Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Pursuits
    • Q&A
    • Editor’s Note
    • Old Chapel
    • Road Taken
    • Review
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • How Did You Get Here Series
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Spring 2019 Road Taken

Saving Face

When confronted with his mother’s mortality, a son takes a long look in the mirror.

By Chris Santella ’85
Illustration by Claudi Kessels
May 14, 2019
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

From the bed where she’d been confined for several weeks, my mom related a story to visiting well-wishers. I’d been warned when I left for college that if I ever came home with a beard, I wouldn’t be allowed inside. I returned one holiday with some scruff on my cheeks, and Mom made good on her threat. Banished, I retreated to my grandparents’ home, removed the scruff with my grandfather’s aged Norelco, and presented myself again. This time I was welcomed, a clean-cut prodigal son.

Though my memories of this event are foggy, there’s no question that Mom harbored a strong distaste for facial hair. When my father grew a mustache in the mid-’70s, it was a dozen years before she’d kiss him on the lips. This was also the time when she was diagnosed with the first of four cancers, which would appear every 10 years, like clockwork.

I remained clean-shaven through my 20s. But my 30th year saw a change. Whether it was the spirit of San Francisco (where I’d relocated) or fond memories of the circa 1972 Jerry Garcia poster that hung in my Battell room, I can’t say. But I put my razor aside and let the facial hair fly.

There was mild disgust in Mom’s eyes when I appeared at her Florida condominium, and there was certainly no kiss. Protestations that under the beard I was still the same person that she had loved so much cut no ice.

My mom never explained her aversion to facial hair. She’d allude to beards as being not neat—as though beards were nothing in themselves beyond a negation of a clean-shaven something else. I suspect they spoke to some undesirable/uncouth otherness for a woman who came of age during the Eisenhower era: Working class? Hobo? Beatnik? Cult member

I’m sure she was also concerned about my career, how her only child’s facial mane might impact his job opportunities. What doors would a beard close? It was as much about me as it was about her.

When my wife and I moved to Portland, Oregon—a land of many outlandish beards—in the aughts, Mom’s position seemed to soften. Bearing facial hair was not necessarily the mark of a heretic or pariah. This was underscored when she and my father attended a presentation for my first book at the venerable Powell’s Books store. Many in attendance wore facial hair. Some even wore ties.

Last winter, after an unsuccessful round of chemo, Mom’s oncologist gave a grim prognosis—six months to a year of life without more treatments; one to two years with aggressive chemo. At 87, she opted to forgo treatment. I increased the frequency of my cross-country visits.

The notion of shaving my beard “for Mom” had come up on a number of occasions as her inevitable end approached. At first I opposed the idea. Was there some battle of wills between mother and son that remained unresolved?

The afternoon before my wife and I were to depart for Florida, I stood before my bathroom mirror, Groomsman in hand. A beard could be grown back; there was a small gift I could give.

That afternoon, I crossed the threshold of my mother’s home with none of the shame or sense of defeat I’d experienced more than half a lifetime before. When I entered her room, she was curled up in a fetal position, facing away from the door. “Your son’s here, and he’s got a surprise,” my wife announced.

I crawled onto the bed, as Mom was unable to turn herself. She opened her eyes, smiled, and patted my cheek.

“That’s my baby,” she whispered.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent Stories

Features

The Man Who Saw in Technicolor

Two years after his death, remembering Jason Spindler up close.

By Ellen Halle '13
Illustration by Vanessa Lovegrove
January 29, 2021

What’s The Deal?

The story behind the critically acclaimed podcast, hosted by Middlebury Institute professor Jeffrey Lewis, that tells you everything you need to know about the Iranian nuclear deal.

By Rhianna Tyson Kreger
Photo illustration by Paul Dahm
December 16, 2020

Hunger Fight

How two Middlebury alumni are building on the local food economy to help hungry Vermonters.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs courtesy ShiftMeals
December 3, 2020

My COVID Road Trip

With their mother ailing, a writer and his brother hit the road for a cross country trek as a pandemic takes hold across the country.

By Charlie Tercek ’83
September 11, 2020

Dispatches

May I Have a Word?

During the pandemic, as the arts have struggled to stay relevant in a virtual world, one artistic director came up with a brilliant idea to showcase local talent.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
February 12, 2021

Otter Nonsense

Who had giant mutant otters on their 2020 Bingo card?

