Tag Archives: mothers

Jun2

Grief: Living. Wreaths. Painting with Mimi. Consequences.

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

Amid the cacophony of my first-world suburban existence: prop planes buzzing above, sirens on their way, lawn mowers manicuring, birds singing sweetly and my hot tub shocking, I lit a couple sticks of incense and decided to do something I’ve been putting off for months: refreshing the springtime egg wreath on our front door.

I bought it about six years ago from Red Envelope. I don’t think they sell it anymore. It spoke to me because its muted springtime tones of subtle rosy pinks, soft powder greens, robin’s egg blue and dusty tans were more reminiscent of actual spring and actual eggs than the hot pink, electric blue and royal purples we see in easter baskets.

The wreath had been hanging every year: from the first day of spring to the first day of fall, for six years. In the fall it is replaced by an autumnal wreath, covered with (I hope artificially) speckled feathers in tones of rust, espresso and black. On Hallowe’en, for one day, the previous speckled wreath is replaced by a black feather wreath which is summarily re-replaced by the previous one. After Thanksgiving, I replace that wreath with a Christmas-time wreath until after the Epiphany wherein I replace that wreath with a faux cranberry on grapevine wreath: very wintry.

When I got married, I had grapevine and faux lily, rose, peony and hydrangea wreaths hang from every other pew at the church and window at the reception.

The hanging or display of wreaths is an apparently ancient custom. My wiki search included citations of wreaths from ancient Greece for seasonal or mythological celebrations such as the end of a harvest, or a birth of a god, death. To me, they mean “welcome” and “we know what time of year it is.”

I guess I have a wreath “thing.” We didn’t hang wreaths when I was a kid. I guess that’s why I want them in my adulthood. My wreath “thing” reminds me of my band-aid “thing”: I have band-aids in the kitchen, every bathroom of the house, some in my purse, cars and linen closet. We didn’t have band-aids when I was a kid; for some reason my parents never bought them. We needed them, but in my mind, I project that to my father and mother that they were frivolous. Band-aids and juices, things to drink. My aunts had band-aids and lemonade. I felt safe when I had a cut or scrape at their homes; I knew I would be attended to.

I digress. I write in the moment; I try to make it make sense at the end.

I have been avoiding the work on the wreath because I wanted to restore the “glaze” effect of the eggs, but without the glaze look. For some reason, I was stymied. But today, I decided: it’s gorgeous outside, I have been yearning to do this and so screw it, let’s go.

The wreath looked like this when I first started:

this is really a picture of Thing 3’s solicitors deterrent sign, which just happened to include a fair amount of the wreath, which is quite faded. The sign has been very effective.

I decided to test my super-thin acrylic paint application on a test egg, one that had fallen off the wreath. The color was still too strong. I rubbed it off with my finger and thought, “better, but I’m not going to paint and rub-out each egg, plus, they’re only two eggs that have fallen off… so I’m definitely not going to either take them off and put them back on or … ” you don’t care what I was thinking. I don’t either.

Moving on…

So then I thinned the paint some more. Better, but still…

the first two pinked eggs. meh, directly above.

Then I took a broader brush, dipped it in the water and wet an egg that was still on the wreath…. “you’re taking a big chance here… if it drips, then that’ll affect the other egg…”

The fear in my head was really just … “STOP IT.” I said to myself. “Just do it. Screw it. It’s only paint and you can dilute it….”

I put my color brush in the thinned pink paint and dabbed it onto the wet / primed egg.

It washed. It was glorious.

I heard her, Mom…. from when I was wee and we were painting on watercolor paper, a huge treat for me:

“When you wet the paper first, like thiiiissss … ” she would take a broad brush and wet just the top of her sheet. I didn’t understand, there was no color… I was impatient, but I watched.

“And then you take a pinpoint of paint, juuuust like thiiiiissss… and you dab or stroke that colored brush tip onto the wet paper … it does …. THIS….” and the color bled onto the sheet of thick, dimpled parchment. I watched with wonder and squealed at her magic.

It was those unfiltered and infrequent moments with Mom, those now- deeply poignant moments, riddled with ephemera, when she showed me who she was: a magician, a painter and an artist, who cared deeply about her creations.

It was also in those moments, that I felt envious of her interest in that paper.

