Both

Is she alive or is she dead

She is both.

In the photograph
on my mantel
she is alive.
Smiling at me,
freckled
tanned
happy
young

younger than I am now.

And she is alive in my thoughts
in my feelings
in my longing
and sadness
in my desire to connect with her.

She is electric
pulsing through me
able to double me over
in sadness
and loss.

And so she is very much alive,
very much a part of me.

And she is dead.
She died 37 years ago.
She went to the hospital.
She fell into a coma.
She was visited by friends and family.
She watched,
unable to speak.

And then she died

in the night

in her sleep.


So she is dead
she is not here
she is gone.


I don't know how these two things can exist.

I don't understand
how she can be so alive in me
when I haven't seen her in 37 years,
and will never
see her
again,
will never
meet her.

But she is alive
very much alive
in me,
in my longing
in my sadness
in my pain.

Unfair
it seems
that this is how she exists,
this is what remains.

But it is true.

I wonder
if I let go
of my sadness
and loss
that I will let go of her too,
that she will no longer exist
that she will finally be dead.


Impossible
She is too much alive
too much love passed between us
for her to no longer
exist.

So she is both
alive
dead
her
me

unsynchronized
yet true

Both.

Death Day

I know, it's not the best term but it's the truth. We all have death days for people: we remember the day they died. We don't enjoy it, but we mark it just the same. Because it happened; on a certain day, that person died and we kept living.

My mother's death day is tomorrow.

I have confirmation on this date because I found out this summer that her death day is the day after my aunt's birthday. I'm sure my mom wasn't happy about that, but at least she didn't die on my aunt's birthday, she definitely would have felt horrible if that had happened.

Last year on the anniversary of my mother's death, I think I had dinner with my dad. I can't totally remember but I'm pretty sure that's what I did. And I did it, because it felt appropriate.

This year, I wasn't sure what to do.

I knew for sure I was going to send flowers to my aunt. I wanted to make sure that we celebrated her birthday, let her know that her birthday has nothing to do with my mom's death day.
But I have to admit that part of me was sad about this. I was happy to be sending flowers to her but I also wished that my mom and I were sending her flowers together, that the three of us were celebrating her birthday, that the three of us were alive together. But we are not. I am sending flowers to my aunt because my mom can't.

And so I wondered what I should do to accept that Sunday is her death day- that she really did die on this day. And she did- I have to acknowledge that about her- she went through the process of death- it's just a truth- it's not fair to deny that.

I considered doing things that she would have done- to celebrate her. But that seemed really untruthful, that felt like keeping her alive.

So then I considered having some memorial for her- some acknowledgement of her death. But that seemed superfluous- it seemed like all I've been doing this month is grappling with the fact that she is dead- that she has a headstone, that her death day is the day after my aunt's birthday- that my aunt and her family are celebrating and that the next day my family and I are acknowledging something else.

And that's when I realized that this year, this day isn't about her. She isn't here anymore and I am. This day needed to be about me- me being a 43 year old woman living on, living past her mother and growing up- sending flowers to her aunt in her mother's honor, and then having the next day be the truth: the anniversary of the day that my mother died after a year long battle with breast cancer.

So I thought about what I would do for myself, what would help me on that day.
For some reason, I felt like walking- walking all the way to the ocean. But then I pictured myself walking down the N Judah line and I realized that would be a really long walk and not all that pleasant. I suppose I could have walked through the park but something about me felt like I needed to be walking toward the ocean, in solitude.
And then solitude, in nature, was what came up for me. Being along on top of some great mountain or by the ocean- someplace where being alone felt like being connected.
I considered Big Sur, Esalen, Mendocino- but that required a rental car. And then I thought Mt. Tam, and the Mountain Home Inn, and at 10:30 at night, the day after I wrote the post about my mother having a grave, I found one room available on a Sunday night.
I booked it.
And then I booked myself into a writing class. Because I am writing a book- a memoir about all of this- this is what I am doing, I am writing, I am a writer.

So tomorrow, I'm riding my bike to the Mountain Home Inn (with the help of the bus).
I'm bringing my laptop so that I can write.
I'm hoping to watch the sunset from the deck after I've eaten the prix fixe dinner that I will be ravenous for after my long bike ride.
And I will be alone.
I will be by myself in that room, writing if I feel like it, crying if I feel like it, hiking to the top of Mt. Tam if I feel like it.

And then it will be the next day.
It will be September first,
and I will be living.

