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I'm in love with your ghost.

-Indigo Girls

Mom

Remembering her smile. Celebrating her life.

October 26, 2006

Tomorrow I have to find a way to celebrate my mother's life.

So I will:

• Purchase a strawberry shortcake
• Go out for Indian food
• Hit Tahaughnock in the morning
• Make a collage of family photos
• Cuddle on the couch with Dan and The Boys while watching a scary movie
• Call my sister, brother and aunt and tell them how much I love them
• Wear loafers, jeans and a warm sweater with pearl earrings

A Map of Love by Donald Justice

Your face more than others' faces

Maps the half-remembered places,

I have come to while I slept -

Continents a dream had kept

Secret from all waking folk

Till to your face I awoke,

And remembered then the shore,

And the dark interior

1989

i will work. i will work. i will work hard today. because it's the only thing that's keeping me sane.

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i'm angry for an assortment of reasons this evening. it started off as a pretty decent monday. i had energy and just cranked through with my work. signed a teen tiny acount, but hell, it's money and the work is enjoyable. i cooked an okay dinner. all this despite me being upset that my aunt was admitted to the hospital on thursday night, and that my sister had been missing a lot of school again as in on the verge of failing a few classes due to unresolved absentees. she's in her senior year, and her the road to failure is unfortunately shining all too bright. it's not good.

my sister is up to her usual, and my aunt--the backbone of our family--is pretty sick, sick enough that she's still in the hospital. but I worked through all of this second, perhaps third degree trauma, because i am emotionally prepared to handle it. yes, i'll admit i was, i am upset about the timing of it all. my aunt and uncle were supposed to visit this week, pick up the kids at dad's office and head up to ithaca for the weekend. i had such plans. mostly, i just wanted to feel them around me. gosh i miss them all. then dad told me that he has another appointment with amy's counselors on thursday morning and it's just not a good idea for her to miss more school. makes sense to me, but i still do wish that i could see her.

i'm not myself these days and dan says that he misses me. i miss him too, but i don't know how to help what i'm feeling. i'm a loving person. i'm affectionate. i'm a good listener. i am a supporter. lately, i'm none of the above. i miss me too.

i made a phone call this evening to my mother's friend. she told me of an encounter she had with a co-worker who knew of my mother as my father is her doctor. his nurses liked to talk to the patients about what a "cuck" (spelling? the word for crazy) my mother was; how she wasn't good enough for my father; what a kind man he was ... this co-worker had no idea that my mom committed suicide. i asked my mother's friend why she was telling me this. i was sobbing.

and because i couldn't let it go, i in turn told my sister. how wrong of me. how fucking stupid of me.

in high school and college i had a friend whom i loved dearly and trusted wholeheartedly. she once told me that her parents said my mother was crazy, a bitch, on an on and on. i will not discredit her parents here. frankly, not one of them is worth my time. from that moment on, i knew our friendship was over forever. she wasn't a good person.

anyway, back to the co-worker ... i managed to fight the urge to call dad and tell him to get his nursing staff under control--that's if he wasn't fucking them all--or i would get the names of the big-mouthed nurses and personally call the rest of his partners and explain the situation. (i know a colleague or two of dad's who might help in this situation.) somehow, being the decent publicist that i am, i could carefully leak a few of his indiscretations to the appropriate people. there is a reason why i'm so observant.

then i had the urge to call up this co-worker and threaten her with bodily harm. also mention that i hope the next time she sees my father he diagnoses her with a terminal illness.

yes, my benevolence is finite.

right now it's all about the fight. i'm pissed.

I Love the Boys from JackAss

 

Chapter 3, Part I

The thing about grieving is that just when I start to feel like all of nature is not against me, one memory with my mom will slither into my head and render me completely useless for days. Given that the year anniversary of her suicide is fast approaching, I am in shambles.

I’ve given up the diet that was working so well, and last night I told Dan that I wanted to take up smoking again. I’ve been smoke-free for about four months after an almost 15 year habit.

I haven’t cooked in several days. I’m barely working and I’ve been sleeping late each morning. I have barely gotten dressed, much preferring to wear a holey tee-shirt and dirty sweatpants. Today I even cancelled my EMDR appointment as I felt as if I had the flu this morning. No such luck. It’s just depression.