In that brush.

In that paint.

In that creation.

She was in her zone then.

There was no getting her back.

“My turn! My turn!” and I would try to do it the way she showed me. Soft and gentle strokes of just water onto my sheet.

I was a spectator. She let me in for a few moments, but they were fleeting.

“That’s too much!” she would blurt, unconscious of her tone, yet (to me) very concerned about wasting the paper, of making a mistake.

She wanted it to be really good as much as I wanted it to be really good. I wanted her to be pleased and proud of me. I chose red. She wanted me to choose burgundy, but I wanted the red. She wanted to show me how to paint a sunset. I just wanted red.

So we went on… I put my reddish pink tones on my paper and watched it bleed into the water.

The color stopped where the water did. I thought that was neato.

She showed me how to make a sun burn in all that red and periwinkle.

“Make a circle with your brush, big enough for a sun. Ok! Yeah, you can add some little streaks outward and then get another color, say orange or yellow… just a little… watch what it does…”

I did as she instructed. I dabbed into the burnt orange.

“Bittersweet. That’s my favorite color,” she would say.

I’m back.

So I heard her today, when I was washing each egg first and then gently dabbed my color onto its soft, slightly porous and smooth, mounded oval surface.

The color stopped where the wash stopped. Just like on the paper.

I just noticed that today is 9 months from when Mom died. “June the TWO!” she used to shout sometimes on June 2nd; I don’t know why. “October the ONE!” on … October 1st.

Eggs. Nine months. Pregnancy. Motherhood. Death. Wreaths.

more color, more life.

So then I got confident and was off to the races. I painted about ~~seven~~ ~~twelve~~ a dozen eggs that pinkish “bright magenta” tone. I wasn’t in love with it, but it was getting better, my technique was improving and the eggs were being restored. Mom would’ve been pretty psyched.

Green. I did the same with the “lime tree” green. Dilute it to smithereens and then wash and dab. Those came out a butter yellow hue, which was ideal.

I decided to leave the blue eggs as they were. Their colors didn’t fade too much because they likely didn’t have any red tones in them.

The door faces north to the brutal Virginia sun, or else that wreath would be an omelet by now.

Then I took a step back.

The pinks were too pink. The green was OK, closer to what I wanted. I wanted to tone down the pinks.

So I mixed green with pink. A preppy fantasy. Green and pink make grink. When I put grink on all the pink eggs, it toned them down.

I was pleased.

“Wash the color… wash the color. You can always make it stronger, but making things softer… that’s a challenge,” Mom would say.

Oh how right she was, about all of that — it applied to so much more than paints and colors. It’s always easier to strong something up, to push through, to bully or force your way out, through, around or under something… but to yield…

To yield… that’s something else entirely. To step back and yield and let things roll out and just … become … without influence!

How difficult that is! We have to influence. Sometimes we have no choice. We have to step in. Change the direction of things; redirect. Can’t sit with the waiting. Can’t sit with our pain. Can’t sit with our consequences.

Consequences. Thing 2 didn’t turn in a field trip permission form nor the funds to cover the trip. It was all due last week. He was even given an extension by one day. Still didn’t do it; didn’t remind me, didn’t ask me for the funds, didn’t do any of it.

This morning he called me in a lather… “Mom. I need the funds. I need the permission form. I need it all today.” I heard noises in the background, lots of kids, adults talking over them. I thought the trip was today.

“I’ll send an email authorizing your attendance for the trip…. I don’t know about the funds… how much?” I said.

“Just send the email. We can talk about the check when I get home. Thanks… Bye, Mom.”

>click.<

I sent the email. An hour later, the teacher replies: “The trip is Thursday but the funds were due last week. I gave him an extension… finance office needed the funds by Friday. I’m sorry.

He can attend class with Mr. Gitchygoomie. He will be staying behind at school… he can attend his specials and PE. … ”

It’s been a tough “academic” year for all of us. Mom died the day before school started fer cripessakes. Thing 2 has some fantastical notion of wait-and-see after weeks of do-nothing-and-fake-it.

Thing 2 is barely surviving middle school. Middle school is … ugh, hard enough on its own, but then that little asshole on the bus couldn’t help himself. I said “asshole.” I think by the time you’re 15, if you’re still picking on unrelated people who are smaller than you, you’re an asshole. You’ve set your course. Then the parents of the asshole coming after my kids…? Lots of head shaking going on over here.

