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[These three days are always hard for me, especially coming at this time of year that I love. And so, over these next three days, I will be reposting what I lived during these days six years ago.]
With thanks and apologies to Eugene O’Neill for the post title.
[The next three day's postings are my memories of the day before, the day of, and the day after my Mother's death four years ago. This is a difficult anniversary for me, though it seems to ease each year.]
December 10, 2006: I don’t remember what we did today. Probably not too much but talk – and laugh. Uncle George and E-Bro were with us now, but strangely I don’t remember them being there. I only remember us. Over the past week, we had spent nearly every moment together, waking and sleeping. I probably took a walk once and went out to the store a couple of times. I took showers alone and went to the bathroom alone. But you didn’t. It was as if we were merging, merging for the last time. Looking back now, I see that that wasn’t a good thing, but it wasn’t something I could control. We had been so very close for so very long that our separateness was, for most years, only a matter of a few degrees. In the last days, those few degrees simply vanished.
You had started asking for the morphine towards the end of the day. Not much, but you’d never needed it before. I can imagine how much you must have been hurting to make that concession. You always hated painkillers, hated anything that made you feel out of control of yourself, unlike yourself. It didn’t seem to affect your clarity, but it did seem to ease your pain. I remember your pain. It was in your bones. When you would move sometimes - or sometimes when you were still and it was so bad that it would make you move – your face would grimace in this expression that was indescribable. You would hold your breath until it passed. I hated to see you in pain. I encouraged you to take the morphine. After all, we knew you didn’t have much time left – why spend it in pain? But you wanted to spend it being present. I admire that.
You had stopped eating by now, but today I could still get a few Dibs into you. Water. Your beloved orange sherbet in little tiny spoonfuls. It was sunny, and the light slipped through the slats of the blinds in gentle patterns, changing throughout the day, as sunlight does. You never asked for me to open the blinds or asked to look outside. Looking back, that surprises me, as you so loved nature. But you were focused on the world inside your three rooms, the world that encompassed the people you loved most, and the small things you had around you that you treasured. The rest of the world didn’t matter anymore.
People came and went, people you’d known for years and years who loved you so. You always thought of yourself as being alone, as not having many close friends, but so many people felt like you were THEIR close friend. You were very comfortable with that, with all of it, and with being alone. I suppose that’s the mark of a person truly happy in herself. But today, people came knowing that they were coming to say goodbye, even though nothing had been said. I left them alone with you, and they usually came out of the bedroom and started to cry, and I would thank them and comfort them as best I could.
Everyone brought food. You weren’t eating. I couldn’t eat, except late at night, when I couldn’t sleep. I would eat weird things in weird amounts, knowing I just had to get something, anything, into me. It wasn’t comforting. It was a random necessity. That had been going on for a week, my eating like that. Ever since you really stopped eating. For me, that was the beginning of my thoughtless, mindless eating habits that have added so much weight to my small frame in the last four years.
I don’t remember doctors coming. I don’t remember even talking to the doctors. But that must have happened. Mustn’t it?
In the afternoon, you took a nap. As always, I stayed beside you for most of it. I would go do little things, make phone calls, shower, clean something, constantly checking on you. When you woke, I took your hand, asked you if you had a nice rest. You said yes, and looked at me strangely. I chattered at you, you responded politely, still looking at me in that odd way, patting my hand. Then you said, “Who ARE you?” And I reminded you that I was your daughter. Your eyes cleared, you looked relieved, you laughed at yourself as you recognized me. I felt a chill that I did not show.
I had been so wrapped up in caring for you. For months, I think, I had been flying across the country every weekend to be with you. Your death became my life. We had always been close, except for those nasty teenage years, but especially since Kelsea’s birth. We had talked every day. After the last diagnosis, we talked three or four or five times a day. In the mornings, to be sure you were okay. If you were lonely. If I was bored. If you went to the doctor. In the evening before bed. If I was scared. If you had some piece of news. We talked so much because we knew that soon we wouldn’t be able to talk at all, not in the same way.
