mother's day

when i was young and my mother went out of town the world turned grey. my body reacted as if she had died; i couldnt eat, i cried all night. talking to her on the phone only made things worse. my father would take me to jim n nicks barbeque because that would have made him feel better. i didnt eat meat. walking down the orange carpeted stairs my father stood next to the newel post and gave me a rough hug and said, in his the-fair-comes-to-town-once-a-year voice, "aww, she'll be back soon." nothing was right until she came home.
that was what made me feel so lonely- when she was gone, i had no home. she was my family, her every movement defined the things i needed: sweetness and love and warmth and all of the unconditional promises that human beings have to have in order to be O.K. Before she would leave for one of her beach trips or out of town conferences she would put her finger on my heart and say, this is where i am, you arent ever without me. it was so reassuring that it terrified me, it was such an important thing to hear that i wanted to hide.
its so hard to believe that people are bodies, machines, that can break and fall apart and end that person altogether. its so hard to believe that so much of you can exist intangibly in someone else, and that whether you like it or not, whether its easy or it isnt, you are yoked to them and to the cadences of their lives, the possibilities of change, of sickness, of death. when my mother got a new kidney because her's werent working anymore, what scared me more than any threat of death(incomprehensible, unspeakable, impossible), was the simple realization that no matter how much i needed her, no matter how much i could not fathom continuing to live without her, she is bound to a body that will eventually no longer work.
i paw at the steering wheel when i turn, like she does. when im trying to concentrate i purse my lips and then un-purse, purse then un-purse. she does that too. i cry when im yelled at and we have the same barely visible birthmark on the same spot on our left hands. when i read the newspaper i throw the sections on the floor in a messy pile and clean them up later; i love high heel shoes at the expense of comfort. ive hardly ever bought any clothing that wasnt on sale.
i still get teary the first time i see her after months apart. i still get teary when we say goodbye. and i still cant imagine that she wont always exist in her body the way she does now. but what has changed, with getting older and coming to terms with the fact that everything, everyone, everywhere will end, is that those untouchable lovely parts of her that i missed when she was away, the tenderness and the love, now exist in me. they are part of me because she gave them to me, she showed them to me, she unlocked all of the beauty in the world and said here, its all for you.
when i hear that now, i no longer want to hide.