By Matt Jennings
Photograph by Daniel Houghton '04
December 17, 2020

Marble Works

How recycled stone from a College building has a second life in the local arts world.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Todd Balfour
December 16, 2020

Home Schooled

With COVID restrictions temporarily halting normal campus activities such as in-person lectures, a pair of faculty members devised a digital alternative that should have a shelf life for years to come.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Illustration by Harry Campbell
November 5, 2020

Home, Heart

A student-designed affordable home wins major architectural award

By Stephen Diehl
Photographs by Lindsay Selin Photography
October 8, 2020

Catching Up with Elise Morris

Our colleagues in Athletic Communications talk to the women's soccer player about one of higher education's most pressing issues: sexual assault prevention and awareness on college campuses.

By Ali Paquette
Photography by Ali Paquette
October 7, 2020

Since We Last Spoke: Hunter Sykes, MA IEP ’05

The latest in our new series, in which writers and subjects from magazine stories past reconnect, catch up, and reveal how their lives have unfolded . . . since they last spoke.

By Eva Gudbergsdottir
September 24, 2020

The Meaning of Alexander Twilight

We celebrate the 225th anniversary of Alexander Twilight's birth by continuing to examine his complex legacy.

By Matt Jennings
Photograph courtesy Middlebury Special Collections
September 23, 2020

In Isolation in Middlebury, Vermont

The fifth story in a seven-part series: audio portraits created by Middlebury students in the spring of 2020, capturing their initial days of sheltering in place.

By Olivia Green '20
September 21, 2020
View All

Pursuits

In the Line of Fire

What it's like to be a firefighter in California, when each emergency is more extreme than the last.

By John Devine
Illustration by Stuart Biers
February 12, 2021

Q&A

On the World Stage

Only a sophomore, Nordic skier Sophia Laukli makes her World Cup debut for the U.S. National team. We catch up with her to talk about the experience.

By Matt Jennings
Photograph by NordicFocus, GMBH
February 12, 2021

Editor’s Note

A Brilliant Fogg

Saying goodbye to a dear colleague and friend.

By Matt Jennings
Illustration by Jody Hewgill
February 25, 2020

Old Chapel

The Magnitude of Systemic Racism

Acknowledging a national scourge and examining the work that must be done at Middlebury— individually and collectively—to combat it.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse Bernal
June 9, 2020

Road Taken

Airlifted into Adulthood

A backcountry accident prepares the writer to stand on her own two feet.

By Krista Karlson ’17.5
Illustration by Jasu Hu
August 24, 2020

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

Alone Together, Ep. 9 with Jessica St. Clair ’98 and Dan O’Brien ’96

Dan O'Brien ’96, a playwright and poet, and Jessica St. Clair ’98, a comedian and writer, join President Patton for our final check in with the community during COVID-19 self-isolation. Dan and Jessica are a true power couple in the arts that met in a Middlebury improv group. They discuss Dan's magazine essay "Life Shrinks: Lessons from Chemo Quarantine," how reopening the country feels a lot like remission, and how their art is evolving to reflect the pandemic.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
June 15, 2020

Alone Together, Ep. 8 with Dick Clay, Covid-19 Survivor

In this episode, Dick Clay, a student at the Bread Loaf School of English, shares his story of recovering from COVID-19. Dick discusses when the seriousness of the virus hit him, the "wilderness path to recovery," and how he will process this experience through writing.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
June 8, 2020

Alone Together, Ep. 7 with Jodie Keith and Jacque Bergevin, Essential Workers

In this episode, we hear from Jodie Keith and Jacque Bergevin, who have been working with custodial services to keep our Vermont campus safe and clean. Jodie and Jacque share what campus has been like since the students left: what it's like to schedule hourly sanitation of buildings, how every day feels like an empty Saturday morning, and that the infamous Middlebury squirrels have lost a bit of weight.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
Photography by Bob Handelman
June 1, 2020

Review

Editors’ Picks for January and February

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
February 2, 2021

How Did You Get Here?

Megan Job

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Leif Taranta

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Mikayla Haefele

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Videos

In the Blink of an Eye

Gone in less than a minute—the middle of June 2019 to the middle of June 2020, as viewed from the rooftop of the Mittelman Observatory.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
Video by Jonathan Kemp/Mittelman Observatory
June 10, 2020

All the Feels

Current students, alumni of all ages, parents, faculty, and staff come together to sing Middlebury's alma mater "Walls of Ivy."

By Chris Spencer
May 26, 2020

A (Virtual) Visit with Kenshin Cho ’20

Laurie Patton chats with the political science major and SGA treasurer, who has been unable to return to his native Tokyo.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
April 18, 2020
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2021 Middlebury College Publications.