Keeping the dead alive

After I wrote my last post- about the fact that if my mother had a grave she had to be dead- I added to the end of it that I would probably forget this, that I would think she was alive again, that I would hold on to the belief that I would see her again.
I wondered about this- why I seemed to come to these huge realizations in which I accepted that my mother was dead but then found myself having that same realization again- almost as if I had never accepted it in the first place. It was like I totally accepted it at the time and then had to accept it all over again.
"When am I actually going to accept this?" I thought. "When will this be fully true for me?" because it sure felt true each time I had to face it, painfully true. Why did it keep coming up for me when I seemed to fully feel it when it happened?

A couple of days later, I saw my mom's picture on my mantel. I keep it there for a reason- mostly to keep her image in my mind because she is, kind of, what I'm working on. Having her image there keeps her in my head so that whatever comes up for me, comes up for me, whenever it does- not when I feel ready or want to- just whenever and as it comes up.
When I saw her picture, I smiled. She looked happy and I thought of her with affection and love. I pictured her happy with me sitting on her lap- feeling great about having this kid and having a happy life.

And then I got angry.
"She's alive again!" I thought. "Yesterday I accepted that she was dead. Yesterday I accepted that she had a grave and that she wasn't at her own funeral and that I was."
"This is why she keeps coming back," I explained to myself. "You're keeping her alive by having her photo there- by remembering her- by thinking of her. You have to accept it- she's dead."

But I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to accept that she was dead. I wanted her to be the happy person in the photograph, the one who loved me, the one I was with.
At the same time I knew that I wasn't supposed to deny the feelings I had for her, or the fact that I saw her as a person. I knew those feelings were true and I knew I had been working hard to allow them to come up.

"What am I supposed to do?" I thought. "How can I accept her death and her love and our existence all at the same time? I know I'm not supposed to trade one for the other but keeping her alive seems to keep me from accepting her death."

And so I turned away. I turned away from her photograph and told myself that she was dead- that that was just a photograph and I was a 43 year old woman, in her bedroom, at night, trying to process all of this.

I glanced at the photo again, as I was climbing in to bed. It seemed a little farther away but it also seemed that I was on that path again- that path to try to find my mother somewhere, believing that she still exists, hoping I can see her again.

Flowers

The following few posts were written in August, about a month after I had returned from a visit to the town where my mom grew up and where my aunts and uncles (her brothers) still live. While I was visiting there, I visited her grave and talked with my aunts and uncles about her. I didn't get around to publishing these posts until now (late October).

This is a longer story than I'd like it to be. And it keeps going. Ironically, it probably started just three weeks after I wrote my last post (way back in May) but it's taken until now to hit me enough to write about it. It's not pleasant and I'd rather be writing about something else but, it is. I am living it.

This week I wrote a thank you card to my aunt- for putting flowers on my mother's grave.

I had been putting off writing this note for the longest time and I couldn't figure out why. I was genuinely grateful to her for putting the flowers on my mom's headstone. Seeing them there had been a literal bloom of happiness in an otherwise desperate and sad situation. And I had plans of sending this thank you card to her long before her birthday so that it wouldn't be confused with the flowers I was going to send her on her birthday. My plan was to send her flowers that looked just like the ones she had put on my mother's grave- a way of returning the favor she had done for me (or maybe it was for my mom). I wanted to associate the two but not totally- wanted the thank you card far enough away so that she wouldn't feel like her birthday flowers were connected with my mother's death.

See, the thing you need to know about my aunt's birthday is that it is the day before the day my mother died. I never knew this until my aunt told me this summer. It was in the context of an afternoon in which she was talking about my mom- retelling stories of her life, the things they did together, and about the time leading up to her death. She said that my mother had hoped that she wouldn't die on my aunt's birthday. And from the look on my aunt's face as she was telling me this, I think it was always a little hard for her to have the days so close together: a celebration one day, a loss the next. And I imagine it was like that the year that my mom died- a cautionary tone to my aunt's birthday that year, knowing that my mother was in the hospital and we all were just waiting. But I also know that my mother would never have wanted that- would never have wanted my aunt's birthday to be anything other than a celebration and fun.

So I wanted to send flowers to my aunt on her birthday this year- let her know that her birthday was cause for celebration and life and that if my mom were still alive, she would send her beautiful yellow roses like the ones my aunt had given her.
Only...
The ones my aunt gave her were plastic.
And they were plastic because they needed to be outside, in a metal vase, attached to my mother's headstone, in a cemetery.
And I suppose that's where this story started.

