I planned to run away. I had memorized all the streets, all the turns, to my grandmother's house. I had assembled my running-away outfit and hidden it in the bottom drawer. I had waited for my sister, in the bed next to me, to fall asleep. Now I just had to wait until my parents stopped yelling at each other. Until they were worn out from the fighting and finally went to bed, went to sleep.
I knew very well that it would be hours. I battled sleep. I sat up in bed, not leaning against the wall, just sitting straight up, in an effort to stay awake. I reviewed the locations of all the creaky boards in the hardwood floor. A hundred times I visualized every turn of my running-away route. Then I sat on the side of my bed, swinging my legs, trying so hard to stay awake. Eventually, I sat against the wall, jerking my head up every time I started to nod.
Finally, I couldn't do it any longer. My last sleepy thought was, "I guess I'll have to run away tomorrow night." I was six years old.
So you see, I knew what marriage was all about. Whenever other people were around, those that were outside immediate family, Mommy and Daddy smiled and laughed, told jokes and visited, and sometimes even touched each other.
But at home, even the best of times were uneasy, and normally, they fought. Their fights never became physical, but they yelled at each other. For hours. Daddy would eventually give up in frustration. He'd throw his BLT sandwich up and leave a grease mark on the ceiling, or drop-kick a phone book through the back window, or put his fist through the wall. I know, because my little eyes were there. Or, more commonly, he would grab his keys and leave in the car with the customary squealing of tires and the smell of burning rubber, leaving black marks on the street. Then Mommy would go out on the back steps and sob. For hours.
When I was older, sometimes I would join her on the back steps. I would try to hold her hand while she cried. Sometimes she'd let me, sometimes she wouldn't. But always she sobbed uncontrollably, usually having difficulty breathing. And she would always say the same thing to me. Every time. "None of you will ever be happy until I'm six feet under." I would shake my head and cry and tell her it wasn't true. I didn't want her six feet under. I wanted her to stop crying.
For my parents, divorce wasn't an option. The Bible taught against it. But as the years went by, life got worse. Then, during my last years in college, my mother filed for divorce. It was final just one month short of their 30th wedding anniversary.
Mommy began to laugh again. She had a job. She came home to silence and peace. She became a woman I had never known.
And Daddy remarried. Years went by before I met his new wife. Because somehow, I had always identified with my mother. So my father and I were estranged for many years. But that's another story.
For fourteen years, my mother and I lived about three or four miles apart. We spent most of our free time together. We went to quilt shows, we visited relatives, we went to family reunions, we went on wildflower weekends. She fixed special meals for me at my house, I fixed broken things for her at her house. We watched television, we did laundry, we played cards and games and dominoes with family and friends. We joined quilt guilds, we went on picnics (sometimes just in my yard), we played with my dogs. We took road trips, we took plane trips. We went to my high school reunion together and to employee Christmas parties together and on an Alaskan cruise together.
As my mother aged and her health became worse, we went to the emergency room together. Often. And to various doctors. And to the hospital. My sisters would come in from other states whenever they could to help out, but they had families, they had lives.
Then my mother had cardiac bypass surgery, and when she left the hospital she came home to me. To my house. My sisters were taking turns being with her while I had minor surgery, then as mother and I both healed, my sisters went back to their families.
My mother returned to work but she never returned to her home. My house was her home. And for five years we lived together, while I also tried to prevent her house from falling into decay. I tried to make sure it looked lived in. I was over there almost every day. I watered the plants. I would alternate lights and blinds. In the summer, I mowed the lawn and cleaned the flower beds. In the winter, I wrapped the pipes and warmed the house with gas heaters. I even kept one of my dogs over there, and I visited unknown neighbors when I could. Because Mother worried about her house. She'd lived there for more than fifty years, and everything that represented her identity was in that house.
Meanwhile at my house, we lived comfortably together. I watched televised church programs and Martha Stewart and Sewing with Nancy with her, and she watched 24 and LOST and Buffy the Vampire Slayer with me. She became less legalistic and I became less wild. And we still did all those things together. My friends were her friends and her friends were my friends.
But her health continued to decline and eventually she couldn't work any longer. Then I became almost her entire world. And I got tired. I got tired of emergency room visits, of doctors' offices, of consecutive all-nighters in the hospital. I got tired of insulin shots, and wound dressings, and cooking meals. I stopped taking her to family reunions, or to quilt guild meetings, or to visit her siblings. I stopped taking her on wildflower trips. And I never took to her to the one place she most wanted to go, the place that I had promised her that I would take her: Switzerland.
Finally, I stopped talking to her. I put a television in my bedroom. I'd come home from work, say "hello" as I grabbed something out of the kitchen, then go to my room and shut the door. And I wouldn't come out. On my days off, I would sleep in and then read in bed, only allowing hunger to drive me out, and then only briefly. I did what I had to do to take care of her physical needs but ignored her emotional and social needs. And when we did talk, it was superficial. And there was always hurt in her voice. I'd even laugh about her to my friends.
Then my mother went into the hospital for pneumonia. And during that next month, I was in complete denial. After all, we'd been through this so many times before. I left her alone most of the time. I didn't stand up for her needs with the nursing staff. I didn't follow through on issues with her care. So her condition worsened.
Even after my sisters came, I still thought Mother would come back home to me. But by then, the guilt had set in. So I promised myself I'd do better. I'd treat her the way she deserved. I wouldn't be so selfish. I'd take her to family reunions again so she wouldn't be so depressed when she missed one. We'd start going to quilt guild meetings again. We'd visit her family often. We'd drive through the wildflowers she loved so much. And we would go to Switzerland.
For the last nine and a half hours of her life, my mother was on an increasing morphine drip. She was unaware that she was still surrounded by her three daughters, one of her sons-in-law, her oldest and her youngest grandchildren, and our close friend who is a physician.
For the majority of those nine and a half hours, I sat beside her bed and held her hand while I lay my head down on her mattress and cried. Occasionally there were soft voices in the room, and people milling about, but the sound of my sobbing permeated everyone and everything. I was filled with grief and with guilt.
And I was back on those porch steps, hearing her sob, "None of you will ever be happy until I'm six feet under."
My sisters handled the funeral planning, although I did write the obituary. And even after all these years, I still haven't recovered. I never will. The grief and the guilt twist my heart and eat my insides, and every day is a battle. Every day, I tell Mommy that I love her and that I miss her and that I am so, so sorry! And that I'm not at all happy that she's six feet under. That I would do anything to change the way I acted, the way I treated her.
I know she's in Heaven now. She has no more sorrow, no more pain. And I know I'll see her again. God promised. And God keeps His promises. That's all that keeps me going.
Today is Mother's Day. The rain has been falling most of the day, as have my tears. This blog entry took hours to write.
The only other thing I can say is, Mommy, I remember you.
"My Immortal" by Evanescence
