Today, my mother was born. She would have been 56 this year. 56. The first birthday she didn’t live to see.
And, a year ago today, on my mother’s last birthday, my Grandfather [her father] passed away.
The Ides of March will forever require a warning from now on.
…
I wish I could say more, but maybe that is all there really is to say.
That and I miss them, both, terribly.
I’ve never really known my father. Literally. Not in the figurative sense that is common among people, to describe a person they should know but find they don’t. He’s been out of my life for most of it. No, all of it.
My mother and he were together for some period before I was conceived, but sometime thereafter they split and I am not sure why. Growing up I knew his name, that he came by [unwelcome] once when I was was about 2 years old, and that he lived in the town next to ours. Oh and that he had been in jail [after he and my mother were together] and that he had 2 daughters now [or so I was told].
And really, that was enough. I didn’t need anything more. I have never felt that I needed him, wanted to know him, wanted to find him, or anything of the sort. He existed. He may have helped in my creation, but he was not around and I was not concerned. People, if they knew, would ask about whether I wanted to contact him, etc., but I did not.
Despite all that, I will say, I always wondered who he was and what happened between he and my mother.
When my mother passed away last year [still seems surreal], she left documents that I never knew existed. Letters. Court documents. Diaries. A Valentine from ::right:: before my conception. There was a specific pile of correspondence that I found while cleaning out my mother’s house that I took with me [and my husband] to a bar and read. It was unfathomable. In a completely unexpected way.
If you knew the level of communication about my father in my house, then you would understand that my mother’s correspondence with him over the years would seem completely unexpected.
I have only read a fraction of what exists, even though not much exists, but it is still much more than I ::ever:: thought existed.
While I never wanted to find him, I have wondered about him. How could my mother be with someone who ultimately went to jail? How could he exist in a city next to mine? Who was he? What did he look like? Who was this other family he created?
Through the years, I cannot say I never googled him. I did. I wondered who this man was, but not in the way that means I wanted to know him. I just wanted to see him. Seemed a feasible thing to do in this internet age.
Unfortunately [?], I never found him.
Until my mother’s death. There were some additional clues. It still was not immediate, it was several months of casual google searches that one afternoon led me square to the face of my father.
His face. At his business. In my hometown. A town adjacent to his. A business right up the road from where I grew up. Right there. Completely unexpected. Living a life that was so much better than what I grew up in, or at least somewhat better, maybe.
I didn’t know what to expect upon finding him, but my finding him led to feelings I never imagined…
[to be continued, at some point].
i was cleaning out my mother’s closet after she passed and i found an unopened christmas gift addressed to me. a present that bought and wrapped years ago. i recalled the wrapping paper from years ago, but couldn’t place the date.
when i saw it, my first instinct was to open it. to unwrap the mystery present, long forgotten, to see what my mother had chosen for me. to see the last gift she would ever give me. but then i decided it was best saved for christmas. when it was originally intended to be opened.
in an effort to clean some things up before visitors came, i put the present [along with a bunch of my mother's other things] into a closet in the guest room. i told myself i would remember it was there. only i didn’t. christmas came and went and though i did receive one other present from beyond the grave [two dollar bills from my grandfather, via my uncle]. it was not until last night that i remembered my mother’s present to me.
only, i did not remember it from grand epiphany. no, i was reminded of it when my mother’s things, which had been stacked peacefully for a month or two, came crashing down.
my aunt [her sister] is staying in that room and was getting ready for dinner in the en-suite bathroom. brian and i were downstairs waiting. suddenly there was this tremendously loud crash. i called for my aunt, but she did not reply. i thought something happened to her, like a dresser falling and crushing her.
i rushed up to see what happened and found her fine, but with the three plastic boxes i stacked in the closet all over. as i went to pick up the boxes. there it was. my mother’s christmas present to me.
–
believer or not in this sort of thing, but i believe it was her there who did that. who knocked down the boxes. not sure if it was for me to find the present or for her to make her presence known, but either way it was her way of reaching out.
[or maybe that's something of my own imagination].
