The Circularity of Life

 

She was my first home. We were an island. That was before the world called out to me. Inhale. Breathe. Live.

I buried my beloved mother, my friend. It was very sudden, unexpected, and brutal. A massive stroke.

My brain was so shaken, shocked, engulfed with pain, I couldn’t arrange a coherent thought, much less a sentence. And to make it worse, I had no time to negotiate with God. It was already too late, with no hope for recovery.

She lay in a restful coma as my sisters and I circled her bed. We took turns sliding next to her, snuggling against her limp body like baby kittens. We were a pathetic mess.

Willie Nelson (her favorite) sang from the bedside table. Either golf, or tennis, flickered from a muted TV across the room. She liked golf, tennis, and television. We gave her all three.

We quibbled -Deborah, Gina and I- over little things. How best to arrange pillows under her head, knees, and left hip? Which organic nightgown was her favorite? Was the quilt from home too warm, or not warm enough? Was the room too quiet? Each daughter had an opinion on what could make their mother more comfortable, content, happier.

Nothing, you stupid girls. Nothing!  She must have thought.

We didn’t’ know what to do. So, we did the only thing we could. Fuss. Worry. Cry. Sit. Stare, Argue. Cry. 

If the room was too quiet I grew uneasy. That made me babble.

“Maybe I’ll write a reality show, starring mama and her three crazy daughters. You know, make the setting a hospice house. I’ll call it Southern Crazy.” My sisters looked up, then sad laughed.

I looked away from their tired faces to the birdhouse outside my mother’s window.  A red cardinal was watching me, so I watched her. She fed from her tiny house, looked to me, then turned back to feasting. I looked beyond her to the peaceful garden, manicured greenery, and the serene water features. There was such beauty outside that window and our stale room. I craved the cardinal’s fortune.

“I could make it funny, you know, write some humor around the pain and suffering.” I looked over and saw neither sister listening, both were busy texting. I hushed and retreated back to the quiet stillness, just staring at my mother’s face.

When it was my turn to stay the night, I would slide next to my mother and whisper prayers against her ear. Then I would tell her she was doing better. Lies and prayers, intertwined. I couldn’t let her believe she was dying. Or be afraid, anxious, or sad. I simply couldn’t.

 

She lingered for days, then another week. We groomed our mother like a Barbie doll: brushing her hair, applying organic gloss to her parched lips, rubbing her arms, legs, hands and feet with lavender lotion. It was horrific, yet beautiful; painful, yet peaceful; cold, yet welcoming.

I roamed at night wearing my slippers and nightgown, visiting with perfect strangers. My hair was a rat’s nest, my eyes mimicking a racoon. A scary raccoon. The Hospice House began to feel like home. The other sufferers– also roaming– were like my big, sad family. We belonged to one another, though we didn’t even know each other’s name. 

It was noon the following day when I told my sisters I needed to run home, shower, change into fresh clothes. Should I go? I was hesitant to leave, even for 30-45 minutes. “Go.” They said in unison. I had been up all night. Leaning forward I kissed my mother’s cheek. “I’ll be right back, mama.”  I promised.

I was inconsolable when I returned to the reality before me. My mother left my world while I was brushing my teeth.

“Prissy, I swear, she waited for you to leave.” Gina pleaded through my wailing. Everyone tried to console me: my husband, sisters, daughters, and staff.  But there were no words to unburden my guilt. I left my mother.

Death is a bully. It steals energy, strength and will and marches on. Then grief, the sidekick, shows up.  It moves in and takes residence. This nasty, ugly leech adhered to my broken heart, mooching away the very essence of me.

I tried to remember how long it took after Boone died. When did my heart stop aching and the lump in my throat dissolve? When could I gaze at the blue sky with white clouds and not be sad? Or cry.  I pushed those painful memories deep in the crevices of my brain. I no longer remembered. How long… how long… how long.

Time heals grief. But grief is unilateral. It targets each person differently. Everyone punched with horrific pain, just in different formats. I’m not tough, or strong. I never was.

