My mom died. in Entries of Great Significance

My mother died a week ago today.

I haven’t been able to write about it.

I haven’t really been able to talk about it.

Not much.

And yet, here I am. It’s going to get better.

It has to, right? The cycle of life, I kept repeating that to everyone who has asked if I am okay. And I am. Okay. And I am so, well, not. Not okay.

Cycle of life.

And then there’s the circle of pain.

Depression, repression, derision, and the ever joyful denial.

Eventually these all work their way to acceptance.

It’s just a hard thing for me to embrace right now.

The acceptance. I’m in every possible category right now at once, and it’s a vortex of agony and anguish I wish no one ever will have to endure. Yet don’t we all? Encounter such bereavement as losing a loved one? Even when they were the last to love you the way you needed, and yet perhaps the only one you have ever known that loved you so purely. So truly.

No matter how woeful I might have been, was, will be again she was willing to love me as I sat a puzzle so incomplete.

So I’m a vortex of sorts, and I’m desperate in my direction, trying to find the cartography of this delusional yet stone cold despair.

I have a thousand stories of her, and I don’t want to share them.

I do not know why that is, and as someone who as always had great pride in knowing people and emotions and the stages of life, well, I’m without clue right now.

Yesterday marked 7 years to the day that I had my first major and ultimately catastrophic surgery. 7 years to the date. July 14, 2008..

And my mom didn’t even live to see that day.

July 8, 2015.. shall haunt me and likely guide me to places I will both despise and inevitably cherish and treasure.

Cycle of life.

Right?

She won’t even make it to the 10th year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

10 years ago we weren’t fleeing New Orleans and finding shelter and ultimately beautiful souls and awful moments in San Antonio, Texas..

“The Texas sun beats down my like the devil’s smile, I’d rather be anywhere else than here.. Take me back to New Orleans, and drop me at my door, cause I might love you, yeah, but I love me more..” The song is “New Orleans” by Cowboy Mouth

Highly recommend it. I listened to it on repeat during those sweltering and soul-shattering three months in Texas.

She won’t see 10 years after.

We made it back to New Orleans.

Her birthday is Monday. July 20, 1944 she was born in her beloved Crescent City. Uptown New Orleans. And there she passed away July 8, 2015. In Uptown New Orleans, her beloved Crescent City right there holding out its arms.

My older brother didn’t visit her in Hospice.

My younger brother did once with me.

I went 3 times.

And the last, and probably worst part, was she was laying there and I’d parked my car on the street and paid the meter for 2 and a half hours. The Hospice’s lot was all parked up and the city of New Orleans gives lots of parking tickets..

I set my alarm on my phone to go move my car, or feed the meter, or hopefully find an open space in the Hospice lot.

She didn’t recognize me.

I sat in silence for those 150 minutes.

Occasionally staring at my phone.

Held her hand.

Spoke to her.

Told her about my life right now, and all the things I hope to happen.

And how badly I wish for her to be awake so she could see some of the things I’m working toward.

But she didn’t stir.

The nurse checked on her twice.

My alarm buzzed in my pocket.

I went outside – and of course the lot was still full – and I made a decision to get home real quick, put the dogs outside, make sure they had water, and cut my grass (Kenner, the suburb of NOLA I live in are pretty Gestapo about the whole keeping your lawn cut. And you have to cut it weekly here, sometimes two times in a week with our customary heavy rainfall..) and so I went back in, told her I loved her and I’d be back soon, then when Thomas was off work go pick him up and return to her.

I drove home. It took maybe 20 minutes because Uptown is not close to any interstate on-ramps. So I weaved through the traffic singing.

I did not hear my phone buzz when I got a call.

Got home, stared at my phone.

Text from Mark: “We need to find a funeral home now that mother died.”

…

No words.

I stood outside the car, and I threw my keys on the sidewalk.

The keyring shattered.

I had to pick up every key as I realized that raindrops were hitting the pavement.

They were not raindrops.

So many teardrops stained the sidewalk until I got my keys.

I called Mark, since Thomas was at work, and I cannot fucking believe what I said.

Movies are so cliche right? Books, too, oftentimes?

“How can she be dead?! I was just there!!”

Yeah, I said that exact phrase.

I crumpled inside the door.

My dogs, so precious, were nervous.

They sensed my mood. They are very acute empaths.

Sam licked my face where the tears were.

Dean threw his body into my lap and just kept sniffing at me.

