Christmas Eve 2012

 

December 24, 2011

The best time to see Orion’s belt from the Northern hemisphere is now.  Late fall and winter.  Every year.

But you have to go outside to see it.  You have to leave the camaraderie of candle lit table and picked over dishes of cooling duck, wild rice, roasted vegetables.  You have to leave the comfort of laughter and mingling conversations over coffee and Norwegian sugar cookies as everyone waits to see which package belongs to them, what is in it.

I wait to give my gifts. 

I am not an outsider here anymore.  But is the first time I have met Stephie’s boyfriend Zach’s family—at least all together.  I am overwhelmed, retreat to my womb, the kitchen.  This is where I comfort and create.  I sighed as my hands slipped into hot sudsy dishwater.  I held onto a stack of dirty plates, felt the weight of them pull my biceps. 

Steve came in.  “Whatcha doin’ in here bayyybeee?”  He is full of “Christmas cheer”. 

“I thought I’d do the dishes.”  The plates rested on the bottom of the sink now.  I lifted my hands, searched for a sponge a rag..

“You don’t have to do that”.  He told me. 

“I want to.”  I answered.

“I’ll help.”  Steve grabbed a dishtowel.  “Okay.  You wash, I rinse and dry.”

Zach’s dad turned on the electric organ in the living room.  Full blast.  The floor vibrates with sound.  Four or five people are pushing sound effect buttons while someone pounds out multiple notes in no particular order. 

Was it one steel guitar or two joining in?  I could not tell, as I stood there paralyzed in a cataclysm of sound. 

“I’ll get your coat,” Steve said.  “Now would be a good time to go look at all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood.”

I nodded my head yes.

Steve grabbed me firmly by my upper arms, kissed me on the forehead.  “You wait right here.”

In the cold, wet air, I caught my breath.  Two houses down, an older gentleman—a grandfather, a father, a brother (I did not ask and do not know)--stood drinking a cup of something hot.  I could see the steam spiraling from the cup.  He was looking up at an inky star studded sky.

On a plaid folded blanket, on the lawn, a young girl of 12 or 13 sat.  Her head tilted back.  She too was scanning the sky, trying to find exactly the star the man was pointing to.

I stopped.  Looked up.  Tried to see if I could figure out what the man was pointing at.  I could not.

“Why are we stopping?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know.”  I answered.  “There is something in the sky.”

I was jealous.  Jealous of this moment this man was having with this young girl on a starlit Christmas Eve night. 

I interjected myself. 

I want to say curiosity got the best of me.  That is how I will tell the story to everyone else.  But you, you know the truth, don’t you?  And the truth was I wanted to become part of their moment.

As we approached the man and girl I said--with a perfect mix of tentativeness and tenacity, “Excuse me.”

The man and the girl looked at me, questions in their eyes.  Before they could fully form them, I asked “What are you looking at?”

“Orion’s Belt.”  The young girl said, turning her attention back to the sky.

“Orion’s Belt?”  I asked.

“Yes.  Those three bright stars make up Orion’s Belt.”  I followed the length of his arm to the point of his index finger, caught a glimpse of what he was showing me.

“Thank you.”  I said.

“See?  Right there.” He continued.  “One, two, three.”

One, two, three.  Alnitaka, Mintaka and Alnilam.  Orion’s Belt.

“Darn—wait.” He said.  “In a minute you’ll be able to see all three again.”  A cloud was passing over Alnilam.  “That will pass over in a minute.  Those clouds have been passing over the belt all night.”

Trusting in something bigger, more predictable than me, trusting this stranger’s knowledge, and trusting Steve, whose hand was holding mine, I stood, eyes focused, scanning for bright constellations, a bright star.  A guide.  To lead me through this night.  This night of a thousand memories of you.

Orion’s Belt.

Osiris.

I quietly left after I located Orion’s Belt.  I felt as if I had stolen into enough of moments from this man and young girl.  To stay any longer would have been an intrusion.

But if I had stayed longer, he might have  pointed out Osiris.  I saw Osiris then, although I did not know that was what I was seeing at the time.

