Issue #20 Kneeled in Prayer
The aftermath of mother's death is taking an interesting turn—I feel nothing. Benumbed, insensible, unfeeling, dead, deadened, insensitive, without feeling, sleeping, drugged, anesthetized, stunned, dazed, frozen, paralyzed, immobilized, and in shock. I cried at her funeral, on and off but I still cried, and now I'm in what TEH calls, "getting stuff done mode." I have these tasks about mother, I must complete those tasks. The tasks have been completed, now what?
Except, there is no "what." There is no new thing once the task of sorting out your dead mother's life is completed. I find myself buying poetry books and not writing. I find myself cleaning the house and leaving the dirty dishes in the sink. I find myself showering but leaving my hair dirty. Is this grief? Is this depression?
#
I've known for ages I need to sell Jeeves, my MINI Cooper. I've had him for nearly six years, he was paid off, and resale value of him was good. I need the money to pay off my exorbitant credit card balances, the ones knocked up during my wild mania spree a few years back. TEH, to his credit, was not insistent the selling needed to happen. He knew Jeeves was my last line to independence. If things didn't work out, I could leave. I don't know where I would go, but I could drive Jeeves and not come back. Selling my car means I don't have that kind of freedom. Did I really want that kind of freedom anymore? Look what happens when I've taken advantage of that kind of freedom. My life falls apart.
Even with the romanticizing, the reality is the car needed to be sold. I needed to own up to being an adult.
Jeeves was sold to MINI the day after we came back from Michigan and for a nice price. Jeeves served me well for 44,000 miles and someone will love and appreciate him just as much as I did/do and that is all I could really ask for.
Some get a bit snotty on my putting anthropomorphic qualities on things, but Jeeves was the first real thing I was able to buy the way I wanted it. He wasn't my first new car, or even my second, but when I got behind Jeeves wheel, there was always some flash of hope and excitement that something was about to happen that has never happened in any of the cars I previously owned. He purred when I pushed his button to go. TEH's MINI and Jeeves have the same engine and chassis but Jeeves was different. He was my one true love.
TEH owns a 2016 MINI, Jeeves is 2012, TEH (even now I have to assert the subject as "he," which should naturally belong here, could mean either my car or TEH) bought off the MINI dealership lot. His MINI is Mortimer, in keeping with the British theme. Mortimer has some improvements over Jeeves and mostly has all the bells and whistles that made Jeeves so grand. Mortimer is a perfectly fine car, drives and handles well, and has a smashing appearance, but it's just not the same. I compare it to my dogs: Thursday the pug is a perfectly fine pug, she's lovable and she loves me unconditionally, but she's not Wednesday the pug. I often feel guilty my love for Thursday seems inferior to my love for Wednesday and I know they are two wholly different personalities but something is lacking. Maybe I am imagining it, maybe I'm just being silly, but I cannot fathom it is okay to love similar things different ways. I got over that business with my ex-lovers but it's tripping me up on a car and a dog.
#
Two things that are/were important to me are now gone and I remain benumbed, insensible, unfeeling, dead, deadened, insensitive, without feeling, sleeping, drugged, anesthetized, stunned, dazed, frozen, paralyzed, immobilized, and in shock. I cried on and off when I took Jeeves out to get appraised, knowing this may be one of the final drives of him yet on that final drive, I felt nothing. I cried on and off the day of mother's funeral but not a tear has been shed since. On Jeeves final drive to the dealership, I joked to TEH to just rip the band-aid off. When I take care of mother business or other business, people tell me they are sorry for my loss. I nervously laugh and change the subject.
#
Mother looked alive in her coffin. I put my hand on her arm and she was so cold. I kissed her forehead and her skin was like an ice cube. On the kneeler, I spoke to her and called her an old bat. I wanted to shake her and ask her what death was like.
Now she is ash in a faux purple marble urn.
#
I wrote a short story not too long ago where the heroine kills her mother by slipping in dangerous amounts of nutmeg into her mother's lattes. Nutmeg, in large doses, can kill someone but it is virtually untraceable. Did you know that? I did not until I read about it in a book of poisions. I gave the story for my mother to read and she laughed and said, "This is about me, isn't it?" and I swung so far around the answer formed in my head, I guffawed and said, no, of course not.
The opening begins with:
Even in death, mother’s presence was commanding. A presence I tried desperately hard to ignore but often failed. She was radiant in all that stillness and I often couldn’t stop staring. She was tall of frame, large of bone and her skin was so taut it didn’t quite seem to fit the stature of her body. The mortician did an excellent job, I thought, as I continued to stare into the coffin. It was remarkable. Even in death, he was able to capture mother’s youthful dewiness, the kind that leaves most women by the time they are 30. Mother just turned 60. Lying in that coffin, she looked not just youthful but alive. Once, when asked about her skin care, which was quite often, she would gaily respond, “Soap and water. That’s my beauty secret, just soap and water.”
With the exception mother would be 75 this year, the above is her to a T.
The story is about a woman who realizes her mother is not a typical mother—her mother goes on dates, has many boyfriends, and never has a job but they live well. She finds out her mother is a modern day courtesan though it's never directly stated. Her love/hate relationship with her mother lends her to recognize she'll never be free of her mother's grasp. Her mother needs someone, not a lover, to take care of her and her daughter is perfect. My mother was not a courtesan but she needed someone to care for her, her right she would argue after taking care of her six siblings during their young lives, and my brother and I were complicit. Nearly every shrink in the last 15 years has told me I must divorce my mother for she was ruining my life. She was never going to love me the way I needed her to love me and I needed to let her go. She was a narcissist who reveled in the domain of her own making. My poor brother, his relationship with her was far closer than mine—now that she is gone—I don't know what's going on his head. I text him the "getting stuff done" stuff I've completed and his response is always, "thanks alot...".
So I suppose, thanks a lot.
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