goodbye

We make cards today, one of the Christmas activities planned for Mom in the next two weeks. It will be hard to help her forget she isn't in Idaho for the holidays, the place she has spent Christmas each year for thirty-four years. Last year was the first Christmas she'd missed in that entire time. But it was different last year, not as hard, as Mom was home in her Medina residence whereas now she's "home" at the Mirabella. Not home at all.

Jennifer has brought stamps, ink, stickers and white card stock cut on a zig-saw, like rickrack trim Mom and I would sew crazily onto summer shorts and dresses for ourselves back in the 60s. We situate Mom in her wheelchair so her elbows are supported by her adjustable table. Her hands are at the ready. We're not sure what Mom will be able to do or not, so we start small, asking if she wants to press down the 2x2 photo of herself to the card stock. Lorna's been busy sticking rolls of tape onto the back of these photos, pictures Jennifer took last week. The day of the photos wasn't one of Mom's good days, so Lorna had to support Mom's spine so she'd come across "normal" instead of slumped in the photo.

I crouch to the right of Mom, ready to guide her hand if necessary.

"Where," she says at first. "Where...to go?"

"Doesn't matter Mom...wherever you want it to go," I say back to her, encouraging her to tape the photo into place wherever it looks good to her.

Mom's hand hovers there with the photo pressed between her thumb and her forefinger for several minutes. I can see her brain working, how she considers whether to square the photo with the edges of the card stock or whether to place it jauntily at an angle. And then there's the question of which part of the card to make use of--the corners, the middle, each will create a different effect. In years past, if Mom and I were making these cards we would launch into a conversation assessing the relative merits of each of these strategies, like it was decision worthy of careful deliberation.

Minutes later, Mom is still considering where to place the photo. I'm watching her, wondering how long this is going to take. Finally I touch her hand and suggest--"What about taping it here," pointing to the left corner of the space available. Mom nods "Yes" and begins to push her thumb into the center of her photo; the rest of her fingers remain suspended, inches above the photo's surface. I help her smooth the edges so the photo affixes evenly to the card.

Next, we consider the stamp and which color ink to use. Jennifer grabs for the Christmas wreath stamp and hands it to Mom. "Red or green?" she asks Mom, showing her the two different colored pads of ink. I can see Mom's mouth forming the "r" and the "g" of these two colors but her hands remain motionless in front of her chest, grabbing for neither of the pads.

"What about red?" Jennifer asks. Mom looks relieved at the suggestion and nods "Yes." Both Jennifer and I help Mom to press the wreath stamp down hard into the ink pad and then ferry it to a blank spot on Mom's card. "You've got to press down hard now Dorin," Jennifer says, explaining to Mom how stamps are not forgiving--takes a lot of pressure to get the ink to imprint evenly. We guide Mom's hand with the stamp as we press down into the card stock, helping to keep the stamp solidly in one place as the ink is transferred to the card. "Do you think we're done?" Jennifer asks. Mom and I both nods "Yes" as we carefully lift the stamp from the card, trying not to smudges the wet ink. Voila--there's a near perfect Christmas wreath. right next to Mom's photo. A small red smudge winks to the right of the wreath, a place where Mom's finger accidentally dragged the card's surface. Any other time, this smudge would bother Mom--a sign, she would think, of imperfection when perfection was possible. But now, she doesn't appear to notice, and nether do I.

Mom looks at this wreath in wonder--as in she can't believe she's just done this magical thing--imprinted red ink to a card. Her mouth opens to a wide grin, something that's definitely a smile, whereas most of Mom's other "smiles" look like grimaces, or at least frozen somewhere between a smile and a grimace. There's no question this is a smile. I go limp at the sight of it's loveliness--that something so small as a stamp on a card could bring such pleasure.

We repeat the sticking process with the two holiday stickers Mom's chosen for the card. We have eleven more cards to go. It will take us four and a half hours to finish these cards, at least an hour of this time taken up with Mom dictating to me what messages she wants me to write on the back of the card. Jennifer brought a silver pen--makes a smooth swoosh of silver ink each time I put pen to paper. We think hard about what to write on each of the cards, wanting the messages to convey Mom's thoughts even though she has a hard time communicating her thoughts. To myself I'm thinking--maybe these will be the last Christmas cards Mom sends, maybe there won't be another Christmas for Mom. But I don't say any of this to Mom. We take as long as it takes--Mom dictating, me writing. Her smiles are worth every second.

