It’s not thing when you get the death card in tarot; it signifies new beginnings, transformation, letting go of the old to make way for change.
My mother died this week, or “passed,” which is the word society chooses to soften that blow—it’s an interesting word choice. She “passed.” It’s odd. Passed what? The quiz at the end of Beetlejuice “Handbook for the Recently Deceased?” to make it through the pearly gates? I’ve never been a fan of cushioning blows for politeness, but have used the word “passed” for the comfort of others.
I wrote “she passed peacefully in her sleep” in her obituary because it sounds so much nicer than the brutal alternative about unrelenting brain cancer that ended her life in a few short weeks. I do see the word “passed” as a symbolic transition in movement from this world to the next for spiritual purposes, and my mother was an extremely religious person; this foundation was comforting to her and my father in the 28 days between her diagnosis and death.
My mother Eleanor Grace was a painter and a poet, and poets adore death: Whitman said, “nothing can happen more beautiful than death,” Stevens said, “death is the mother of beauty” and Longfellow proclaimed, “graves are the footprints of angels.” There’s a poetic obsession with the afterlife: the glamour of gossamer angel wings, the promise of eternal life in a pain-free promised land earned after of dutiful repentance and dues-paying collection baskets, countless mild threats in tacky fonts at dollar stores or shouted by red-faced preachers: be good and obey, go to heaven.
As a young child I thought the song “Eleanor Rigby” was about my mother because she used to clean the church, and because those violins captured the vibe of the rosaries we prayed weekly on our knees in front of the large Blessed Mother (my namesake) statue. I was reminded of them when my dad sat in a wheelchair beside my mother for the last four weeks praying in the hospital. You think about the joy of a mother seeing her grandchildren for the first time; you don’t think about the moving sadness of her seeing them for the last time.
My mother gave me a great gift from her deathbed. When I first arrived at the hospital, she mentioned reading an article about Eleanor Roosevelt and her regret over being hard on her children, particularly her eldest daughter. She said it reminded her of how she had raised me and that it was maybe why we weren’t close, as she hadn’t been close to her own mother, and that she was sorry. In shock, I simply said mom all that’s in the past, but I forgive you, I know you did the best you could, and I love you. And for the next few weeks, despite multiple brain tumors, chemotherapy, and hospital delirium, a number of times I visited, she’d bring up fault lines in our strained relationship and heal them.
We all know people who walk around affected by the results of terrible childhoods, and nothing will change the childhood I had. But although I struggle with emotional issues, I’ve never let anger define me or let the past destroy my present or future. I accepted the beautiful, treasured holiday gifts of healing, closure and forgiveness that my mother gave me. The day she died, I comforted myself by wrapping her life in a pretty reel of photographs like the pretty ribbons she loved to make.
If there’s something I learned in my rollercoaster childhood, from a mom who would put on a full face of Estée Lauder makeup to face days that didn’t deserve or include beauty, it was that we must have everything at least look pretty.
I hated seeing her in unrelenting pain, and her last words to me were: “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I didn’t blame her, because no one should have to suffer like that; and I’m grateful she’s at peace with three of my siblings who broke her heart by leaving this world before her.
My mother gave birth to seven children. There was a sister before me, Michelle, who was born with a rare genetic disorder and lived less than three months. Born less than a year later, I thought of my Irish twin as a guardian angel. I lost a sister to suicide and my transgender brother to a heroin overdose. But the sister who’s the most dead to me is the only one who’s still living. She’s been estranged from our family for unknown reasons for years, but in hearing of mom’s cancer and death in the last month, chose not to come to my mother or my father’s side in the last terrible month even though she’s local.
There’s no way to describe how difficult this past month of my life has been. Watching your mom die of destructive cancer in only a few weeks while your dad, whose caretaker she was, suffers terribly, all at Christmas, was no walk in the park. Everyone fell into two categories: those making life a tiny bit easier, and those having the audacity to make it in some way more difficult.
The fact that for my two brothers (who flew from across the country twice and were a huge help) and I had to deal with our own remaining sister refusing to come see us or our parents is horrific, but maybe provided even more closure somehow.
As I clean out my parents’ apartment, I appreciate the value of cutting dead weight and winnowing life down to the things we treasure most.
There’s no room for my grief right now. I remember it from the deaths of my siblings. I don’t cry, I compartmentalize. I schedule grief for later on. As the oldest kid, I need to handle mail, paperwork, phone calls, drawers full of papers, mouse droppings and photos and the endless miscellany of octogenarians. I hear my mother’s voice guiding me about what’s important to save or can be tossed. I find the final wishes of my brother, written in the ripped-out page of an institutional bible. I hear my beloved sister’s laughter at the chaos as another chapter ends in our zany family.
But in all the madness, there are moments of beauty. My mom signing her final painting to a tearful young healthcare worker she inspired; the words she wrote: “You are strength.”
