I realized today as I was driving in my car to the gym that I had left my mom in Texas on one of those trips. It must have been the second one. Had I gone for part of the trip and then left to get back to school? I think I had. I remembered leaving her in the airport. I had forgotten. Then I remembered a poem I had written about it. I'll have to find that poem.
And I remembered something else, which I am afraid I have forgotten now. But I was happy that memories were coming back to me. Not only is the blog a place to leave my thoughts but it has made me realize I remember more that I thought I did. I have been fearful that I was forgetting things about my mom, forgetting who she was or what we were like together. I have been writing as a way of letting go of some of the painful memories of her illness and her death but along the way, happy memories have found their way onto these pages too. I am so glad.
I wish I could remember what I was thinking about today.... oh well, it will come again.
I feel like I want to get out all of the memories I have about her being sick that tug at me. Before I can write about her dying. Then to write about what it was like after she died. Then maybe to write about what it was like before she was sick. This seems like the logical order to me. To get the hard parts out of the way and then to wash my hands in the happy memories and leave this blog with a sense of having told a difficult story and then celebrated my mother in some way.
I remember now. I was thinking about her losing her hair after the first round of chemo. Oh, my heart just deflated, realizing there is a second set of memories I have not even touched. My my my... well, maybe I don't need to go there. This memory I had was sort of happy, but it brought to mind sadder memories.
When she started to lose her hair, she came to my room and knocked on my door. She stood in my doorway and with a sad face and said, "My hair is starting to fall out, look." And she combed her fingers through her hair and blond strands came away in her hand. I smiled and said, "It's okay, that means it's working." She nodded and smiled too. That is sad to think about. How scary it all was. The wig fitting. The wig.
She had a great friend, Peter, who my boyfriend Brad said was beyond gay, he was enchanted. He was so lovely to her and he would wash, trim and blow-dry her wig for her, weekly maybe? For free.
She had two wigs. I have them in a box somewhere, along with her reading glasses that were constantly falling apart, her wallet and a pair of jeans she wore all the time that were full of holes. I wish I had saved more mundane things like these. There is something about them. She used to chew a lot of trident gum and roll the wrappers into tiny tubes. I saved some of them. Found them in her coat pockets. My dad came to visit me in Catskill a few years ago and he left some cigarette butts in my fire pit. I put them in a jar.
The happier memory I had about her losing her hair, if you can have a happy memory about such a thing, was us standing in a circle in a group, at the end of a meeting, holding hands as a prayer was being said. Directly behind her was an oscillating fan. As it turned, it blew past the back of her head and her hair went flying and strands of her hair actually flew off of her head and into the air. Not wanting to disrupt the prayer she would just bow every time the fan blew past her. Smiling the whole time. Afterward she said, "I felt just like a dandelion!"
And I remembered something else, which I am afraid I have forgotten now. But I was happy that memories were coming back to me. Not only is the blog a place to leave my thoughts but it has made me realize I remember more that I thought I did. I have been fearful that I was forgetting things about my mom, forgetting who she was or what we were like together. I have been writing as a way of letting go of some of the painful memories of her illness and her death but along the way, happy memories have found their way onto these pages too. I am so glad.
I wish I could remember what I was thinking about today.... oh well, it will come again.
I feel like I want to get out all of the memories I have about her being sick that tug at me. Before I can write about her dying. Then to write about what it was like after she died. Then maybe to write about what it was like before she was sick. This seems like the logical order to me. To get the hard parts out of the way and then to wash my hands in the happy memories and leave this blog with a sense of having told a difficult story and then celebrated my mother in some way.
I remember now. I was thinking about her losing her hair after the first round of chemo. Oh, my heart just deflated, realizing there is a second set of memories I have not even touched. My my my... well, maybe I don't need to go there. This memory I had was sort of happy, but it brought to mind sadder memories.
When she started to lose her hair, she came to my room and knocked on my door. She stood in my doorway and with a sad face and said, "My hair is starting to fall out, look." And she combed her fingers through her hair and blond strands came away in her hand. I smiled and said, "It's okay, that means it's working." She nodded and smiled too. That is sad to think about. How scary it all was. The wig fitting. The wig.
She had a great friend, Peter, who my boyfriend Brad said was beyond gay, he was enchanted. He was so lovely to her and he would wash, trim and blow-dry her wig for her, weekly maybe? For free.
She had two wigs. I have them in a box somewhere, along with her reading glasses that were constantly falling apart, her wallet and a pair of jeans she wore all the time that were full of holes. I wish I had saved more mundane things like these. There is something about them. She used to chew a lot of trident gum and roll the wrappers into tiny tubes. I saved some of them. Found them in her coat pockets. My dad came to visit me in Catskill a few years ago and he left some cigarette butts in my fire pit. I put them in a jar.
The happier memory I had about her losing her hair, if you can have a happy memory about such a thing, was us standing in a circle in a group, at the end of a meeting, holding hands as a prayer was being said. Directly behind her was an oscillating fan. As it turned, it blew past the back of her head and her hair went flying and strands of her hair actually flew off of her head and into the air. Not wanting to disrupt the prayer she would just bow every time the fan blew past her. Smiling the whole time. Afterward she said, "I felt just like a dandelion!"
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