–
i took the present into my room and opened it.
pastels.
while i wasn’t sure what to expect and i didn’t have high expectations, as i reflect on it, the pastels were fitting.
my mother loved to paint. she was an incredible artist. she drew and painted throughout her life. most of it, i remember from childhood, but the cases of paint and the artwork i found [even on manila folders] showed she never completely stopped. she even helped me with some crafts the days before my wedding.
i, unfortunately, was never gifted with her talent. even though i took art classes, i never had the ability she possessed naturally. however, since her death i have felt compelled to paint, to create. i have day dreamed of it. it has come into my dreams at night. it has hovered over me, which is quite unusual.
so maybe this gift of pastels will be the inspiration.
–
it’s hard to think that this is the last gift she will give me. physically, anyway. that this christmas she was not here. that i will never celebrate another christmas, another birthday, another holiday of any kind with her. that my last opportunity was wrapped up in that present. that she is just gone.
it’s hard to believe, even when you know that is the course of life. it’s just hard to have it happen so soon.
a year ago today.
driving home from work my mother wished me happy birthday. it was a day early, but she didn’t want to miss it. she wasn’t feeling well, but wanted to make sure she wished me happy birthday. she promised to still give me a gift, though she wasn’t able to at the time. i was appreciative of it all, but i was unconcerned. she had been sick for a month or two. lots of pain in her back. difficulty breathing. just struggling. i just wanted to hear from her.
she never did give me that gift. [it *really* doesn't matter].
—
year later, no word. no wishes. nothing. she’s gone.
—
it’s my first year. my first birthday alone. not yet thirty and no call from my mother. no card. nothing. never more. never will be. my first birthday without my mother.
–
also, my first birthday married. first birthday with a husband. first birthday where he plans it.
—
it’s the season of firsts. this is one of many more to come. i wish i knew better how i felt.
–
all, in all, the last year of my twenties. between this and that which came before, it’s heavy. not sure how to feel. guess time will tell.
as i went through the house and all the things, i came across many un-sent or unused cards. cards i can remember buying and/or writing with a purpose to tell the person i loved and cared for them, but that for one reason or another went un-sent.
most of those were for my mother or my grandfather.
two people lost to me now.
my grandfather always sent cards. for even the most mundane holiday, he sent a card. and his cards were always elaborate displays of affection. you know those cards that have two page long sappy words of love or wisdom. those were the types he sent. apparently, in the later years i learned, those were the types he liked to receive.
as i got older i tried to keep up the pace and the un-sent cards i had for him scattered through my belongings were somewhat a tribute to that. same as ones for my mother.
as i was shopping the other day, i noticed the halloween cards. while never a particularly sentimental day, it struck me how i would never send them another card. write them another sentiment. never buy a card and forget to send it, as i had with so many others.
but i started to browse through them anyway. first looking for a sentimental card, with effusive prose about love or something akin to that for my grandfather. it being halloween, it was a bit more difficult, but i found something short but sweet [as sweet as halloween cards get].
for my mother i picked out a pug in a costume [she loved animals and we had a peke, close enough], with a message just for her.
a card i couldn’t forget to send. a message, hopefully received.
[lost]
in the days leading up to my mother’s passing, she wanted nothing more than to go home. to get her things in order. she wanted to find the incan stamp she found while on a family vacation, back in the days you could still take archaeological artifacts from the sites. she mentioned it before, before her passing was so imminent, but i never saw the stamp. the day after passing, i went through her things in search of this stamp. and i quickly found it.
it was nothing i imagined. it was small. it was shaped like a stamp pencil topper i had in my youth [a circle that necked down to a pencil topper]. it was grey. it was stone or some other material.
it was perfect.
i put it with things of hers i wanted immediately.
but now, that her things are out of her house and in mine, i cannot find it. i’m holding out hope that it is here. that i have yet to find it. that since i have yet to go through all things, that it will appear. but in the back of my mind i’m afraid it is gone. like her. that the one, most prized possession she had, i lost. even writing this makes it too real.
