My Aunt Ethel could stop a stampeding herd of elephants by placing her hands on her hips and snorting, Oh Please.
Who wouldn’t be silenced, shamed, swallowing the words that threatened to break loose from a parched throat?
Oh Please. Enemies? What’s with enemies? Who are your enemies? Who did you so bad you didn’t survive? Tell me.
I try. I look back, but to tell you the truth I’m at that stage of life where I have paid therapists enough to cover their mortgages, divorces and yoga retreats in Bali in order to work through my enemy shit, so when I look back I see…what? A battlefield strewn with the wounded, much as I was wounded. I see people groping for each other with claws instead of hands. I see fire flaming from open mouths. Scorched earth policy instead of words of comfort.
So okay. My mother. As alluring and toxic as the poison red apple. Right. But her mother tried to abort her with a coat hanger when she was in utero. Try to imagine being that tiny fetus. What tenderness might be left in your heart? What milk of kindness might you have flowing in abundance for your own small child?
It is an old story. The witch in the crumbling house tries to snuff out the light of the sunny girl child, but she always fails. The child finds the key that opens the cage where the magic bird lives, the one who sings the song of finding the road home.
So my enemy? Oh Please. She was my mother. She bled. I could not staunch her wound. I helped her die when she asked me to. I’ve started wearing her jewelry. There’s nothing left to forgive.
Mom comes to me in a dream. Her cheeks are rosy, but her eyes are wild. She asks me to visit her soon. Time is running out. I tell her I can come over spring break for two weeks. Everything feels urgent. She is begging, silently telling me that she is dying.
But wait, I think when I wake up, this dream so real, so much like a visit from her. You’re already dead.
What do you want? I ask the faint trail of her that remains.
Mom’s voice is filled with the longing I remember. I want you to gather your memories of us, she says. Set the table with the good china and the silver that you’ll have to polish. Roast a chicken the way we like it. Small red potatoes. Cold vodka. Chocolate mousse.
What else do you want? I ask.
To celebrate the love we missed while we had the chance. To tell you I’m proud of you, that you were the daughter I always wanted.
And this, she says. To hear you say you forgive me and I will say I forgive you. It’s easier now for me as I hope it is for you. Can you tell me you love me despite my rages, my envy? Have you seen deep enough into my wounds to offer me the compassion I need to heal?
I want to be cherished, she says. To be understood. Light a candle for me, for us, and keep it burning. Be extravagant. Light two. Light three. Let them blaze all day, bright enough to rival the sun.
Can you? Will you?
Yes, Mama, I say to the lingering breath of her perfume in the air, my heart a full moon on a warm summer night. I can. I will.
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This is an excerpt from my book The Ripening: Essays on Love, Loss, Marriage and Aging. Available at Amazon. Link below.
Nancy London 