And you were so happy to have the three of us there. You loved us so. That night as we were going to bed, you felt it was going to be your last night. You said goodbye to me. You told me to tell Kelsea that you loved her. You reminded me that the car keys were in the little bowl on the half-wall by the kitchen. Yes, ever the Mother. And you went to sleep.
But it was not your last night.
As a single working mom, the amount of time I get to spend with my daughter is limited to weekends, and even the weekends are often limited to a day and a night, if either of us wishes to have a social life, which we both do. That’s really tough because we love each other and have fun together and each helps the other make sense out of life. I know it’s the quality of time spent together more than the amount, but most of our time spent together is quality time – it just would be nice to have more of it.
So we had last night and today together. We were both kind of tired last night – she was a little quiet, so we just hung and watched Jersey Shore and Ghost Adventures. She stretched out on God’s Cat. I took a bath. As I say, a quiet night. Today, upon rising, we ate and then talked about life and compromises and how to live with difficult people and right/wrong conundrums and all sorts of things for an hour or more. I think we both felt like we got a lot of value from our talk. Each time we have one of those really good talks, we seem to understand one another better. So, no, this is NOT how to annoy your teenager. Or at least not how to annoy mine. We’re getting to that. Trust me.
Wanting to go out but not being sure what we wanted to do, we decided to hit Longmont and the flea markets. It’s a pretty good flea market town, and we like its Main Street. So off we headed. Our first stop was where we got God’s Cat, and we had been contemplating a second, but fortunately for my wallet, this flea market was closed on Sundays. Across the highway, however, in their old location, was another flea market, with a parking lot sale going on. Unfortunately, I did not realize the extent of the parking lot sale until I had actually placed my truck in the middle of the parking lot sale. At that point, I realized that there was no place to park because there was a sale in the parking lot (see how I’m not picking up on the parking lot sale concept) and I had two choices: run over people in their booths or squeeze between the cones indicating that I’m where I shouldn’t be. As Kelsea can tell you, I have extensive experience with putting my vehicle where it shouldn’t be. The people at Home Depot and at Camp Lejeune Marine Base can vouch for this as well. We made as graceful an exit as possible and parked far away, hoping not to be recognized when we approached on foot.
We love flea markets. We poked around to our heart’s content and found some things that were too expensive but too wonderful, such as PorkChop the metal boar:
$599 was a bit over my PorkChop budget.
An old freezer that had a buckle latch as opposed to an actual handle, and was in mint condition:
The freezer even had a name already!
China cats were nestled in the corners of your grandmother’s couch, staring at you psychotically for all eternity:
I love humans, I just can't eat a whole one. That's why I have so many little cat friends.
We both agreed that we would have to leave the house and never return were this to arrive at our door:
One of the creepiest things ever - or is it?
I revelled in a totally inappropriate sock monkey:
Totally inappropriate sock monkey
Made all the more inappropriate by its tag:
Yes, you read right.
As we exited, we encountered a life-sized nutcracker:
Open wide!
Kelsea looked askance at me when I said that you could fit a baby’s head in there.
We headed down to Main Street, and though most of the shops were closed on Sundays, because clearly any money spent on Sunday in Longmont should be going to the church, we did enjoy our window shopping experience. We were also greeted by two gentlemen occupying a bench, who asked us if they could buy a cigarette from us, and when we said no, asked us for money to buy cigarettes, leading us to wonder how they intended to pay us for cigarettes had we had them to sell.
I wanted to share some of the interesting signs and displays from Main Street with you:
Yea for us! Tough luck for you.
I believe the torso on the right has a club foot. Who would do that to a (half a) mannequin? And both are going to wind up with yeast infections from wearing their jeans too tight.
A very clever window display for men’s clothing:
Just a friendly game.
With incredibly high stakes.
Longmont has lots of free and easily accessible public parking and numerous small public art installations:
Courtyard Mosaic
Incomprehensible Cheese-Covered Fork with Small Ball of (Apparent) Snot on the Third Tine
We did find Barbed Wire Books to be open. It claims to be the largest used bookstore in Longmont, and one we hadn’t yet visited, so we went in. I picked up a couple of mysteries.
Armchair in Barbed Wire Books.