I have determined that I’m going to stop thinking about that bullying problem. In fact, I’ve determined it lots of times. Then a thought or a memory or a juxtaposition or a freakin’ voice wafts over my backyard’s fenceline crux and I’m sucked back into that ridiculous evening and subsequent days of their utter desperation. I got sucked in back now because of T2’s having to sit with the consequences of his inaction (which is also an action, by the way) and his less-than-stellar middle school accomplishments. I get it: middle school stinks.

So yeah — nine months. It feels about right. The weather here is as it should be now. The sun is shining in a bright blue cloudless sky and a breeze is rustling the oak leaves above me and blowing my stray hairs into my face. It’s cooler than expected, here at almost 11 am and it’s 67˚ outside. I’ll take it. The wind in the leaves sound like “ssssssssssSSSSSSsssssssssSsssssssssssSSssssSSSSSSSsss” but not threatening, like how a snake would hiss. It reminds me of wind blowing high grasses or wheat stalks. Very peaceful.

Murphy is laying by my feet and Charlie just hopped across the yard to say hello to the doggie who lives directly behind us.

I miss the idea of Mom. I miss the projections I wished upon her more than the reality of our relationship. I find myself romanticizing at times how things were; I find myself doing what she did a lot of the time: lying to myself about how things really were. It’s hard to admit that your relationship with the Most Important Person in your life was rife with conflict, pain, fear, complexes and mistrust. I need to remember the reality though: that things were challenged and challengING because it’s where I get my strength now.

No one is perfect. I am not a perfect mother. I am reactive and abrupt and cold at times. I am also tender and compassionate. I am defiantly sober and consciously honest and a fierce advocate for my children and their rights — even against one another. That’s my legacy, or part of it.

The other part of my legacy, as Mom intoned, is in “making things softer.”

I may not be perfect, but I have band-aids, and I have wreaths. And lemonade. I have lemonade too.

The finished product:

browns, greens, butter yellows and softer pinks. good to go for another six years, i’d say.

Thank you.

Oct23

Grief: In Conclusion, Lessons from Mom, Acceptance

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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Eight days have passed since I last wrote. For a “blogger” this is akin to obscurity. For a writer, which I ~~believe~~ know I am, eight days is almost like torture.

I wanted the lesson I learned from the ether, the one about forgiveness, to gel. I considered it as though it were a soufflé: Shh! Don’t make noises around it, step gently, don’t disturb it.

Of my grief the other day, I wrote to a friend, “I think when my mom died I literally lost time and data. I am encountering things now that I don’t remember forgetting… If that makes any sense. It’s like some of them are totally new.”

. . . . .

CS Lewis was right when he wrote that when we love our departed and don’t feel grief about them, that they feel more near. I was in a place last week, true acceptance — and I am still there, although with occasional tears — that allowed her or my memory of her, or something real and true of hers to come to me. I let it feel safe. I let it know, without any specter or sliver of judgement or regret or resistance, that I am ready:

In yoga last week, the very next day after I appealed for forgiveness, I was in child’s pose, at the end of a vinyasa series, and I smelled her twice. The first for about six bewildering seconds and then >poof!< it was gone and then a few seconds later, it came back for about another three seconds. An incarnation of my mother’s earthly spirit as only I could relate to it was with me. I didn’t court it, I didn’t beg for it to stay, I just … accepted it. I didn’t believe it at first. I sniffed my clothes, my hands, my skin to debunk it; I must’ve looked like a lunatic: they’re all in child’s pose, face down, chest to thighs, shins to earth and I’m acting like a bloodhound. Nothing around me that smelled like her. I smelled of my laundry detergent and my hair conditioner. I nodded in gratitude. She felt safe; that was cool.

A friend just messaged me about the significance of that moment. Child’s pose is one we do to come down or cool down or relax from a series. That we are at peace, submission, when we do it. My friend said, “She was at peace and wants it too for you; the fact that you were in child’s pose, is a big deal too.”