Osiris.

                   "Osiris's coming was announced by Three Wise Men: the three stars Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak in the belt of Orion, which point directly to Osiris's star in the east, Sirius (Sothis), significator of his birth."

Barbara Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (749)

"So this was the harbinger of the annual inundation of the Nile through her appearance with the rising sun at the time when the inundation was due to begin. The bright star would therefore naturally become, together with the conjoined constellation of Orion, the sign and symbol of new vegetation which the Year then beginning would infallibly bring with it."

Dr. John Gwyn Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult (157)

The sign and symbol of new blah blah blah which the Year then beginning would infallibly bring with it.

The sign and symbol of new.

the Year

then beginning

will

infallibly

bring with it.

Osiris was an Egyptian God.  The God of afterlife, the underworld, the dead.

The appearance of Osiris is associated with the cycles observed in nature.  Osiris brought the hope of new life after death.

New life after death.

That is my gift to myself this year at Christmas.  Permission to live and grieve at the same time.  To find the balance, if there is one. 

In this I learn what I always tried to teach you—the greatest gift is always in the giving.

Peace is a gift I can only get if I give it to myself. 

Peace.

It was a gift I always wanted for you.

The streets are quiet.  All but a few are where they are going to be tonight, Christmas Eve.  Steve and I have the sidewalks, the  lawn of the Capital to ourselves.  We stop, jointly critique each home’s display for its balance and aesthetic qualities or unbridled tackiness.  We admire Christmas trees, backlit by living rooms filled with friends and family and crazy relatives. 

Standing on the sidewalk with my hand in Steve’s, I would not trade places with any of them.

Back at Stephie’s the 20-30 year olds are out smoking cigarettes and visiting on the front porch. 

“Are we holding up the present unwrapping?”   Steve asks. 

“Nope.”  Zach answers.  “Let’s do that now.”

I have already given and received my present.

Tonight I saw Osiris.

Tonight I see a new life after a death.

Tonight I take unbridled joy from the greatest gift of all—the giving.

                                      Merry Christmas Andie

                                    Mom

Christmas Eve Eve

December 23, 2011

Christmas Eve is tomorrow. 

I thought if I could keep myself busy, everything would be ok this year. 

There is no busy enough.

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.

The presents are all wrapped, including the one I bought myself.  Getting ready to write cards to go with everything all those memories of holidays past have hit me. 

I am an undecorated snowwoman melting one tear at a time.

Here, alone in my house , Enya’s Christmas album in the back ground I am filled with thoughts of you.  How did this happen?

How did I get here to this eve of Christmas Eve with Sadie sleeping at my feet, Stella a live cat rug in front of the fireplace?  

Steve will be here soon.  I do not want him to see me crying.  But I am afraid I cannot stop.  My body quakes with sorrow. 

Breathe.  I can breathe. 

This will pass.

I know that now.

So the greatest gift I can give myself this year is time to let grief be.  To allow myself these memories of you.

Christmas Eve 1981.  I place the palm of my hand on my stomach, the place my womb used to be.  I remember my belly stretched round with you.   Your head cradled in my pelvis.  Knees, elbows rolling across my abdomen.  Feet poking me in the ribs. 

Silent night.

Mary was a mother just like me.  Whether you believe in Jesus Christ or God or not, she was a mother who cradled her baby boy in her arms, fed him at her breast.  She was a mother who  watched her newborn baby sleeping at night, checked to make sure he was breathing.  She was a mother who watched her son roll over, sit, say his first work, walk.  She fed him, bathed him, clothed him, worried over him.  She watched him grow into a man.

Holy night.

All is calm.

The calm before the storm. 

Did she know? 

The summer before you died I felt it in my bones.

I knew. 

I am trying to remember the rest of the song.  “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.”

Frustrating.  I cannot remember the rest of the words.

I close my eyes.  Keep singing.  It is hard to sing and cry.

“Silent night, holy night…”

A child is born that will die and leave his mother heartbroken.  This is all I can think of.

