Twenty Years

It was 20 years ago today that my mother passed away. I've lived half of my life without my mother. Seattle is sunny and cold in remembrance.

I'd had a bad feeling the night before. I cancelled the plans I had, and the phone woke me up in the morning. My dad calling to let me know she was gone.

I knew she was dying, but didn't expect it so soon. A week before I'd had a nightmare that they'd given my mother the wrong medicine all those years for her cancer and that now it was too late to save her. I knew the truth in the dream, although my family was not good at talking about the reality of my mother's illness. I found out in a letter or maybe a phone call that she'd been in the hospital in September but they hadn't told me at the time; they hadn't wanted to worry me. I knew, after my dream, that things couldn't continue the way they had been, that I was worried about what they weren't telling me, and that I had to talk to them about telling me what was going on. I planned to do that over winter break.

Instead, I flew back to Minnesota on October 30th.

We didn't have a funeral. My mother was cremated. I insisted we have a gathering, though, to honor her. Her sister flew out from New York (my father told her brother there wouldn't be anything so he wound up not making it), and the people from her life came together in our apartment.

My mother had told me stories of when her mother died, only four or five years before, and how everyone had sat around telling stories. I wanted that for my mother, so I set the stage but then didn't know how to direct. I spent a lot of time with my youngest cousin, Deanna, who was almost 2 at the time. And with my boyfriend, Jacob, who had flown out to be with me.

I wish I'd understood then more of the way life, and people, work. But being young and in grief, I didn't. Couldn't.

I loved my mother dearly. She took care of me, taught me, played with me, loved me. She used to drive along the Mississippi River Boulevard with her friend Lynne and whistle at the male joggers in short shorts. She made the best cheeseburgers for my cousin Dawn. The first Doctor Who was her favorite. She liked really crusty bread and parsley, so I always gave her mine. She wore size 11 shoes, so always had trouble finding shoes. She was a quarter inch taller than my dad, who had a thing for tall women. She did basically all the driving, paid the bills, made the meals, and worked once I was in school.

She told me stories of growing up in the 1930s. She lived with her siblings, parents, grandmother, and I believe other relatives in an old wooden house (that someone once cleaned with gasoline to get rid of the bedbugs!). Her father had a cart and would go around repairing pans and such. He made wooden tools, too, I believe. Her grandmother had a shaved head and wore a wig, as the more religious Jews do; and she spoke Yiddish with my mother.

There was a story about my mother being sent to the store for fish, and coming back with such a large fish she needed to pull it in her wagon. Her mother was very upset when she saw the fish, since it meant gutting it and using it fairly quickly (since they just had a ice box back then). My mother said it was the angriest her mother had ever been at her.

My mother had a scratch on her hand from when she'd tried to break up two cats fighting. She also had a stylized silver cat pin, which is one of my most cherished possessions, which she was given for cat sitting.

I wish I'd gotten to know my mother more as a person than as just my mother. You aren't really able to do that until you are older (and sometimes not even then). I am still glad of the time we had together.

To my mom: I love you and miss you dearly.