When you live alone in a 3 bedroom, 3 bath, kitchen with large living/dining, basement attached to garage, 2 balcony and 1 large terrace villa in a suburb of Naples with 3 cats during a country-wide then world-wide pandemic quarantine, you have a bit of time to think whilst you lounge in your loosest fitting jeans, furry leopard spot slippers, some nondescript stained t-shirt with no makeup and a hairstyle you call “just out of bed trending” (No, it’s not). Oh, and don’t forget that you cut your own hair last week in front of your bathroom mirror with only a handheld eye-shadow case mirror, a pair of Mom’s old hair-cutting shears, and some really bad eyesight. You’re looking good! Though you know that your mom would tell you straight that you’re looking chunky and your hair needs some fixin.

Not really “you” but me, yeah me. It’s me. My first thought that revisits me continually as the minutes blur into hours: “What’s to eat now?” I might have gained some pounds, but we’ll never know because my feet connected to this fat arse and hanging belly will never step on that evil scale in the spare spare bedroom. Not going to happen. What will happen next? I’d like to meet someone who has any kind of idea that makes sense. Who does know?

Today is my mother’s birthday, the 81st. 81. 81 years. 81 summers. Falls, winters, springs. 55 of those years spent with my dad, ole Rupe.  68% of life. About 17% before Rupert, roughly 15 percent since he breathed his last. Now, Mom remains yet a shell of who she always was, Alzheimer’s claiming the constant, the one truth, the viscous substance of our family who while stoic and strong when safely enveloped by my dad – a team if you will- found herself strangely fractured, adrift, and slowly disarranged into pieces along the timeline of her life. This is Mom. 

The Mom of my memories visits me. Her words spontaneously burst forth from my mouth as bits of wisdom I share with my students. Fitting, I know, that the daughter who once smirked and growled and snapped and eye-rolled Mom’s little saws and proverbs would be the one to repeat those phrases as lessons learned.  The cycle of life rings true.  We think we are special and unique, yet all of us are doomed- or is it graciously allowed- to partake over and over in a cycle as continuous and deep and alive within this world of painful beauty and harsh truths, time and timelessness. Mothers have always shared knowledge with daughters who have always resented that assured rightness when the world had yet to be discovered. That world of longing, love, loss, joy, success, failure. My mom, she knew, even though I saw a woman who had never traveled, never loved as deeply as I did, never lived life to the fullest as I would; though I viewed her as full of faith yet terrified of trying new things, she knew. She knew. She knew human nature, its power to triumph and its power to crush. She chose her place in the world and was content with it. For 68% of her life, she floated but moored to my father, she didn’t doubt. “Always do your best.” She did. I didn’t always acknowledge her best, not then. But now, in my middle-aged wisdom, I see it. I see her.

That was my mom. The lifeline to us all.

Painful though it’s been for Mom to drift away, this person present with us today retains some joy in life, some fragmented version of the lovely, patient mother who tended us with  more care and concern than I’ve ever witnessed. I fall short of her in a thousand ways. I love her in a thousand more though I am thousands of miles from her little room in a little nursing home in a little southern town. Her voice speaks just to me when I need it most. I bake her yellow cake with the decadent butter icing- she’s here. I whip up those buttermilk biscuits first perfected for my dad back in 1957. I use her old pan- she’s here. I play (not quite beautifully, but good enough) Debussey on the piano, one of her favorites- she’s here, in me. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, passing, and I think,”I sort of see you, Mom, just a little, in the line of the neck and the upturn of the lips in my smile.” Life just barrels on as we cling to those moments that made us. I survive on my memories of her and the knowledge that those little places where she now lives share big people of big spirits and bigger hearts. Somewhere in time, she stays, mostly content, happy to play the piano, to sip sugared (what?) coffee with a new best friend whom she forgets when they lose sight of each other, both retaining only what lies in front of their faces. She smiles. She knows her daughters still, how comforting. One day, she might not, not in a moment, but she will always know me, know the love she lived, know the life she embraced, know what was right for her life. Somewhere along that timeline, each moment preserved, all still exist. This is Mom.

A hand touches my forehead

instantly cooling.

A kiss a touch a hug a hand in mine,

always there.

Dinner’s ready now.

Mind your manners every time, everywhere.

Practice piano for 45 minutes.

Wear that retainer for 14 hours.

Study no later than 10PM.

Take tennis lessons on Saturdays; I’ll drive.

(She drives horribly.)

Lunch is at noon.

Church at 10, sharp.

Call me on Fridays.

Visit me when you can.

Write me an email tomorrow. 

Send a postcard, next week.

Love yourself, always 

as I love you always.

Thanks, Mom.

May we all find ourselves happily tethered in life, at least 68% of it!  I’m not linked to a Rupert, but I’m moored just the same, just like Mom would wish. Friends, family- the best things in life. And for the other 32% of it? I think it’s okay to float, yet not aimlessly, among those happiest of memories that made us who we are today. Happy Birthday to my mother, the soother of my ills.  May I hear her words throughout my time left and may I measure that time well.