My mom is dying.
Do you practice saying this in front of a mirror, like, “I’d love to, but I have a boyfriend,”? or a shaky crooked-cow-licked 7th grader with a folded and folded and folded uneven red construction paper heart — “Wwwwill you be my valentine?”
My mom is dying.
No more words like knives leaving me terminally bleeding out.
No more random phone calls with grandchildren who always say, “I love you,” before hanging up.
No more feigning — “I have to go one of the kids is calling,” when toxic words tear through phone lines and digital air space and I step dodge dance to exit like the therapist told me to do.
No more, “Guess what, Grandma. I broke my arm,” — “Oh no, you didn’t!” playing along on April fools or any other day gangly OT kids land wrong.
My mom is dying.
No more I’ve not eaten red meat since the summer of 1985 why would you fix roast beef in 2008? (ok, bacon, our love affair is safe)
No more I’m leaving because you’re not a good child or I will take you and leave you in the orphanage-where-you’ll-get-up-before-seven-and-make-a-perfect-bed-e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. -would-you-like-that?
No more surprise freshly baked yesterday angel food cakes in a $17 Fed Ex box on my birthday.
No more you shouldn’t be so hard on those kids. Maybe. Maybe not. Laundry is not that hard.
No more skyping on Christmas morning to catch her and the dog in a serious conversation over the sounds of unwrapping oohs and ahhs.
My mom is dying.
No more not being good enough.
No more always my fault.
No more lawn chairs under christmas lights on the front porch in july.
No more smell of roast beef in the crock pot …
My mom is dying.
Now, I can
Now, I hold her hand and she doesn’t push me away with something more important calling her name.
Now, I rub lavender lotion on her dry thin arms, fingerprintless hands, withered and weathered feet; she no longer minds the touch. The intimacy. The sharing of personal space.
Now I sit very near,
and it’s breaking my heart.