Bless me St. Catherine,
I haven't posted on this blog for more than six months...
When I started writing here, I was trying to find a method to communicate with my mother, who had been diagnosed with ALS and lost her ability to speak.
I had intentions of recording those days with visual and written expression, which I think are often more pure and effective than verbal means; and I am so glad I captured what I did,
because it went by fast.
Now, 212 days after her death, I still want to talk about her and remember her, call her on Sunday mornings and ask her how to get an ink stain out of the Irish linen tablecloth.
I wonder when I can expect my hair to really start coming in gray? Mom "enhanced" her hair color for-EVER. I'm sure she was gray, but who would ever know? Her own mother, is 95 years old and has jet black hair.
I look at myself in the mirror and write down my birthdate, and I feel too young to be in the world, without a mother.
In addition to starting this blog, I tried to interview my mom after she got sick, asking her questions about her life, trying to cram in the 25 or so years I took for granted she would be around...
This method pretty much went the way of all forced endeavors, and week by week, her communication with all of us became increasingly limited, and markedly labored. My siblings and I would sit around with her in the evenings and recall perfect moments that had bound us all together is some multi-sensory way.
"Remember that place we used to go for breakfast after church on Sundays? The one with the strawberry waffles and the tiny boxes of cornflakes that Leah would always order?" We would all smile and our cheeks would flush a little bit.
"Is that the place with the Acquarium? Was it by the gas station where they used to come out and pump your gas and wash your windows for you?" I think so, that was the place.
It was an exercise in synchronizing our connections to one another, and particularly, to our mother. She would laugh when we would all find common ground, and strangely, she would egg us on, if we started to argue. She just liked to see us engage. It must have been a trip to regard the countless combination of traits she had contributed to 50%, of the DNA, of five individuals.
In her last months, Mom's communications was all physical. She would either be laughing with her mouth wide open, or poking you with her long finger-nail to show you that she wanted you, especially, to pay attention to whatever was being done or said in the moment. And most surprising to me and my big, healthy sisters and brothers, was her increasing strength when she would curl up her 59 year old, bony-ass fingers and punch us in the arm. She weighed 110 pounds but her knuckle carried the weight of a thousand maternal reprimands.
But when we would ask her questions about details that had yet to be recorded, she would mostly just look through us, and shrug her shoulders. I felt desperate to discover where I've come from, in order to know who I am.
I still have things I want to ask you Mom.
So maybe if I post them here,
and send them into the ether,
you will hear,
and speak through me.
