Chapter 28
Autumn
I makethe baked ziti for dinner, and my mom does her best to eat it, but she doesn't manage more than a few bites, though she raves about it as enthusiastically as she can manage. It breaks my heart so see her so weak and frail. Owen clears the plates and does the dishes, while I get some time alone with my mom.
I apply lotion to her hands and feet, read her a book and tuck her into bed. Then we sit there holding hands as I stare at the small jewelry box my mom has on her dresser. I think of my mom’s life, a hard but hopefully rewarding life. She raised me on her own, went without frivolous things so that I could have whatever I needed, and never really found true love.
“I’m sorry you never had a great love,” I tell her. Now feels like the time to get these thoughts out.
My mom looks over at me, pulling one of her hands from mine and strokes my face. “Oh, but honey I did. It was you.”
Tears roll down my cheeks before I can say marzipan, and my mom’s eyes well up as well. It seems that this time we aren’t going to try to hold it in.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here all those years. I’m so sorry.” I weep. How many dinners have I missed, how many mornings in the garden sipping tea? Life is so precious, and none of it is promised. She’s fucking fifty-five and I’m counting the days I have left with her.
My mom cups my cheeks and I know it’s hard for her to hold her hands up for so long because they tremble. “I don’t resent you for doing as I told you to do. I wanted to raise a strong, independent woman who would never need to depend on a man for money, and I did.”
A tear slips from the corner of her eye and rolls down her cheek. “When I didn’t have you here in person for company, I had Owen. I was never alone.”
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. I would forever be grateful to that man for being there for my mom all those years when I couldn’t.
My mom’s hands fall away from my face and she wipes my eyes.
Rolling onto her side, she tucks her hands under her cheeks and faces me. “I went to a cancer group therapy thing my first round,” she tells me, her eyelids getting heavy. “It was Owen’s idea. Everyone was going around the room and saying what they felt their life purpose was.”
I nod, stroking her arm and soaking in all her words, wanting more time.
“One lady really felt her purpose was to write a book, but she was too scared to put it out there to the world. If she got better, she was going to publish it. Another man, he hated his desk job, had always wanted to work with animals. If he got better, he was going to quit his job and start an animal rescue.”
That sounded nice. It made me think of anything I felt I had left to do, a burning desire. The thought came to me immediately: to have a baby with Owen, to right that wrong we made so many years ago.
“What was your big regret? Your unlived purpose?” I ask her.
She smiles, her eye lids closing for a moment. “I didn’t have one. My purpose has always been to be your mother, and I got my dream the day you were born.”
I can’t help the sob that forms in my throat. Leaning forward, I cry as my mother holds me. I cry so hard my body shakes, and all the while she rubs my back and takes care of me in what should be her darkest hour, but is mine as well.
“I love you, Mom,” I tell her when I can catch my breath.
“I love you too, baby girl.”
It’s the last thing she said to me. Somewhere in the night my mom found her way to heaven.
* * *
"You knowthere's a celebration of life going on back there, right?"
It's Livvie's voice, coming up behind me. I'm sitting on a bench in the shade outside the church. She comes into my view, backlit by the sun.
My mom didn't want a funeral. She wanted acelebration of life. It was written in her end- of-life instructions, which Pastor Greg had in his possession. I stayed for the formal ceremony in the sanctuary, but after only a few minutes in the room where everyone moved into for lunch, I ducked out.
"I'm aware," I say wryly, toying with the gold bracelet on my wrist. It was my mom's.
Livvie sits down beside me. "I didn't go to my grandma's funeral. Couldn't stomach it. I hated watching other people grieve, people who didn't know her like I did. I felt like they shouldn't be allowed to be sad." She chuckles, the sound holding no mirth. "As if there is some competition for who is allowed to feel grief based on who knew her best."
"I guess I'm feeling a bit of the opposite. Like I didn't know her the way all those people in there knew her, and I shouldn't be allowed to feel so hollow. Like ten years gone from here has taken away my right to grieve."
Livvie frowns. "Did you go ten years without seeing her?"