Kelsea told me she was hungry enough to eat me, so we made our final stop The Pumphouse. The burgers were good and they had misters (those things that spray mist, not men – and when I say “not men”, I don’t mean that they don’t spray men, they WILL spray men, but men is not what they spray – oh, never mind) above the patio diners that sprayed just enough to cool, but not enough to dampen. Kelsea shared with me her most recent app acquisition:
Just say "moose". Just once. Just for me.
And so, we headed for home.
Now, you may be wondering about the “how to annoy my teenager” part of the day. Well, that comes into play when I share with you what we bought at the flea market.
We found her a new army jacket from either the WWII or Korea era – I can’t tell which, but it’s in excellent shape, was only $10, and was a medic’s coat, so she is totally thrilled with that. But sorry, no image.
We found a small $2 sign for the kitchen. It’s a reminder for me of a) how to cook, and b) how to live:
Can I take the advice of a tin plaque?
I discovered a 1960′s Ouija Board. Previously, I have refused to have a Ouija Board in the house – perhaps because my Mother was so strongly opposed to them – but when I saw this one, I knew that it was the perfect time for it to arrive in my life.
Perhaps it will help me communicate with the Bungalow spirits.
And last, but so totally not least, I found Him. I had been in the booth where He was before, and didn’t even see Him, but when I walked in again, He immediately caught my eye, and it was all over. I had to have Him.
Him (or He)
And this is where I began to annoy my teenager. She found Him terrifying. Their initial meeting went something like this:
Me: Look! I found the coolest thing ever!
Her: GAH! What IS that?
Me: I don’t know. Isn’t it awesome?
Her: NO! You are NOT buying that.
Me: But He wants to come home with you. Here, hold Him.
Her: Get that thing away from me.
Clearly, they did not have immediate chemistry. So the rest of our afternoon played out along similar lines.
Me: He likes you. He’s looking at you.
Her: Well, make Him stop.
Me: Sorry, I can’t do that. He does what He pleases.
Her: Mom, you’re sick.
Her: I’m hungry. Let’s go get a burger.
Me: Okay. He likes burgers too. And He thinks you’re pretty.
Her: Mom, STOP IT.
Me: What? I’m just saying.
She offered to carry Him on her lap if she could keep the truck windows open, but I’m smarter than that.
He was apparently all the rage in the 1950s, with numerous other incarnations, and was highly collectible among housewives of the day. Can you imagine coming home after a hard day at the office and being confronted by multiple versions of Him? Kelsea would rather stick her head in a garbage disposal.
So I will keep Him until I sell Him on Ebay, or tire of annoying her, whichever comes first – and I think we know which one that will be.
I am so looking forward to the coming months with my daughter.
Last week at our writer’s meeting at work, my boss asked me what else was happening in my life – we always end our writer’s meetings that way, since the writers actually interact very little during the week.
I told the team that Kelsea was starting high school on Monday. And they all said, “Awwwww, are you okay???”
I thought that was a perfectly bizarre reaction. Am I okay? Of course I am okay. Why would I NOT be okay? It’s not as if I’M starting high school (again… if I were, then I probably would not be okay).
When I started high school, back in the age before cell phones, computers, electricity, fire, etc., it wasn’t that big a deal for me. I went to a small school, and was with the same people I’d been in school with since kindergarten. The most significant thing was that I finally got to change campuses.
It’s different for Kelsea. She’s been to a K-8 school, so there was a certain similarity, in that she had been with a lot of the same kids for a long time, and in the same building all of those years. And she was absolutely sick of it. It’s been great how excited she’s been about starting high school. She’s always wanted to go to this school, ever since her older cousins went there.
Of course, she had a day or two of anxiety when she found out that she didn’t know a soul in any of her classes – and she had really been looking forward to going to class with her friends. But that has ebbed. She’ll still see her friends. Even though she’s a bit shy, she’ll make new friends. She seems to do that quite well – much better than she gives herself credit for. And I heard something today that I’d never heard from her before: her talking to her friends about what they were going to wear tomorrow.
