On 21 August it was my mother's birthday. she would have been 84, maybe or even 81. She had two different dates for her birth and an obsession about not letting her real age be known. When she died I left out her birth date on purpose on the notification. When people asked me how old she was I replied that she would not have wanted me to tell.
I think about my mother with great great sadness, not because I lost my mother but because her life was such a waste. She died isolated and sad and I could not help her. She was angry with me with everybody and because I was her caretaker she often vented on me. The rational together me knows I should not have taken it personally but I did. Once when I took her to the hospital, deceiving her that I was merely taking her to the clinic for vitamin B12 injections (the elixir for all ills), she became furious with the doctor, the nurses, telling them that there was nothing wrong with her, she just needed to sleep. And then she turned to me and spewed forth such venom, I was left breathless. She reviled my father, my sister, my brother and before she let loose her anger on me, I fled, ostensibly to get her stuff at the home where she was staying. She became desperately ill and nearly died and never referred to her outburst again. But then, we only had careful conversations. My mother's anger was in a class of its own.
She died about 9 months later, from brain cancer. She just slowly left and we never talked about anything more serious than the weather. Except one day, she looked at me and said, "I'm so afraid for twelve" I didn't know what she meant and replied, Don't worry too much Mom, after all twelve is older than eleven and younger that thirteen. she looked at me with her clear blue eyes and said "You know I've never thought about it in that way" and she half smiled and that was the end of that conversation.
At her funeral there were only about 15 people but the blessing was that they told me what she had meant to them, what a good and kind and supportive friend and surrogate granny she had been. It was good to know that my mother was more than the sad angry woman I had known all my life.
1 comment:
That was a very touching post. I loved the little part about twelve. Like sudden light dawning though only for seconds at a time.
When my husband was dying, he said, "Can't we go home now?" (I know the dying often talk about travel) but we were at home when he asked. He would ask all the time about going back to California? And we were always here.
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