–
[found]
getting ready in the mirror, hair pulled back in a towel post shower, i am applying make-up. unexpectedly examining my reflection in the mirror.
and there it is.
your nose. or “the [family surname]‘ nose as i have dubbed it.
the nose, i’ve hated. with its flat bottom, it’s all too steep slope. the way if photographed incorrectly, makes me look like a pig.
your nose.
instead, today, as if seeing it for the first time. i treasure it. you, staring at me, in the mirror. as if you’re always here. as if you never left.
living, all of it, seems it’s an affront to my mother’s death. someone lives. someone survives. it begs the question why. why did they live? why did she die? why?
it seems like each breath. each moment of happiness. each and every single thing is a moment that seems such a contrast to my mother’s death. she is gone. but others continue on. it kills me.
we cleaned out my mother’s house this weekend. the final big push. i had been there before organizing, packing, purging, saving, preparing. nothing really prepares you though. how do you prepare to empty a house? a life. my childhood. her adulthood. how do you prepare to reduce it all to: 1) keep, 2) donate, 3) trash? how could she be gone?
i started in the basement, sorting through the last remaining areas requiring review. there were so many things. new things. things to be done. things to be used. things that were her life. paint to be applied in the kitchen. light fixtures to be changed outside. towel racks and curtain fixtures to be hung. rooms to be remodeled. all left unused, not done.
then there were the other unused items. tools. kitchen utensils. small appliances/gadgets. other supplies. more than i ever noticed. more than i imagined. in some way it was as if she was buying them for me. leaving them behind, unused for us to start our life together. the ultimate wedding gift?
i would rather have her just a little longer.
so we packed. we donated. we trashed. a [big] dumpster full. until we were done. until the house was empty. and we closed the door.
**
my room was finally cleaned and cleared out like she always asked me to do when i came home.
**
now we are left with a decision about whether to make no changes and sell the house as distressed or to do some remodeling before selling.
decisions for which i am unprepared. i am still wondering how could i have left her there alone? to live with so little. to live with so much. emptiness. loneliness. a life with more than she knew and less than she needed.
i’m bound to thank you for it.
i have been remiss to write my thank you notes. for our wedding. for my mother’s funeral.
i think it is the duplicity of the task that has kept me from starting. not that they are redundant, but that they are linked. i cannot do one without the other. so instead of dealing with one or the other, i dealt with none.
until today.
i finally got out the funeral book to find the information that would lead to the creation of the thank you notes for things related to my mother’s passing. yes, it is odd that i started with a sad event that took place [by a margin] after the happy event, but maybe it is not completely. it’s the harder task to accomplish, so i couldn’t put it off. if i completed those notes, i had the good notes to look forward to writing. plus, there were fewer notes to write. the “task” seemed as though i could accomplish it.
but then i opened the guest book. it was not what i expected. it was more. i expected a book, maybe with a title page, and some pages with guest info. instead it was a chronology, or a final summation, of my mother’s life. alongside the cold hard facts of her passing were words of comfort. quotes, sayings, poems and psalms. the two intertwined to provide the reasoning [?], solace [?], story [?] of my mother’s passing. halfway through i had to stop reading and get right to the data. it was all too much. i scrolled through the names, the witnesses of her last service, and stopped again. i picked up the thank you notes and started writing to the people i knew and were “easy” for me to communicate to first. i got through the bunch.
[numb]
i started on the wedding thank you notes. writing them was rather uneventful, but their juxtaposition to those for my mother’s funeral was unsettling. i am more than grateful to the people in my life, but having to detail both sides back-to-back is not how i expected.
so thank you. for the happy and the sad.
my mother was an avid holistic nutritionist. she got that from her mother. now that did not mean she only followed alternative medicine and did not believe in traditional medicine; rather, it mean that she knew diet played a role in one’s overall well-being. while she may not have always acted in the proper way, with that knowledge, but she always took her vitamins. she had a whole kitchen cabinet full of them.
recently, i started taking vitamins again. regularly. more regularly than i ever have before. [i have some that i am prescribed to take, but in a totally volunteer nature, this is the first time i have managed to take them this long.] i realized that as i take my vitamins every morning and every night, i think of my mother. this was her routine, though she also took them throughout the day. this was her habit/practice that i am now adopting. one small ways she is living on in me. helping me through this. staying close. and in this small way, this small ritual, she is here with me.
becoming conscious of this, has made me start to think of the other things i got from my mother. i need to start documenting them so i don’t forget.