This weekend, we went clothes shopping for her – new jeans and T-shirts (almost all from thrift shops, where things are stylish, unique, and inexpensive.) We had a great time together. I love it when she wants new clothes, because it so seldom happens. And we found the absolute BEST thing of all: a pair of teal green genuine Converse high-tops (that fit both of us) for $5!
Our new shoes
We were so excited. She’s wearing them now, as she’s wandering around for a last hurrah with Uber-Cool Will. I believe they are off to the mall to buy glow-in-the-dark shoelaces and a mustache belt (don’t ask – I’m not sure.)
Her schedule is such that it will be tough for her to stay with me at all during the week. We may work it out – we’ll just have to see. Which means I’ll miss her. And I’ll (finally) really be here at the Bungalow alone (except for the cat who isn’t really mine).
Sat cat sitting
I don’t know if it’s that realization that’s got me a little verklempt, or if it is as my co-workers inquired, that I am suddenly “not okay” – that I am undergoing a realization that my little girl is really growing up, that she will always be my little girl, but that we’ve only got four years worth of weekends and summers together until she’s off on her own. I suspect there’s a bit of that playing into my feelings.
These days, though, I am not borrowing trouble. I am so happy that she’s happy, excited, and who she is. My feelings are about me letting go and moving on, which is the story of my life these last few years. Maybe it’s the story of all of our lives from the day we leave the womb. I don’t really know.
I know I feel pretty lucky to be sitting on my own front porch, writing, fending off mosquitoes, listening to my wind chimes, a glass of wine at hand. It’s a far cry from where I thought I’d be now, if I ever even thought this far into my own future, when I started high school. Or at this time last year, for that matter. “God made the world round so we could not see too far down the road.” Truly, I never saw this.
The View From My Front Porch
What I do know with an absolute certainty is that I am blessed to have such a cool human being as my daughter in my life.
Kelsea and Blossom
Kelsea (and Uber-Cool Will) graduated from eighth grade last week.
This was a big deal, much bigger than I had thought.
There was no graduation from eighth grade for me. Not that I didn’t, mind you, just that they didn’t celebrate such things. I was in a Pre-K through 12 school, so for us, it was just the end of another year. The big difference was that we moved to the Upper School campus in 9th grade, but otherwise? Meh.
So I was approaching Kelsea’s end of eighth grade as I had approached my own – just the gateway to another summer. I had no idea how wrong I was. I’m still unsure if it’s a big deal because she’s going to a different school – high school – or if it’s a big deal because times have changed and we now feel the need to make a big deal out of everything that our kids do as a part of being human and semi-adult, from coming in last in a competition to helping a duck across the street.
But a big deal it was, and I was proud to be a part of it. All the girls in her class dressed up. As you’ve probably been able to tell from my talking about Kelsea, she’s about as far from a girly-girl as Abe Lincoln is from Diana Ross. So when she told me she wanted to wear a dress for graduation, I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. And she didn’t just wear a nice short-skirted party dress like every other eighth-grade girl. If she was going to wear a dress, she said, she wanted to do it her own way and make a statement. Thankfully the statement wasn’t this:
or this:
No, she wanted to express her own sense of style. So she wore a floor length dress, and her long hair down, and she looked gorgeous. And she only tripped on it once on her two trips up to the platform (that would be her dress, not her hair).
The continuation ceremony was looong - almost two hours. There were the requisite number of inspirational speeches about “what school has meant to me” and “taking the next step into the journey towards adulthood”. One excellent student speaker told an embarrassing story about her mom from when she was in high school. I surely hope she discussed this with her mom beforehand, otherwise the poor woman no doubt wished she could sink into the floor.
One of the 90 students in Kelsea’s graduating class had succumbed to cancer shortly after the beginning of the year. The staff acknowledged her and her parents who were in the audience, and that brought tears to my eyes. They acknowledged all the veterans among the parents, which I thought was a nice touch. And at diploma time, when the principal said to hold applause until each row had received their sheepskin (or cardboard, as sheep are scarce these days), we were a poor audience and refused to do so, but came to an unspoken compromise by making a coordinated single clap for each student, with a more robust chatter of applause after each row. I thought it was hysterical, but I would get distracted, and clap off beat, which was rather awkward.