The rest of the words.  I remember them.  And then I get to the last sentences.

"Sleep in heavenly peace.

Sleep in heavenly peace."

Breathe.  Just breathe.

Merry Christmas Andrea.

Be in heavenly peace.


I love you.  That is my gift this Christmas.


Mom

The Holidays

December 11, 2011

Good Morning Andrea—

Lately, I have noticed how beautiful fog can be.  Enveloping everything in misty gray.  Everything is muted in mist.  Becomes a little darker. 

Tonight, Compassionate Friends has a world candle lighting event for parents who have had children die.  I am going to Cinderella with your Aunt Karen, your cousin Lisa and her daughter Alicia.  I will light a candle for you before I leave.

Bare tree limbs are coated with moss.  A fluorescent green that glows.  A tree house nestled in the branches of a big leaf maple—acer macrophyllum.  I love the sound of Latin names for things. 

I am torn between wanting to put on hat, gloves and mittens—walking on this late autumn morning, and, turning up the electric blanket, curling up under it and reading the Carl Hiassen book I started three days ago.  I am having a little trouble following all the quirky characters, though.  I know it will all coalesce at some point. 

It is 32 degrees outside.  I am sitting at the dining room table at Steve’s house in a pair of your pajamas.  The ones with the Christmoose and Christmas trees.  Steve and Stephie are eating leftover turkey enchiladas (your favorite) for breakfast this morning.  They will have the cookies Steph and I baked last night for dessert.  Dessert is not just for dinner anymore.

I wish Christmas did not feel like such an obligation.  Like I could do it when I am ready for it again.  Because I am not. 

I want to lay under the warmth of my down comforter, read, watchmovies, eat spice drops and Cheetos in  bed until December passes and the New Year is well under way.   Sadie would be happy to curl up next to me, and Stella would lay on my chest soothing me with the sound of purring.

Sometimes I wonder who the caretaker really is, in my relationship with Stella and Sadie.  They soothe me.  Sadie seems to read my moods and comes to comfort me when my anxiety ramps up.  She lays her head on my lap and looks up at me with her little brown button eyes. 

Stella’s purr is like a meditation.  She lays on my chest, head resting under my chin, vibrating with sound that moves throughout my body, soothing me. 

I thought about putting up your artificial Christmas tree again this year.  It is still in the box, though, on the top row of shelves in my garage.  Last year, I put it up with the help of friends on Thanksgiving. 

I tried to find the nativity set you loved in all the Christmas decorations, but gave up.  We always read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve.  You and your sister always took turns putting the baby in his cradle  after we talked about why Christmas is celebrated.  Then we would open presents.

It was hard to look at years of Christmases past in red round bulbs and strings of wooden cranberries.  Besides, last year, Stella kept stealing the baby Jesus from the crèche.  Mary, Joseph and the Wise Men sat by passively as  Stella played football with him on the maple floors in the living and dining rooms.

No tree this year at my house.  No lights.  No stockings.  No crèche.  The only decoration I will put up at my house is a wreath on the front door. 

At Steve’s house it is different.  Last weekend he and I put up a small tree.  We bought a 4 foot noble fir at a church lot.  It was the first tree we purchased and decorated together.  He took down the bins of decorations from their garage shelf and we sorted through bubble lights that that used to illuminate his parents’ tree, through bulbs a girlfriend gave him 40 years ago, an angel he and his wife and Stephie had on trees together.

After he told me the history of his ornaments, I told him our tree reminded me of the first Christmas you, your sister and I celebrated in that tiny apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts that looked out on the Charles River. 

1997

Thanksgiving came with its promise of candy canes, jolly old men in red suits and white beards in department stores, an orange in the toe of stockings hung by the fire with care, nuts—still in their shells—in wooden bowls with picks and nutcrackers, twinkling lights—the Holiday Season. 

“Jolly old Saint Nicholas, lean your ear this way.  Don’t you miss a single word, I’m about to say.”

You were 6—just about to turn 7.  Beginning to question Santa Clause.

