Mom's Box
In September of '04, my mom had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and I had an idea for a gift. I got family and friends to contribute beads to make a necklace, which I gave to her at Christmas.
In a lot of ways, giving it to her was the hardest part of losing her. You know how sometimes saying "I love you" can hurt worse than saying nothing at all? Yeah. That was the time I cried hardest.
But it wound up being the last Christmas present I gave her. She died a year ago today, two days before Christmas.
There's good pain and bad pain, and the good pain of watching her open it is still way, way stronger than the bad pain of the night she died. But it's still pain.
A year ago. The Christmas lights on the drive over to my dad's house, which was still their house, and the wild red-orange sunset are what I remember most vividly. And not feeling the cold at all. The rest . . . I don't repress it, but I don't talk about it, ever, or share it with anyone.
I've been reminiscing a lot, putting things in their places like beads on a string, lining them up and looking at the whole. Talking things over with my sister, reframing them. There's a lot of bad, tangled thread to sort through.
I'm also remembering the sorts of things that you don't really think about as memorable until you realize that most of your memories of people are of things like that. Trivial shit. Most of what I remember are good things. Fish and chips at Arthur Treacher's, which is now a Chinese place I still eat at. Feeding sparrows biscuit crumbs in the parking lot of McDonald's before school. Learning to paint. Her taking me to see The Last Unicorn in the theater. Me dictating stories to her that she'd type. Her telling me stories in the car. Rubbing my legs until I fell asleep. Taking care of me when I had scarlet fever and was so sick I was hallucinating being chased by giant crabs.
Dammit.
I want to be honest so I'm going to tell you flat-out that for me, it's not like they say. I don't feel her presence, hear her voice, feel her guiding me. I miss her a lot, and that's what people hear most easily. They don't really listen when I say that despite the fact that I loved her, she wasn't my friend, or even much of a guardian, while she was alive. There was a time when we were as close to enemies as two family members can come. I never felt that safe sort of closeness with her that other people seem to feel around their mothers. It's not any different now. If I want to invoke her presence, I have to do it consciously, through an act of willpower.
But I loved her, and that was very real. And I still miss her. It's still an empty spot, smaller every day, but still empty.
I have her necklace still, in the box I gave it to her in. I don't wear it much. I keep thinking I ought to give it back to Dad, or let my sister keep it for a year, and hey, maybe I will. But having it has been a comfort. The necklace is priceless to me for its ability to cut through everything and bring her right back to me in a direct, immediate way.
I don't feel like she's with me when I wear it. But when I wear it I can run my fingers over memories like beads, and think that yes, with time, I can string a pretty necklace from the good, bright memories I have left.
Miss you.