Sick Days

This week you were sick, and for the first time in your life you were able to tell me about it.

“My tummy hurts.”

“My water bottle will make me feel better, Mom.”

“I feel better!”

You had a fever on Mother’s Day, barfed through the night from said fever, and a rash bloomed all over your body the next day.

“I’m itching, Mom.”

“I need purple medicine, Mom.”

My mother was a nurse. My mother briefly held her hand to my forehead and told me to go to bed. My mother told me you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine. Push fluids. Eat some crackers. Here’s a towel in case you don’t make it to the toilet to barf. I’ll see you when I get home. Maybe because of this and because of how I turned out, I let my hand linger to stroke your cheek and hold your chin to kiss you. I put my hand on the small of your back as we fall asleep, thinking I can monitor your fever that way. I want to hold you so that you know I feel awful you’re so lousy, that your cheeks are red and your eyes are all glassy and you’re out and out miserable. I ask you how you’re feeling? What can I get you? Do you want some juice?

“Leave me alone, Mom,” you say. When you’ve had enough of my doting you go to your room and close the door.

In the past few days together I’ve learned to give you your space. To not coddle or baby you. To accept your affection when you offer it and to be present when you need me. I am marveling at how different you are from me: so independent and particular. You open the back door and wander outside to your swing, and I let you go alone to have your privacy while chatting with the cat and singing your made-up songs. After a few minutes you come back and offer to give me a tattoo of a shark on my back with the red marker you found on the table, and I lift up my shirt and sit down.

April 2012

Gardening, Hercule Poirot

I sustained my first gardening injury of the year. It was dry and light out Wednesday night, and I dug up the sod crowding the blueberry and hydrangea bushes in the backyard. Mari wandered around making dirt piles and singing, and Michael tucked his legs under him in that little boy way and pulled up dandelions around the maple trees. None of us talked to each other but there was the sweetest closeness going on:all in concentration, circling around each other, glancing over to check our progress.

I dug up the sod in chunks to turn over to loosen up the dirts and worms still clinging to roots. I didn’t feel like tracking down gloves so worked with my bare hands, quickly letting them cake up with moist soil. I asked Mari if she wanted to look at an earthworm and she ran over but didn’t want to touch it. She lost interest and wandered back to her spot.

There is a very peaceful feeling I only get in certain places: museums, historic areas, Fabric Depot, hiking alone, gardening. I remember noticing it for the first time in high school when we used to go to Mission San Juan Capistrano to walk around. The feeling is very quiet and solemn and almost ghosty. Sacred. It’s peace. Now when I get the feeling I associate it with my mother. And gardening was my mom’s favorite.

By the time I finished with both bushes my hands were very cold, so I went inside to wash them off. I watched the dirt loosen and flow away from my hands and into the drain, letting my fingers thaw out under hot water. I don’t want to admit it, but I still kind of expect some sign. But there never is any.

The next night was the 3rd anniversary of her passing. Michael and Mari went to a friend’s for dinner. I stayed home and lay on the couch with an afghan she crocheted and a mason jar of white wine and an ice cube. I watched Hercule Poirot. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel anything. I ate too many orange slice candies Michael had picked up at the 7-11 along with the wine on his way home, and I was relieved when Mari and Michael came home so that we could start the bedtime routine as scheduled.

(Earlier that morning I woke up knowing exactly what day it was. I ate the very last of her Caltrate tablets– the supply had somehow lasted 3 years except for this last one, which I was secretly hoping would unlock some kind of magic. I got dressed. I put on her 3-year-old lipstick I can’t throw away. I dabbed her perfume on even though it gives me a headache. She came up in conversation several times during the day, and I thought maybe there was some magic to it but realized she’s just on my brain, she’s bound to come up.)

She’s bound to come up.

Just heard.

“Mommy! I like your jammers! Mommy? I like your sweater!”

“Mommy, it’s Daddy’s turn.”

 

And Happy Birthday, Mom.

Today I just remembered when we went to San Juan Capistrano for a fancy lunch at the tea place by the railroad tracks. I think we drove your mid-life-crisis Miata, maybe with the top down (although it tended to mess up your hair). We had no idea about cancer or schleroderma or how difficult it is to push a wheelchair over railroad tracks; we never thought diabetes would ever curtail your dessert consumption. You did your own hair that day. You may have done some rigorous gardening beforehand so that you were slightly sunburned, slightly worn out. I did not hold your hand; I was still in the habit of keeping secrets and breaking down for no good reason in the kitchen while you pretended not to notice.

But we sat at a table on the front porch and ate salads and drank iced tea. You might have worn your sunglasses. I may have brushed a eucalyptus leaf from the table. We may have ordered petit fours, smiling at each other as the server took away the dessert menu.

I remember you getting very angry telling a story about some family drama and it finally occurring to me that you might have a problem with anger. That you eat it up. I may have tried for the first time to ask you to stop talking that way. And then we looked in different directions, letting bird sounds and train whistles and other womens’ voices fill in for a while.

We walked around after. We walked into stores, picked things up, placed things back down. You might have tried on the jacket I decided to buy you later for Christmas. We walked side by side on the sidewalk, almost like sisters. I may have felt inspired to latch arms to see if I could get away with it, and maybe I did.

Part of me would like so badly to go back to that day to spend with you, just for an afternoon, to talk about nothing at all important. To sit together at a table with no heavy weights pushing us down: death death death death death. To have the luxury of taking for granted each other’s company.

