2006: Mother
I woke up this morning with a massive feeling of dread, which isn’t uncommon for me on this day of the year. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was my mother, smiling sweetly down on me obviously proud of what I’ve accomplished. She always does this first thing on this day, and it makes me feel so comfortable in my skin that I never want to close my eyes again. For, you see, when you dream in your sleep, it is hardly so controllable. As if routine, I got out of bed, yawned and stretched, and realized how fake my life seems with the bitter emptiness inside. I often feel like I am “coasting,” completely indifferent to the world; but at other times I feel like I am so deeply rooted in humanity that if I screamed to get out people would just laugh at me, wondering why I even bother. I always feel like I belong where I am at any particular moment. Right now I feel a little more stable. It helps to wake up and think of something concrete, like a homework assignment or a current project; maybe this is why I’m in drama club. I still looked at my mother’s picture and felt my heart sink.
From what I know of her, she is very sweet, very beautiful, and very much like me. She loved the arts nearly as much as I do and did a little bit of singing as a hobby. I’ve never committed her to words before; rather, I’ve always preferred to keep her trapped in my mind as if it were a box for her safe-keeping. I write this now because I want to remember it the way it should be remembered. I want to immortalize my mother, even though it is impossible for her to be immortal.
I vaguely remember her face. It’s laced in white light and a radiant smile: brown wavy soft and beautiful hair, the deepest green eyes a man could ever hope to marry. She always smiled at me, as I recall, and I always smiled back. That’s my only memory of her and my father calls it impossible, as she died shortly after my first birthday. But what daughter could forget her mother, especially a woman as beautiful and as perfect as mine?
She married my father only two months after they met - they were madly in love. It’s like a fairy tale romance; she met him at her work as a waitress. He requested her seating area every visit, which became more and more numerous as the weeks went by. Soon she woke up in his arms, and very soon after that they were married. Why do fairy tale romances always move so quickly? I wish sometimes that wishes came true, and I could see my mother again.
She had an artist’s temperament and an adventurer’s heart. She loved to travel, and I long to visit the places she’s been. When I was eleven I found a small box full of postcards that were written to my father and me over the course of four months. At the time, I didn’t know she had traveled so far and so wide after my birth. I soaked in her words as though they were meant for me to read, and memorized her life on the road. I imagined every day that she’d come home and say, Did you get my postcards? Or that another one would arrive in the mail, Sorry I haven’t written; wish you were here. Wish you were here. I wish you were here, too.
It’s always today when I think of these things, because I try to stay positive. There is always an underground feeling of anguish when I think of my mother, buried deep within and struggling to ruin my day. I prefer to suppress it and pretend that these daydreams make the day go along better. My father visits the last place he saw her. I suppose it is very romantic to think that he’d hold that place so close to his heart for so many years, but I don’t try to make assumptions about my father. He’s a mysterious person. I sometimes imagine he will meet her there, though I don’t believe in ghosts.
He would see her standing over the bridge - no, leaning over the bridge, looking out onto the lake, with her head leaning to the right, resting on her hand. He’d at first pass by, thinking of the gloom, the rainy gray day and the people wearing black with their predictable umbrellas, only catching a glance. For a moment, his thoughts would stray to the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen and wonder, just for that second, if it was even possible. But he’d turn and continue walking until he realizes an important mistake - some papers he left on his desk that were required for grading that night. He would snap his fingers and turn on one foot to retrace his steps to the University. Before the bridge again, he’d see her, his heart once again captured by the beauty, the irresistible lure of a spirit.
At that moment, she’d turn around and face him directly, that playful smile in her eyes. She’d sigh and slowly walk toward him, shaking her head as if he did some deed only forgivable by kisses. For a brief moment, he’d panic, why is this thing approaching me, and then realize that it is her, that all is well and she never left us. How silly it was for him to think she was just a ghost!
“Now, now,” she’d say to him softly as her chin reached for his shoulder, “where are you off to in such a hurry?”
When they returned home I’d be in my room reading something or other, only half interested and paying more attention to my thoughts. I’d hear the door close and some muffled giggling, maybe a body against the breakfast bar or dancing around the dining room table. I’d roll my eyes thinking how totally disgusting it is when my parents flirt, just like everyone else does, but be secretly grateful that they are together and that they love each other, that we are a happy little family.
But these are just lies.