I wrote and delivered my mother’s eulogy at her funeral. It was surreal. After that, I lost my desire to ever write again. Days, weeks, months passed as I moved through life in a daze.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was nudged awake from my pharmaceutical sleep. Was it my mother’s voice I heard, or was I dreaming? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Something changed inside me during the night.  I woke up feeling more like myself. The urge to write had re-seeded, or maybe, it just returned.  I knew, as I lay staring at the ceiling, my mother knew me better than I knew myself. She knew watching her slip away would mirror Boone. And just like Boone- over-protective- she waited for me to leave her before she left me.

I threw off my coverlet and slipped from the crinkled sheets. I needed to write.  Perhaps, if only to honor my mother’s message.

As I passed through the pantry I grabbed a protein bar. Weary, but determined, my Luna bar, espresso and I shuffled into my home office. I turned on the lights and spotted the abandoned chair waiting in front of my computer. I settled in and booted up, sipping and chewing as I watched the monitor come to life. The lemon-flavored bar, fused with dark roasted espresso, soothed my pallet. I rested my shaky hands on the keyboard and began searching. 

I found the essay I’d been working on before my mother died. After two more cups of coffee I finished. Every paragraph rewritten, edited, honed, and polished. It seemed fresher, more promising.  My eyes were scratchy and dry from staring at the monitor screen. I needed a break. I saved my file and left to shower and dress.

I walked back in, reread, and left again, then back once more. How long did I hesitate, second-guessing myself? A good while.  Finally, I hit send and blew out my inhaled breath. 

A few days later an email arrived.

Flamingo , a brilliant Florida magazine, accepted my piece. It will be published in the Fall issue.

I was liberated, rejuvenated and hopeful- in the same moment.  Grief lost. I won. I decided not to let it steal another day from my blessed life. Despite the separation from my mother, I would, once again,  Inhale. Breath. Live.  

It is, after all, the circularity of life.

I read an article by Matthew Norman, author of We’re All Damaged. In it, he wrote, ” I tend to see the world through a humor lens. I use it as a defense mechanism. That may be a personality flaw, but it makes me the writer I am.”

When I read his words, I felt I knew this man I never met. His thoughts mimicked mine. He searches for humor through pain. And why? Just because. His reasoning is defense. Mine is survival. And so, I’ll find some humor in my devasting loss. 

Dad-gum-it, Mama! Nobody wants your stuff! * Not the marble statues, the mahogany furniture, your porcelain china, the sterling silver, the massive oil paintings, or those portraits of our dead relatives.  

 

 

 

Stuff after Death = Humor

Our parent’s treasures. Oh my!

Estates, Liquidating, Settling and selling …blah, blah, blah. Call it what you want. Wait until you are in the midst of it and see what you call it: possessions/stuff/crap! It’s all the same.

If you are still reading this post, please listen. Be kind to your children. They do not want your stuff. Neither do estate folks, antique shops or collectors.  Our children are not collectors. Most of them are minimalists. They want new technology, Restoration Hardware, IKEA, and designer clothes while driving massive SUV’s.

 

 

 

And all the dolls seen above. What the heck, you ask????

Well…ugh…okay! I’m 100% to blame. I made my sweet mama a Victorian doll thirty-years-ago. Yep, the one pictured below. Shoot me now!

That started her collecting ‘collections’ of more ‘collections’. It was me.

Well, not this me, the one writing this post. It was the other me, the one who made the doll. That Prissy you read about in Far Outside the Ordinary. That Prissy and this Prissy are two different species. Trust me.

That one smocked little girls’ dresses, made porcelain dolls, dressed them in clothes made with her own hands. She rolled and whipped edges and seams of imported batiste fabric creating heirloom dresses. She threaded silk ribbon through antique lace bonnets and crowned their heads. She loved designing clothes and watching  life spring from the dolls’ composite bodies. This me is NOT that me. Nada, none, done!  

And now, this me has her own dolls sitting inside a curio cabinet, smiling at her from their hand-painted faces wearing elegant clothes. She (me) signed, dated, and gifted Garrett and Sara Britton (daughters) their own dolls, in equal division. Why do I still have them after three decades, you wonder? Yeah, me to! Because…drum roll…..They don’t want them. Me either. And, furthermore….  I. do. not. want. my mother’s dolls either. Wake-up. It’s a new era. Nobody wants stuff anymore. Including me.  

So, should you know of any ‘Doll Collectors’….do tell! Asap.

 

 

 

Enough stuff about stuff. You get the picture. You’re welcome!