She doesn’t look bad. A little better than I expected—no, I wasn’t really sure of what to expect. I know that no embalmer, no beautician can ever preserve your recollection of somebody. Painters and sculptors never do, either, and the further they are from the truth of their subjects, the more they’re loved, or at least respected, at least by those who spend their days being experts.
But that’s neither here nor there. Mother’s expression, in the casket, mirrored the one I saw in my mind when we spoke on the phone. Calm, if not cool, like the twilight of the longest summer day. The end of something, for someone who’d only known fate. If she didn’t know anything else, she knew I’d leave and that I’d never come back, at least while she was alive. There was nothing she or anybody else could do about it. As I’ve mentioned before, she was never one to rage against the dying light or get involved with any other kind of nonsense.
If she’d been sick, she hadn’t mentioned it. Near the end, she’s said, “I won’t be here much longer.” But she’d never explain. How could she’ve left the block, I wondered. Or why would she do such a thing: She herself said, “It’d be the same anywhere.” And followed it with, “There’s no reason for you to come back”: something I knew in my mind and hoped she would continue to believe.
Actually, she didn’t believe it, any more than I believe in anything else. She knew it, far better than I could’ve. It was a warning, or more precisely, a way to preclude the idea of coming back, should it ever occur to me.
But she knew I wasn’t coming back. If I’ve tried to avoid anything in my life, it’s the circumstance of loneliness without the luxury of living alone. I’ve always dreaded the holiday season, or any other occasion for the gathering of my relatives: Nothing is worse than forced camaraderie in airless rooms. And the only thing as bad as the physical presence of forced relationships is the recollection of such people when you’re seeking solitude.
Or—here’s another thing I never could stand—people trying to convince me that I want company when I don’t. That’s a regular feature of the holidays once you get to know a few people wherever you land, however briefly, after springing away from this block. To recall, and to be forced to recall: those are the greatest curses of all.
So even though mother wasn’t (as far as I know) dying of some dreaded disease or particularly old (or old at all) I must say that I feel, however selfish it may seem, relief that she’s on her way out of this block, at least physically. Perhaps the sadness will come later; perhaps I will mourn her in another year, or even the coming year (which isn’t far away). I never again will have to wonder whether I should be visiting her, or anyone else, and she no longer has to deal with the inevitability of my life. I’m feeling no loneliness, no desolation, at least not now. And this Christmas, this New Year, I won’t owe—or feel that I owe—anybody. I can finally treat each holiday as what it is: Simply another day to survive, another day when I have the same needs and desires I’ve had on any other day. I’ll finally not have the need or obligation to meet them in more ornate or convoluted ways than I otherwise would.
Not that I don’t enjoy ornamentation, even a little spectacle. I wear the most striking or ornate clothing I have. And if anyone takes a photo, I don’t look at it.
