There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (48 page)

I know the joke would not be lost on her and that she would actually appreciate it. It is not against Catholicism to cremate, but a burial and a headstone is more often the norm. But “dust to dust” sounds more like cremation than decomposition if you ask me. There is not even a skeleton left after the oven. Catholics love funerals and a place to visit their dead, so I will eventually find her a spot in a mausoleum in the city if I can. But cremating her was what I wanted, and I did what I wanted to do. I did not like the idea of her in a box under the ground because it did not feel finished to me. She was never a woman to be contained. She was the kind who would rather go down in a blaze
of glory than be in a box. It seemed fitting. I wanted her with me as well as near or in her favorite places.

This would end up being easier to do than expected because she, of course, did not entirely fit in the cookie jar. When the funeral director handed me the jar, he also handed me a canvas bag with the name of the funeral home printed on the side. It was shockingly heavy. I felt like I had just visited a gift shop in a theme park that had happened to be death themed. The director sheepishly said that she didn’t fit in the jar, “So the rest of her is in this plastic sealed bag and blond wooden box. Sorry about that.” At this point that was the least of my worries. I was just glad they finished all of her.

The wooden box sits next to our beloved dog Darla in a cabinet. I have yet to decide what to do with either of them. The sterling biscuit container indeed sits on my antique marble bar table amid the beautiful bottles and antique decanters and items we collected from all over the world. I can’t wait to feel her watching me.

•   •   •

While Mom was dying I tried to keep giving myself the benefit of every doubt. I was there and loving. Toward the end, I consciously made myself breathe and stay present in every moment. If I drifted in attempt to escape the situation, I would snap back and touch her arm and tell her I loved her. I said what I thought I wanted to say. I said what I thought she would want to hear. I said words but it never felt cathartic or sufficient. And I will never know if she heard me or not.

I would have to remind myself that every time I visited her I did hug her and tell her I loved her. It had to have an impact. But it never seemed enough for either one of us.

It never felt satisfying and I never exhaled. I didn’t think I started early enough, while she was able to respond. I kept beating myself up for not doing something differently. I kept having that gnawing feeling that I waited too long to start really spending time with her. But
then I remember how impossibly hard it had been to be around her. I had created a distance so as to form my own life. I had to leave so I could return.

And yet I look back, and I realize I really tried. I did my honest best. I never fully abandoned her all those years. While in the facility I always went back in for another hug or to say I love you again. She would sometimes smile and mumble it back or she’d start to cry as I was walking away. Had my lifetime of devotion registered with her at all? It really was not supposed to end this way. Or maybe it simply was?

In the end I wanted her to forgive me for the “divorce” and for stripping the entire office and for putting her in a facility. I admit I do carry some residual guilt. But I did get a bit of a reprieve when Lisa told me that Mom said to her, “I can’t believe Brookie did that to me with the office,” then with a pursed-lip smirk added, “That took
balls
.” Lisa said it was as if she was proud and had taught me well.

I got nothing like that from her during her dying days. Before she left this earth I never had that moment with her alone where she gave me peace of mind and heart. I never did with Dad, either. But the problem is they are the ones doing the dying. They can’t make it about us, the living. But if she had been peaceful I might have been able to exhale. I don’t know if my mother had ever been at peace.

Now that she’s gone, I’m not sure what I miss. I miss the earlier years and who I believed she was. I missed our unabashed laughter. But most of all what I think I miss is potential. I was always waiting for the drama to be over. I believed one day it would all be fine. She would be normal and sober and happy and we could relax and enjoy all we had experienced in life. Her alcoholism permeated our lives and it was on a rampage to steamroll our dreams. Mom was not strong enough to fight it. But honestly the alcoholism didn’t kill me. What did me in was the
hope
. I was never ever released from the hope. There was never any freedom from it.

I miss my mommy, but do I miss the idea of her more? I wanted to feel more relieved for her when she passed, but I don’t feel that way. Mostly I just feel sad. It seems like such a shame and such a waste actually. And yet maybe if she had been healthier, my life would not have turned out as extraordinary. I can’t regret any of my life but I do regret for her. I am OK. I was always going to be OK. She was not and that is simply sad to me. All I ever really wanted was for Mom to be happy and healthy minded. I wanted this mostly for her but it would have been an amazing gift for so many.

I also wanted my mom to accept me entirely and support my decisions. But like I have said about my own children, we are not the same people. I wanted her to agree with me and it could not happen. I often had to force myself to go against her. I wanted her to be independent, and at the same time I wanted her to help me be independent. Two things that threatened her to the core. Independence equaled loneliness for her. She claimed she was independent, but it scared her to death.

There’s an Erich Fromm quote I love: “The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother’s side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.” I did become my own person, but am not sure I was or will ever be completely independent of her. I was born from her.

Once we stopped living together full-time I didn’t want Mom to be alone. I wanted her to maximize her many creative talents. She used to help cast male cowboys for Bruce Weber. Why not go into casting? She collected linens. Maybe open a linen shop? I wanted her to streamline her life and not become a slave to her possessions like she warned me against becoming. I wanted her to not be lonely. Admittedly, I would have been jealous—and even squeamish—if she had a relationship. But I’d get over it, because I’m a big girl. Plus, if she’d had one, it could have freed me considerably. At times I wished I had a sibling from her
to carry the burden. I envisioned her traveling or having a fabulous shop in New York and fun colorful friends. I wanted us to have great holidays and family gatherings. Nothing is ever like it is in the movies.

I guess I harbored such romantic visions about who she could have been because I really believed they were options. I saw it all. Why couldn’t she? I wanted her to never drink a drop of alcohol ever again and be released from her crippling addiction. I wanted her to know how fabulous I thought she was and how much more I thought she could enjoy. I wanted her to feel loved and to have truly loved herself. But that last key desire of mine never happened. Instead, she was sad inside and alienated everybody around her. Her loneliness was epic and I felt like I was watching a life squandered.