Kelsea had straight As, so she was on the President’s Honor Roll, which included a certificate signed by Barak Obama. She and I both wanted to wet the ink to see if it was a genuine signature, but we resisted. My niece, who works in the governor’s office, also gave her a personal letter from the Governor, congratulating her on her achievements – that one really was a genuine signature.
And as for Kelsea, she is so relieved to be out of middle school that she said she almost wishes summer was over – she’s that eager to start high school. I hope it lives up to her expectations. She used to love school (in elementary school) and she just loathed middle school, even though she did well. But for now, she just wants to sleep as late as she feels like sleeping. I, for one, will let her do so – though I may be the only one who will let her do so.
I am so proud of my lovely girl. Watching her cross the stage with poise and joyfulness was a wonderful experience.
So I guess it is a big deal after all.
As you know, I love my daughter to infinity and back again an infinite number of times. We never fight. We just don’t. We have what I consider an unusual relationship for a teenage daughter and her mother.
Given that, I’m not accustomed to getting angry with her. I do know that happens. And I am committed to my role as a mother, in which I teach my daughter self-discipline, self-worth, self-respect and how her choices impact herself and others. I’ve tried to do this all along, and feel I (and Pat) have done a good job. She’s a lovely, considerate, thoughtful person.
Today, we’re going to the auction, and taking Uber-Cool Will with us. I’ve been looking forward to it since the last auction, and I know Kelsea has too. We scoped out the goods yesterday, and have our eye on a 70-year old upright icebox that Kelsea can use as a dresser, since she doesn’t want an ordinary one.
We had dinner at my niece’s last night, got home about 10:00 and to bed about 11:00. She was going to Skype with Will for a little while – they talk constantly. I was fine with that. I understand that she’s a night person, and I understand the teenagers have different circadian rhythms.
I woke to the sound of her voice, so I went to check on her. She will still Skyping with Will. When I asked her what time it was, she said, “Not too late….only about….3:40.” 3:40????? I told her to sign off immediately. Five minutes later, I could hear that she was still on. And I got mad.
I went in and turned on her light and told her to shut it down that minute. She’s not accustomed to me getting mad, so I guess she knew I meant business, because she did. And then I chewed her out.
She had struck a nerve, and I recognized that. As I was laying in bed, listening to her still being up, I felt exactly the same way as I used to feel when I was married. Pat always did this same thing. We would have plans to do something special and he would stay up (or in his case, out) until the wee small hours and then be sluggish, hungover and too tired to be a happy participant in whatever our special plans were. I could feel the slow boil inside of me as I was laying there, something I had never thought I would feel again.
So when I began the chewing-out, I began by telling her that I knew there was a certain part of projection occurring on my part, because of this memory. However, I told her it was inconsiderate of her to stay up so long that she would be too tired and grumpy to share in our day tomorrow, and I was disappointed – which is one of the worst things I can ever say to her. She tried to interject with a couple of “Buts”, “but” I told her I really didn’t want to hear them. I told her I was understanding of her rhythms and feelings, “but” that this kind of behavior wasn’t taking care of herself and wasn’t respectful of others when she had plans with those others (a.k.a., me).
I pointed out to her that I was using “I” statements, like her school counselors have coached all the kids. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t tell her that her behavior was wrong. I just told her how her choices are impacting me and my feelings, and how they will likely impact her. And that this is an area where she needs some self-discipline.
We had been talking about this sort of thing on the way home earlier in the day, about how she tends to live exclusively in the present, with a “cross that bridge when we come to it” attitude. I generally support that attitude, however, I told her, she must learn to have a broader vision, incorporating the lessons learned from her past experiences and her insight into how the present can alter the future, for good – or bad. I reinforced that message at 4:00 am, when she reminded me of that conversation. But other than that, she was silent – as she should have been.
I turned off the light and went back to bed, still slightly fuming, now moreso at the thought that on this, my one night to sleep in, I was now awake at 4:00 am. One of the things I realized, as I lay there in the dark, was that I want to spend my time with people who take care of themselves, as that’s a sign of valuing oneself. And I want to take care of myself, as that’s a sign that I value myself. And I want Kelsea to learn, understand and know that lesson in her heart of hearts.
