Memories

The night before my mother died I dreamt I was lying in bed and everything was pitch black. I heard voices in the distance talking, I could not make out everything they were saying and then I heard them say, "She's coming home..." in a happy tone and I felt like my body was melting into the bed.

Mango Sorbet was another thing my mom would eat those last weeks. Hagen Daz. I found a recipe for cold peach soup. I made it for her and she liked it.

Her parents came to see her. I was laying in her bed next to her when they came in. They told me not to get up. They held her hand and stood side by side with tears in their eyes, quietly crying. My mother, in her low functioning state, managed to roll her eyes a little and say, "So dramatic." Beware of resentments people, they may kill you.

My mother used to say that wanting something is God's way of preparing you for it. When she started to express wanting to die, asking how long it would take, it scared the crap out of me.

We were at the beach once, before she got so sick. She wanted to talk to me about what would happen if she died. I said I didn't want to talk about it unless it became something that was actually going to happen. I didn't want to think that way. By the time we knew it was happening, it was too late to talk.

She said if she went into a coma and ended up on some sort of life support, she only wanted to be kept alive for 3 days. She said Jesus rose in 3 days and so could she.

She asked to be cremated. And also that we sit shiva for 3 days. Her ashes were to be spread at the bell in Gardiners Bay off of Shelter Island. She was cremated, we sat shiva but I did not bring her ashes to Gardiners Bay. I put some in small jars, gave one to my sister, one to Maureen, and I think one to Mary and one to Joyce. The rest I kept in a blue vase for a year or two and then emptied the vase in the ocean in Long Beach, a block from my house at the time. I hope she doesn't mind.

She wore a necklace that had a charm that was a tiny box with a stone on it's front. In the box was a typed wish. It was to be a grandmother. It's in Desmond's room, on top of a small jar of her ashes I kept. I think it's where she'd want to be.

The last conversation I had with her was when I went into her room to show her a small yellow rabbit I was knitting. She smiled and nodded.

One of the last things she said to me was in her room. I stood by her bed. She had such a hard time talking, getting words right. She started off by saying, "I never loved you...." and looked at me with a pained expression. She started again, "I never loved you....." With bits and pieces I understood eventually what she meant to say was, "I never loved anyone the way I loved you." But what echoes in my mind sometimes is, I never loved you.

My dad came. He drove from Florida without stopping, only eating half a bag of M&Ms. He came to say goodbye. We hugged each other in the kitchen and I cried. He said not to get snot on his sweater to make me laugh. It was a navy blue sweater.

My sister came. She cleaned the kitchen floor on her hands and knees. She was sweet with our mom. She was not treated as well as she could have been by my mom's friends. She felt she was treated more like a visitor than a daughter.

She had such pain in her legs, she had to be on morphine. Her legs would twitch. The last two days she slept, she did not wake up. The last few days there was a hospice nurse that sat with her 24 hours a day. I think Howie must have arranged it.

Before she was too sick to talk, she told me that Howie had told her as long as he was alive, I wouldn't want for anything. I had never heard this expression before and my brain is weird with words sometimes, I didn't get it when she said it. I asked her what that meant and she rolled her eyes at me.

When my dad got back to Florida he asked me to tell my mom that next time they would try doing it over in some other Long Island town, I forget which one. I don't think I told her. But I liked that he said it. I don't know why I didn't tell her.

I ate so many oreos and drank so much tension tamer tea, I was loopy most of the time.

When she got sick the second time, she asked me what I thought about the possibility of her committing suicide before she got really sick. To spare everyone the trouble and heart ache of her illness. I told her if she got really sick and had to die that there was a reason and there may be lessons for her to learn and that she would miss them. I thought it was a terrible idea. She agreed.

We saw a lot of movies together. When we went to the movie theatre, she had to be there at least 10 minutes early. Sometimes 15 or 20. And we would sit and eat our popcorn and talk and laugh. I miss that.

When she was sick from chemo and I would come home on the weekends, we would rent movies. She wanted to watch movies about people who were in life threatening, hopeless situations that made it out okay in the end. We watched movies like Apollo 13 and Misery. But she would fall asleep half-way through and never see them come out the other side.

I don't know why some women who have breast cancer survive and my mom didn't.