A few readers have lovingly appealed to me that I accept that my pre-Labor Day world is gone. I appreciate their guidance, and I agree that I have been reluctant to accept that truth. Who could blame me? No one I know. No one else is in my skin. But it is with heavy emotion imbued with truth that I accept it now. I will never be ‘over’ her death. I don’t think anyone ever expects me to be. My life has changed forever. The woman who bore me has left forever.

Mom used to speak all the time about acceptance. I suspect that some of it was a lecture for herself. She meant, despite my rigid assertions that she lived in the ether, reality. “You can’t change reality, or people,” she used to say.

The reality is that she has gone to God and is no more a living being on this earth. I know now, the deep and profound love I had for her was primal and true. How could it not be?

She used to say that about me all the time, “Maally, you are so true. True blue and loyal to the end!” she would exclaim, almost as a cheer, and I would recoil with embarrassment and pride; I guess that’s what we refer to as “sheepishly” now.

Those exchanges in my memory now are threatening my soufflé. They tread very close to evoking how I felt at the time she said such things, as though I was being teased. Right now, my gut is telling me to be careful not to lionize her for if I do, I disavow and invalidate the crushing challenges I endured as her child; to accept this entire thing means I must accept all of it: her perspective and limitations, and all of mine as well.

I feel her on my left side right now. Or something like her.

It’s gone.

. . . . .

It occurred to me, in this grief-inspired, post-guilt haze that I still have a lot of life to live. That I have other things to write about and that I need to assimilate the reality that Mom has died and is never ever >gulp< coming back, into my life because this is how all life goes. Eventually: it ends!

Most of us come into this world, meeting them for the first time and expecting them to always be there. Even as her health declined and I witnessed her truly staggeringly precipitous aging, and I rationally knew that her time was short, I was not at all accepting of it on an emotional level.

My ongoing break wall graffiti, “Pfft. We had barely known each other when I was growing up… it won’t be so hard to adjust to when she dies…” is total garbage. Her loss has been profound. Her personality was massive. She. Was. My. Mom. It doesn’t matter if the relationship was gossamer-strong or plutonium-fragile.

The fact is that she was always on my mind whether I own it or not. We shared cells, DNA … we were connected. Tragically, we both wanted acceptance from one another — constantly.

But that forgiveness and grace I experienced last week has ushered in a new space where I am allowed to matter to myself. I can write about other things and it’s not to spite her. For me to continually and actively devote this space to the void her death created and my grief from it is to feed a vacuum of self-indulgence.

While I will continue to write, the underlying truth is that I now write in the aftermath of her death. Just as I write in the aftermath of any other experience, of the first day of fall, of 9/11, of ~~ten~~ ~~five~~ two minutes ago.

Of course her loss will color my writing. I can hear her now, “Stop using parenthesis! You’re better than that! If you’re going to say it, Say It!” She was a ~~very~~ ~~strong~~ formidable editor.

Part of my quandary is that I want to move on from this publicly and I don’t know how. This is all new to me. I started this situation, by blogging about my grief, now I must clean it up. “You need to lighten up, Maally…” I can hear her.

Yes, I suppose she was mostly right. I was the Felix Unger to her Oscar Madison. Part of that entreaty was to get me to leave her alone, to let her be, and in my German shepherd mind, to let her continue with her self-indulgence. She won. She always did, and finally, I’m ok with it. I also win too — I don’t feel guilty about it not working out because it was never mine to fix.

So that is the deal here, the final lesson: you can’t change a damned thing about anyone else. All you can do is change your reaction to other people. It’s been the message of this earth and all its conflicts since the beginning of time. It is the mother of all realities. Once we accept it, truly, it colors our lives. Everything becomes less stressful.

We are not as separate as we once believed. When we let go, we let in.

This was a disjointed post because I cut a lot out. I found myself breaking my objective, to not blog so obviously about my grief. I just remembered that one of Kubler-Ross’s stages is “Acceptance.”

Thanks for sticking around. I’ll be back to new normal soon.

So I’m going to wrap it up with a quote from a movie that Mom loved,

Thank you.

Oct10

Grief: I lied. Spongy Surfaces.

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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I lied.

I lied I lied I lied.

Remember yesterday? You know, that post I wrote, not 24 hours ago where I said I was ready to transition, start a new chapter?

Lies. It’s all lies as it turns out.

I reread that post at bedtime and then bawled my head off, silently with that awful lump in the throat, for about … oh, 45 minutes. It was wrenching.