This was our first Christmas away from Seattle.  According to Wikipedia, The total distance from Boston to Seattle is 2484 miles. This is equivalent to 3997 kilometers or 2158 nautical miles. That is if you travel by air.  Driving I-94W and I-90W it is 3044.1 miles.  We were across a continent.  Cambridge is right next to Boston.

Leaving everything behind to make the move from welfare mom to Harvard Law, I had not brought Christmas decorations to our new home.  And I had no idea where, or if we would find a Christmas tree.

You may recall, for those three years your sister, you and I lived in Cambridge, we had no car.  Every two weeks the three of us would take the grocery wheelie along the Charles River to Star Market for milk, cereal, meat, carrots, pasta.  I don’t remember how far Star Market was, or how long it took us to walk there.  I just remember walks listening to you and your sister, watching the two of you.

Time passed too quickly.  I should have paid more attention to the details.

I was a Harvard Law student.  A single parent subsisting on student loans—my mortgage for a future. 

“Christmas Eve is coming soon, now you dear old Man.” 

At criminal law, contracts, civil procedure class, I wondered what I had gotten myself into.  I felt like an imposter.  I felt like I did not belong.  Like someone might figure out I had recently been a single mom on welfare, food stamps, medical aid, Section 8 subsisted housing—and when they did—I’d be asked to leave.

I felt like I was not at all entitled.

I felt like going back home to nothing.

Carolyn Schute saved me.  She was being interviewed because of her novel The Beans of Egypt, Maine.  She said two things that have always resonated with me—one a sentence, one a short story of an analogy.

First, she said, “People don’t realize, us poor people, we work hard for what we don’t have.”

And then the interviewer asked Carolyn what made her different.  How was she able to break the mold and become an author.

Carolyn thought a moment.  And then she started in something to the effect of “It’s like this.  Have you ever sat and watched a box of kittens?  Most of them, they are content to wrestle and play with each other within their well defined world.  But there’s always one of them kittens that is not content, that is not happy, that believes there is more than what is in the box.  That little kitten is always by herself.  Reaching up, trying to find a way up and over the walls.  And one day, she discovers she can get out.  You cannot ever get her to stay in the box again.  That kitten—the one who made it out of the box.  That was me.” 

Her words hit me like lightening.

That kitten—the one who made it out of the box.  That was me.

The box was behind me.  I felt its presence, though I could not see it anymore.  Any sense of security I thought it offered was false.  It still called to me. 

Poverty was never a choice I consciously made.  If I left Harvard Law School, poverty would be a choice I was making.

My mind wanders this December 2011 morning, sitting at the dining room window, looking at this fog filled morning.  Steve has hung Christmas lights outside on the patio.  They twinkle.

I always had to protect you.  I had to be stronger than I was.  I could never let you see me vulnerable.

“Whisper what you’ll bring to me. “

December 1987.  You, your sister, me.  Without one Christmas decoration or a tree. 

Three blocks from our apartment, across the street from the Charles River, there was a plant nursery.  We’d stop there sometimes on our way to Star Market.  We’d choose seeds, plants and bulbs for an imaginary garden—a garden we might have someday.

Walking past there, the first Saturday in December, you and your sister got excited at the sight of cut trees behind the Garden Center’s chain link fence. 

“We’ll come back later.”  I promised.  “Right now, we have to get groceries.”

The garden center, a little green building with large glass windows flanking the front door, was open til 5.  After we put the groceries away, and had a snack, we bundled up to get our Christmas tree. 

The trees were all tagged—“Grown in Washington”.  Like us, these noble firs and pines and firs had traveled across the continent.  You two girls were intoxicated by the smell of Washington greenery.  I was flabbergasted by the price tags, and you two became more and more deflated as I had to veto your choice of trees in the $75.00 and above category.  I saw a stand of 3-4 foot trees and told you both, follow me. 

For ten dollars I bought one of the best Christmas trees I can remember.  It was shorter than both you and Erin. 

