping pace with us. Actually, they don’t run so much as hop aggressively.

Elk: Three—a massive bull with antlers too big to seem real, and a cow with a young calf trailing behind her.

Coyotes: One, hunting mice in a field right next to our car. We watch it leap into the air, dive into the grass, and emerge with its prey dangling from its mouth.

Bears: None.

10.

Yellowstone, southern loop, day two animal count:

Bison: Five…no, six. A group of cows surrounding a curly-haired young calf that we don’t see at first.

Pronghorn Antelopes: Three, grazing in a field.

Elk: A huge herd, crowding both sides of the road. We drive slowly, carefully, past dozens and dozens of snorting, stamping beasts, the males with massive antlers. When one bull raises its head to the sky and screams—they call it bugling, but it’s an unearthly scream—Mom jumps in her seat and lets loose a little scream of her own.

Coyotes: None.

Red fox: One. It saunters right in front of us and stops to groom itself in the middle of the road, taking its sweet time. It’s fluffy and luxurious. “Women would kill to have hair that beautiful,” Mom says.

Bears: None.

Yellowstone, southern loop, day two world-famous geyser count: One. I know we're here for the bears, but even Mom agrees you can’t come to Yellowstone and not see Old Faithful. It’s breathtaking.

As we drive back to Cooke City, I ask Mom if she’s disappointed.

She smiles, but sounds tired when she answers. “Billy, this place is magical, how could I be disappointed?”

“I mean about not seeing any bears.”

“Tomorrow. We’ll see a bear tomorrow. I have a good feeling.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I’m not hungry tonight. I think I’m going to skip dinner.”

11.

We wake up to a different world. Surprise snow flurries swirled in from the mountains overnight, dropping two inches of powder snow. I call the park to make sure it’s open, and I get an all-clear. I also check a Yellowstone subreddit and discover that bears were active yesterday on the northern loop, so that’s our plan for today.

Last night was rough. Mom woke up again not knowing where she was, not even sure who I was at first. It took me nearly an hour to calm her down. Fuck dementia.

Luckily, all that’s forgotten by morning, like a bad dream. Mom is downright perky.  She has a big slice of huckleberry pie and some eggs for breakfast, then we hit the road.

Yellowstone with a fresh coat of snow is even more beautiful, if that’s possible, but there’s one big difference. When we made this same drive two days ago, it was amazing how loud nature was. Meadows full of animals, the sky full of birds, the wind in the trees, the Yellowstone River rushing over rocks, the occasional sound of other cars—a mostly natural cacophony. It’s much quieter today, as if the snow has muffled the world. We haven’t seen another car, and it feels like the whole park is ours. When a small group of bison lumber past, their massive, shaggy backs speckled with white, their movement seems hushed.

Just as we leave the valley for the northern loop, I see movement in the trees to my right. Something big. I pull off to the side of the road and show Mom where to look. “Probably an elk,” I say.

An immense grizzly bear ambles out of the forest, two golden brown cubs tumbling after her. A female, then. Mom squeaks and immediately hits the button to roll down her window. “Billy, look! Look!” I put a gentle hand on her shoulder to keep her from trying to climb out the window in her excited state.

The bear pushes through brush with powerful paws, broad head swinging from side to side, shoulders rolling with each step. The cubs play as they walk, tripping over each other, weaving between her legs. Mom is crying softly, but smiling through the tears.

When the mama bear reaches the road, she sees our car and stops, then proceeds cautiously. She crosses twenty or so feet in front of us. Mom looks at me with a worried expression. “Billy, do you think we’re too close?”

“I think we’re safe in the car, Mom.” One of the cubs starts to shuffle in our direction, and the bear cuffs it on the head, redirects it. As they reach the other side of the road and start down the embankment, the mama grizzly looks back at us. If I were prone to anthropomorphism, I’d say she gives us a dismissive look. They disappear into the trees.

“We really did go on a bear hunt, William. Thank you so much!”

I may have tears in my eyes as well. I honestly thought this was a fool’s errand. “You’re welcome, Mom.”

Mom falls asleep almost immediately as we head back towards our motel. At least, I think she does. Just as we reach the outskirts of Cooke City, she reaches out her hand, eyes still closed, and finds mine.

“Thank you, Bill,” she says. “This was a wonderful day.”