“Did I mock the dreamer in my mother and then insult her for having no dreams?”
— Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living
— Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living
A field guide to my mother’s death (incomplete):
BLUE NOTEBOOK: The one I brought back from Zanzibar, a miniature manuscript book, with the inscription, “This is the mama notebook, all notes on visit to Mom in Florida, March 2018.” The body rots. The body clots. The body dots the universe with pain! Words like nephrology and debridement appear with definitions, doctors, dimensions. Mama, the wounded one. I’m ashamed to say I debated for days whether or not I would come home to say goodbye.
How many times had she told me through video calls, “It’s time to come home now, it’s time to come home.” Too many. But I thought I had things to finish up on the islands before I booked my flight. I wasn’t ready to face what was waiting for me with my mother’s wild wounds.
KEY LIME PIE: The kind from Yoder’s, that Amish shop down the street from the hospital in Sarasota, in Pinecraft, the enclave where the Amish summer in the winters, excusing their beliefs for the duration of a bus ride south to the sunshine.
Picked up a pie assignment for the duration so that I could eat as much key lime as my heart desired. Yes, the French silk and berry slices, also divine. I suppose I know how to turn a bitter situation sweet by writing about a pie shop as my mother is dying. I spend way too much time in the corner booth, deciphering layered notes.
Some sentences are about pie; other sentences are about my mother’s condition, lists of her bio-stats and death requests.
AMBER BEADS: The ones my sister lost when they broke from the chain they were on around her neck and scattered across the grass in Pinecraft Park. We hunched our bodies to the ground to get a closer look, almost missed the blue herons sailing by on the tiny river that ran through the small park.
How mystical, how majestic, how out of time and space, to collect amber beads in these final days—our mother waiting for us in amber waves of dying.
GOLD BRACELETS: The ones she thought I stole from her when I carried them back to the condo for safekeeping when she checked into the Magnolia. That god-awful place where people in practical TJ Maxx suits sit behind desks and smile big until you sign the paperwork and then cackle as they lock the doors with your mother inside their institution.
I’m still wearing a bracelet on each wrist—a symbol of my resistance to that woman’s insistence on keeping my mother contained in a place that could not deal with her wounds. We essentially had to kidnap her in the middle of the night and leave out the side door in a wheelchair. I’m glad I thought ahead and kept the bracelets in a shoebox back at the home front. What a nightmare!
ORCHID: The one we bought for her at the fancy upscale grocer + floral shop walking distance from the hospital. With a tinge of purple, we knew she’d appreciate it.
“Fill the room with beauty.”
This was a directive from my old high school sweetheart, who kept in touch with me during this time, even though we weren’t together yet, that it would take two more years of talking to realize that we kind of had a thing for each other.
BLUE NOTEBOOK: The one I brought back from Zanzibar, a miniature manuscript book, with the inscription, “This is the mama notebook, all notes on visit to Mom in Florida, March 2018.” The body rots. The body clots. The body dots the universe with pain! Words like nephrology and debridement appear with definitions, doctors, dimensions. Mama, the wounded one. I’m ashamed to say I debated for days whether or not I would come home to say goodbye.
How many times had she told me through video calls, “It’s time to come home now, it’s time to come home.” Too many. But I thought I had things to finish up on the islands before I booked my flight. I wasn’t ready to face what was waiting for me with my mother’s wild wounds.
KEY LIME PIE: The kind from Yoder’s, that Amish shop down the street from the hospital in Sarasota, in Pinecraft, the enclave where the Amish summer in the winters, excusing their beliefs for the duration of a bus ride south to the sunshine.
Picked up a pie assignment for the duration so that I could eat as much key lime as my heart desired. Yes, the French silk and berry slices, also divine. I suppose I know how to turn a bitter situation sweet by writing about a pie shop as my mother is dying. I spend way too much time in the corner booth, deciphering layered notes.
Some sentences are about pie; other sentences are about my mother’s condition, lists of her bio-stats and death requests.
AMBER BEADS: The ones my sister lost when they broke from the chain they were on around her neck and scattered across the grass in Pinecraft Park. We hunched our bodies to the ground to get a closer look, almost missed the blue herons sailing by on the tiny river that ran through the small park.
How mystical, how majestic, how out of time and space, to collect amber beads in these final days—our mother waiting for us in amber waves of dying.
GOLD BRACELETS: The ones she thought I stole from her when I carried them back to the condo for safekeeping when she checked into the Magnolia. That god-awful place where people in practical TJ Maxx suits sit behind desks and smile big until you sign the paperwork and then cackle as they lock the doors with your mother inside their institution.
I’m still wearing a bracelet on each wrist—a symbol of my resistance to that woman’s insistence on keeping my mother contained in a place that could not deal with her wounds. We essentially had to kidnap her in the middle of the night and leave out the side door in a wheelchair. I’m glad I thought ahead and kept the bracelets in a shoebox back at the home front. What a nightmare!
ORCHID: The one we bought for her at the fancy upscale grocer + floral shop walking distance from the hospital. With a tinge of purple, we knew she’d appreciate it.
“Fill the room with beauty.”
This was a directive from my old high school sweetheart, who kept in touch with me during this time, even though we weren’t together yet, that it would take two more years of talking to realize that we kind of had a thing for each other.