Inside the Garden Center we bought a box of tinsel, 2 boxes of lights, paper thin red glass balls and hangers, and an angel.  One small angel with dark hair, lacy wings, and a white lace dress. 

One small angel you saw sitting in a red box, with a clear lid on a shelf.  You picked her up, brought her to  me.  “Mom, we have to have an angel.”

Everybody needs an angel.

From that year on, our angel sat on every tree. 

Until you died.

“Tell me what you’ll bring to me, whisper if you can…”

It is your turn.  Tell me what you remember about Christmas right now, this very moment. 

Whisper if you can.

It is the day of world lighting, or world light for us parent’s whose children have died, and with them part of us. 

I light my candle.  I watch the dancing flame.  It burns, sucks oxygen, bends then burns higher when I stop gently blowing it. 

I will focus on light this holiday season.  

I lit a candle for you.

                                 Love,

                                 Mom

Total Eclipse

December 10, 2011

Hi Andrea—

Unsuccessfully I am trying to ignore the fact it is December. 

The holidays.

Holly wreaths, noble firs decorated with multicolor lights and ornaments filling rooms with their fragrance, “dawn we now our gay apparel, fa la la la la la la la,  join the ancient yule tide carol “. 

This was the morning of the blood orange moon. 

This was a morning the earth moved between the sun and moon casting its shadow—a total eclipse.  All the sunrises and all the sunsets in all the world joined in a perfect moment turning the moon from a bright white light to red, orange, pink. 

My bladder woke me.  It was still dark.  I grabbed my cell phone from the bedside table, checked the time.  It’s 4:25 I announced to a sleeping Steve.  He got up, eyes squinted against the predawn wakening, shuffled into the kitchen.  I heard the coffee grinder as I got dressed, smelled brewing coffee in the kitchen.

From the window in front of the kitchen sink, I saw the moon shining through the bare maple tree.  I caught the first shadow as mother earth left her dark, growing crescent across the cratered surface.

“It’s happening.”  I told Steve.

“And not a cloud in the sky.”  He answered from behind me as we looked out from the warmth of the kitchen window. “We should get our warm clothes on and go to the top of the hill.  We’ll be able to see it better from there.”

Sadie stirred in her kennel at the sound of the word “go”. 

The sun, the moon the earth would all be in perfect alignment.  On this morning the earth would cast its umbral shadow as it passed between moon and sun.  Sunrise and sunset would happen simultaneously.

The next eclipse like this would not occur until 2132.

All the sunrises and all the sunsets would meet in that perfect moment.  The earth’s atmosphere would filter out blues, leaving reds, yellows, oranges.  As the sun rose in the east behind us on the hill, the moon set in the west.

29 degrees.  Sadie , Steve and I got in the Subaru and headed for the top of the hill, above his house, under the power lines, where we could park and have a perfect vantage point.  On this total eclipse  of the moon morning, we were the only ones up there.

As we sat in the relative warmth of the car watching the western sky though the windshield, our exhalations frosted the inside windows.  We moved outside  to see better the earth shadow moving slowly across the moon.

“If you knew nothing about what was happening , what would you think?” Steve asked.

“You mean like if I was totally stupid and misinformed or like if I was prehistoric woman?”  I asked.

“Either.” He answered.

I thought a moment.  Savoring the moon disappearing, the sight of my warm breath leaving as I inhaled and exhaled.

“I would be awed.” I answered. 

I am  awed by forces I have no control over.  That I can see, but do not understand. 

A shooting star passes so quickly I wonder if I really saw it.

“A shooting star!” my exclamation  willing it real.

“Lucky you.”  Steve tells me.

Watching  the western horizon, on my right, Squak Mountain looks like a sleeping woman, lightly covered with a cloud down blanket.  Lights shine across her chest like diamonds.  She sleeps soundly between the setting moon, the rising sun, and still is witness to the beauty.

She does not wonder if she actually saw the shooting star, she knows it.

Her name is written in the shadowed craters of the blood orange moon.   Only she knows that secret name , the place it resides.