All the while we're making our cards, I'm thinking about what I need to say to Mom later tonight--goodbye--because I'll be going to Idaho for ten days and she won't be coming with me. My sister-in-law is also leaving for Idaho the day after Christmas with two of her children. So Mom will be alone for over a week, alone except for the activities I've arranged and the people I've asked to come see her. Maybe Eric will visit Mom. Mom would like that.

Leaving has always been a fraught activity for me, Maybe its hereditary. Growing up, Mom had a hard time leaving me when she and Dad occasionally went away by themselves on a business trip--once to Chicago and the Virgin Islands, once to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm sure there were others, it's just these are what I remember. And, to be fair, I had a difficult time being left. I found notes I wrote to Mom, begging her not to leave me, begging her to come home. In one of Mom's keepsake boxes there was a letter addressed to "Century Plaza Hotel" with a post date of November 17, 1967. I remember this trip, as Mom and Dad had gone down to the furniture market in San Francisco looking for finds for Dad's design store, Laurelhurst Interiors. They'd made a side trip to Los Angeles, staying at the then swank Century Plaza. There are two notes inside the envelope. One of them, 9x11, reads: "Dear Mamu, I miss you I what you very very mush I wish you a safe trip back, you are a nice mamu. How are you. Luve Christine." Apparently I wasn't much of a speller. This is followed by two pencil drawings, one of "Christine" saying in a bubble "Hi Mama" and the other of "Mame" saying "I love you very very much." There's also a second piece of paper, only 3x9, that says, in pencil, "I don't want to stay at Gretchen's house." Gretchen Andrews was my best friend, in addition to Sandra Blakely who lived at the end of the point. Gretchen and I were connected at the hip, at all times, and yet at age seven I didn't want to be there with her parents Bob and Priscilla. I wanted my own mother, my own house. Nothing else would do. I remember this separation as excruciating, punctuated by much crying and unhappiness. My notes to Mom were returned, however--the US PO stamp said the letter was "unclaimed." Mom must have forgotten to check the mail while there or maybe the letter took too long to get to Los Angeles. My words went unread until Mom returned. My consolation was a very large pink stuffed mole, which I named "Molely," brought back to me by Mom in an extravagant pink and orange square box. As cool as I thought Molely was, I would rather Mom had never left. Nonetheless, I loved that mole until it's fur turned an unfortunately shade of pink-grey from too much handling, too many kisses and hugs. "Molely" still lives in my spare bedroom closet--something I can't seem to part with.

In contrast, Dad's absence on business trips was not nearly as upsetting. In the same year, 1967, Dad went to Chicago on business--he left, it appears, while most of his family were doing something else. Mom has each of us write him a note which she then posted on January 9th. My note is simple, non-emotional. I write in pencil and then go over the letters in black ink: "I went to Amys house I am sorry at I did not get to say goodbye to you Merry Christmas From Christine." Each of the "Ys" in the note have long tails that reach back in a grand flourish to the beginning consonant. At the end of the note, there's a tiny drawing if a girl with angel wings. I address the note "to Payl" (a version of Paul, I assume) rather than to Dad or Daddy. Mom also writes a quick note, oddly impersonal: "It is quiet around here. At least Deda keeps talking about how quiet it is without you. We're going to the Ice Capades this afternoon. Hope you're feeling better. See you Tuesday." Peter writes the most, being thirteen at the time. He tells Dad about skiing for the first time: "Dear Dad, I had fun skiing yesterday. All the equipment worked perfectly. We did not learn much the first day except the snowplow and the snowplow turn. I got home just after you left."

Telling Mom I will be leaving her over the holidays is not an easy thing--must be as difficult as Mom telling me she and Dad were going to be gone on a business trip. Mom would wait till the night before their departure and then spring it on me. I hated this. But this is what I do to Mom today, not having been able to find the right moment to share my departure with her earlier in the week.

"Mom," I say, "I'm going to go over to Idaho for Christmas."

Mom says nothing, so I'm not sure if she's heard me.

"Did you hear me Mom?" I repeat, "I'm going to be gone for ten days."

After all the activity of card making, Mom's tired. Her head is tilted back awkwardly onto her pillow, hair flat with "pillow head" rather than curled and poofy as she prefers. From my chair I can see her eyes are closed to just a slit. Her mouth gapes open like she's exclaiming "Oh" but no sound is escaping. She's not asleep but rather in that intermediate zone where she's awake but not fully following what's going on around her. When she answers me, her speech comes out fuzzy, like how your lips move when you've been out in the cold too long. Nothing is clear or enunciated. Instead, her words sound numb, lumbering. Difficult to understand.

