A Funny Memory of Mom

My mother died on August 27th, 2008. She served my dad his dinner, told him she wasn't hungry, sat down in her easy chair, and passed quietly away. It was a real shocker. After all, Dad was the one who had bone marrow cancer and was practically an invalid. Just the same, it happened, and I dealt with it. I won't say I dealt with it well. It really isn't a contest, now is it?

For months after Mom died, I couldn't look at her picture without having my life come to a crashing halt. I would sit there in my sorrowful stupor unable to move on. My heart would race, as I suddenly realized that she was gone, as if I hadn't known it. I would literally say to myself, "Oh, yeah, Mom died." Then after a brief feeling of intense panic, I would take some of those "deep cleansing" breaths I learned about in birthing class, and come back to the here and now.

Instead of avoiding pictures of Mom during that time, I put them on the walls around my desk thinking, that eventually, I would be able to look at one without getting that first drop of a roller coaster feeling. That didn't work out too well. School got out for the summer two weeks ago, and I was still experiencing the same thing as I took the photos off my wall.

Then, the other day, in a moment of brilliance, I sat on the couch with my beloved Asus eeePC 1000 and created a DVD with all the digital pictures I have of my mom. The slide show lasts almost seven minutes. I even set it to some appropriately sad songs like "To Where You Are" by Josh Groban. The process of creating the DVD took hours, since I got stuck staring at at least half of the pictures and going through my little anxiety attack. That happened mostly with pictures I found hiding in a folder called "Stuff off Mom's computer" which I had not taken the time to completely explore.

Now, getting back on track. For some stupid reason that I can not explain, I was drawn to that DVD before going to bed last night. It was like passing an accident. You know how you don't want to look, but you just can't stop yourself. I could not stop myself from starting up that DVD and sitting through nearly seven minutes of photos of Mom. As a result, I had a very rough night. For the first time in several months, I had what feels like a night-long dream in which I am looking for my mother, but can not find her. Sometimes, I see her standing across a room, but she is gone when I get there. My psychiatrist would have a field day with it, I am sure, if I were smart enough to seek counseling.

Because of having such a rough night, I decided to start a new approach. I decided that, when I get into my little wimpy panic mode, I should force myself to think of funny things I remember about my mom. Notice I did not say "happy things". Happy memories just lead to that sense of loss and longing that can knock me to my knees. Funny things seem to reprogram my grief into a less anxiety producing form. So here goes... I am going to share one of my funniest memories of my mom with the world, even if some of you find it a little off-color.

In the summer of 1975, my mother's only living uncle died. (That's not the funny part. She was actually quite upset by it.) Within an hour of hearing the news, my mother and I had packed our bags, grabbed Smokey (our German Shepherd), and started the long drive from San Antonio to Somers Point, New Jersey. My dad was TDY in Turkey on some kind of inspection team, and the Turkish government wasn't letting anyone leave the country for a while. I don't really remember anymore about that, and it isn't important to my story.

We stayed in New Jersey for about two weeks, and were just about to leave when Mom got a call letting her know that Turkey was going to allow Dad and his team to return to the USA. They worked it out that he would fly into McGuire AFB so that he could drive back to San Antonio with us. The only problem was, he wouldn't get there for another two weeks, and I had to get back to San Antonio to start my senior year of high school. We decided that I would fly back by myself.

My grandfather drove Mom, my grandmother, and me to the Philadelphia airport to put me on a plane. While we were sitting at the gate waiting the two hours for my flight (Yep, those older people sure love getting to the airport early!), Mom asked me if I wanted some mints for the trip. You see, I was notorious for puking my guts up whenever I flew, rode in a boat, rode on a bus, rode in a CAR... I got sick on anything that moved until I was about twenty-years-old. We even carried a huge coffee can with a lid on it for me to hurl in when we went anywhere in the car. If we had to pull over every time Little Jimmie got sick, we would never have gotten anywhere.

Back to the story. Anyway, I said I wanted some mints, so Mom started going through her purse and giving me all that she had. One of them was a big new kind I had never seen before, so I decided to eat it right then and there. I opened up the cellophane wrapper and saw that the mint was wrapped in string. I started unwinding it and asked, "What's this stupid string for?" Mom casually looked my way, made a face like she had seen a ghost, screamed "Oh my God! Give me that!", and fiercely grabbed it out of my hand. With one quick stab, she shoved it in her purse and looked around to see if anyone had seen. Of course, everyone who was within a fifty-foot radius was staring at her after that scream.

After a few minutes, Mom gave me a cryptic explanation. "That wasn't candy, Jimmie. It was a personal 'lady-thing'. I wasn't following her at all. She kept getting flustered, and finally wailed (in a most Mary Richards manner, I might add), "It was a tampon, damn it!" I had heard of those, but hadn't ever seen one, so it took me awhile for it to sink in. When it did, I let out a loud, "Oh, GROSS!", and laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out. The whole time my mother kept slapping my arm saying, "Stop it!" The poor thing was completely and utterly humiliated. That was one of the funniest moments of my life. Sorry, Mom!