Friday was the two month mark of mother’s death. There. I said it. She died. Before I told people she “passed away” which somehow sounded a bit less offensive, less final. Like she had gone on vacation somewhere and we weren't quite sure of her return date. February 9, 2010 is just another date, another time stamp in our history, the day when Mom took her last breath with her two children holding her hands, dazed that any of this could really be happening.
I feel like I’ve been trapped on a cheap carnival ride of emotions from which there is no escape – guilt, grief, sadness, guilt, excruciating heartache, hysterical crying, regret, laughter, brief moments of peace and knowing it was “time” followed by another round of guilt, grief, sadness and laughter. Rare laughter. The kind that comes when my daughter, for no reason at all, will say a word exactly three times, just like Mom used to, for emphasis. She’ll catch herself and remind us: “I sound like Emma.” And then she, my husband and I will nervously laugh while standing around the kitchen island and wonder out loud if Mom’s bad quirks could be passed on genetically. I am living proof of the dreaded answer.
For weeks I’ve been living day to day in a strange agitated state: at once aware of huge internal transformation coexisting with overwhelming paralysis. I would look at my “to do” list, knowing clearly, and thinking consciously, that phone calls are easy to make, and not be able to make a single one.
A few days before April 9, I got a burst of energy and finally started the process to organize her belongings, which consist mostly of her writings … notes to herself and reactions to things seen on CSPAN, China TV, or CNN. A product of the Depression, she was loath to waste anything, including paper, so her notes are copiously written on the back of junk mail letters, envelopes, or even old, used paper from my printer, the sheets where only one unnecessary line printed. Down in Melbourne, I knew I would not be able to sift though the bulk of notes and correspondence, so I stacked it all up and threw it in my car, believing that one day at home I would find the strength and energy to read it all. That night, we all (my brother, Eric, and my daughter, Isabella) sat around in her smoke infused family room and read through a small collection of items she had stowed in her strong box. She had clearly sorted and placed these items with intent. Photographs we had never before seen. We noted she had Sanpaku eyes. We examined her elementary school report cards, especially the notes from teachers: “Emma writes good” and "Emma is easy-taught," howling with laughter. We read them in our best southern accents. Mind you, she grew up in Alabama. That accent was perhaps the first thing she shed from her past when she moved to D.C. This brought to mind one of Mom’s often repeated opinions: “Teachers are some of the dumbest people you’ll ever meet.” She interacted with them constantly in her 12 years of service with the Nation Education Association. Ironic, since she had a degree from a teachers college. There was other stuff in the report cards, like how she wasn’t doing so well in P.E. or Math, and what appeared to be her forgeries of her mother’s signatures. At this my brother says “Wow, THAT’S where I get it from!” I tell him at least he comes by it honestly. We delight in peeking at the young version of our mother who would so strongly shape us, and not always in such good ways.
Back at home, the piles sit on the floor in my bedroom for what seems like a month, maybe longer. Paralysis has its grip on me and I manage to ignore the mounds of paper, walk around them, integrate them into my bedroom décor - chaos. It’s astonishing what one can overlook. I prefer to do other things, write emails to friends and grocery shop, plan projects for the yard and think about what’s next in my life. My life filled with irony. Still I have not contacted NEA to stop her pension or canceled her email account. Sigh. These are steps I’m not ready to take, but I will, I tell myself that.
But then I got that burst of energy and cleaned out her room. The way had been paved by getting rid of the queen bed a few weeks earlier. With Trevor's help I moved in some tables, hauled the paper and folders in and then started to launder some of the vintage clothing I brought home along with the papers. One of the closets I cleaned out in Melbourne contained a huge box of my grandmother’s clothing, some of which I kept. As I wash the aprons, it occurs to me that perhaps I should ask my aunt and uncle if their children want any of these aprons or dresses … they are all made by my grandmother … who taught me to sew on her pedal Singer machine, the same one that sits in my house. Should I ask if they want some of Mom’s ashes, too? We were not close with either of them, so I let the thought pass, fold and tuck it away for later. Maybe later.
By Friday I have sorted the major categories of stuff into piles, knowing full well when I really dig in, there will be crossover everywhere. After the accident, her thinking never operated the same and her memory shined only sporadically. And now it’s all mixed again because the very old stuff and the most recent occupy the same space. Two things I have always thought about: death and time. Over and over. When I was a child, I assumed it was because my father died when I was 3 and that started me down the path, led me to consider death more, I knew better than other kids that life is uncertain. And I also thought that awareness would protect me, since death seemed to happen to people when they least expected it, when they weren’t paying attention. If you thought (as I later learned Picasso did) ‘this could be my last day’ then somehow you might live to see your next last day. It’s like putting a frame around your existence, daily. You can plan for tomorrow, but in the back of your mind, you know, deep down, it could be a pointless ruse. Yes, plan for tomorrow or next year, just KNOW, don’t be surprised if .... Thought obsessions with death were rivaled by thought awareness of time. As a kid, when I would draw or write things, Mom would always say “you need to date it, where is the DATE?” and ironically, I say the same things to my kids. She was obsessed with history, world and political history and personal histories. The dating of things is how she passed on her nitpickiness about chronology, time stamping and context. Photos, notes and small historical artifacts - she was obsessed with getting all the randomness of her life recorded. And now I sit in the ruins of her scattered thoughts and notations … her impressions of life that were important enough to write down and date.
On Friday I am sorting the papers with a furious efficiency, the medical pile being the tallest … and then I happen on a clean white piece of paper, folded in half. It’s not junk mail, not old printer paper. Her handwritten note simply says: “It’s clear to me that I am helpless and useless and when it’s time to die, one knows. I cry when I write checks for bills due on my home residence because there is NO WAY for me to use energy to work on usual home activities and provide for myself as I once did. I can see that all others are active and especially my 2 children, Keti and Eric, who do all they can for me. It is therefore up to me to make arrangements to move out of the way one the calendar of TIME. At my age the use of time is totally different from ....”
Undated. Odd. But not really looking at what she thought. Time no longer mattered, it had lost all meaning. I speculate she wrote this sometime in November, before she lost the use of her hands and couldn’t write, a particularly devastating turn of events. Writing WAS her memory, her only mechanism for keeping the time and space of her life intact. Losing her ability to write was symbolic of her readiness to leave the material world. And yet, I could not see it. I was in denial. Looking back, all the signs and messages were crystal clear and yet I could not SEE.
There it is. We are all alone. In denial, in grief, in death. We walk alone. Others can console us, wipe away our tears and tell us to remember the happy moments, but truly we are alone in the experience. Time travelers through memory. And I wonder about the remnants of what we are leaving behind. I’m thinking hardest now about that. Every day. The words. The thoughts. The feelings of our loved ones.