Last night the phone rang three times in a row and I almost had an anxiety attack. The thought of talking to people just freaked me out.

You know when after a fun but reckless night of drinking you wake up with a killer hangover and admit to your friends that you will never drink like this again?

Do you know that lonely yet resentful and aching feeling you have when you break up with someone you really cared for?

You know that I am worthless feeling when you don’t get the job that you truly believed you were meant for.

You know that feeling when you’ve got a winter bug and your body is aching, your nose is sniffling, your head is hot and you can’t keep down any food?

Remember when you made that huge mistake at the office and you feared getting caught or worse - you were caught and you’re just waiting for your boss give you a verbal lashing?

Remember when you had a stupid fight with your very best friend and it left you feeling guilty and embarrassed?

Remember when you were six and you woke up from a nightmare about a bloody monster and you were afraid that it was under your bed or in your closet.

Remember when you were afraid of the dark?

Well take every sorry, shameful, fearful, lame, twisted, reckless, heart-wrenching, vomit-inducing moment in your life, multiple it by about 25 and that’s how I feel when I’m at my very worst moments of grieving. I can barely life my head off of the pillow.

Sometimes I cry so hard I can not swallow. My chest gets tight and I can not breathe. In fact, I’m crying but I’m not making any sound.

I can’t blame anyone for making me feel this way but my mama. She did this to me—her first born, her pride and joy, her closest friend.

Chapter II, Part I

On my nightstand is a photo of my mother and father sitting on the couch with all of our pugs. I believe that it’s Christmas of 2004 and both my parents have that sleepy look in their eyes like they’ve been up all night wrapping gifts. I can’t help but comment on the smug look on my father’s face. It’s the look I’ve become accustomed to the last ten years. It makes me both laugh and cry.

My mother gained a pretty significant amount of weight (unusual for her) the last four years and didn’t feel much like posing for the camera. There are very few pictures of her in recent years, so my nightstand photo is particularly precious to me. I light a candle by the photo most evenings. I also give her kiss and say goodnight before I turn in. All of this has become necessary parts of my day. When I travel the photo comes along and finds a place by my bedside.

After a recent disturbing conversation with my sister where she informed of my father’s recent behaviors, I decided that I didn’t want that picture on my nightstand any longer. I hated his fucking smug face. It was about 11:00 a.m. and I tore through the house like a whirling dervish in search of a new picture of my lovely looking mother sans Smugface.

It was a bad night. Since I’ve become holder of the enormous family photo collection, I’ve spent countless hours carefully placing them in photo albums. There are boxes of photos in my office, on our kitchen table, on our bar. I was up and down the stairs. Lots of crying. Dan followed me, closing all of the windows because he knows the cries will turn into screams and at some point I may start talking to my dead mother very loudly. On top of it all, I’m already feeling the drowsy affects of the sleeping pill I downed right after I got off the phone. I’m very obviously hysterical at this moment and it’s very liberating.

I finally locate a picture - me and mom on my college graduation day in May 1999. My parents threw me a fabulous party where we all got tanked and ate tons of yummy Italian food. It was great fun. It’s also the last picture I have of us together and that was nearly eight years ago. I can’t even begin to explain how bad this makes me feel.

I stomp back upstairs to find a picture frame. All of my movements are disjointed as I place the photo into the sky blue frame. My head is pounding. I pop a vicodin. Dan brings me water and tissues. I am snotting on his shirt. He finally settles me down in our bed.

The next evening I notice the glass from the sky blue frame is cracked. I don’t recall this. I put the picture with Smugface back on my nightstand and light a candle. I miss him.

The Hot List

Must see movie: Half Nelson

Favorite new actor: Ryan Gosling

Kimmee's new title: Celebrities Editor

Favorite new show: Brothers & Sisters

Hottest cast in a TV show: Smith

Best drama going down in the tabloids: Anna Nicole Smith's Baby Daddy

Most tired celeb: Jennifer Anniston

Stacy called it: Kate Hudson & Owen Wilson

Best book read recently: Danni Shapiro's Family History

Dear Stacy

Happy Birthday Beautiful

Part V

Cont...


My food issues were indeed out of control. Still are, in fact. I classify these issues as restrictions, because I wasn’t allowing myself to feel good, my mother’s suicide wasn’t allowing me to function normally. One week was exclusively dedicated to Golden Oreos for lunch and dinner. Sometimes I would only eat salami. I recall going on a hotdog binge. And I wonder why I’ve gained 20 pounds since last the summer of 2005.

