When my mother died in 1974, thirty seven years ago, I knew few of the people who I call friends today. There are a couple.. There is Virgina Kelly, and Barbara Donovan, and Virgina Rohan, all former denizens of the same grammar and high school in the Bronx. Virginia Kelly's mother and mine were fast friends, one of the few she had in my memory. As to Virginia Rohan, my mother loved to share discussions of the latest fashions, one of which she called "fun fur". There are relatives, my cousin Carol, my Aunt Teri, my Aunt Kathleen (although she is at a stage in life, nearly 90 in which she thinks both her late sisters are alive), who had regular interaction with my mother. Until she became ill, though, my mother was something of a mysterious recluse. Few people except her immediate relatives came into the apartment and my mother had some kind of secret which she shared only obliquely with my father and me. She claimed she was a hand model. I'd go through various fashion magazines and point to a hand that looked like hers, long fingers, long perfectly polished nails and ask "Is that you?" She'd say yes, but I never was sure. She went somewhere. Dad was sure of it. She talked of people named Robert (pronounced by her Ro-Baire, and Evelyn (EVE-lyn) and Lisa (Lee-za)) in the fashion business with whom she'd sometimes lunch. She insisted I had met the latter. Naturally I did not remember as I had been age 2 or less. When she died, no one of them came to the wake or funeral. As the years passed, I came to question this occasional career. When she succumbed to the wildly metasized breast cancer without ever having been told by doctor or my dad and I that she even had cancer, the internal world of this woman which had already been a major mystery was fully closed off. There was insufficient information left behind to explore whether the fashion people she referenced were ever real. She was only 48. In her last 14 months she had in some odd way been freed from rigidity and coldness which had, to my child's eye, defined her and her relationship with me. She was the mother I had always wanted. And so, in an incongruous way, the time in which she was sick was the best of our relationship. I was old enough to appreciate it at 18 when she was diagnosed and 20 when she died Thanksgiving weekend.
If I "google" my mother, nothing comes up. I hate that. She was beautiful. This is the last picture I have of her, a month before she died, at a wedding. She was buried in the outfit she wore that day and night, a day in which she was happy, and soft. I thought she might survive.
Notebook of my mother's addresses and other items, these of stores and theatres in the Bronx, ages ago.
She is buried back in New York, in an upstate town called Valhalla. I have visited her grave only rarely since I have lived here so many years. But I do visit my dad's niche fairly frequently, although I realized today, not since the summer. Tomorrow I go to the home of Len Speaks for a gathering we used to attend together. Often in his cups commenting on how this latest party "was the best" he'd ever attended, he would mention my mother with a combination of wistfulness and regret. Theirs was a long (28 years, she was only 18 when they married) and complicated connection, but it was an intense and I think cosmic one which affected him until the day he died nearly four years ago, at 90. He always felt that he had not done right by her, although from all I could see he had worked to make her happy. Happiness was for her elusive until life itself was ebbing. Another of the mysteries that was my mom.
Suddenly today, I HAD to go to vist Dad's niche at the cemetery in Culver City. To talk to both of them. To remember both of them. It was late in the afternoon, and traffic was lousy. I was distressed that the little flower shop in the cemetery was probably closed by 4 and it was already after 4. My dad was not particularly interested in flowers, but I have found it essential to dress up the space by bringing them when I go. It is just a token of remembrance. I felt actually a little anxiety at not having anything to bring, so much so I actually considered looking for flowers on the grounds to pick--although I felt that was somehow really bad form and did not do it. As I got there the marine layer was coming in, vying witht the remaining sunshine. I thought it might be gloomy in that little hall where his niche is, but it was quite the opposite, the birds were still active and the natural light was still caressing the area, along with the cool breeze. As I walked down the corridor, it looked like there WERE flowers in the holder of Dad's niche. There were. I began to cry. I had, I have no idea who did that. There are only a few people who know that this is the weekend on which my mother died. Was this remembrance of him by way of remembering her also? There was no one to ask. I had forgotten my cell phone and did not have a camera with which to take a picture of the sweet bunch of red carnations surrounded by baby's breath.
But I can tell you what I was, grateful, that my dad who had few friends left at age 90, was remembered by someone other than me.
God Bless whoever you are.
I admit to wanting to know. . . . .
Requiescat in pacem.
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