Part 2: And Yet, I Can't Even Remember the Date

Mary Ellen Kiser
EVWP Summer 2009


The day had come. The day that we would put my mom into the ground forever. Somehow, I knew this day would come sooner rather than later despite all of our prayers. It was simply a knowing deep inside me. I always knew.

The pain had started while my mom was visiting me, and we were trying to finish planning for my wedding which was four months away. We had traveled together the four hours to see my grandmother. I sat at her kitchen table studying the corn and tomato salt and pepper shakers, uncomfortable with the conversation around me. Mom described the pain that she was having as worse than labor. For a woman who gave birth to my sister by herself in the backseat of the car while my dad drove to the hospital, I knew it had to be serious. Still she refused to go to the hospital or see a doctor.

About a week later, the morning after my bridal shower which also happened to be Father’s Day, we had all decided to go out for a big breakfast at Shoney’s. Both my parents were there, my sister, my uncle, and my mom’s identical twin. I remember going to the restroom after placing my order. When I came back to the table my mom, Dad and aunt were gone. They had rushed my mom down the street to the hospital against her will when she had begun having severe pains again.

I met the doctor with the beard and laugh-lined eyes. He said that mom was probably feeling stress from my wedding and that it was probably just a spastic colon. In true Bible- belt fashion he told me he would pray for us. For some reason I was able to see past the words and I just knew. Something was horribly wrong. Ironically, I had been born in this same hospital. It was as if life and death were connecting in some way that I could almost feel. A few days later after some disturbing test results, we were told that mom should return home as soon as possible. She needed more tests.

Still in college, going through the motions that were school proved to be difficult, but routine was soothing. I waited for more news. The call finally came- my parents wanted me to come home and for how long they weren’t sure. They wanted to tell me more when I arrived. But I already knew. They picked me up at the airport and mom had a smile on her face that I had never seen before. As I sat in the backseat I tried to find out what was going on, but they wanted to wait until we got home. I was forced to make empty chit-chat while we all knew already what was happening all around us. The truth was silently screaming. We all could somehow hear it, while pretending that we didn’t. Sometime later I was told by my mom that the reason she didn’t want to tell me the news over the phone was because I had yet to get my bridal portrait taken. She didn’t want the look of death captured in my eyes for all time.

Even when you think you are prepared, you never truly are. I heard the words cancer and six to nine months together like friends. I was standing under the glaring kitchen lights surrounded by pickled oak cabinets that had always reminded me of an old person’s home in Florida- dated. I looked out the window at the setting sun and a view of hills and valleys. It was summer, hardly a time to think of death. Death always brought to my mind winter and coldness. Clichés really do pour through your mind like “It’s not fair” and “She’s too young” and “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be”. And by the way, “Where’s God?” And then stupid thoughts flood in like “Who will I call when I have a cooking question?” And then once you get over the self-absorbed questions, finally, “Will she suffer?” “Is she scared?” and “What will happen to Dad?”

Two years later I am standing amongst people talking too fast and sounding too loud and asking too many stupid questions about what I am doing now career wise and I just want to be left alone. I view what was once my mom. It is odd what you overhear at a funeral. People chat about how good the dead person looks. Her hand feels waxy and cold- vacant. I look at her long painted nails and remember how she would praise chemo for making them grow long. One of my cousins is obviously avoiding going near her. I want to choke him. He still has his mom and she is much older. It should have been her. I hold my sister’s hand so tightly she is probably uncomfortable, but I don’t care. I won’t let go. I know I will fall over if I don’t keep holding on. She is holding me up. A sob works its way out despite my best efforts to keep it locked down deep. My legs begin to feel itchy under the hose combined with the Alabama summer heat. I want to tear them off. I hear laughter and it feels wrong. The casket itself is strangely luxurious looking with its rich mahogany finish and thick ivory satin comforter-like blanket inside. Like death is inviting me. It seems oddly comfortable. The sweet scent of roses is in the air, but instead of welcoming me like a sweet grandmother, I want to vomit and cry uncontrollably. People keep coming up to me and talking to me, but I can’t really seem to understand what they are saying. Are they words? Why is everyone pretending to be okay with a dead body in the room and not just any body, but my mom? A friend I hadn’t seen in a long time comes in and peers over the coffin, politely nods and then comes over to me saying something about “her lovely dress”. Did she realize it was the same dress that my mom wore to my wedding less than two years ago? Did she know that the memory of that dress for me would always involve this day? Did she even care? A strange image of me climbing into the coffin just to be close to her one last time enters my mind. When the day is over I am relieved. And yet, I can’t even remember the date.