I did get back to sleep for another few hours. It’s now 9:30. She’s got another hour or so to sleep. I’m not mad any more. But I am curious as to what she’ll say when she gets up.
I know I’m right. I know she knows I’m right. It’s just interesting getting mad at her.
Cautious Experimentation
I have a lot of posts in my head, and I’ve been writing a lot, but I can’t seem to find one thing to say today, so it will be a randomness day.
I have cramps. Why, oh, why, do some women get cramps and others don’t? Mine have always been so bad that my Mother used to let me stay home from school, and THAT says something. We had to be producing copious amounts of nasty emissions from some orifice in order to ever stay home from school. (Well, I guess I qualified – eww.) And cramps keep me from sleeping, so I’m sleepy.
It is gorgeous here today – almost 60 degrees. That’s quite a shift from our -9 at the beginning of the week. Did you know that the largest temperature shift in a 24-hour period happened on January 15, 1972 in Loma, Montana, when the temperature went from -54 to 49 degrees? I love Montana. It’s so quirky and so much itself. And doesn’t it look like a profile of a face on its Western border? I just want to paint a little smile there.
Isn’t it amazing how you can take an instant dislike to someone simply because they remind you of someone else? Which is wrong and sucky, because I like everyone until they give me reason not to. Unfortunately, this person reminds me of someone who gave me reason not to. For obvious reasons, a photo will not follow.
It has been nice being able to hang out with my ex-dogs and cats this week while housesitting but I’ll be happy to get back to the Cottage. Of course, in the proper spirit of visualization and manifestation, I am decorating my new house, which is fun – and it’s beautiful. Depending on the job situation, maybe I’ll even get a dog/cat.
The concept of finding oneself…does that imply that you’ve been hiding from yourself? Or that you’ve buried your true self beneath layers of silk and garbage? I don’t think it’s possible to find yourself. You ARE yourself, in all your regal confusion and bullshit. You may discover that you change or that elements of yourself that were hidden are brought to the forefront by people, places or circumstances. I know the first time I sat on the beach at Cane Garden Bay on Tortola, I felt like I had found myself. I recognized a woman whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years, and I realized that I loved her, and that I had missed her. Hmmm…maybe I was lost…maybe I DID find myself. Thinking with your keyboard can be interesting.
Today is Caesarean Section Day. I don’t know why it should be TODAY, but I don’t make the rules, I just report ‘em.
I heard the “twee-woo” bird this morning. It’s a little early for him, but he is and always has been, a harbinger of spring. It made me smile.
Kelsea had her annual check-up today. She’s been consistently in the 25th percentile on the growth charts since she was born. Looks like she’s going to be a fairly small person. But for a fairly small person, she had a blockage in her ear that, after 30 minutes of ear-colonic, finally emerged and was so large that people came from other exam rooms to look at it. We should have named it and put it in a sideshow. Hopefully, her ear will now start feeling better without my having to pay $200 for an antibiotic. (Damn and blast the beginning of the year before the deductible is met.)
New things are on the horizon tomorrow, and hopefully, a more meaningful post.
How many of you Moms out there struggle with having a child who refuses to dress appropriately for the weather?
Kelsea is 14. This is the first year since she was able to talk that I have been able to get her to wear a winter coat. In fact, this year, she has TWO! One is an army surplus jacket we got at a vintage store in Cheyenne. The other, which looks almost identical but is warmer, is one that Pat got her for her birthday. He had suggested to me that I find her a winter coat. And I respectfully told him to do it himself. I tried to find a coat she liked last year and nearly had a meltdown after 10 stores and no nods of approval, and I refused to do it again. To my way of thinking, I’d found her the army jacket. If he wanted her to have something else, he could go and find her something else. And damned if he didn’t find something she liked almost immediately.
I’m happy that she looks warm. As she has always told me, she’s a Colorado girl and the cold doesn’t affect her like it does me with my thin Southern blood. There may be some truth in what she says. She gets much hotter than I do in the heat, and stays much warmer than I do in the cold. It was always disturbing to see her going to school in a heavy sweatshirt and jeans and nothing else on a frigid day, but I had come to accept it. Being in the cold doesn’t make you sick; germs make you sick.