And, because she was not communicating at all at the end, her dying was even more frustrating and I felt increasingly helpless. I could not snap my fingers and change any of it. It is a crazy, gut-churning feeling to be alive while somebody is actually dying. We should not have been done yet but maybe you never are. Maybe it never is enough. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe life just needs to be lived, period. Mom was leaving this world and I could not stop it from happening. My mother did not want to die but she spent a lifetime killing herself.

I will never feel like I said good-bye to either of my parents. But honestly, nothing would have been enough. I prayed she would hold my hand once more, make eye contact, or say I love you. They say that the hearing is one of the last senses to go and that she could hear me telling her I loved her, but I will never know. I will never know what she was or was not feeling. She seemed horribly scared to me and not at all peaceful. Maybe people just make that stuff up to help the living, grieving people? I have played and replayed those last few days and her last moments. I’ve done it drunk; I’ve done it sober. I’ve done it in therapy and out loud to myself when I’m alone. And I still can’t fucking grasp it. I wanted to be there, and I was, but the horrific image will be etched on my retinas for the rest of my life. I would
have beaten myself up if I weren’t there, but I will forever regret seeing what I saw. I cannot believe my mother no longer exists. She is no longer present in this world. I simply can’t believe it.

I understand nothing more about death than I ever have before. In fact, because I can no longer just imagine what it would look like, I no longer have the luxury of painting it the way I want to see it. I did
see
it and I did not like one bit of it. I saw it and I still don’t get it. I have no clue as to what really happened or happens.

•   •   •

For me it helps to believe that there is a God of some kind because it means that maybe Mom is not alone.

I hope and pray that our loved ones find peace and are only dead to the material world. I wanted nothing more than to know Mom ended happy in her heart. Maybe that’s why she looked so unfamiliar the second she died. Maybe the body is just a temporary house. There has to be more than this. There has to be something else. I know this world can’t possibly be all there is. I have to believe she went somewhere, because otherwise it’s just that she no longer is. I simply hate to bear that thought. I wanted some sort of proof she still occupied somewhere. I wanted a sign or to feel a “presence.” But that is not the way it worked for me, evidently. I now know why people seek mediums or psychics. They want to believe and will take any proof.

Now Mom is just ashes. If I think about it too much, I can work myself up into a frenzy. I can get claustrophobic and sweaty at the thought that I can’t touch her or go back to the way it was earlier and in good times. Now she is not anywhere I can get to or even get away from. She has been reduced to dust divided into two containers. Not sure what to do with that reality. My religion only tempers me to a certain extent. I love it in theory but when somebody you love goes away forever, it just feels so final. I know love never dies, but if given a choice I really would prefer David and my dad and my dog and my
mother to all be alive. I would only want my mother to be alive if she was sober and happy, though! Otherwise, keep her until she’s prepared to be so.

•   •   •

My kids dealt differently with Mom’s death. Grier cried when she was sleepy and brought up angels and heaven a lot. Rowan was stoic and only worried that it meant I would die soon, too. I always hated when people said how we are all constantly dying so I did not respond to Rowan with that. I reassured my daughters that I was fine and would be around a lot longer. I believe all kids deeply want to hear that.

Just because I no longer had a mother it did not mean I was no longer a mother. It actually hit me as very strange not to gauge any of my actions toward my children based on my mother’s reactions or opinions. Even though Mom did not spend a great deal of time around my girls and me together, I always had her in the back of my mind. And she only had me in the front of hers. It was as if I alone existed in and for her life. I can still hear her opinions in my head today, but because she is now not actually alive, I don’t feel the need to defend myself or yield to her way of doing things. The noise of her is turning down its volume in my thoughts. This is a bit of a relief because I no longer have to feel not good enough for her. She is dead and can’t affect the course of my days anymore. That I welcome.

One night in bed Grier made two half ovals with both her hands as if she were about to bite into a burger. She said that this was us. We were together. I saw it as we were separate but also whole because of the other half. We started pretending we were eating big burgers and saying “
Yum
.”

She then made one half oval move a bit up and the other slightly down so they were no longer parallel. “This is Rowan and me,” she said. My heart cracked. I prayed her relationship with her sister would improve but right then it was all about fighting.

I explained that it would not always feel like that between her and her sister. I promised that Rowan loved her younger sister and said I believed that they would one day be closer.

She then made half a heart with her left hand and fingers and then did the same with her right hand. She first held them apart and then slowly closed the two sides to form the heart. She then said, “Mom, it’s like this
heart
is our home.”

Often it’s at bedtime that I am moved to tears.

The other night I was lying down with Grier as I always try to do before she goes to sleep. Rowan stopped asking me to stay with her a while ago so I am savoring the one who still wants me. Grier asks to cuddle and I have to fight not falling asleep and waking up at 4:00. Sometimes I ask what she is thinking. Lately she has been saying she often thinks about Toots and Pop-Pop. I can tell she knows this will touch me and she wants to let me know she cares. I asked her what she was thinking about them. She never met my dad but hears stories all the time about him. She said she was thinking of what she would be doing with them if they were here now. I asked her what that would be. “Well, I think I would be reading my journal to Pop-Pop and I’d for sure be showing Toots my gymnastics.”

I asked her if she was sad or missed Toots. Mom scared Rowan as time went on, but she played with Grier like a kid and had deteriorated mentally by the time Grier was old enough to know her. They played like buddies together and adored little trinkets. Of course Mom had bought the expired Happy Meal toys from a tag sale and kept giving them to Grier. I kept throwing them out because I hate the clutter my mother always represented.