My Mother, Alone and Weeping

1. prologue

2. grandfather

He was a master craftsman. He made cabinets and other beautiful objects from wood. He had a rare affinity for trees. He had a polished adz.

res´piratory distress´ syn´drome, n. an acute lung disease of newborn, esp. premature, infants.

He took my hand and placed it on the curved newel post. With open palm I traced the smooth spiral. I made this, he said to me.

Respiratory failure. But we knew. That he always said. If he went into the hospital for the night. He’d never come out again. His yellow mouth open on the gurney.

There was never any money. My mother made her own clothes and learned to loathe potatoes. My grandmother cleaned the house every day. Cooked bratwürst and dumplings. He woke my mother with pots and pans clanging. He dried the dishes with a yellow terry cloth.

In situations like these. It’s best to remember. To try to keep. We can only. Remember.

My mother’s voice fills the dark of the pre-dawn house. What do you mean, he’s dead. He was only there for tests. There must be some mistake. My father, insisting, he must come home. My arms around her as. She falls to the ground.

He was proud. He said he liked small houses. They shrank, exponentially, until there was only a single-wide mobile home. But he owned it. It was his.

Lake Elsinore Bird Man Deceased!
Memorial service at eleven.
Family grieves.
Flowers may be sent to:
The birds will miss him.

He was struck by a police car. When I was eleven. Suffered permanent damage to the spine. No longer able to raise his chin from his chest. He stared at the ground for ten years. His waist became his neck. His eyes, curving slyly to the left.

His room filled with clowns: They accumulate slowly, like dust, over the years of birthday Christmas anniversary until I think he must be sick of them. Statues. Plates. Figurines. He sells them all the year they make their last move. He says they won’t fit into their new home. My mother, considering the years of careful shopping, resigns herself to buying him shirts. His old ones are in tatters. We don’t discuss the way he turns his head to admire the collection that isn’t there.

Hello, Uncle Paul? Can you hear me? This is your great-niece. Can you hear me? We have a bad connection. Yes it’s been a long time. I’m sorry I woke you. Your brother is dead. My grandfather. Can you hear me? Your brother is dead.

The Neptune Society’s deluxe package includes retrieval of the corpse and subsequent burning. Offers substantially reduced! prices on silver plated disposal containers. Scattering fee extra. It is illegal to throw the ashes over the sea without a permit. Illegal to bury them without a permit. The permit costs ten dollars and can be obtained from City Hall. It is Illegal to place ashes on the ground. Under the tree. Next to the graves of his dogs. Illegal to carry them with you. On the passenger seat of the car. To scatter them like bird feed on the grass. By the lake. Over the sea.

Take this. He pressed the folded bill into my hand. And smiled. He never gave me money. Never had it. To give. A ten-dollar bill. His eyes full with something.

He died one week later.

3. scraps of paper in my wastebasket

(On a charred yellow post-it)

send mother card

re: grandfather
re: godmother

“Fatalism is the refuge of a conscience-stricken mind, maddened at the sight of evils which it has brought upon itself, and cannot remove.”
– John Henry Newman

Podesta Baldocchi (Jen) 346-1300     $47.20

…paperwhites…pom poms?...hyacinths? no—freesias. plumeria.

Anything white smells good. Just my name. With love.

4. godmother

debilitating but not terminal

Par´ kin·son’s disease´ (pär´ kin sens), n. a neurological disease believed to be caused by deterioration of the brain cells producing dopamine, occurring primarily after the age of sixty, and characterized by tremors (esp. of the fingers and hands), muscle rigidity, and a shuffling gait.

a strange combination of factors producing effects similar to

Brain surgery in Switzerland. No anesthetic. Drilling a hole in the skull. Neural reactions must be monitored. Responses verified. She was forty-six.

He was so kind. Her second husband. Caring for her all those years. With his flourishing chiropractic business and three small children. She lay in bed until it was time to clean the house. A woman should be able. To care for her home and family. She begged for help. Plead with him. A maid. A high school girl. He said no. Her dignity must be preserved. A kerchief tied beneath her quavering chin. Rough clothes and dirty hands. Succulent dinners.

Later we were told. She hadn’t been diagnosed as such. Had all of the symptoms. But did not possess critical symptoms. The disease progressed regardless.

Guiliano’s Delicatessen pepperoncini  bruschetta  mortadella
white bag green striped logo plastic handles
and after the carpet picnic was over they’d let me watch Saturday Night Live not all just the first skit then off to her bed where she’d lay me in layers of satin small pillows with fringed tassels intricate prickly lace a canopy of pale cream netting to sleep while they drank downstairs for hours.

She was eighteen. Her first husband. A “premature baby” they called it then. 1968. Her first. Grew tall and strong.

She was thirty-five. She married again. He. Did not want children. They were not part of his plan. Her son married. A child. Her grandchild. A son.

She was thirty-five and she was forty-six. In between she had eleven pregnancies. Miscarriages. His plan had changed.

She was thirty-six and forty and forty-two. Three sons. His sons. Raised to spurn their mother. The scent of death that clung to her.

She was forty-six. Early onset Parkinson’s. Neurological flutters induced by excessive pregnancies. They diagnosed. Miscarriages. Babies. Fifteen in all.

Her powdered body replete with satin. Respiratory failure. The confirmed cause. But we knew. Four years after the surgery. She survived for four years.

One year ago. He took out a life insurance policy. He sat on the bed next to her. Read her the policy. Every week. He waved the paper in her face. Told her it was tempting. I wonder if he held her hand. When he read the document. I wonder if he held the pillow. Smoothed the edges. The fabric. Over her face. I wonder how he kept from laughing.

Her family. One by one. He forbade her to see. Her mother’s house across the street. Two sisters two blocks over. He gave her first son’s childhood photos to charity. He burned their wedding pictures. Her brother wants to kill him. My mother, alone and weeping, pages through yellowed photo albums. Elementary school. Two girls holding hands.

Thick white flowers fill the house with scent. As she tells me the cost. A private autopsy. An inquest. $2,000 that no one has. Can afford.

A cardboard photo with thick whitse margins. Scarred. My mother and godmother in graduation robes. T-strapped shoes. Flecked in pink. The photo is bent. Cap tassels to the right. My mother smiles at my grandfather who takes the picture. My godmother smiling into the camera. Her hair blonde, a coil on her shoulder. Her eyes deeply hooded. Her lips smooth and pink.

She was cremated two days after she died.

4. Epilogue

Wadded bits of paper in my wastebasket. Ink blurred. Faded. Fragments of pieces of scraps of memories. Remain.

remember to use the past tense

©1999 Tamar Love