Maybe I’m just more aware of it because of the whole Kelsea-coat thing, but it seems like more and more kids are running around in this -9 degree weather inadequately dressed. I saw two boys in SHORTS and sleeveless T-Shirts the other day, and it was all I could do not to yell out the car window “Go put some clothes on!! What are you thinking??” A girl walking to school this morning had on only skinny jeans, Uggs and a skin-tight zip-front hoodie, and the same cry once again nearly crossed my lips. Kelsea’s best friend was supposed to walk to school yesterday, but called and asked me if I could pick her up because she “doesn’t really have any shoes”. It’s true. She only has what I consider slippers.
I want to say “where is the parenting”? But on the flip side, I have fought the losing battle of trying to get my child to dress for the temperature. I know what it’s like. I know how hopeless and frustrating it can be. At least Kelsea does not wear jeans with intentional holes all over them, or burnout T-shirts and push-up bras, so I have a lot to be thankful for on that score. My Mother only used the phrase, “You are not going out of the house dressed like that” to me one time when I was 16. (She was fortunate too.)
But now that I am a mother, I will never be able to see a kid running around in summer clothing in the deadest of winter without cringing and having to turn my edit function wayyy up high. And keep my car windows locked. Or maybe I should just wear a gag.
With thanks and apologies to Eugene O’Neill for the post title.
[The next three day's postings are my memories of the day before, the day of, and the day after my Mother's death four years ago. This is a difficult anniversary for me, though it seems to ease each year.]
December 10, 2006: I don’t remember what we did today. Probably not too much but talk – and laugh. Uncle George and E-Bro were with us now, but strangely I don’t remember them being there. I only remember us. Over the past week, we had spent nearly every moment together, waking and sleeping. I probably took a walk once and went out to the store a couple of times. I took showers alone and went to the bathroom alone. But you didn’t. It was as if we were merging, merging for the last time. Looking back now, I see that that wasn’t a good thing, but it wasn’t something I could control. We had been so very close for so very long that our separateness was, for most years, only a matter of a few degrees. In the last days, those few degrees simply vanished.
You had started asking for the morphine towards the end of the day. Not much, but you’d never needed it before. I can imagine how much you must have been hurting to make that concession. You always hated painkillers, hated anything that made you feel out of control of yourself, unlike yourself. It didn’t seem to affect your clarity, but it did seem to ease your pain. I remember your pain. It was in your bones. When you would move sometimes - or sometimes when you were still and it was so bad that it would make you move – your face would grimace in this expression that was indescribable. You would hold your breath until it passed. I hated to see you in pain. I encouraged you to take the morphine. After all, we knew you didn’t have much time left – why spend it in pain? But you wanted to spend it being present. I admire that.
You had stopped eating by now, but today I could still get a few Dibs into you. Water. Your beloved orange sherbet in little tiny spoonfuls. It was sunny, and the light slipped through the slats of the blinds in gentle patterns, changing throughout the day, as sunlight does. You never asked for me to open the blinds or asked to look outside. Looking back, that surprises me, as you so loved nature. But you were focused on the world inside your three rooms, the world that encompassed the people you loved most, and the small things you had around you that you treasured. The rest of the world didn’t matter anymore.
People came and went, people you’d known for years and years who loved you so. You always thought of yourself as being alone, as not having many close friends, but so many people felt like you were THEIR close friend. You were very comfortable with that, with all of it, and with being alone. I suppose that’s the mark of a person truly happy in herself. But today, people came knowing that they were coming to say goodbye, even though nothing had been said. I left them alone with you, and they usually came out of the bedroom and started to cry, and I would thank them and comfort them as best I could.
Everyone brought food. You weren’t eating. I couldn’t eat, except late at night, when I couldn’t sleep. I would eat weird things in weird amounts, knowing I just had to get something, anything, into me. It wasn’t comforting. It was a random necessity. That had been going on for a week, my eating like that. Ever since you really stopped eating. For me, that was the beginning of my thoughtless, mindless eating habits that have added so much weight to my small frame in the last four years.