This summer I went to visit Indiana- my mom's home. All of her brothers (my uncles) still live there- she's the only one who left. We used to go there in the summers when she was alive- presumably so that she could visit with her mom and catch up with old friends. We always went there in the summers after she died. We would usually spend three weeks there- my brother, my sister, and I- and we would stay at my grandma's lake house- the California cousins fully doted on by their aunts and loving Grandma.
I had a pretty clear intention when I went to visit this year. I knew I was going to visit my mother's grave. I had been coming to terms with the reality that my mother had died 37 years ago- that she no longer existed, that my interactions with her were completely made up, by me. I thought that visiting her grave would be a difficult but necessary act that would help me say goodbye to her- accept that she had died. It felt both poetic and real at the same time. On the one hand, I could actually say goodbye to her- her actual physical grave. On the other hand, it would be a good reality check for me- to visit the place where she was actually buried.
I only told one of my aunts that I was going to visit her. And mostly I only told her because her house was the first one I was visiting and so she would need to know why I was taking so long to drive from the airport in Chicago to her house on Lake Michigan. She was kind about it, asked if I wanted company, and checked in on me several times before the day to make sure that I wanted to do it alone. I assured her that, in fact, that was exactly what I wanted to do. (I wanted this to be on my own- to be private. I was scared of sharing it with anyone else. I had no idea what it was going to be and was afraid of what I would have to say if anyone else was involved. I pictured myself kneeling at her grave, pulling away the overgrown weeds the way my grandma used to do- taking care of her headstone after years of neglect since my grandmother died.)

So I followed my aunt's directions and drove my little Chevy Spark all the way to South Bend Indiana, past the shopping mall, in to the iron gates of the cemetery where my mother was buried. I was familiar with this cemetery. We passed it every time we went to the mall (which was often) and every time we drove from my grandma's house in town to her house on the lake. We also actually visited it- whenever my grandma got the chance. She never asked us if we wanted to go- just turned left instead of right, and then we were there, at my mother's grave, watching my grandma kneel and say prayers at her first born and only daughter's grave.

So I knew where to go when I got there- or so I thought. I thought that when I got there, I would remember which path to turn down, which section she was in. I also thought that if I forgot, there would be directory of graves or at least someone I could ask. But it turned out that there was not. The building that I thought was a directory turned out to be a mausoleum and the only people working there were groundskeepers who had no idea where anyone was buried and told me to come back on Tuesday. So I was left to memory.
I backed up the car and re entered the cemetery as if I were in my grandma's Chevy Horizon: straight ahead, veer to the right, stop when you get to the spigot, then cross the street to your mother's grave. But the spigot wasn't there. I drove a little farther but could tell that it was the wrong section so I drove back in again and stopped where the spigot would have been and parked the car. I crossed the street to where my mother's grave should have been but it wasn't there. I searched the headstones near the path for any headstones of my family (my mother's grandparents and my grandma are all buried adjacent to my mom) but none were familiar. I considered calling my aunt to ask her if she knew where it was but I knew she hadn't visited often enough to know. Then I considered calling my brother but thought that he would direct me the same way that I had followed: it's across from the spigot. I started to walk away but saw a small black sign that said 'Catholic section' so I knew I had to be in the right place.
As I walked deeper in, I finally saw our family name: the double headstone of my great grandparents who had died together in an auto accident. I felt relief and began walking slowly among the sunken headstones and came across my grandmother's. But as I continued, the next headstone was foreign, someone else's family plot. I turned around, looked for my mom's, but couldn't find it anywhere. I doubled back, circled around, wondered if my memory had served me incorrectly- thought that maybe my mom had been buried in a separate section. But then I recalled how my great aunt (my godmother) was the one who got buried in a separate section- that they had given her plot to my mom when she died.
"She has to be here," I thought to myself, and I started to panic. How could I not find my mom's headstone? And how would I find it if it weren't here? I pictured myself methodically walking the entire Catholic section but knew that was futile: she had always been here, right near the double grave. I began walking the other direction, away from the double grave, but it felt wrong, desperate, her grave had always been straight across from the spigot.
And then I saw it out of the corner of my eye: Patricia Anne Brasseur- the bronze letters all in caps.
But above her name was a vase of yellow flowers. That made no sense. No one had visited her. My grandma had died over twenty years ago and none of my mother's friends lived close enough to visit her and tend to her grave. And no one knew I was coming except....

I smiled. It must have been my aunt. She must have known that I was coming and put fresh flowers on my mother's grave for me. I reached for them then noticed they were plastic.
"Plastic?" I thought. "Not that aunt. She would never put plastic flowers on the grave of my mother- it just would never happen."
I wondered who put them there and laughed at myself for my panic in not finding my mom right in front of me- so sure I was that her grave would be overgrown and unkempt.
And then I sat down in front of it, cross legged, and traced the letters of her name with my fingertips. I wanted to be caressing my mom's name the same way I would be stroking her arm or her cheek. But my fingers met metal, they traced bold block letters, my eyes saw numbers and dates.
"This is a piece of metal," I noticed. "This is grass." "This is a headstone."
I cried.
"She's not here either," I heard myself say.

