Note: This was written before the most recent post, about the margarita glasses. So they’re out of order.
When I was in high school, my mother used to joke that she could devastate my social life in less than five minutes. The cafeteria was open to the front entry hall of the school, so all she’d have to do was walk in and wave a pink Barbie lunch box, screeching, “Meggieeeee! You forgot your lunchieeees!” And that would be that. Over the years, the threatened prank got more and more elaborate: an unlit cigarette, a shower cap, curlers, a muumuu, a ratty bathrobe, slippers. And always, the dreaded Barbie lunchbox.
I was walking into a rec center yesterday and feeling just the slightest bit sorry for myself because my mom had her own mother with her through all the feminine mysteries of menopause. I won’t have my mother around for that little miracle of nature. I was pouting about this and washing my hands in the bathroom when another perfect song came on in answer. I just stood and listened.
Oh, I’ve always got the memories
“Wherever I Go,” written by Adam Watts and Andy Dodd
While I’m finding out who I’m gonna be
We might be apart but I hope you always know
You’ll be with me wherever I go
Oh, my heart. I didn’t know the song, but after the confusion with the Kinks’ “Days,” I figured she was giving the singing telegram approach another shot. And I looked forward to having another wonderful story to tell. And then I looked it up, and I knew for sure it was her, and I knew why. The song is “Wherever I Go” by freaking HANNAH MONTANA.
I swear I can hear her giggling. Hannah Montana, Mom? Really? So there it is. Essentially, knowing that I’d write about her, she just told all my friends I love Hannah Montana. But I don’t! I didn’t know the song! I didn’t even like it that much! And I only ever had ONE Barbie, and she wasn’t even blonde!
Obviously, most of my mother’s “greetings” can be put down to coincidence and confirmation bias; she’s not going to send fireworks every day, and she doesn’t have to. Usually, it’s more like today’s “conversation” at Sprouts.
For those who wonder what I’ve been thinking about other than my mother for the past two weeks, the answer is…not much. But she died less than two weeks ago. Gimme a break, here. But I do occasionally have a thought of my own, and I wanted avocados. This has nothing to do with Mom: she doesn’t eat them. I mean, I guess at the moment she doesn’t eat too much of anything (like Polonius, she is at supper, not where she eats but where she is eaten! Actually, she was cremated, but I couldn’t waste that reference), but you know what I mean. She does not find avocados interesting.
But, typically, she seemed to be interested in some other things, so I roamed. When I saw the bulk bins, I remembered her fondness for Sprouts chocolate-covered walnuts.
Very good for the brain! she enthused. Antioxidants! Yum YUM!
I know, Mom. But honestly, I didn’t like them that much.
But they were so good! I shared, remember?
Yes. Thank you. But that shiny chocolate coating just didn’t taste like anything to me. I’m sorry. It was like shellac.
Oh, just go look.
Which I did. And it is good that my mother knows me. I am not especially attentive to detail or subtlety, so I’m glad she’s not relying on me to be perspicacious. ONE bin had the big red sign I couldn’t miss.
And they were different from the old shellacked walnuts, and they were quite tasty, and yes, I’m sure they’re just jam-packed with antioxidants. I know.
What was notable when I thought about it later was the complete normalcy of it all. If I had texted her a month ago that I was in Sprouts, this is more or less the same conversation we would have had. And I find that deeply, deeply comforting. She keeps telling me, No, whatever it is, you don’t have to do it alone. Menopause is barreling down on me, but I can complain to her anytime about the depletion of collagen in my neck. She’ll sympathize. Not that she has a neck anymore.
I guess I’d better say something about the darkness of the family humor. My mother always had a quirky, not-too-respectful relationship with death. And physical handicaps. And a number of other things that civilized people do not laugh at.
Us crazies who believe our loved ones stay with us forever… Well, on occasion, other folks, like my sister, take exception. And they say, “What about when you’re pinching off a loaf, huh? When you’re dropping a deuce, are all those old dudes dancing on the back of the tank?” Now I don’t know, obviously, but my guess is that yes, in fact, they are. They are admiring your technique, wishing you luck, cheering you on! Who is better qualified than they to assure you that, indeed, everything does come out all right in the end?
I’m guessing Mom would frown at the lowbrow turn this has taken, but also she’d love the absurdity of the whole question, the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane. We once had collective family hysterics around the dinner table because we started wondering about the Pope’s undergarments. The spiral into madness was swift and enjoyable.
A story from the files: When my mother was in her late teens or early twenties, I guess? she went to the wake and viewing of an elderly great-aunt. And this woman, I’m told, had been blessed in life with enormous bazooms, such that my mother started to wonder how they would close the casket. So there she was, checking out the dead woman’s bosoms from the side of her eye, and she noticed…a change in her figure. And she whispered in astonishment to her Aunt Kathy, “Where are her boobs?” For indeed, they were not in evidence.
And Kathy whispered back matter-of-factly, “They’re in a bag by her feet.” Evidently, my mother was not the only one to anticipate the cup-size-to-casket-size-ratio issue.
And the more Mom coughed and wheezed and tried not to laugh, the more hysterically she giggled, until finally my grandmother threw her out of the funeral home and was most displeased.
My mother, who could be so generous and so compassionate, could also be callous, insensitive, shockingly perverse. She was a conundrum: anything at all could become sacred, but generally nothing was. Plenty of people are still bitterly angry at the memory of how awful she could be.
But as she got older, she changed: for instance, she dialed back the sarcasm noticeably (though not the twisted sense of humor). And I think that, freed of her ego and her body and their onerous exigencies, she’ll change even more. What might she be now, when she has nothing to fear and nothing to protect? I would like to find out who she’s going to be. I hope I will, later if not sooner. I’ll keep you posted.
The Sabbaticle 