I don’t remember doctors coming. I don’t remember even talking to the doctors. But that must have happened. Mustn’t it?
In the afternoon, you took a nap. As always, I stayed beside you for most of it. I would go do little things, make phone calls, shower, clean something, constantly checking on you. When you woke, I took your hand, asked you if you had a nice rest. You said yes, and looked at me strangely. I chattered at you, you responded politely, still looking at me in that odd way, patting my hand. Then you said, “Who ARE you?” And I reminded you that I was your daughter. Your eyes cleared, you looked relieved, you laughed at yourself as you recognized me. I felt a chill that I did not show.
I had been so wrapped up in caring for you. For months, I think, I had been flying across the country every weekend to be with you. Your death became my life. We had always been close, except for those nasty teenage years, but especially since Kelsea’s birth. We had talked every day. After the last diagnosis, we talked three or four or five times a day. In the mornings, to be sure you were okay. If you were lonely. If I was bored. If you went to the doctor. In the evening before bed. If I was scared. If you had some piece of news. We talked so much because we knew that soon we wouldn’t be able to talk at all, not in the same way.
And you were so happy to have the three of us there. You loved us so. That night as we were going to bed, you felt it was going to be your last night. You said goodbye to me. You told me to tell Kelsea that you loved her. You reminded me that the car keys were in the little bowl on the half-wall by the kitchen. Yes, ever the Mother. And you went to sleep.
But it was not your last night.
Wednesday was Kelsea’s birthday. She’s 14 now. As she puts it, she’s now officially a teenager – 13 was just a warm-up year. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of her birthday, so it was just a few gifts and dinner with Pat and me. And of course, lots of facebook greetings.
I remember splotches of my childhood – probably more splotches than most people do. But my memories of 14 and up are pretty continuous. God, I was a pain in the ass at 14. That was the year that I was incredibly embarassed to be a part of my own family. I just wanted to be grown up and independent. We took a train across Canada that summer and I remember my Mother blocking some twenty-something Frenchman who was trying to flirt with me. She was having none of that. And I remember saying to a boy that I met on the trip, who was a year older than me, that “Things change when you’re 15.” Looking back, I would say that’s true.
Kelsea seems much more comfortable in her skin at 14 than I did. While her dreams and plans change with expected regularity, she seems grounded. (Of course, my dreams and plans change with alarming regularity now at 48, and I don’t wish that on anyone.) She’s well-liked. She stands up for herself, her friends, and those who don’t have a voice of their own (such as the planet Pluto – and yes, I said PLANET.) She is curious – among her few birthday presents were, at her request, Charles Darwin’s Origins of the Species and Richard Dawkins’ The God Dilemma. Seriously. I haven’t even read these books, but she’s trying to organize her opinions about God. More power to her.
She’s funny and compassionate. She’s relatively reasonable for a teenager as long as she’s treated with respect. She does get mad about things, and when she does, steam comes out of her ears. She’s your average level of teenage grumpy. She hates getting up in the morning and she hates being given “busywork” in the form of homework, especially when it’s a topic she will never need or use and has no pertinence in any vision of daily life.
In short, she’s awesome and the best thing in my life. I hope she has a spectacular year.
Kelsea had her first choir concert of the season last night. The 7/8th grade choir is pretty good (and the 6th grade choir is awesome). She was in the first row, which was nice for us parents. The choir instructor decided to add a little choreography in the form of pointing arms, which wound up being flailing, flapping arms. Kelsea only went to the wrong direction once, but she did smack the kid next to her in the stomach. Oops.
As I was watching her, almost 14, up there on stage, singing under the lights, I was remembering her, just 4, up on a stage at the Louisville Public Library, singing with her preschool class. She was so cute, sort of singing distractedly, looking around, waving her arms, occasionally picking up the hem of her little dress-thing (she was wearing leggings, so no undo exposure occurred). She was white-blonde back then, her face rounder. She doesn’t really look a lot like she does now. And interestingly, I know how she looks now is very different from how she’ll look in 10 years.
It was a sweet thing, to see her evolution, as she stood apart from me, under the stagelights.
And I really liked this kind of spooky picture I took of the concert.
