I wish it were a year from now, and some of this pain had passed.
Scott Capurro
GT
May 2009
My Mother, Donna, has died, and perhaps I shouldn’t be writing about this, but I have no idea what else to do.
Everyone who knows that my Mother has passed asks, “How are you doing?” My sister Liz and I laugh privately about this. Our days are so humorless; we appreciate anything remotely near levity. What should we say? Do neighbors really want to know? OK then, here you go: We’re in great pain. Our best friend is lying in a mortuary. My heart actually aches, like it might split in two. I lie in bed at night listening to it beat loudly. So loudly, I wish I could harness mine to my Mother’s heart, so hers could beat again. All that mushy stuff makes sense. My heart is, figuratively, broken. Liz and I walk in circles in our Mother’s living room, searching for our cell phones.
Donna had boxes of photos, which my sister and I are trying to arrange, chronologically, for viewers at her wake. I’m surprised how disorganized these boxes are. The photos are in good condition, mostly, but they’re stuffed and stacked and some have been torn in half, removing an unwanted relative. My mother was usually very neat. She was a Capricorn. But then she was never typical.
I write ‘was’ like I believe she’s dead. But I don’t. Not completely. I’m not crazy. I’m not hearing her voice or anything, although frankly I wouldn’t mind. Some part of me, however, keeps thinking, I have to call Mom, like she’s waiting, somewhere, to chat.
I don’t believe she’s now a tree or a leaf or a picnic table. I don’t think we change forms. I have no human experience of this. What I am sure of is that I’ll never again hear her sing Happy Birthday, which she did, into my answering machine, every year. I have the most recent recording in my flat in London, and my hands shake every time I walk by my landline. I want to listen, but it will just remind me that the only person who never asked me to change, who never wanted me to be anything else than who I am, is now ash.
My sister is miraculous. Somehow, she manages to look after her daughter, Olivia, and chose a church, talk to a priest and pick an urn. When shown the urns, my stepfather just stared. Liz pointed to a lovely Egyptian patterned jug, black and gold, which my mother would’ve actually liked, and then moved on to other arrangements. She knows the urn isn’t the subject, and it’s not the problem. The problem is that our Mother, who helped raise Olivia, has succumbed. Loss is terrifying.
What’s going to happen next? Who will I call when I need a recipe, or hand holding, or a practical resolution? My Mother would often say, “I wish I could tell you something to make it all better.” Just hearing her voice cooled me.
She died peacefully, thankfully, in her sleep. She’d been ill for a while, and though she was able to look after herself and her husband, Liz and I discussed what we might do if Mom ever needed full-time care. We never came up with a plan. Maybe we knew our mother was too thoughtful to put us in that position. She was also strong willed. She had a ‘do not resuscitate’ order. She did not want to wind up in a hospital, surrounded by hovering doctors. Her mind was strong, her lungs weak, and they stopped breathing out.
After having suffered for so long with respitory disease, I’m a bit thrilled she took her last leap painlessly. But she couldn’t have planned this, right? She loved her kids too much. She had company arriving on Sunday. Liz was on her way, with gorgeous Olivia, and Steven, my brother, was dropping by. I was in London, sipping green tea on the edge of my bed when I heard my sister cry, “We’ve lost her. She’s gone.”
My hand clenched my robe, and I looked down, my face twisted. I’d just joked with Mom whilst at the San Francisco airport, five days ago. I was proud. I could still make the funniest person in our family laugh.
That same woman, who outed me to myself, then sent out Indian runners to save me the misery of telling everyone else, is now living in her children. We’re what is left of her. I know this. I just don’t believe it.