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 By Edna Wallace

Apparently, Iceland is now a destination. It holds no draw for me, evoking cold and ice, two unfavorites of mine. But how could I forget my mother, coming home one time from one of her regular trips to New York City to see her mother, all smiley and chatty and bright-eyed. Such a contrast to the mother I mostly knew--cooking supper, distant, down. Her joyful energy had everything to do with Iceland. 

Apparently, the Pan Am flight had had a layover in Iceland. Apparently, my mother had met someone on the plane. And Iceland--cold, dark Iceland--had been theirs for the night. She didn't leave my father (she had the full catastrophe--kids, housework, suppers), but I believe the sweet memory helped her through. For years afterwards, my mother's eyes would dance whenever the country was mentioned.

I didn't know it then of course. I was ten. But thirty years later, she told me more. I was sitting at her bedside, squeezing her hand. She was dying of lung cancer (having never smoked), the final installment of a disappointing life. Her tired, pained eyes lit up. "He was so tall, so sexy," she murmured as she told me about the Icelandic layover. I wondered how often she'd thought of it. I continued stroking her hand and told her to rest. She died a few days later. 

So Iceland holds warmth for me after all--ties to a mother hotly, ecstatically alive.