Bargaining.

I was wondering where the hell the “bargaining” stage of Kubler-Ross’s renown death stages was.

Turns out it was here, lurking the whole time. Tsking its teeth and clearing its nails, waiting for me to feel semi-pre-Labor Day again.

It wasn’t classic bargaining, like where I’d say, “Take me instead!” or “What I wouldn’t give to ____” it was more like this:

Holy shit. I just realized I’ve never written in my own handwriting, until now [last night] any derivation of ‘my Mom [and] dead.’

And then the pain. The pain that said,

But you’ve written a check for her burial plot. And you wrote, edited and signed the death notice. And you picked out her burial clothes and put in a tube of lipstick. So you did all that. It’s not like you didn’t get it. It’s just that … you know: you didn’t get it. So here’s something, right now, to help you get it a little more.

I never got to say goodbye.

That’s the part that stings, like a … like a paper cut that goes super wide and super deep. Searing and humbling. Mom hated goodbyes. She always said, “See you soo-in,” in that funny way she pronounced certain words.

Bargaining. I’d’ve liked to have said goodbye to her. But she wouldn’t have, well, clearly didn’t allow it.

Lots of people, God bless ’em (and I mean that) say things like, “You know it was merciful; it was so much better (??) than a long, drawn-out illness.” And I totally get that, and I agree.

But the fact is: it was sort of long and drawn out. Mom didn’t have cancer. Mom didn’t have emphysema. Mom didn’t have a stroke or anything like that. But she did have issues. Her heart? That came out of freakin’ nowhere.

I mean: BOOYA. >God drops mic.<

“She must’ve just thrown a clot,” said a well-intentioned neighbor, Just. Like. That. Like how you or I might say, “That’s a lot of money for those tires.”

Mom had a bunch of -isms that literally sucked the lifeblood from her soul and her smile. I think about what she endured and for how long she endured it and I think, “Holy shit. She’s a freakin’ machine. Despite all her -isms, she kept it going….”

She could’ve checked out. Any time. Well, she sort of did, in certain ways, but not in The Big Way.

Things were unstable.

Instability. That’s where I am right now. And CS Lewis was right: when I was sad, am sad: Mom is far away. But the sad is sort of necessary now. Today.

I’m literally laughing over my shoulder at my Yesterday Me. Rolling my eyes. Thinking, “girrrrl, you have no clue about what the what is goin’ on. Just stop talkin’ ’bout a new chapter this and a let it go that… You are getting schooled every day… stop STOP with the expectations and the plans…”

And “Today Me” is totally right.

I journaled in my own handwriting last night for 45 minutes. Six pages. Big letters, exclamation points, woe, fear, regrets, jokes, anger, sarcasm, regret.

I have to remember this though: Mom set the tone. The guilt and regret I feel is utter bullshit. I know this. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the guilt is bullshit. As a child of my mother, or someone like her, we are raised in an environment where the leader sets the tone. Where the child simply gets in line, behaves as told, responds as allowed. Patterns form and behavior sets itself and life continues in that manner.

That’s what I mean by Mom set the tone. I wrote a post a lonnnnnng time ago, when I was in a state regarding her and some other people whose behavior reminded me of hers. It’s called “Be Careful Of What You Wish For“; and it ~~touches~~ hammers on the consequences that we as parents, or people in group dynamics actually, experience when we set up relationships the way we (unconsciously) do. Most of my posts on parenting come from my experiences as a child and now a parent and how I see that we all have choices we can make in behaviors we exhibit.

I slept like a wounded bear last night after I wrote. Morning came; the sky was dark and cloudy, heavy with the approaching rain. It started about two hours ago and I think it’s going to be a daylong affair.

I like days like this. They let me indulge in a blanket on the couch and a Hitchcock film. A cup of Earl Gray. After yoga.

I have friends and family who’ve reached out to me — in comments on the blog, in emails, in phone calls, texts, artwork, meals, cards, hugs, smiles and packages of snacks that make me turn into a ravenous addict and they remind me: God is not far away. That beauty and love are still, always, here.

He works through them; maybe because He knows how daft we are and remembers what happened the last time He came down here and tried to show us who He was as a human…

When I feel most alone, these people reach out. They tell me I am absolutely not alone. They tell me my words help them. They tell me to be patient with myself. They tell me the surface is unstable. That it’s spongy. They tell me they understand.