I would often find myself thinking about sitting in the kitchen with my mother. She danced ballroom in that kitchen, a cook to boot. I would attempt to conjure up images of her making the sausage stuffing at Thanksgiving and many other delectables I can not physically afford to write about at this time. I would make myself frustrated at the fact that I had spent countless hours with her in the kitchen and couldn’t take note of temperature, of mise en place.

I bathed, washed the face, brushed the teeth, waxed…but looking in the mirror was weird. I could say I didn’t recognize myself, but that’s just putting a cliché to something far weightier. What I saw in the mirror was a girl with too much soul, a girl of yesterday and today but never tomorrow. My face was never quite as clear as it should have been. It didn’t take to makeup, to lotion. It was so blurry that to even call it a mess would be lying. My vision was lost.

In the simplest terms, I felt heavy. Sometimes I’d lie awake at night unable to move body parts because they felt like anchors. There were moments when I thought my heart would drop from its natural location and settle at my knees. The absolute worst were the heavy eye problem. My lids would swell to five times their size and all I could see in the mirror was a black circle where my face should be. Those eyes made my head to wobble from side to side. All I could do was lie down for fear of breaking my neck.

Part IV

Cont...

In the past 11 months I’ve made a checklist. What are the common factors in those who commit suicide? Is it depression? Pressing financial matters? Severe or terminal health issues? Substance and alcohol abuse? Sure, it could be anyone of the above. If there is a list of ten possible reasons, I can probably choose fifty percent of those and relate them to my mother’s suicide. But who really cares at this point. She’s dead.

I don’t know at what stage of grieving paranoia sets in, but at some point I considered that my mother faked her own death. (Frankly she was never that clever.) I believed that perhaps this was a forced suicide. (This is not the Middle East.) Perhaps she was murdered? (The medical examiner ruled out homicide.)

This is not an episode of CSI. This is my life here. I know my mother, and I know she took the handgun that was purchased to protect my family against robbers and Charles Manson-types and decided she had enough. It was time to rest. It was her time.

Since she died, I have not had any rest. All she does is badger me: in my sleep, when I’m cooking dinner or watching Desperate Housewives. Frankly, she’s a big pain in the ass. I hear a song in the car like Joe Cocker’s You Are So Beautiful to Me, and I openly weep. For months I was taking up to three baths a day just so I could place some boundaries on my emoting. If I limited myself to one place, at least I wouldn’t feel like such a basket case. No such like. I’m so sick of this.

I found great comfort in water during the first six months after her death—obviously with all of those silly baths. Living in Ithaca, I obviously couldn’t swim during the cold months, but I had the sound of water flowing, of lapping from the various waterfalls that make this little city so alive. I suppose it quite Civilization and Its Discontents, but I’m not referring to any basis of religion here. I am referring to the oceanic feeling as the symbol of life, death and the unknown. I am referring to the idea of being unrestrained. When I’m near or in water, I can feel my skin move. I like my skin in the water. I like myself around water. I’m recognizable again.

So you understand better, this suicide has brought about so many restrictions for me. For a brief time last winter I was unable to drive. After a few missed stop signs, an ignored red light and tires that regularly shrieked, I surrendered my car keys. It felt good. I didn’t want to feel responsible for something else.

A few weeks after she died, I wore her sweaters every day—mostly three cardigans, one pink, grey and black. My father said that was not good. I think I told him to go fuck himself. I still wear those sweaters, but for much different reasons. Her smell no longer accompanies them.

Then there were those prized times when I felt socially awkward around my closest friends. To me, when I was with them, I felt as if there was always a pink elephant in the room. I felt nervous and overwhelmed. I had to fight the urge to run out the door and bury myself in a pile of snow. God, I hated me. The thing is I was so desperate for them. I wanted so badly to make them laugh and see their smiles. What I really wanted was for them to make me feel like me again. For so many years when any of us had a crisis, heartbreak, a “God please tell me I did that” moment, we could find a way to cheer each other up with a $10 bottle of wine, a dirty joke and some slanderous gossip about some waif Hollywood actress. None of the above would help in this situation. They—the heartiest, funniest, savviest creatures on the planet—couldn’t even help.