"You..you," she slurs.

"Me what, Mom?" I respond.

"You...you...always..."

"What Mom?" I ask again, though really I'd rather not know what's troubling her mind. Whatever it is, it can't be something I want to hear. So I have to will myself to stay where I am, in this designer chair by the side of Mom's bed here at the Mirabella, will myself to listen to what she might have to say.

"Leave..." she then adds. "You...leave."

"What are you talking about Mom," I spout back to her, annoyed that this is her conclusion about me when in my way of thinking it's her son Eric who has left, chosen not to engage in a difficult and, at times, disagreeable process of dying. I've been here everyday for her. Any days I've missed I've called in and talked to her. I'm here and have been for the last three months.

"You know...know...gone gone."

This is something she's doing lately, repeating words twice, right in a row, like "gone gone."

"Gone where?" I ask.

"Away away," she answers, wrinkling her forehead, twisting her lips into an exaggerated frown.

I don't say anything at first, not sure of how to answer. 'Away' where, I ask myself? How have I left Mom? When I moved to eastern Washington to accept a job just out of law school? When I eloped and married my husband? When I launched a life for myself, separate from her and my brother's family? Which of these are the treacheries she refers to? None of them seem the act of disloyalty Mom chooses to see. Instead, they are life processes--of growing up, moving away, starting a life. What is so nefarious in this?

"No," I say to her. "You're wrong. I'm right here Mom, always have been."

"No," she says back to me. "NO...NO...NO."

We sit with this for a time, minutes at least. I wonder at what she's thinking. Her grief is obvious. My defection this Christmas fits a pattern for her, of being gone when she wants me to stay. But this has never been anything we can discuss. Nor can we talk about her responses to my "leaving" or to anything else for that matter that doesn't please her. Mom's famous shunning.

"I need to have some down time," I tell her then, deciding to ignore her rebuke. "Time away. You can understand can't you?"

Mom says nothing to this, her eyes now decidedly closed. There's breath coming from her mouth as I can hear a sigh each time she breathes out, so loud it almost speaks a language.

I think about what Lorna told me several days ago, about how the last few weeks Mom has received ghostly visits from her Mom, her Dad. "They sit on the bed, my dear," Lorna told me, "and your Mom talks away." I was stunned by this. While I've heard of such things, visitations before people pass away, I had not considered the fact that Mom would be dying sometime soon. Her doctor has given her a year or maybe two. What could this mean? Ironic, I think, that on the eve of Mom's own passing, the people she has loved the most come back to her. There's no placating Mom's grief over the unnecessary death of her mother in 1936 and the later death of her father when I am eight years old. These are all leavings for her--people who have gone before Mom was ready to let them go. The difference is, Mom doesn't blame her Mom, her Dad for their unwanted departures, not like what she's accusing me of here tonight--of leaving her when I don't need to be gone. There's bitterness reserved here for me, but for her mother and her father there's just grief at the unfairness of life. Why is this?

We say nothing more. Mom's silence works like a guilt, causing me to question what I've planned, what I need for myself. My ticket was purchased back in July, long before Mom's stroke. Deciding to pack a suitcase and get on that plane on Saturday, however, are different matters all together than that earlier ticket purchase. They are acts of defection that require me to put aside my worry about Mom, my interest in her having as full a life as possible for as long as she can. They are acts that say--this is my life and I need to live it as best as I can. The question is whether I'm ready to do this, to say this to Mom.

I can't help but think of those times Mom left me to travel with Dad. At the time, I could not understand why she would choose to go with my father and leave me behind. The imperfections of a child's perspective. Now, sitting by the side of her bed, I can see we have come full circle. I am the parent saying--I need to leave but I will return. And she is the child saying, selfishly--I can't stand your leaving, please don't go.

I grab hold of Mom's right hand. It isn't easy as she has it tucked securely under her sheets. I grab the fingers and pull it gently out to rest on her duvet.

"Mom," I say to, as I squeeze her hand. "Mom, I love you. I need to go, but I'll be back. I promise. You understand don't you?"

Mom doesn't say a thing. Her eyes stay shut tight. Her breath comes light now, sleep-like, barely something I can hear. I have to lean forward to feel the rhythmic sigh of air on my face before I know for sure she's still here, still my Mom.

We sit like this for a very long time. My asking. Her not answering. Mother daughter. No longer the same at all.

When I say goodbye, she turns her cheeks from me, avoiding my lips and the lipstick moons I meant to leave behind.

I kiss her anyway. Whether she wants me to or not.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--