Dorothy Mae

My Ford Escort was in the shop for brakes, and I remember the walk from the funeral director's to the subway station, having had to "borrow" the money from him to take the train to home. Rain hit the snow on the ground, causing each footstep to churn the mixture into slush; I was grateful to reach the doors of the train station, inside it was warm.  Took the rail home, and walked the two blocks to the apartment, still raining in big, sloppy drops that were on their way to becoming snow as the temperature dropped.

Brian was there already, for I had sent him on ahead in the taxi we had taken to get to the funeral home.  I don't remember much of that day after that, except for unpacking the Hefty bags the nursing home had given me and Bri to take my mother's belongings in, but the morning remained clear as any, each minute had it's own title, beginning, middle, and ending till the next breath, the next breath, the last breath.

Today is the anniversary of my mother's death.  Someday I will forget it, as sure as everything else will be, except not today.  I had visited her that night before, taken to the nursing home by my mother-in-law after she was no longer my mother-in-law.  Little did I know it would be the last time I saw my Mom; just two days before, she was up, sitting in her wheelchair, and I wrapped my scarf around her neck, she loved sunflowers so.  Didn't know who I was anymore, but that didn't ever bother me; I knew who she was, and chatted with her about people she knew, told her stories, talked of her parents whom she thought were still alive.  But there was a marker that gave me a wrenching realization that time was ending; her ankles and feet had blotches of grey.  Not pink-grey or blue-grey, but grey as paint, not human flesh.  Circulation was shutting down.  I left my scarf with her and kissed her goodbye.  I love you, too, she said.

That last night, she had developed a high fever, 105°; my brother had visited and told me that as he took her hand, she screamed at the pain and sat straight up in bed, something she had not been capable of in years.  I saw her after he had left, curled on her side, able only to nod as if in a dream; sleep, Mom; I love you.  She nodded in agreement.  The next morning there was a phone call from a nurse saying that if I wanted to see her, I had better get to the nursing home, now.  My son and I clambered into a cab that got us there quickly, where my father and brother already were.

The lady who shared her room had been put in the lounge area, my brother and I went in to her room along with Bri.  She was on her back, staring at the ceiling, her pupils so wide that you could not see the iris, and breathing in gasps. I am not going into details of the next three hours; suffice to say that she ebbed away softly as a tide leaving the shore.  Bare minutes before, as I held her, I felt a wave of dizziness grab me; oh no, I thought, not now; but inside of me came an image of a golden shape ascending against a reddened sky; did it have wings?  My brother and I cupped her cheeks as she passed.

Brian and I stayed to gather her belongings, and to make arrangements for her to be picked up.  The plastic bags of her belongings went with Bri in the cab after I was dropped off at the funeral home to sign papers.  Sludging through the snow and ice underscored the hollow shock of losing her, in spite of her incapacities visited by old age and the eventuality of life.

Who was she?  Born in 1920, she knew the Depression, of going without, of gathering hickory nuts in the woods for a sweet.  For a while, she was sent to live with relatives in Elmira, New York; the reasons were never clear to me, I am guessing it was not an unusual thing to do in those days, but why her?  Because she was the oldest, or was there an affection for her that wasn't available at home? She lived apart for a few years, then returned when my grandparents moved to Buffalo, going as far as the ninth grade before getting a job as a waitress in a restaurant where my grandmother was a cook and grandfather was a porter till World War II began and he got a job in a toolmaking plant.

She taught me how to string wild strawberries on a long stem of grass, to hold a blade of grass between my thumbs as a reed for a whistle; to wrap waxed paper around a comb to make a kazoo,
to watch for falling stars, to make do with what I had.  Go find a stick to play with, she'd tell me. Okay.  I had a great collection of sticks.  She found fossils of corals, or chunks of obsidian to show me; grew roses, taught me not to kill bugs, to be kind to others, to draw a tree.  Was she book smart? No.  But she was one of the most forgiving practitioners of human benevolence.  We were kicked out of a department store once because she stood guard at a drinking fountain labeled "Whites Only" while an elderly black man got a drink.  The one marked "Colored" was out of order, it was a hot day, he was wearing a suit, and it was before stores had air conditioning.  The floorwalker came over and Mom, who wouldn't open her mouth to say anything, gave him the what for, saying that the man wanted water.  You need to leave now, and so we did.  Thank you, ma'am, the man had said before he also was removed from the gathering crowd.

The flowering vines on my window sill show brilliant orange, their tubular throats open with white stamens; other are smaller, pale violet with spots, but again, a physiology of open mouths, singing a silent song.  It is a rainy day over snow, just as it was in 1999; I remember the ache of the cold but the drive to take care of my Mom pushed me forward; I wish I could have done more for her, but couldn't afford.  The best thing I can do for her now is to be someone she would be proud of, to sign my middle name when I can; Dorothy.

Mama, your grandson is getting married next October to a beautiful girl, you would love her; he has grown up and is working in Washington, DC.  I'm doing well, the car is hanging on by a thread, but I'm not scared; smaller problems have a way of working out in the end.  I hope this finds you well, and I must tell you, I am really happy you didn't name me Merry Christmas like you wanted to. Thank you, Mama.  I remember.  I dream.