And that is God.

Then I remember my own post about self-compassion and comparing my grief to a newborn, and I settle and remember I am also here for me too.

So soon I will write about the faceless chicken and show you pictures of the creepy undertakers. We’re talking Shakespearean. I will warn you ahead of time: I’m pulling no punches either.

But not today. Today I am on spongy land.

Thank you.

Sep16

Grief: Reality, Health & Fairness

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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My heart goes out to those affected by the Navy Yard shooting today. Living in Washington, D.C., is not without its risks. I am tired of all the violence. I am tired of people hating.

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

So it’s been two weeks since Mom died and I’m feeling OK. I owe a lot of how I’m feeling right now to Gatorade. I have written about an unquenchable thirst, about how I felt every fluid in my body evaporate the moment the police officer told me and my husband and my father in the modest front hall of his home that my mother had not survived.

I sit here again, a fortnight later, and I still have trouble accessing the algebra, the numbers, the algorithm and the formula that makes that statement make sense. “Your mother did not survive.” I see the words, I know what they mean separately; I even know what they mean in a stream like that and I still think it’s about someone else.

It’s not so much that I have a hard time accepting the news. That day, I absolutely had a hard time accepting the news, but I’m better with it now; it’s that there’s this part of me that’s sorta like, “Oh.” Like the kind of detached “Oh” you’d say in reply to witnessing a car drive into a garage door, or the kind of detached “Oh” you’d say after watching crystal chandelier crashing on a marble floor. It’s a numb “Oh.” It’s the worst kind of “Oh.” It’s the powerless “Oh.” It’s the detached “Oh” — different from the non-attached “Oh.”

Processing.

I really didn’t plan to write what I wrote above about “Oh.” So I added the word, “Reality” to the headline.

I planned to write about the Gatorade and how it helped me immensely and how even after all these years of athleticism and health awareness and nutrition and fitness that I’d forget the one thing to do that sustains us all: properly hydrate.

I don’t mean to confuse things: I have drunk a sea of water, juice, herbal teas, smoothies, the rest. None of it did anything. I still felt like I had powder in my mouth. My bodily functions were telling me all systems were go; clear pee, frequent flushing, all that (I’m done now). Someone asked me about coconut water. I drink it fairly often and I tried it and it didn’t work for me. It left my mouth unhappy. Everyone’s different, so if you dig coconut water, go for it.

After the first week, I was sleeping remarkably well, considering the situation. I was glad to be back in my own digs. I love my cousins like the sun loves the moon, but I was ready for my own couch. I miss them tremendously now; I think our ancestors had it right with the communal living and the tents and all that. It’s simply better and nicer being with your own kind in a situation like this.

So to any of you grieving a death or the loss (divorce, break-up) of a loved one, or a job layoff, foreclosure … get yourself some Gatorade (with real sugar in it) and try it out cut with half water first and then give it about an hour and see what happens. I was starting to feel human by the end of my third glass. I still think red and yellow make six, but my thirst is manageable now.

It’s also important to eat well and take your vitamins. I am a religious vitamin taker and my schedule was derailed a few days right after Mom, and I got a cold. The physical toll the grieving takes is the invisible part; we all know we will cry and be distracted, but the body needs rest and proper hydration.

. . . . .

Fairness.

People are dimensional, textured and unpredictable.

Relationships are dynamic and dimensional.

Jung said it best, “Often what irritates us about another person will lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” (I wrote about I think on June 18, 2013; if you want to see it check out the calendar to the right of this post.)

My relationship with Mom was dynamic, dimensional, unpredictable, passionate and complicated. I’ve written again and again about it. The nice thing about a blog is that people can just do a little backtracking; the utter pain in the ass about a blog is that it’s often not linear. I am a linear thinker; all the posts with “Grief” in the title will be about my mom, her death, our relationship and my coping with it all.

I am pleased to say that despite all our bickering and arguing we did manage to have a few really good conversations in her final weeks and I know she processed them as such because she told my dad about them. I know I said “I love you” to her a number of times. I know I kissed her on her cheek that night in July, the last time I ever saw her alive, when I helped her walk to her car, strapped her in and clicked her seatbelt and told her “be bad” which is code for “I love you” around my family. She looked at me that night, crinkled up her nose and said, “You too, birdie.” (I don’t know why she called me “birdie” … honestly.)