I watch her sleeping peacefully.  She does not toss and turn.  She does not wake at 4:25 a.m. because her bladder is full.

Together, Steve and I watch the moon disappear, lost in the shadow of earth.  

If we had turned away for second, we would have missed that moment.

The clouds on the western horizon, turning the horizon red, orange, yellow sherberts, brilliant at first, then fading into the day’s light.  

On the eastern horizon, the sun is rising to a perfectly blue sky.

The holidays are here.

Tis the season.

New Year’s Eve would have been your 30^th birthday. 

I keep seeing presents I want to buy you.  A pink ceramic bowl with pirate skulls.  Fluffy holiday slipper socks.  Betty Boop pajama bottoms. 

I want to give you the copy of A Dog’s Purpose I just read and talk to you about it as you read it.  About the concept of reincarnation.

I want to ask you who you think will be the million dollar winner on The Amazing Race.  Can you believe those two snowboard guys got eliminated last week?

I want to take you to see The Decendants and talk about death in the abstract as if it had never touched our lives’ in such an intimate manner—the way bystanders can look at a gruesome accident and be glad it is not them. 

Should I order you a birthday cake.  Make your favorite turkey enchiladas?

I don’t know the answer to this question because it is a question I am trying to ignore.

Steve’s daughter is coming over later to make Christmas cookies.  Until then, I think I will lay back down and imitate the sleeping woman mountain. 

When the sun sets on the western horizon, and the waning moon rises in the east, I will remember sitting in the Subaru, watching an incredible natural wonder with Steve.

I will be grateful for these feelings as they wax and wane, as everything this holiday season is eclipsed by a shadow.

                                                      Love,

                                                           Mom

Thanksgiving

THANKSGIVING EVE 2011

Dear Andrea,

“Laughter is important.” Steve said, standing at my kitchen sink.  Placing both his hands on the rim of it, balancing all of his weight on them, leaning towards me with that special crinkle in his left eye.

“It is essential.” I respond.  I am on the other side of the counter sitting at the breakfast bar, head resting in the half-moon-cradle created where my palms meet my wrists--both hands together fingers bent around my face an offering.

We have just finished comedic verbal sparring--collapsing into each other--holding each other up--bouncing off one another in fits of laughter--tummy cramping--tears falling.

Steve is at my house tonight.  He still cannot tell me that he loves me.  He cannot bring himself to say those words, “I love you.”

He still misses his wife.  This is how he honors her.  I understand that now.

There are so many other ways to say I love you.

I am thankful for all of them. They are all I need now.

“Laughter is important.” he said.

The connection is essential, is what I mean.

This is our second Thanksgiving eve together. 

We live together apart.  Steve has his house.  I have mine.

I cannot stay seated on the stool--the breakfast bar, the sink, a reef between the energy in what is not spoken, those thoughts and feelings that pass between the two of us.

bon iver, bon iver fills the room with movement of music.  Steve reaches out, encircles me with his left arm, pulls me into him hip to hip as I approach him.  I steer him into me, exerting pressure with the tip of my hip bone.  He faces me, I rest my forehead on his shoulder. 

We dance.

When the music stops we collect each other’s articles of clothing from the kitchen floor.  Steve takes me by the hand.  Leads me up the stairs, into my bed where I turn away from him, press my back into his chest.  He puts his arm around me.  Draws me up against him.   

I am facing sleep, the journey into this night’s world of dreams safely protected.

Do you sleep?  Do you dream?  I wonder where you are.

There are so many ways to let someone know you love them.

Laughing together.

In this dance through days, I am glad Steve is my partner.

Thanksgiving morning 2011

Thirty years ago, exactly, I woke to the sound of rain pounding on the windows of the little house on Center Street in Kent.  Slowly coming into consciousness I felt the taunt roundness of my belly.  Waiting to feel knees, elbows, heels, your butt, your head rolling, pushing as you entered your eighth month of habitation inside of me.  Imagining you.  Naming you—though I did not know yet if you were a boy or a girl.

Names are important.

I your had been a boy, your name would have been Nicholas.  Or Alexander.

