Trigger Warning: parent death, cancer, abuse
This is a love story. I don’t feel ready to tell it, but I also don’t feel like keeping it in my brain anymore. Maybe I’m writing this for me, but perhaps I’m also writing it for you. So people know who you are, even though you’re gone.
The first time you hit me, I was 17. Well, your hands didn’t hit me, but your flying can of black beans did. I loved you through that, since you were sick. I forgave you the first time, but I don’t know that I forgive you for the rest. I don’t forgive you for making me come home to clean that “dirty” plate of mine that you smashed on the kitchen floor. I don’t forgive you for not accepting my coming out. I don’t forgive you for talking behind my back about how I was going through a “phase.” I don’t forgive you for leaving me.
I want to love you anyway, I do love you anyway, but those last few years of your life were really fucking hard, and you were unkind – downright mean – not only to me but also to the people I love. I’m angry with you still, but, fuck, do I miss you.
As I walked into the room, I noticed the smell. Sterile, cold, lonely, cancer. There you were, in a hospital gown, your mouth wide open, like you were shocked you were dead.
“Hi, Mommy.”
You didn’t respond. I had nothing else to say, but I watched your chest, waiting for the rise and fall. I was ready for you to smile and laugh your too-loud laugh because – haha – you had tricked us all. Towards the end, your breathing became wet and rattley. I would have given anything to hear that horrible sound again, instead of this unbearable, palpable silence. Amy, your best friend, tried to get the necklace off of you, the one that said “Mother”. I didn’t want it to be cremated with you. She broke down though, touching you, the necklace would have to wait until a nurse could do it. Your hair, what was once your pride and joy, was dead and lifeless. You spent your time on this earth using your hands to make other people beautiful, whether it was their nails, their hair, or their makeup. Now those hands, once so full of life, were slack and cold.
The first thing to go was your digestive system, just as predicted by the hospice staff. You were still hungry, but you vomited everything up because the cancer had wrapped its way around your intestines. A g-tube became futile, it wasn’t improving your quality of life, it was only there to keep you alive longer.
Even when you closed your eyes, never to open them again, the nurses promised you could still hear and feel me. I didn’t want to see you like this anymore, so I stayed away when you fell asleep for the last time. I couldn’t bear to be there now that you had gone. This was it. These would be the last memories I had of you, mouth wide open in a scream, hands cold. I felt the panic building in my chest, so I turned around and left the room.
In the hallway, it hit me: our family was gone. Aunt Tammy, the person who had promised to help me through this, had left me. Your siblings, and my grandmother, had all decided I wasn’t worth saving – I had been left to drown. I could feel the water rising, no liferaft, treading water in an ocean too deep. I wanted you, I wanted my mom. I wanted you to hold me in your arms like a kid and sing me your lullaby that I didn’t remember anymore. That piece of you was gone now; no one knew the song but you and me.
A text, from Aunt Tammy: You’ve made your choice and you chose Amy. We are not coming to the funeral. You’re no longer a part of this family.
My act of betrayal? Choosing to stay with Amy, especially after our family snuck in booze to your bedside vigil, where they were drunk most of the time. You made me executor of your will, just in the nick of time, so I had control of all your finances and my inheritance. It ruined them to see me making my own decisions about your salon, about our house, about the legacy you were leaving behind. Aunt Tammy was right; I chose Amy because Amy always chose me. Every step of the way, I was her pseudo-child. When Aunt Tammy started screaming at me in the hospital with my comatose mother lying in front of me, I walked out. I didn’t know it would be the last time I ever talked to her. That doesn’t mean I didn’t hear when she spoke to Amy about me, as I hid around the corner in the lobby of 4 North.
“I’ve done everything for Bowie. I gave them a place to stay, I lent them money, I bought them food, I moved them into their dorm–” And her list went on and on.
Amy only had one thing to say: “You can’t hold those things over their head for the rest of their life.”
“Oh, but I will.”
They didn’t wait for me at the hospital, they blocked my phone number and social media, and then I got that single text telling me that I was done, that apparently the only thing keeping me in the family was my dying – dead, I reminded myself – mother. I wanted to be angry. I tried to be angry but I couldn’t.
I felt truly alone for the first time in my life. You had been my lighthouse for so long and I, your keeper. I held your hair back every time you were sick, made every meal, and took you to the hospital, each time thinking it would be the last time. You lived through all of that though, you were supposed to be the one who lived, even with the dire prognosis. This time it got you, and now I was alone.
“I’m here.”
Not you, but Amy. The closest thing to you. She wouldn’t tell me until later that you “gave” me to her, as your parting gift. She held my hand every chance she got, knowing I needed a tether to stay here. It would have been easy for me to disappear and never come up for air again, but every time I thought about it, there she was. Amy became my rock, my guidepost, my new lighthouse, but she was her own keeper. She led me through probate, through debts, through your memorial. We had lemon bars and black jelly beans and stale Peeps and jelly doughnuts, all of your favorites. A storm loomed over us, but it never rained on the pavilion where we were gathered at. People said it was you, taking care of us, of me, but I wasn’t so sure. I wanted to believe you were here, but there wasn’t any concrete evidence. I would have to rely on belief now and didn’t know if I believed in anything.
Your sendoff was lovely, people from all over the country came to say goodbye to you and wish you farewell. We hung chakra symbols, gave out your crystals to everyone who came, and had people write notes about what they loved about you. People spoke about your kindness, your generosity, and your give-grace-but-take-no-shit attitude. You were so loved.
It’s surprisingly easier for me to remember the bad things about you over the good. I always thought it would be the opposite, and for a while it was. However, as I get further away from your death, I find it harder and harder to remember the times we laughed and easier to remember the times you made me cry. Yet somehow, I still want my mom every second of every day. I still miss you, and the waves still come, even if they aren’t as furious or overwhelming.
Fuck, there are so many things to say and not enough words in the world to say them.
It’s always been you and me, Mom, and now it’s just me.
Whenever I’m feeling uncontrollably angry with you, I remember what I wrote for your memorial service and I remind myself that, though flawed, you were the best mom you could be.
I don’t know what the rest of my life holds, but I promise to do right by you. To love with all of my love and to fight with all of my fight. To live a quality life over a quantity life. You were the Miss Honey to my Matilda, the Freaky to my Friday, and the Lorelai to my Rory, and I know you’ve given me everything I need.
I forgive you.
Beautiful, thank you Bowie.