I planned that night several days before. I wanted to celebrate my parents’ 51st anniversary. My younger brother and his team came over and we all planned to call my older brother and his team to sing happy birthday to him. We made hamburgers and my youngest, Thing 3 (T3), set her up with a tray table and chips in our leather club chair, her favorite chair, in our home. She was right beside the TV and T3 asked her if she’d like to watch his favorite show, “How the Universe Works.” She saw the big red Netflix screen and her face brightened.

“Do you have ‘Columbo’?” she asked him, leaning in and smiling like a little girl.

“We can find it,” he said, with a little smirk and an eager flick of the remote control.

So there she was, in her throne, watching “Columbo.” I was happy with that because she was happy with it.

When dinner time came around, I nudged her, “Mom. It’s time for dinner. Let’s go eat on the deck; we have a seat and pillows all set up for you. It’s your wedding anniversary dinner…”

“No.” She said. “I want to watch ‘Columbo.'”

I tried to change her mind, guilt her into eating with us.

“No.”

There was no changing her mind… ever. Even without “Columbo” there would be no changing of my mother’s mind.

So I was a little sad about it and I asked my dad.

“Leave her be. If she wants to sit and watch ‘Columbo’ while we are all out here enjoying one another’s company, so be it…” he said, loudly so she could hear him (which she could, she had ears like a bat and my parents would often talk to each other like George Costanza’s parents on “Seinfeld”).

I imagined my mother doing this, “pfft.”

So I set her up and let her stay there and watch “Columbo” while we all sat on the deck.

And it was odd. It was fair and real and odd.

“The pretending was over,” I remember my therapist saying the following Tuesday after the dinner.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my head tilting like a Labrador retriever’s waiting on a treat. I wanted to bitch about it.

“It was probably one of the first real nights your mother had where she didn’t have to pretend that she didn’t want to be alone and that you all were some Hallmark Card family. It was a gift you gave her; no fighting, no begging, no drama. She wanted to watch ‘Columbo’ and you let her. You showed her you accepted her when you let that happen. You showed her love. Believe it or not: you heard her,” she said.

My jaw dropped. Then my face fell on the floor. If my eyes weren’t still in their sockets, I’d’ve been unable to piece myself back together.

Daaaaaaayyuuuumn.

She was right. The gift was right there: Mom was heard and that was cool. My parents’ relationship is their own; they had their own folds and layers to work through, but how was I to know that the last time I’d ever see my mom alive would be the night that I’d finally heard and accepted her? I mean, I didn’t feel bad that she was watching “Columbo.” I was rather glad for her (and a little jealous of her solitude, truth be told). Plus we all joined her later when the next episode cued up.

Mom got to “live” that night. She was heard and fed and celebrated in her own way, as “unmarried” as it seemed, it was totally married. It was real.

So I say this to both of you: be real. Be fair to yourself and to your memories. Allow the good and the “bad” memories. Another alternative: just stop with the labeling altogether. None of the labels matter; it’s just ego and coping. These moments are what they are; it’s up to us to be fair by accepting and allowing them. If we fight them or force them, we will break them.

“We are all imperfect beings,” I hear one of my brother’s best friends say to me.

I miss my mom, I miss the idea of growing with her this fall. I had so many plans for conversations with her. I learned so much about Senior Yoga while on the retreat; I was looking forward to sharing what I learned with her. I wanted to ask her about my life ideas and plans and what she thought I should do; I was planning to consult with her; treat her as a mom, y’know?

That moment with my therapist crystallized for me my acceptance of my mother. I was able to grow from that moment and so the last couple chats I had with Mom reflected that growth. If I didn’t have my therapist, I’d’ve not realized that the “pretending” was over. It would’ve taken some time, I know this. That acceptance softened it all for me. I could meet Mom on her terms.

The other night, my dad came over for a spell and I walked him to his car. It was the first time in a very long time that I didn’t help buckle in Mom. Seeing her seat empty beside his and not being able to strap her in and say goodnight after we all had a meal together sliced right through me. But this is life. We must experience it for all its richness.

Thank you.