I rolled around girls names.  Katherine.  Elizabeth…

We name everything. 

With names, we define things. 

Close your eyes.  Think cake.  Your mind will form a mental image of a cake.  Four letters, but think of the complexity of everything that forms a cake.  The mixture of eggs, vanilla, sugar, flour, butter.  Batter in a bowl.  Two 8 inch round pans baking at 350 degrees in the oven, filling the house with the fragrance of its transformation.  Two 8 inch round objects cooling on a rack.  Two 8 inch round objects stacked on the other, frosting in the middle holding them together.

What kind of cake do you imagine when you think “cake”?

Andrea.  From the Greek word Andreas.  Feminine.  Warrior.

My daughter.

It’s a girl.

Seeing your black hair, as my body contracted, forced you into the world.

Your grimacing face at the first kiss of the room’s air.

Your glistening body as the doctor cut the cord.

Andrea Marcella.

Andreita.

Sorrow, this grief, it has a definition.

Andrea.

THANKSGIVING EVENING

My eyes are closed.

Lady Gaga sings, her voice projecting through the speakers in the electric organ in Stephie’s living room.  Paparazzi.  The only song of hers I know and recognize. 

…I'm your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me, Papa-paparazzi
Baby there's no other superstar
you know that I'll be your
Papa-paparazzi
Promise I'll be kind but I won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous, chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi

Real good, we dance in the studio
Snap snap, to that shit on the radio
Don't stop for anyone…

In the kitchen, standing at the sink, I close my eyes, move to the beat.  In this moment, I am the music.

In the living room, everyone scatters on chairs and sofas.  Claims a space before joining in a collective coma--full of turkey, garlic mashed  potatoes, giblet gravy, Parker House rolls, waiting for pumpkin pie.

Dishes need to be done.  Food put away.

I sort through my memories of my 55 Thanksgivings preceding  this one.  Mostly my memories are of Thanksgivings with you.  26 of them.  The last one Thanksgiving 2008. 

This is Stephie’s first Thanksgiving Dinner she is hostessing.  At first I was hesitant about surrendering the roasting of the turkey, the mashing potatoes, the menu, over to someone else.  But it is time.

You never got a chance to make Thanksgiving Dinner for me, though you were almost always a presence in my kitchen.  Except for those few years you were at sea, or living in Virginia. 

I sort all the dirty dishes by size and type to the right of the stainless steel double sink.  I fill the sink with Planet Earth lavender scented dish soap and hot water, the faucet handle turned to the left as far as it would go.  Water hot as I can get it.

I slip first the tips of my fingers into mounds of bubbles separating them. I wonder how many sinks of dishwater I have filled.  In how many places.  How many dishes I have washed. 

The rest of my hands follow, letting the water slightly scald skin.  When I pull my hands out they will be red.

Lady Gaga continues with the song.

I wrap my right hand around a glass.  Find the dishrag in the water.  Shove it in the glass, twist it cleaning all the way to the bottom, draw it out, wipe the rim, rinse it under hot clear water, put it in the rack to dry.  Watch the steam rise off it.

This is mindless work. 

I wash bowls, salad bowls, mixing bowls, serving bowls.  An old clear scratched Pyrex bowl catches my attention.  I hold it up to the window.  Search the etchings for a secret clue, a sign.  All I find are the tracks of pastry cutters, wire whisks, electric beaters.  I believe this bowl belonged to Stephie’s grandma.  And then to Stephie’s mother.  It is part of Stephie’s inheritance.  The memories, meanings of the etchings lost, carried by the women who made them as they mixed zucchini breads, birthday cakes, pie crusts, pea salads. 

I make a cradle of my hands around the third Pyrex bowl’s base.  Making an offering of it, I lower the bowl in the hot sudsy water.  When it is safely resting on the bottom of the sink, I put my right hand in and swirl it, making a whirlpool.  My hand becomes the force drawing a trail of water round and round the bowl.  I am mesmerized by fluidity.  The properties of motion.

