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Home / Etcetera / Sometimes

Sometimes

Etcetera

momonpiano.jpg

 

Many days I forget her crooked smile, how she loved Jeopardy, her potato soup. Unless I’m prepared, I get either upset or downright angry if I have to think about her and me. The way we were together, or more often, apart. Our arguments are legend, still. Truth is, my memories are like an autopsy, revealing and raw. So much of the time I felt I had to win her love; and so my viscera calls to me, remember it says, it whispers: the wishing for a hug? and instead how you locked yourself in your room secretly hoping she’d knock. Shadows of the games I’d play, the recriminations, for that’s what they were, on both sides, bring tears and the kind of sadness you can’t contain. It’s sloppy, it spills and licks, so I keep the door closed.

 

Many days.

 

She’s gone now and I can’t make things right, and maybe we did, but how do I know for sure, that’s what my viscera says.

 

I can’t let it go, simply can’t. So much of youth is muscle memory. Your body remembers the clenched lips, the motion of locking the door, the scissor stomach. It’s imprinted, tattooed in permanent black. Even though as I grew older, we had an understanding, and I came to see she loved me. Intellectually, I knew it. It’s that she’d never been taught how to show it, coming from a stout German family, raised on stoicism and pick the carrots for dinner. So she left, first thing she could, joined the airlines (Western) and traveled the world. Once when my dad asked about her mom, she cried. Her mom never hugged her, she said; and then to my dad’s surprise, her sadness became sloppy and uncontained. He didn’t ask again. What does one do with all that sadness and muscle memory?

 

I still don’t know, I simply don’t. There was more to our relationship: the trying, and loving in ways I didn’t understand, but learned to appreciate. She was silent, I knew that, and it drove me crazy, but if I pushed, she’d dissolve. Just disintegrate into water. I could see: she did the best she could with what she knew. And right when I started to understand her, she was gone. Of course, I stayed behind, with my hands full of the slop and the what do I do now? I want to let it go. But does that mean she goes with it? I don’t want to chance it.

 

Recently, I was sent this picture of my mom as a teen-ager. It’s all there: the bad skin that made her so insecure, the love of music (she is playing the piano), the intensity. In so many ways, I get her. We are printed on each other, and then I start to think maybe we were more alike than different.

 

Those are the sloppiest days of all.

 

My Mama

 

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January 4, 2010 · 11 Comments

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Comments

  1. blognut says

    January 4, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    I wish I had a clue what to say to make it better, Deb. I don’t. I fear feeling something similar to what you are feeling someday, but not enough to keep beating my head against the wall to try and fix it.

    Sorry it’s so hard sometimes – ((hugs))

    Reply
  2. Shana says

    January 4, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    I would gladly relinquish my membership in the “dead mom’s club” if I could. It is so full of suck. I don’t know when it gets better. It’s been 11 years for me, and I’m still waiting. Memories come in waves, sometime with such an intense grief and I miss you-ness and sometimes a flash of a critical sting 30+ years ago that never went away.

    Reply
  3. Jenn @ Juggling Life says

    January 4, 2010 at 3:08 pm

    There’s so much truth in here I don’t know what to say.

    Reply
  4. Maureen@IslandRoar says

    January 4, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    I’m so sorry your mom is gone. We all have such a mixed bag of feelings about our parents. It can be so hard. This is so beautifully written; I think she’d be very touched…

    Reply
  5. chitownlis says

    January 4, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    Oh Lambie, I wish I could be there to give you a big hug. So sorry you’re hurting. Love you…

    Reply
  6. Green Girl in Wisconsin says

    January 5, 2010 at 8:58 am

    I’m totally touched by this post. It’s such a loving tribute.

    Reply
  7. Danielle says

    January 5, 2010 at 9:25 am

    I’m sorry you’re having such a difficult time. I wish I could offer some words of wisdom to make you feel better. So I’ll send you some feel better soon vibes instead.

    Reply
  8. L.A. Stylist Mom says

    January 5, 2010 at 9:05 pm

    This is so succinct, dead-on, and gorgeously written, that it made me cry. That and the fact (although I know it’s of less than little consolation) that I sometimes feel this way, and my mother is alive. xoxox

    Reply
  9. adrianne says

    January 7, 2010 at 11:45 am

    i love you, deb.

    Reply
  10. Stacey Ross says

    January 8, 2010 at 8:23 am

    You are a beautiful person. Glad to know you. Thank you. :)

    Reply
  11. Cranny says

    January 16, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    Your mom is beautiful. You are beautiful Miss you a lot, and LOVE to reconnect with a bit of you through your blog. Thank you.
    BTW “Don’t forget your coooooooaaaaaatttt!” :)

    Reply

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