Such different and yet so distinctly their affection styles.

I didn’t want to call Steve or Sam when they were working.

I sent Steve a text asking “Hey, what’s up?”

They don’t really Facebook much, so I waited to say anything.

Thomas called.

He asked if I needed him, and I quietly said, “No.”

“Do you want me to come pick you up from work?” I then asked calmly.

“No, I’m okay here. Everyone is being very sweet to me. I don’t mind working.”

“Are you sure,” I inquired. “Cause if there’s ever a day to miss work it is today.”

And I started sobbing, and his voice caught.

He choked up, “Please, come get me.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Collecting myself to drive, I made my way to the car.

When he got in the car, I just grabbed his head and we put ours together and I held him there as we both bawled.

So we went to our favorite childhood Mexican restaurant. It was cheap. We were poor. It was a buffet. Panchos. It closed down, but the guys who ran the one we went to re-opened it as Two Amigos and the food is exactly the same only better and they still run it. We went a good bit when they re-opened with mom.

It was the best food I think I’ve ever had from there, and yet it wasn’t filling.

Not satisfying.

And yet so comforting.

How can that all be true?

Cause it is.

That simple.

That complicated.

Eventually Steve texted me around 7:30pm.

I called him, “What’s up, bub?”

So Steve.

We call him Wolverine.

For obvious reasons – personality and looks.

Wolverine also was my favorite and Steve’s favorite childhood comic book character.

“My mom died.”

“Are you fucking serious?” He said it barely above a whisper.

“Yeah. I wasn’t there. I was moving my car to avoid a parking ticket.”

“Jesus, dude, what can I do?”

Steve lost his dad years ago, and he’s still choked up about it. He’s been an incredible person, best friend, older brother not by blood but by love, and resource for me in every way almost my entire life.

I should have been there for him more back then.

There was a lot of drama about the Funeral Home and the Hospice needing my mom gone that night or they’d send her to the city coroner for likely additional charges. I had to argue with them because we were not told this beforehand which was messed up. I was on the phone 2 hours angry that I was dealing this hours after losing my mother.

But I was pleasant to everyone. They’re just doing their jobs. You don’t take your pain out on anyone. Only myself.

That’s how I’ve always been.

I called Steve back once I was done with the funeral people.

Apparently, I did not know this then, but Steve was in the middle of a catastrophe. He has a major Home Depot client that ordered 36 double doors for apartments and he needed them Thursday to be ready for inspections Friday. He is a half a million dollar customer, and he had another order of $132,000 dollars pending.

Steve was on the phone with Home Depot execs in Atlanta until 10:30pm.

I called and he was dealing with it, and Sam later told me he stared down at his phone and, “Brian, his face went white, and he mouthed to me What do I do? because he couldn’t not answer you (he could have! I’d have been fine!) he felt, but he could not lose this order.”

“So I just said to him, give me your phone.”

So Sam.

So Steve.

I’m blessed.

She’s amazing. We talked. She said she had to do inspections in the morning, could she come get me after and we’d spend the day together.

So I did.

Spent the next day entirely with Sam and later Steve after he got off work around lunchtime.

We didn’t talk too much about mom.

I just enjoyed their company as they did mine.

Lots of laughs.

I’m thinking we’ll spread her ashes in Audubon Park by where the ducks are where we’d go feed them as kids.

I’m hoping they’ll be able to be there with us.

Thomas never misses work. Never calls in.

He called in the next two days.

So we just spent a lot of time together, and with my friends, and ..

I’ve been crying on and off this whole time.

I don’t know where to go now, but I’m both content this happened as she was no longer alive except by machine and she never wanted that, and yet so distinctly selfish of me I miss my mom.

I miss my mom.

Steve said to me, “I lost my dad, but I mean, we knew it was coming in advance. They gave him six months. He passed peacefully with us by his bedside, and we never had to make a choice like you did. You had to choose to end it. And I only lost my dad, but I still have my mom. You lost both in her. I’m not sure how I could handle that.”

“You would. You’re stronger than anyone I know now that she’s gone.

He shook his dead in disagreement, but he is keen and knew not to press it.

“I love you, man.”

“I love you too, bub.”

But I still miss my mom.

And I think that’s good.

I think I should.

I think I always will.

And so there it sits.

Cycle of life.

Tears of life both lost and so much left to live.

I love you, mom, and I miss you.

Tears falling like soft rain.

And I always will.

May you always find your smile.