I feel you there, in the swirling water, your hand brushing against mine.  And the presence of every woman who ever stood at this sink, looking out the window on a black Thanksgiving night while the guests gathered in the living room.  The presence of every woman who etched a little of her story in the clear Pyrex bowl now in the sink.  

Lady Gaga is no longer singing.

I stop.  Take my hand from the sink, watch the water calm itself.

This is my third Thanksgiving without you. 

Stephie comes into the kitchen.  Gives me a hug.  “Thank you for cleaning up.”  she says.

Last year she came to my kitchen, my table for the holidays. 

This year I have come to hers.

 Thanksgiving.

Steve sneaks up behind me as I stand at the sink rinsing forks and knives and spoons.  Startles me. 

The prankster, Stephie, me. 

We all dissolve into laughter.

Love.

                                    Miss you—Happy Thanksgiving,

                                    Mom

  

    

Guilty

November 20, 2011

Sunday

88 5 KPLU.  Right here at 88 5 KPLU.  The rest of what the announcer says is unintelligible.  I wait for the music.  The piano, each key given its full measure, then notes that overlap.  The saxophone player plaintively draws sound from his instrument. 

Then it is over.

And in the time between two songs I am carried from one thought in time to another.

“You should have gone to see her when she had meningitis.  When she was hospitalized in Virginia.”  JoAnn told me.

Why bring this up now?  Four years later.  One week after I got the call, “I’m sorry.  There is nothing we could do.  Your daughter has passed away.”

Your daughter has passed away.  Your daughter has died.  I am sorry.  There was nothing we could do.    

I could not defend myself.  Guilty.  I should have gone to see you in Norfolk when you were in the hospital with meningitis.  Why did she feel the need to remind me?

I was seatbelted into the beige leather passenger seat in her Jaguar.  Folded in my lap were a pair of your sweatpants, a black t-shirt that said “Worst Pirate Ever”, a pile of cards and letters friends and family wrote you at your memorial service, your baby blanket, some pictures of Sadie, the teddy bear I bought you the day before you died. 

JoAnn was driving me to Funeral Alternatives.  Your body was back from the University of Washington where your autopsy was performed.  You waited your turn for cremation.  Even in death there was a line.

Dean was at home, drinking champagne and orange juice with Jake and Kim.  Making breakfast.  He was already toasted. 

Those things in my lap were what I was sending with you as they slid you in the crematorium.  Ashes to Ashes. 

I did not want to be buckled in the passenger seat of my friend’s Jaguar taking my daughter her burying clothes.

I should have flown to Norfolk right after you called me from the emergency room. 

That’s what a perfect mother would do.

That’s what any mother would do.

The stones stacked heavy on my chest already crush my heart.  This additional rock makes it difficult to breathe.

So many factors go into a decision.   

The doctors told me they had things under control.  You would only be in the hospital for a few days.  You would need someone to take care of you when you got out.

A husband who drank Stoli, ouzo, Aalborg Aquavit Bloody Mary’s and watched Jerry Springer and Hitler shows all day.

A full time job representing men and women whose hearings in family court would determine whether they got to see their kids.  How much money they could count on to buy milk and Cheerios.  How much money they would have to pay.  Court dates every Friday.  All that would have to be postponed and rearranged. 

Two dogs whelping puppies—one that had been torn open after Dean let her and her mother out together, knowing they needed to be kept separate.  One whose pregnancy was accidental because Dean had let her father in with her when she was fertile.  All while I was with you in Hawaii in December and he was semi sober.

And then the thing I could not tell you about, I never told you about—Dean’s affair. 

I was trying to figure out how to leave him.

And you needed me to come to you.

I should have left everything.

Instead.

I bought a first class ticket to fly you home.  I called and arranged for visiting nurse services to monitor your PICC line and blood levels.  I cleaned out the master bedroom so you would have a quiet place to rest while you recuperated.  I disinfected everything and bought air cleaners to filter any particles could cause you problems.

I did not fly to Norfolk.

I should have.

I am sorry.

                                                    Love,

                                                    Mom