And that's when I realized that I was still looking for her. Even though I thought I was being all grown up, even when I thought I was doing the right thing by visiting her actual grave, by finally saying goodbye to her at the right place, by finally accepting that she was gone... I wasn't. I wasn't accepting her death, I was expecting her to be here. I was expecting that we would meet here and I could say goodbye to her as if she still existed.
"She's not here either," I told myself, and got up in disappointment and walked away.

I got back in the Chevy Spark, made a U-turn, and then turned right, toward the mall, to meet my aunt for lunch.
As we sat down, I thanked her for putting flowers on my mom's grave.
"That wasn't me honey," she explained. "It must have been your Aunt Dawn, bless her heart."

And then we talked about other things and I followed her in my car up to her lake house in Michigan.

Later that week I got a chance to visit with my other aunt, the wife of my oldest uncle- the one who was closest in age to my mom.
"Did you put flowers on my mom's grave?" I asked her.
She smiled.
"How did you know I was going to visit her?" I asked.
"Oh no," she explained. "I didn't know you were going to visit. I just put them there a while ago. I visit when I can, but not that often," she said in apology.
"Well it meant a lot to me to see them there," I said. "It was like someone was taking care of her. Thank you," I said, and she smiled.

We talked quite a bit during my visit. I had shared with her that I didn't really know my mom that well- we just didn't talk about her much when I was growing up and I think she took this as a cue. She started telling me everything she could remember: how they had dropped my uncle off at the train when he was drafted. How she had first met my mom when they drove to the grocery store with my grandma. How my mom liked to dress well, how she was a healthy eater long before anyone was in to nutrition, how involved and interested she had been in my aunt's daughter's life. And she talked about how angry my mom was that she had to die- why it had to be her, how she had done nothing wrong to get breast cancer, and how she had to leave the three of us behind.
And that was when she mentioned about her birthday being the day before my mom died- and how much no one wanted it to be the same day, and how grateful everyone was that it wasn't. She said she felt that my mom knew that she was going to die when she had visited that last summer. She felt like she was saying goodbye when she told my aunt, "You were a good friend."

It was hard to hear this- hard to hear that she had to go through this, that she was sad, that she had to accept her death, that she had to say goodbye. But it was also touching- to hear my aunt talk about these memories, to feel connected t o my mom as an actual person, to begin to know who she was. I finally understood why my aunt had taken me shopping every summer and why she always wanted me to have an "outfit"- my mom had been stylish, had been in to clothes, it would have made her cringe to see the way I dressed like a tom-boy with absolutely no care for how I looked. My aunt had been trying to keep my mother alive for me- do the things my mom would have been had she been here.

So when I finally got back from my trip to Indiana, I decided to write my aunt a letter. I wanted to let her know how much it meant to me to be met with a vase of bright yellow flowers when I was feeling lost and desperate in a cemetery, looking for my mother's grave, so that I could finally say goodbye to her, accept her death.
I knew I wasn't going to include all those other parts- the parts about accepting her death- mostly that I was thankful to her for taking care of my mother's grave and for trying to keep her spirit around for me in our summer shopping and in the stories that she had shared with me.

And then it was August, almost an entire month after I had gotten home and I still hadn't written the letter. I put it on my to do list- and it just kept moving farther and farther up the list without getting crossed out. I picked out the card I was going to write it on. I felt what was going on with me and accepted that I would write it when I felt like writing it. But then it was coming closer to my aunt's birthday. I knew I had to write it far enough before her birthday to not associate the two. Yet still, something in me didn't want to write it.

And then, on Sunday afternoon, I sat down to write it. I wrote it on my computer first- something about me felt like I needed to compose it first, before sending it- that I might need to write what I felt and then edit down what I actually sent to her.
As soon as I typed the first sentence, it hit me in the gut.
I wanted to thank you for putting flowers on my mother's grave.
My mother's grave.
My mother has a grave.
You only have a grave if you are dead.
And she has a grave.
I know because I visited it.
I know because I was there when she was lowered in to it.
She was lowered in to it.
She was put in the ground and I was there.
I don't remember it but it must have happened because this summer I visited my mother's grave.
And my mother must have a grave because I am thanking my aunt for putting flowers on it.
My mother has a grave.
My mother died.
She said goodbye to her friends. She said goodbye to her children. She went to the hospital, everyone waited, she died, and then they had funerals and I attended them.
My mother has a grave.
She is dead.

And if experience tells me anything, I will not accept it this way either. I will likely continue to hold out for her existence, will still want to see her again, will still believe that someday we will be together.
Probably because I was six, sometimes still am six, or maybe it's just because I really loved her- maybe it's just really hard to say goodbye to your mom.