My mother has always remembered our birthdays. She has taken the time to fill these large rectangle tupperware containers full of the most simply angelic, yet delicious cupcakes you have ever tasted. They were her traditional way of saying happy birthday to you. The cupcakes themselves were Angela Day's cupcake recipe. And the icing was quintessentially mom's butter cream icing...Cream butter, add icing sugar, vanilla essence and maybe a drop of milk. They accompanied (depending on whether it was feast or famine) a lovely present, but most importantly, there was always a card.
I remember specific cards through out the years, not so much the pictures on the front of them (which often were Beatrix Potteresque scenes of anthropomorphic bunnies, frolicking in the woods, having tea parties), but the words. Her incredibly exacting, solid, perfect script, always written with a blue Parker pen (never black for birthdays, that was too dull),or in the later years with a purple Vector fountain pen, complete with hearts instead of dots on the tops of your i's... The cards always professed how much she loved us and how wonderful we were. I thought this was hilarious at times, because I was such a little $h!t, how in the world could I be so fantastic just because it was my birthday, but I graciously accepted them (as did my brother and sister) and honestly, genuinely, birthdays were always wonderful. Dads dyslexic spider scrawl also used to accompany mom's handwriting in the cards, although his was harder to read, would have been perfect for a doctor.
As the years have gone on and I have been lost in my own fog of regrets or things I wished I had done versus the choices I had already made, mom and dad's cards have punctuated my life and our lives and become (like all written forms of expression are to me) part of my favourite things. They would perk me up and give me that little bit of oompf or validation that I needed to face this cruel and brutal world.
I often times go without birthday presents simply because I don't honestly want anything, and I would prefer a card. My moms serious card giving has influenced my sister, and now we receive cards from not only my sister but her husband too. I keep all the cards you know... They go in my favourite memories of the year boxes... And they seem to me now to be my most treasured possessions.
Part of my moms' illness, the cruelest bite through our hearts, the part that leaves a palpable ache, a tangible loss versus this intangible theory of what is happening inside of her, is that she is losing her words, and her ability to express herself. Someone who used to talk to us all day. Someone who would have very in depth conversations with us about sexuality or choices, or doing the right thing, she now is silent. When she does speak, we're sometimes not too sure what it is in reference to. My dad says she especially speaks "Japanese" at night. We feel like we're losing our best friend. Which in effect, we are.
We're losing the matriarch, the keeper of the family history, the one who kissed all of our wounds, the only one we wanted when we were sick. I remember waking up early with her before she would go to work at the Park Lane Clinic, just so I could have those few special alone minutes with her. She would make herself Nescafe and she would make me Frisco, which was basically like chicory. We would be alone together whilst the rest of the house slept. It felt like we were in cahoots together and the rest of the world could just fall away, it failed to be important anymore.
I look forward to those minutes with her now these days. I visit her daily after school and after work. My kids run upstairs to play at her house, and we are on the couch, with our cups of tea. Her leg is glued to mine on the one side, from the hip to the knee. The words often catch in my throat when I wonder what I should tell her about, what I should let her know, because most things confuse her now. I watch her opening her mouth trying so desperately to tell me what she has been thinking about all day. I practice my patience, as best as I can. When she grows desperate I try to substitute some words for her, or help her out. Some times I can get it and she nods with agreement, her vivid blue eyes flashing. Sometimes I feel like I have failed her, because I cant decipher what she wants to tell me. She read her own text messages that she had sent to her sister last year December and then thought her sister was having dental work. She is living in a strange and scary place, the vacuous passages of her own mind, a personal labyrinth with limited access, the echos of her own thoughts, and the racing of her new compulsions.
My birthday was last week Tuesday. I went to go drop my daughter off there so she could spend the day with Granny. My mom was in her blue dressing gown, and was asking me if I would come and see her later in the day. I said yes. I hugged and kissed her. Only as I drove away, I thought wow my mom forgot my own birthday.
Once I got to work she sent me a text message wishing me happy birthday. But I am sure that my daughter had reminded her. She seemed embarrassed that she hadnt told me in person. I took no offense to it, as honestly I know she would never forget on purpose. To forget is totally out of character with the fibers of her being. Two days later for Thanksgiving, she noticed the cards on my mantle and said to me "I have your card I must give it to you"... I said "Cards are for people you don't see every day, don't worry about it"... Which honestly is true.
Finally yesterday, 8 days after my birthday, I received my card. It was there in the kitchen, in top of the insurance paperwork we're trying to keep up with. Long term disability, health insurance, social security applications, all the things that surround the chaos of someone with a terminal illness. My dad had written my nickname on the front, which is, if you dont know it, "Bendy boo". My brother actually routinely calls me "Bennie"... which is funny because Africans would also call me "Bennie"...My dad wrote in the card, thanking me profusely for all that I had done for "them"... I can't honestly even begin to think that I have done enough. There is nothing really that I can do, other than listen or be there.
Then the reason that I write this post, the thing I don't want to forget, was this tender moment I shared with her. She came and showed me the card she bought for her sister. She then asked me to write in it for her as well as address it for her. I said "Come here mommy, sit down, you tell me what to write". I pulled a chair out at the table for her. She sat on my right. My knee was touching hers again. She sat and then had this look on her face, the one you pull before you recite the Odyssey, or the Iliad... Her eyes looked over my hair, to the wall, became blank as if she were trying hard to remember, and she then told me " write 26th of December 2014"... and she pointed where, in the top right corner. She spoke again "Dearest Debbie"... and then "I love you so much!"... labored breath... tongue forcing itself to form these sloppy guttural words, so unlike the girlish voice my mom always carried, "I wish you were here! Love from Diana"... And I wrote as she said. But then I said "mom, you have to sign your name". Which she reluctantly took the pen from me, wrote her name, and added three x's...
I write because in the depths of her breakdown, in the depths of her loss of self and our loss of her, there is this intimacy, this beauty that only can be there because of true love. I love her still. I love her for the way she raised us. I love her for the tenderness that she has shown us, and for the tenderness that we are now able in return to show her.
