There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (51 page)

The next day I started peeling away the things that gave me the most anxiety. I found an antiques dealer in the next town over and engaged him to help me sell most of it. He was hesitant at first because he said people often came to him with pieces left to them by family. They usually held only emotional value to the individual but usually little else.

Undeterred, I sent him photos and measurements and we were in business. I have to say that the pieces were all exquisite. They had real value and were in pristine shape. This guy said that in all his years of being in this business, he had never seen such a cohesive, quality, beautiful collection. He could easily move this stuff and give me half the proceeds. I then could buy items we all really loved and wanted to live among. It made sense, and I did just that.

I soon realized that this had actually been an important part of my particular mourning process. I had needed to go through the entire process—cleaning out the storage space, seeing everything that was there, placing it all in our new home, paying tribute to what my mom and I had collected and the path it had taken, and then being
done
with it.

I kept a few special items with which I could not part and decided to work just enough of them in to feel good and connected to my
mom.
With the money I received I bought and decorated the place to reflect my husband and me and us as a family. It was a liberating process and a telling one.

•   •   •

Six months later it was our first Christmas in this house, and to quote my girls, it promised to be “the best one ever!”

For the first time since I can remember, I was also not alone in the holiday decorating. As a kid I decorated our tree every year all by myself. I’d take a minimum of four hours to place the multicolored mini-lights on practically every needle. I would then deck out the tree with so many ornaments you could barely see the branches. I loved the ritual of it all. I would stay up all night if I had to use everything. I was methodical and maniacal and felt such commitment and peace doing it all by myself. Mom never liked doing the tree.

I would start after dinner and then we would go to midnight Mass. I always resumed after Mass and would sometimes stay up to 4:00
A.M
. I never turned on the lights until the whole tree was done. My favorite part was when I’d finally take the ridiculously long assembly of plugs that had been stacked and attached and put the last one in the socket. The tree would glow and it was so bright you could read a book under it.

I’d switch it on and enjoy the light and the intense quiet. Mom would be getting ready for bed and I’d do the reveal for her—“Ta-da, Mama!”—and then go into my room and go to bed, incredibly excited for Santa to come. I’d leave the tree without presents and in the morning there would be so many wrapped packages surrounding the base that one would not believe we were a household of two. Most of the gifts would be spilling out of a Christmas stocking the size of a young child. Mom had found the enormous stocking at some store and thought I deserved it.

Christmas morning was always amazing and we would usually go
to Bob’s family’s house for an Armenian-style family Christmas. The day after Christmas I’d go to my dad’s house and have the holiday with my family there. Mom’s relatives were never a part of our lives in these later years.

Now it was my turn to create traditions in my own home. And I was taking it incredibly seriously. I roll-called my platoon and we put together a plan. Everyone happily got to work. I dreaded the day my girls stopped believing in Santa (and vowed to never pass out like my mom had done so many years ago and reveal the truth). Santa would come during the night when they were all asleep for as long as possible.

This year one daughter did the outside lights with Chris’s mom, another child did the fireplaces and powder room, I completed the dining room table, and we all did the tree together. For the record, I did not redo the placement of any of the lights or the ornaments when my girls were not looking! The house was stunning. Because it was to be the first family dinner at my new special table, I wanted it to be just right. I had recently convinced my husband to let me get a large oval zinc-top table that had two massive debarked tree trunks as its base. Even though Chris started out being unsure, thankfully, its dominating presence grew on him and we kept the table. Since the table was my domain, I went about the decorating in a way that would make Colin Cowie proud.

First, I placed two fresh garlands from a local farm along the length of the table crossing in and out of the other through the center. I next wrapped tiny battery-operated mini-lights on thin wire, which I had splurged on from Restoration Hardware, around white balls made of seashells. I made two pyramids of three balls each and encased them under glass domes and located them toward the center of the table amid the green garland. Two sterling candelabras that my mom bought at an antique place ages ago bracketed my center masterpiece. To finish it off, I scattered a few huge pinecones and nestled a few
silver birds and mini-conches into the green. I thought I’d add a bit of beach into Christmas. I lit the candles, stood back, and as the holiday music wafted through the otherwise quiet house, I thought it was the best-smelling room and most beautiful table I had ever set.

Chris made a feast and we all sat down and toasted to it all. As I sipped my glass I slowly looked around the table at the smiling faces. Everyone was eating, talking, and enjoying the meal and the setting. I suddenly thought,
Who are these people and why are they in my house?
I started to feel like I was receding into the atmosphere. What were they all doing in my home and at my table? Where was my mom? I looked at all their faces and finally settled on my girls’ backlit silhouettes. They seemed to have left me. They looked so happy and in their own skin. They were playing some joke on their “Opah,” which is what they call Chris’s dad, and it occurred to me that they, my daughters, were actually related to these people. They were blood, and I, somehow, was the outsider.

This thought seemed to suggest to me that all the people at this table were related to each other except me. I saw Chris and his sister, Michele (who the girls call Aunt Mimi), both their parents, and the sole Henchy grandchildren. All of them, including Mimi’s husband for some reason, were all one big happy family rejoicing in Christmas. Where had my family and my life gone?

Sitting there, as the noises became more indiscernible, it slowly dawned on me that I no longer had any parent with whom to share this day. I felt orphaned.

