It’s late. Like, really late. I should be so asleep that I have gotten up to pee twice already, but I’m not. I can’t. It’s June 23 ½.
Ten years ago on this night, I camped out in Room 906 of a building I can see from my now new-ish home (an intentional part of this home purchase). I look outside now, wondering who occupies 906 now. Covid? Car accident? Pancreatic Cancer? Not sure which, I search the predawn sky for the planets the news told me that were supposed to align, right before the sun hits the horizon. Nope. Nada. Can’t see a damn thing, except for the light on in a hospital room I imagine is Room 906, wishing that the family of the person resting there tonight doesn’t suffer the same heartbreak I felt at this very moment, exactly one decade ago.
Dad and I had decided that we weren’t leaving and we needed to be with her. We sobbed as we signed the papers nobody ever wants to sign for someone they love. We watched. We waited. We pretended this wasn’t really happening. But it was. And on June 23 ½, it happens all over for me again, and the reality of time and space won’t ever change that - an uncomfortable truth I have come to expect.
But that night, we weren’t sure what was in store, except we had lost enough people we loved that we understood there was no leaving. So there we were, Dad in a chair, me six months pregnant and camped on a love seat, hoping she would make it til the 24th, when Aunty Cookie, Uncle Don, and the rest of the family made it in to say goodbye.
The sun rose swiftly on that morning and I remember I couldn’t wait for my family to arrive, but also hoping the clock ticked more slowly and its hands pushed the people we loved further away from 906. Once they did arrive, I knew that she would know then know it was time for her to move on. In her transition, or what I call the “float,” between here and the Next Place, she was slipping away from us, but not until I got her last word spoken on this earth, “More.”
More. More is all I ever wanted, but it’s something I will never, ever have - and that is the single biggest disappointment of my life.
So there we were, at about 8:30 in the evening on the 24th of June, “More” was going to be out of my grasp until “More” is the last word I will utter to my own children someday when it’s my time to go. Ma took four distinct breaths, the kind you make out of awe and surprise at what your eyes have just glimpsed, and that was it. She was gone.
In the years that have followed, I have tried very hard to keep her memory alive, but there are no more pictures, no more one-lined emails, no more pantyhose (if you know, you know), and no more memories. A friend of mine, Bobby, who lost his mom very young once told me, “Life is divided into two time periods: Before Ma and After Ma,” and I can attest to the absolute truth of that sentiment. I hate that. Sometimes, though, I think I have memories of my Ma with my children, and then I realize that none of it happened, but somehow I find comfort in the lies I tell myself to just keep going, strong and steadfast just as she taught me to do.
I have found over the years that the days leading up to the anniversary are worse than the actual date itself, but the gravity of double-digits overwhelms me today and everything sucks. I have found that the pain doesn’t get different, you just get different, and today, that sucks, too. I wonder if I am even a tenth of the mother she was, because today I will make them clean their rooms and floss their teeth and they will think that I suck. Today, I do, and I’m allowed that. But just for today.
Tomorrow, I will get up and get Maddy ready for her dance recital and secretly record her on stage and later, I will be the loudest Mom at the baseball playoff game, cheering on Jimmy and his buddies. I guess that will be my “More.”
