This is the story of the last lesson my mother taught me. She taught me to love my self, and how to forgive my self. It was her final lesson, and one that will last me the rest of my life. She was the strongest woman I have ever known, and I miss her every day.
So the story goes like this. I wasn't there when my Mom died. Not in the room, not in the house. I'm never there when people die. I used to think it was an unforgiveable sin.
So they tell me that he parked his car in the garage, and left it running. Changed his mind, apparently, got out of the car, walked to the door that led into the house. Threw up in his mouth, choked on it, passed out and died from carbon monoxide poisoning at the threshold of the kitchen.
My sister gave me the details over the telephone. I was in Georgia. My dad had just told me the news about my best friend.
"Matthew," he said, he couldn't look at me, he deliberately looked away. "Matthew, I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to tell you. Mike S********* is dead, he killed himself yesterday."
So we stopped at a gas station, and I push my way past all of the truckers manning the phone booths and I call home collect and my sister answers the phone and I say "Is it true?" and she's silent and then she says "Oh, sweetie" and I know it's all true, he's dead and I wasn't there because she's never nice on the phone.
So Dad and I get back in the van. We were in Georgia because we'd just cleaned out his father's house because he had just died.
Five years later I remember using his words. "Ray," I said, I looked Ray in the face, "Ray I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to tell you. Joe C****** is dead, he killed himself this morning.
Ray collapses in my arms.
The truth is, I went out and got shitfaced, and high, see Mom had gone into a coma. I spent her last lucid day with her, reliving my childhood at her favorite shopping mall, going to her favorite stores and lugging her bags around for her like we used to do. Only I paid for lunch this time. Big boy. That night, before she slipped away into a drug-induced coma, she stayed up all night looking at old photos and treasures and stuffed animals and albums and all the shit you accumulate in a life. Dad and Elise were frustrated with her, but I knew something was up. I knew she was afraid.
So she went into a coma the next day. We kept her at home. We changed her diapers, Dad, Elise and I. No one would ever be allowed to see her so vulnerable and weak-not nurses or friends, so we did it.
And the story goes on like this. We waited. Friends and family came by and we went into a trance. I remember coming home from work. I'd strip off my gun and uniform and hug my 2 year old nephew Jake and then I'd go sit next to Mom in my undershirt and those goddamn blue dickies. I'd hold her hand and say nothing, or I'd tell her I loved her.
After two weeks, I went over to a friends house and got shitfaced. I drank until I couldn't think, until my mouth tasted like vomit. Slept right through all the phone calls and when I woke up, I saw I'd missed six calls from my sister. I called her and she sounded stoned. I asked her how everything was "Fine," she said, she sounded like a ghost. I asked her how Mom was. "We lost her," she said. I told her I would be right home.
The ride home was dull and grey, like the sky sucked all the color off the ground. Her body was already gone. The house was quiet like I didn't know it could be, ever again, not after that goddamn parade of sympathy over the previous weeks.
Dad and I went into the backyard, I gave him a cigarette, and we both lit up. It was totally silent and my mind rose up out of my body and floated over the neighborhood, the city a sea of roofs, the state the country past stars and infinity. Dad was holding my hand, we were both smoking and quiet. And I was sad, and relieved, and so tired, just so damn tired. And I wasn't angry anymore, like I had been since Mike died, ten years earlier, it just snuffed out.
Years have passed and I feel like I know who my Mom was better than I did when she was alive. My Mom's mom died when Mom was just a little girl, and I only wish I could tell her I know how bad it feels, and that I love her and thank her for raising me to be strong and courageous, and giving me the love she missed so badly.
Just last night I told my wife the whole truth, and it set me free. The night she died, our caregivers told the family to tell her it was allright to go, that we would be ok. Only I wasn't there, and she clung on, hour after hour. I always thought it was because I wasn't there to tell her I was going to finally get my shit together, and be the man she wanted me to be. Now I am married, a teacher (like Mom), and happy for the first time in my 35 years. And I know she knows, and I love her.
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