the Mothers

I don’t know why but your mom was among the first people I told about dad dying. I guess I knew she would understand the wild and deep sadness pervading me, the same she felt for you, her oldest son, her rock, her pride. I thought maybe the grief I have felt at your passing would somehow prepare me for when dad succumbed to his illness but that turns out not to be the case at all. It’s like there is a dark velvet bag in my mind full of marbles, one for each person who has died in my life. The grief adds up, just like the marbles - the number of marbles doesn’t change the amount of sadness one feels.

On my last visit, mom and I took a tour of what dad always called her ‘rogues gallery’ - the pictures that line the wall as you walk down the steps. When it came to my wedding picture, she took it down and we peeled it back to reveal our wedding picture. I think it’s okay, don’t you? she asked, and I hugged her and told her it was better than okay, you’d tell her yourself with a laugh that you’d expect no less. So you’re still on the family wall here, as I know you are at your mom’s and your brother and sister’s, and Phil’s, and maybe Chad and Lora’s too.

I talked to mom for the first time since driving away to New York. My sister bookmarked dad’s obituary and so mom sees his little gravatar in her bookmarks, his face smiling at her from way up high. It comforts me, she says. Married 63 years, now hers are the only breaths in the room. It’s weird, she says to me. I keep feeling like he’s just in the other room. She likes the picture being there everyday, she says. It helps with the sadness.

Take care of yourself, honey, she tells me before hanging up. I choke back tears and tell her I will. She doesn’t know I read her Storyworth entries as she writes them - my sister gave it to them as a gift, mom and dad answering a prompt about their memories of their lives. It was a very profound gift, as it turns out…watching dad’s answers go from detailed and varied and populated with names and places to, at the end, a single sentence. Mom’s latest answer to the question What are you proudest of? made me cry. My children came first - and what your mom would say too. Followed by, my home and my genealogy work.

I think a lot of people might be surprised by that last one, mom is so passionate and yet so humble that many of her associates wouldn’t even know just how pro-level her research has been. It’s fun to get her talking about it, she has a grasp of dates and places and names at the tip of her tongue, so can really make even the most obscure ancestor come to life. In fact it inspired my latest writing project, which I now feel a strong urge to write quickly, to be sure that she’ll be around to witness it.

Nothing in life prepares you for the aching tenderness toward the parent left behind. How small she is. How strong, and valiant and brave.