behindtheax

about my mother

My mother died on Valentine's Day twenty-nine years ago. Well, it was actually a little after midnight on the fifteenth but we spent most of Valentines Day waiting for her to die. We (her children, all eleven of us) at the time ranged in age from twenty - two to five years old. It was around noontime when we knew for sure she was dying. It was the parish priest who sat us down and told us --
- - Mom was sick for a long time, had undergone radiation treatment and two major operations on her throat – when she returned home from the hospital for the third time she had a tracheotomy and couldn’t speak anymore. But still we thought she was getting better and I guess it must have been her decision not to let us know that it had spread. She would write small notes to us in these campfire notebooks. My dad kept a few of these. They don’t say anything profound or anything and half the time no names are mentioned so you don’t know which one of us she is directing the question at -- but they still bring it back – “Did you wash your hair today?” “Can you make me some tomato soup, half milk, half water,” “did you get your math done?” “Don’t wear that shirt to school.” “Can you pass me my glasses?”

Anyway that Valentine’s Day was probably the longest and most surreal day of my life. I remember three things very vividly. First, when it was my turn to say goodbye, my aunt told me that mom wouldn’t know or respond to me because she was on a lot of medication and not completely conscious anymore. But when I approached her bedside she smiled at me. It was a small smile but it was a smile. My aunt tried to take that away from me by telling me it was just a facial twitch or a grimace but I know what it was. The second thing I remember is about half an hour after she died and the ambulance had taken her away, I had to use the washroom and I didn’t want to use the washroom downstairs because there were too many people about so I went upstairs. However, I couldn’t get past her bedroom without needing to step into it. One of my aunts had already been and gone, stripping the bed and straightened everything up. There were a lot of voices down stairs but as soon as I crossed the threshold into her room I couldn’t hear the voices anymore. It was and still is the emptiest room I have ever been in. Even the air was gone from it so that I couldn’t breathe. I ended up running back down the stairs to use the downstairs washroom after all. The third thing I remember clearly is going for a walk around the block with my older brother and a few of my younger siblings. It was probably around two o’clock then but the night was extremely bright and it was snowing. Big, gentle flakes and as we walked, we talked and up near the barns, my brother lit a cigarette and he offered me one and I was surprised at this because any other day he would of choked me if he caught me smoking. But I wanted one and took it eagerly. He even lit it for me. I felt calm. I think it might have been shock – that walk was so strange. Everything felt like it had slowed almost to a standstill. It was like change decided to give us a chance to catch our breath before it swept us away. It gave me a bit of poise. Sometimes I wish I was still that person, the one in the snow, in the middle of the night, smoking a cigarette with my brother, unaware of how drastically everything would change for us over the course of the next several years.

I think of mom every Valentine’s Day. I would give anything to have known her. Not as a daughter knows a mother but as a woman knows another woman. -- so much was left unsaid, unresolved -- there were so many secrets to my mother, so many layers and we never got to really know her. She will always be this mystery in my life.

posted by mary j. @ 12:12 PM