I started to feel as if I could sneak away from the table while they all laughed and celebrated and walk out of the house and just keep going. My kids would be fine. Look at the great family they had! They might miss me, but not for long, and they would grow up just fine. Look at all those Disney princesses—their moms had been vanished from their lives way earlier than this and their futures turned out to
be more glorious than they could have imagined. Maybe it was even better for my kids if I, too, vanished.

Chris startled me by repeating some question even louder and I regained consciousness and tried to shake off my mood. I got a huge lump in my throat and tried to smile it down. I lingered with the feeling for another second, though, and recognized it as similar to a sensation I encountered years back and at the beginning of my bout with PPD. I resisted the urge to panic.

I finished my glass and slowly refilled it with champagne, watching every bubble trying to stay afloat and feeling slightly like one of those helpless bubbles. Nobody seemed to have noticed my “absence” and I attempted successfully to reengage in the table chatter.

After dinner, as I was clearing the table, my husband said, “I see that look in your eyes. You are leaving again, aren’t you? You are retreating and I want to go on record and say that I am a witness to your starting to disappear.” I looked at him with tears starting to well up my eyes and said, “I have no parents.” He held me tight and said he understood.

Do you?
I thought.
Does anybody really know what it feels like to lose a mom, until it happens?
No matter what the quality or situation of one’s life, the end of a living mother is profound.

I was happy for Chris’s sake that he didn’t know from experience what I was feeling, of course. And I also knew that he was really just saying that I had him and the girls, and that he was aware I was struggling. I didn’t feel like Christmas-crying anymore. So I took a deep breath and told him I loved him and the girls, so much it “horts.”

Later that night I went over it in my head. How could it be that I had everything in place, but there remained a huge void?

I found the wonderful husband and grounded relationship, my kids were healthy, we had the full and vibrant home with the tree and the decorations and the music, and even the
snow
, for Christ’s sake. I
had everything I had always wanted, but now I had no mom. She used to be my barometer for joy. If she was happy, I was happy. I wanted to show her how well it had all turned out. Sure, life had kicked us in the ass for various reasons but no one’s exempt from that and there had been and currently was a tremendous amount of good. The blessings were continuing. I wanted to show off my beautiful table and how I had utilized the special possessions she herself had taught me about and collected. I knew she’d love it when she saw it.

Denial can be so very shrewd. The first year after Mom died didn’t seem to be so bad. Because Mom had been failing for a while, there had been a few recent celebrations during which we were not together. That first year I just tricked myself into thinking Mom was not with me because she was still at the assisted-living facility. But this Christmas was a shock. It had been about a year and two months and I still had not had any dreams about Mom or any emotional outbursts. I suppose it was crafty denial, but I was beginning to realize that my mourning had only just begun.

I now needed to do what Mom was never capable of doing—let go, even just a little bit. Because I wish she knew she didn’t ever have to let me go. All she needed to do was stretch her arms out farther and relax her fingers.

Epilogue

Dear Mom,

My first feeling is that I miss you very much. It is hardest on your birthday and on my birthday, because those were the days that we celebrated each other. I never thought I could live without you. To see you dying in that bed with its rails and thin sheets, in a curled-up and scared position, devastated me. Watching you actually die was one of the hardest, more unreal things I have ever experienced, and it was the day I had dreaded most my whole life.

I never felt as though I told you enough how much I loved and appreciated you. I wish we had had a heart-to-heart while you were still of sound mind. You always said, “Let’s talk,” but it never happened. I think we wanted to avoid disrupting the good times. Or, when we did try, we’d just fight or not know what to say. It was as if the intimacy was too scary and embarrassing.

I still feel as though I knew and understood you better than anyone else in your life, and that was hard to do because you so rarely told anybody how you were feeling. And yet I feel as though I never got the full story. I think I hated your drinking so much because the you I knew existed and loved was stolen away from me.

I was always free enough to sob to you, but it did not bring us closer. I think that was because I was your baby in those moments and you felt needed. But as I grew up and tried to make changes, these moments were fewer and farther between. It was as if we no longer knew who we were together.

I also have to believe that because you never really lived in sobriety, even your dry days were colored by your addiction. You were ambitious and street smart, and although also intensely loving, and often well intended, you were also an addict. It was as if you were not only addicted to alcohol but also addicted to me. You never did the work to fully embrace sobriety, and you robbed yourself. I became the meaning in your life when it would have served you to find the meaning from within.

I see now how much pain and sadness you carried. I believe your heart was such a fully feeling heart that you were not strong enough to heal each time it was broken. I have read some of your old journals and was deeply affected by how you regarded yourself. You always proclaimed how tough you were and how strong you were, but you never seemed to feel good enough. It is hard to love ourselves, but I have learned to love who I am inside. I can always strive to be better, but I am enough. I don’t know if you ever really did love who you were. I don’t believe your mom ever helped you to believe in your own self-worth as you did for me.

I know I fought you, but it never meant I did not love you or did not need you. Your approval meant the world to me, as did your happiness. That was the hard part, because I wanted your approval for my growing up independently of you, yet I feared my independence was the root of your unhappiness. But if I had not fought to differentiate myself from you and from our tight bond, I would not have been able to survive. I’m sorry for the way I handled our “divorce,” but I did not have the strength to break away from the life we were living without taking drastic measures.