This weekend I am on the North Carolina coast with women who attended the last Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat in Oaxaca, Mexico. We look east over the Atlantic Ocean, hear the lull of waves, write, share meals, tell life stories, sip good Oaxaca mezcal, offer each other encouragement and gentle feedback. This is not an organized workshop but an interlude until the next retreat in February 2015 (one space left). We are self-guided. There is no leader. Some of us write regularly, others not so much. Some of us publish and others have not yet taken that step. This morning we decide to write about our mothers.
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My mother lives a long life. She is ninety-eight. Now she sleeps for long stretches and struggles to keep her memory of the recent past, although for most of her life she recycles old stories of unfilled expectations, blaming others for her fate. Today, she weighs much less than her years, stands like a tender young tree that still wobbles after recent planting, steadies herself as she grabs for her stake in the ground, a blood red metallic walker plastered with return envelope stickers so no one will forget her name. The walker anchors her, propels her forward to meals, the toilet, her favorite chair. But, mostly she sleeps and we wait.
Today, she is in bed for hours like she was then. Only now she is truly tired. She is a mound beneath comforters surrounded by down pillows. Back then, she covers her head to block the sun that filters through closed shutters. Her bedroom is a shadowy twilight. Back then, I could barely see her outline under the covers. Back then, Valium was her comfort. Today, age is an effective substitute.
This is the day to honor my mother and the life she gave me. I do this with reverence and appreciation. Honestly. Not just because this is what I am supposed to do, but because I am now well beyond the same age when my mother first took to her bed to retreat from life.
My first memory is of her sitting on the bedroom floor in a corner, huddled, crying. Perhaps I am four years old. My father leads me by the hand out of the room, out of the house, tucks me into the front seat of the Plymouth station wagon with the stick shift on the wheel column, drives me to the drug store with the ice cream parlor, picks me up, puts me on a stool, and orders a vanilla sundae dripping with hot Nestle’s chocolate sauce, topped with a mound of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. I remember the long, arcing stem of the cherry, the lipstick red fruit comforted by the cream. I remember that the chocolate drips, then hardens within moments of meeting the cold custard.
He sits on the stool next to me. His elbows are on the counter holding his forehead in his palms, eyes downcast. I do not want to enjoy that ice cream sundae. Perhaps it is Mother’s Day then. Perhaps I cry and say I want to go home. Perhaps the door to my mother’s bedroom is closed and when we return, and my father takes my hand as he turns the knob. We enter. It is dark and tomb-like. I see the mound of my mother buried under the covers, tendrils of dark curly hair on the pillow, just as I see her now. Except her once luscious roan hair is now white wisps, and her pink scalp is like a newborn’s, fresh and tender. I whisper gently to rouse her and I wonder when she doesn’t answer if this is the deep sleep that will be forever, just as I did then.
Today, her breasts hang like shriveled apples buried in snow for the winter. Once they were abundant, ripe, but provided her own newborns with no sustenance. It was the time of mechanization and bottle-feeding. Nurturance never came easy for her, and as the years went on I become mother, sister, friend, confidante as she sinks further into the past, reliving the emotional deprivation of being the oldest child of Eastern European immigrants, pulled from the nipple at fourteen months, pushed aside by the eager mouth of a baby sister who came into this world too soon.
Just before one Mother’s Day long ago, my father and I go shopping together at The Broadway. Perhaps I am eighteen or so, my father thirty years older. I convince him to be bold and we choose the cardinal red silk nightgown with spaghetti straps. I remember the low-cut lacy bodice and it’s exquisite luxury. I know my mother’s cleavage will fit perfectly. I have hopes. My father has dreams. We take the gown to customer service for free gift-wrap on the third floor. We choose a silver flocked paper that glitters with flying doves. I remember the girl ties the box with white ribbon. When she pulls on the ribbon with an open scissors the ribbon becomes tight curls like the hair on my sister’s Madame Alexander doll. When we present it, my mother screams in horror, I am not a whore, throws it across the room, goes to the bedroom she claims as her own and slams the door. My father holds his head in his hands. On Monday, I return the gift.
On this Mother’s Day, I will make a telephone call. She may not hear the phone ring. Perhaps she will be sleeping. Her hearing aids will rest on the dresser, the battery holder open to conserve energy. If she does hear the call and answers, our conversation will be brief. Three hours distance us. From her side of the world, it will soon be meal or medication time. She is tired, she says. Her voice steadies itself then wanes. I remember when she would talk for hours, a monologue to my uh-huhs and yes, I understand. Now, I finally do.
On this Mother’s Day, I look eastward to the Atlantic Ocean from the second story balcony of my white-curtained bedroom. The tassel tops of dune grass wave in the wind, an anchor for shifting sand on this narrow barrier island. Beyond the dunes white caps fold over themselves. The horizon is hazy. A lone sailboat is at sea. Gulls, wings outstretched, ride the thermals, then turn to navigate south against the headwind.
Today my adult son is a few miles south on another stretch of beach to attend a wedding. He will join us later for supper and overnight before he returns west to resume his day job and creative life as a comedy writer. I wonder what he would say of me?
Would he say that he let himself in to an empty house each day after school with the key that hung around his neck while I worked until six or seven at night? Would he say that being an only child of divorced parents damaged him or made him resilient? Would he say that television was his friend? How will he reconcile what could have been with what is, and thrive despite the setbacks? Would he say that I loved him and did the best I could? As I listen to the lull of ocean waves and watch the gentle sway of dune grass, I wonder. Later, I will ask him.
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Neshama Shafer took her name from ancient Hebrew, meaning breath, soul, or spirit. She hopes it will give her the freedom to write honestly, without constraint.
