i. August 2002 – August 2022
Twenty years.
I’m of course of a certain age (and have been for some time now) that just about any event may seem like it just happened yesterday. Certainly, memories that conjure profoundly positive or negative feelings are still fresh, and one need not be especially nostalgic to acknowledge this.
Still, twenty years is impossible to trivialize. I was 32 when my mother died, which means that almost one third of my life has passed without my mother being here.
There’s something about the shock and sorrow involving the death of a loved one that (understandably) changes the way you look at life, and even how you organize the way you look both forward and backward. In a chapter entitled “Calculus,” I reflected on this in my memoir:
My grief has made me, against all previous likelihood, into a half-assed mathematician. Numbers were never my bag, and I’ve got the report cards to prove it. And yet, ever since 2002, I find myself going over similar calculations, repeatedly.
There are the obvious, inevitable examples. For instance, on August 26, 2004: This is the second anniversary of her death; it is therefore seven years since her first operation. Then, with a combination of improvisation and OCD, other variations ensue: I was twenty-seven at that first operation; my nephew will be twenty-seven when I’m fifty-seven, which is two years younger than my mother was when she died. My mother’s funeral cost about (insert dollar amount here), which would buy (this many) trips to (this place). If we went to the various hospitals and treatment centers approximately fifty times over the course of five years, at roughly fifteen miles per trip, this distance would get you from D.C. to Chicago. We ate in the hospital cafeteria roughly twenty times, or enough to pay 2 percent of one of the cashier’s yearly salary. And so on.
And then this, revisited on a regular basis: If I get diagnosed at fifty-four, like my mother did, that means that effective immediately I have x years and y months to enjoy a cancer-free existence (although those malevolent cells could be coursing through my oblivious veins even as I type).
I can barely balance my checkbook, yet here I am, a poor-man’s Pythagoras, my busy brain co-opting or pre-empting the confusion and consternation cancer yields. And just like the bad old days during Algebra exams, I apprehend much less than I’d like. For example: How might my mother have lived her life if she’d known she was never going to see sixty? How might I have lived? How might I do things differently (i.e., better) if I could know how far off, or how unacceptably close my own death will be?
All of which is to reiterate the obvious: losing a loved one (particularly a parent) changes you.
Two things in particular have made this loss bearable, even positive in unexpected ways. One, I had abundant opportunity to express to my mother how much I loved and appreciated her. I’ve never had to agonize over things left unsaid, which –while not an issue even before my mother got sick– is not an inconsiderable blessing. Two, while this loss has affected me in subtle and obvious ways, it’s mostly proven that I’m the same person I already was, only more so. There is a peace and freedom there that would be inconceivable if I felt anything but affection and obligation for the woman who did the most to help me be the person I continue to become.
And on anniversaries and certain occasions, I’m relieved that –in ways I could never have comprehended before August 26, 2002– I was actually preparing for life without my mother long before I lost her.
ii. Gifts & Blessings
Why—how—after watching my mother die, before she turned 60, of a horrific if banal disease, could I consider myself fortunate? How can I?
Because those last two weeks I was not alone. I think about having to deal with my mother’s death (particularly the pain, fear, and uncertainty that preceded it) on my own, without my sister and father with me every step of the way? It likely would have hollowed me out and left me hating humanity.
And what about the mostly boring and unmemorable corporate job I always was thankful for? I thought: being able to take some time off so I could be present (in so many senses of the word) those last two weeks, what an unbelievable blessing, what a privilege. I thought then, and think now: what if I was like the vast majority of human beings on the planet, and could not afford (in every sense of the word) to take days off; if I worked for the type of company that did not, could not, would not, grant time off for something as unproductive and unprofitable as helping a loved one die in peace?
Those are some of the reasons I feel little other than gratitude for the way things unfolded. To be certain, we earned that modest grace, having paid with hours upon hours spent in hospitals, bearing witness not only to our mother’s suffering but the suffering of strangers, and the alternately redemptory and barbaric example we saw set by the staff (the imperiousness or indifference of the surgeons, the overworked doctors who never had the time, much less the training, to speak with empathy or honesty, and seemingly without fail, the ceaseless patience and goodwill of the nurses, the real heroes at once behind the scenes and on the frontline, their shifts a constant cycle of battle, fought in sanitized trenches that smell like soap and dread).
I find myself genuinely grateful that my mother was able to die, in her own bed, in a quiet room surrounded by the people who loved her best. I feel fortunate that even though we waited entirely too long (we didn’t know better), we called in Hospice early enough that they could work the series of daily miracles that is their sole mission. I’m proud that my mother had two sisters who cared enough about her to be there, to be present, willing to pitch in and make all the difference. I’m humbled that I had a host of friends who, even in days when email, and not text messaging, was still cutting-edge communication, made sure I knew they were there—and made themselves available once the sad, wonderful story of my mother’s final days ended and the real work of healing began.
I’m indescribably glad that this five-year crisis managed to pull our family closer together; that we collectively and individually made the decision to be bigger than our selfish selves and make caring for my mother the primary consideration. That we had enough history (thanks mostly to my mother and father) to set aside just about any petty grievance and understand we needed the best version of one another to ensure my mom’s death was as peaceful as possible and that the rest of our lives had the appropriate foundation—and momentum. We helped her die, and now we could live.
