Pick a Room
One day this past August, while doing some menial task I don’t remember specifically (most likely vacuuming dog hair left by my 2 Newfoundlands), I remembered a single moment from 4 decades ago. Let me tell you about it.
It must have been in the late half of the first part of my life because I was in my parents’ bedroom, the one with the deep red and taupe-patterned wallpaper. The bedroom was at the top of the steep stairs in the East Meredith, NY farmhouse. The wallpaper was a beautiful backdrop to the new cherry bedroom set they had purchased. It was the first new set of their marriage. I must be 8 or 9 years old in this scene.
It was very sunny through the window on the Southwest side of the room, so likely noon or after lunch. I was lying on top of the bedspread, so probably getting ready to nap (was I home, sick from school?). My mother’s slippered footsteps climbed the linoleum-covered stairs, and as she entered the room, she took off her glasses and lay down next to me in one swift movement. I know that she was tired (I know this because today I am a woman 20 years older than her in this memory. She was tired). She smelled like Jean Naté bath splash, her breath a blend of sun tea and Tareyton cigarettes. Her skin was smooth and rosy, and oh-so-soft. I will remember the air around her for the rest of my life.
She lay on her side, tucked her two hands between her head and the pillow, and looked at me. Her face was so relaxed, and I know the very subtle smile she made for me was as much cheek as she could lift. The two of us looked at each other. There was no conversation. She didn’t need to tell me to go to sleep. The house was quiet, I assume my three other sisters were at school and Dad at work, 12 miles away. The two of us must have fallen asleep that way because I don’t remember anything beyond that very moment.
That was the memory. That was the whole scene. Seconds. Then it was gone.
And now Mom is gone, too. She died on September 21, 2024. My father, two of my sisters, two of my sisters-esque, my brother-in-law, and I were holding her hands, rubbing her legs, stroking her face, and telling her how loved she was when the last bit of her air left the room. It was a beautiful passing. And it was terrifying for me. I will never see her again.
As I write this, I have not moved past her room in East Meredith or her room in the nursing home. I can’t get past the fact of her passing. “I’m giving myself some grace about the grieving process,” I’ve been saying to everyone. I say this to stop the advice on how to grieve. I say it to stop further discussion because simply nodding my head to platitudes seems dismissive to someone who is trying to offer comfort. The best way to avoid face-to-face conversations is to sleep. I slept hard and for long periods in the first month after she was gone. Eventually, PCS deadlines approached, and I needed to get out of bed.
And that’s when I couldn’t. My mind and heart hurt so much that my body gave out and I experienced an MS relapse. So, I was stuck in my own room on the South Shore, as much as I was stuck in my parents’ room in the Catskills, and stuck at the side of her bed in her room in Western Massachusetts.
It is time for me to choose one room, one bed.
But not today. Today, I will remain warm next to Mom in the bedroom with the cherry furniture.