And part of me would like so badly to go back to the week before you died, when we lay together in your bed and watched TV and talked with the volume turned down low. You took my hand and I knew something was wrong (you were defeated, you had resigned yourself), but we had said all our i love yous and understood how special that hour was together, and I truly comprehended what I was to you–your daughter and (I hope) support and someone who understood where I think some others may have not. I am so sorry to wish that day back on a happy occasion, your birthday, but really I would take any minute back just to touch you and hear your voice and have you as my mother again.

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday

You’re two! Your birthday came and went, and I didn’t get a chance to slow down enough to properly document it. We had spaghetti for dinner. We went to the pool and you swam with your dad in the deep end, holding onto his back. I sat on a bench across from the water slide, and each time you came up you found me and screamed. You clawed your way out of the pool to run over and kiss my knee. Thank you for that.

Thank you for coming home and proceeding to eat two more bowls of spaghetti.

Thank you for dancing so much. You now must wear the fruit necklace I got you in order to properly dance (replacing the tutu for now).

Thank you for being the kid in Saturday morning dance class that refuses to adhere to the rules, who runs and flaps her arms while everyone is bending and stretching, who runs for a leap out of turn when the other kids are clinging to their mothers. Thank you for being the opposite of me. Thank you for crawling into a tiny cubby while the other kids are following the leader, unwittingly pointing out that I need to let go let go let go and just enjoy you. 

Thank you for all the unprompted kisses, the i-love-yous, the screaming and running when I come home and open the door each night.

Thank you for showing what a good person your dad is, even if he let you watch all those episode of Dr. Who.

Thank you for giving me the best reason I ever had for everything good I do.

 

Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday!

List: typical work day in chronological order

~3:00a.m.: Wake up to tiny child asking me to sleep with her in her bed. Heart melts.

4:40a.m.: Wake up to sneak back into own bed.

5:00a.m.: Wake up to wishful-thinking-workout alarm; go to garage to feed the cat.

5:03a.m.: Scoop up tiny child approaching in hallway. Get back into big bed with child; watch minutes on alarm clock until there is steady breathing an no protests to my removing arms from under and over tiny body.

5:29a.m.: Get out of bed to salvage any leftover time for half-hearted workout.

5:47a.m.: Note to self: buy lighter hand weights. Who are we kidding.

5:55a.m.: Marvel at limberness. Delight in lifting both legs off floor while in side pike position.

6:03a.m.: Shower. Dress: newly thrifted a-line plaid wool skirt, ridiculously frilly and sheer swiss dot blouse. Try on first of three potential cardigans. Deliberate with quick fashion show.

6:29a.m.: Put kettle on for coffee in between make-up applying and hair drying.

6:37a.m.: Spill coffee on counter. Place frozen waffle in toaster. Doubt cardigan #3; retrieve cardigan #1.

6:44a.m.: Put on boots. Gather bags. Slather honey and almond butter on waffle. Balance waffle on coffee mug while grabbing coat, holding laptop bag, purse, keys.

7:22a.m.: Get off highway in record time; stop at gas station. Discuss New year’s Eve with gas station attendant.

7:23a.m.: Find lottery ticket in wallet. Furtively begin to scratch off bingo numbers.

7:25a.m.: Thank attendant for receipt. Put ticket in wallet. Pull out of gas station to drive to office parking lot; feel pretty confident about a $10,000 lottery win.

7:29a.m.: Having scratched off remainder of numbers while seated in parked car, determine I am not a winner and will not be calling Michael to scream in his ear that we can start building our log cabin on the coast.

7:32a.m.: Scan employee card for entry into building.

7:34a.m.: Turn on computer. Trawl the Internet. Get stuck on Google search for images of Angela Lansbury. Learn about the movie “All Fall Down.”

8:47a.m.: Start thinking about lunch. Make plans for sushi lunch in reaction to being reminded how much I hate my job lately. There may be an after-sushi cookie depending on how the day goes.

9:51a.m.: Take stairs to third-floor ladies’ room (luxury!). Have mixed feelings about how exciting it is to go to third-floor ladies’. Sneak a look in office crush’s cubicle direction. Catch own reflection in mirrored window while on the way back down the stairs and confirm cardigan #3 is a winner and Angela Lansbury is indeed my style icon.

10:41a.m.: need to pee but get caught in a work email k-hole.

10:57a.m.: Get up to pee in sad second-floor ladies’.

11:12a.m.: Check clock to see if it’s lunchtime.

11:24a.m.: Check clock to see if it’s lunchtime.

11:40a.m.: Check clock to see if it’s lunchtime. Consider trawling nearby aisles for chocolate; remember cubicle with premium candy bowl is occupied until 1pm every day, and I’m too ashamed to take candy when someone is there to witness it. Feel sad about monitoring premium candy bowl cubicle.

11:50a.m.: Look at shoes on the Internet.

11:55a.m.: Beg lunch friend to leave for lunch.

1:04p.m.: Return to work from lunch. Start daydreaming about cookies.

2:34p.m.: Make plans to make cookie dream a reality with impending coffee break.

2:57p.m.: Accidentally buy some new boots.

3:13p.m.: COOKIE.

3:40p.m.: Google search image for “sad orangutan” to better get my point across in a work email.

4:41p.m.: Stand up after realizing I’ve been stationary for an hour and a half. Sit down to visit the boots I bought today. Resolve to leave work 5 minutes early.

4:53p.m.: Give up on work for the day. Watch a YouTube video of Liza with a Z Bye Bye Blackbird.