photo by @doug88888
The text said:
Went to ER last night. Thought I was having a stroke. I’m home now.
She might as well have been reporting the deal she got on strawberries down at the farmer’s market. Most of my mother’s texts are of that sort: “You’re a good mom,” she’ll write during a difficult day at homeschool. Or, “neighborhood association banned feeding Heathcliff and Gertrude” the cranes that live on the pond behind her house, “but the neighbor does it anyway. Ha.”
So, the first time through, I read this one in the same tone. I read it with her voice in my head, careful and precise, a bit of reportage from the retirement villas, which we call The Saturdays, because every day is Saturday when you’re retired. Her nonchalance was off-putting. She might as well have written: “Great price on CT scans these days!” along with a LOL or a smiling emoticon. Or: “Oh, you know, just a little brain hemorrhage. We’re dying, but it’s okay, because Medicare!”
Then the words begin to drill a hole in my consciousness. A stroke?
And so I did what we do in these situations. I texted her back. “Mom!” I included the exclamation point to show her I wasn’t kidding aroud. To remind her that this is serious, missy.
But I couldn’t wait the four seconds for my text to go and another twenty seconds for hers to come back to me, explaining that she was okay. So I called her—the baneful choice of every text-happy citizen.
In the intervening twenty seconds—during which she did send a text that said she was fine— between quitting apps, and sliding my finger across her name on my phone, I began to shake, and I began to remember, and I had a moment to think of more questions than I wanted to come up against.
Her mother had a stroke. Her mother came to live with us when I was a teenager. Her mother died in a hospital, without the energy to speak. And that is what I was thinking when my mother answered the phone, groggy and sheepish, a small laugh at the back of her throat, like a tickle. Chuckling at herself.
She told me once, after her mother had died, that leaving Grandma alone in the hospital grew increasingly difficult. Early in her stay, Mom was careful to tell Grandma, “I love you,” as she buttoned her coat and threw her purse over her shoulder. Grandma always replied, “I love you” back to her. She always completed the thought, reciprocated the sentiment. Of course she did.
It is a commonly recognized truth that the I love you circle must be completed. That we cannot allow a solitary I love you to dangle out in the world, aimless and alone, hitting its target with a whimper. We agree, as a people, that when the I love you circle is complete, the love is more real, more true. When our love is mirrored back to us, we are less alone, we are vindicated in our feelings, we are in relationship, of one sort or another.
We also know the ugly corollary: if the circle is not complete, that if the dangling I love you remains alone, the love feels less true, less real. Just…less. We become embarrassed by our outpouring, or shamed, or reminded of our lonely humanity.
One day, my Mom told me, Grandma did not—could not— send the words back to her daughter, this adult child. Mom clung to the doorway, hoping for a whisper that never came. As she told me, I felt fear like a rock wedged in my airway, and guilt. Daughter guilt. Guilt that comes from being such a pain as a kid. Guilt from failing to see my mother as a person until I was too old to have illusions. We women mothers are good at guilt. If I don’t have something to feel guilty about, just give me a minute and I’ll think of something.
Mostly, though, I felt fear. That kind of permanent fear that attends certain knowledge. No one escapes death. One day, perhaps, a vanishing, dangling, horribly hauting I love you will not return to me. The circle will remain open and I will be alone, without her.
Hard to type because of all the tears, but thank you for sharing from the heart, this is extremely beautiful and hard hitting for me. I’ve been there, too.
I guess it’s that thing no one wants to think about but it always kind of niggling at the back of the mind. I’m sorry for your grief and loss.
What child wouldn’t dread that moment? Yikes! I love how you described the “I love you” circle. So true.
Jen, This is so beautiful. Looking into my Mother’s eyes this summer. . . seeing her struggle with Parkinson’s, I had several moments such as you describe in your heartfelt essay. I’m thankful your Mother is alright and hope she will continue to complete the circle with you for a long time to come.
Oh my. This is so moving. I can picture myself there, in a hospital room, with a dangling “I love you” in the air. It is reminding me to tell my family I love them now, every day, not knowing when the day might come when I do not hear it back.
And perhaps though the love without a reply is the most difficult, I wonder if it is also the most true. A love for the sake of the other, because of the other, and for the other, when the other can give nothing in return.
As my parents begin to age these thoughts and feelings become more and more real. They are still healthy and actually “young” for their age but I know one day……
Thank you for sharing this…..it was beautiful and vulnerable.
I fear when this day comes with my own parents. It motivates me to call regularly and make sure I spend good quality time with them whenever I’m back in my hometown.
I really loved this post, Jen. I love the way your writing mixes humor and levity with the heaviest of the heavy, and beautifully at that. But mostly I love the heart behind this sentiment because I get it. I’m feeling it now, this very day even, and I’m grateful to you for articulating it. Thanks for the reminder to love well. xoxo
Darn you! This was good. So good. Blah.
You remind me of the things that scare me, that I push out of my mind.
Gonna go text (or call
my mom right now.
You are such a mensch (sp??) – thank you for this, Jen, and for all the other wonderful words you strew around these parts in so many lovely ways. Thank you for recognizing that the parent child connection is rich with all kinds of things, but mostly with love and memory. You know I loved this one and I’m glad you wrote it, even if it stirred things a bit.