LOSING MOM - Part 50

A heaving sob swelled up from the depth of my belly, bursting out with such force I had to sit down, sinking into the loveseat in Mom’s living room like a deflated balloon. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Despite the weeks and weeks of preparing for it, at times even longing for it, the shock of hearing Mom had died was visceral, and for a moment I couldn’t speak. Bent over, I cradled my forehead in one shaky hand, gripping the phone to my ear with the other, tears streaming down my face as my mind stared into the terrifying abyss of a world without my mom.

Sal stayed quiet, letting me cry, her presence on the other end of the phone at once comforting and grounding. Finally, with a tremulous inhale, I forced myself to sit up, wiping at my wet cheeks with the sleeve of my sweater. “Okay, wow. Sorry. Does Lib know yet?”   

“No, not yet...I’ll call her now.”

“Okay...I’ll be there as fast as I can,” I promised, pushing myself up from the couch to stand shakily in the middle of Mom’s living room. The midmorning light coming through the wood blinds swathed the room in a diffused luminance, at least in my memory, making all the familiar things Mom had loved, and I’d grown up with, stand out in sharp relief. My eyes flitted randomly from one thing to the next - the wing chair from Dad’s college years at Cornell, its graceful lines still solid and sturdy despite decades of use; the butler coffee table that had been a wedding present almost seventy years before; the wood casement clock Dad had made in his early retirement, set prominently atop my grandmother’s mahogany desk, its four weighted brass balls mesmerizingly spinning, first one way, then the other - so many beautiful things, each with its own story.  How could it be that it was all still here, but Mom wasn’t? It didn’t make sense.

“Peg,” Sal’s voice was stern and serious, bringing me back from my drifting thoughts.  “Please drive really, really carefully. I mean it. Please.”

“I will, I promise. Don’t worry.”

We hung up, and I immediately tried to call John, my body buzzing with adrenaline as I listened to it ring, and ring. No answer. I hit redial, but again, no answer. Where was he? How could he not be answering? I tried our home phone, thinking maybe if he saw it was me on the caller ID he’d pick it up, though he rarely ever did. Still, no answer. 

Frustrated, wanting to talk to somebody, I called Lib, figuring if she was still on the phone with Sal at least she’d know I’d tried, but she picked up on the first ring. “I’m okay,” she assured me without preamble, her voice sad and weary. “Are you at Hospice yet?”

“No, not yet. I’m heading over now. I just...I don’t know. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real.”

“I know,” she agreed, “I wish I was there.”

“Oh god, me too.” 

Promising to call again after I got to Hospice, I hung up and tried John one more time, a panicky impatience bubbling up in my chest when, again, he didn’t answer. The urgency to get over to Hospice that had eluded me earlier was now coursing through my veins unimpeded, so I grabbed my purse and hurried out of the apartment, the door closing heavily behind me. The click of the latch was loud and echoey, following me down the quiet, empty corridor. 

It’s funny how the mind works when it's been dealt a shock, even if that shock was completely expected. I was desperate to let John and the kids know Mom had died, but had it in my head that I had to call them in a certain order....first John, then Bill, then Elizabeth, then Jack. I couldn’t see any way around it, and even when I couldn’t reach John, it simply didn’t occur to me that I could skip ahead and call the kids before I talked to him. So I just kept pushing redial, getting more and more frustrated with each unanswered call.

Then, about halfway over to Hospice, I had the panicky thought that one of Sal’s daughters might reach out to my kids before I had a chance to tell them myself. The cousins were all very close, and it would have been the most natural thing in the world to want to share their grief with each other. But again, in my overwrought mind, I couldn’t see past the rule I had in my head that John had to be told first, so rather than just calling my children and putting my mind at ease, I frantically called Sal to ask her to intervene.

“I can’t reach John,” I choked out tearfully when she answered, my throat tight with unspoken frustration. “And I can’t tell my kids before I tell him and I want them to hear it from me and not Kate and Claire so can you tell them not to say anything?” My voice sounded a little unhinged, even to my own ears, but I couldn’t slow down, my mind in overdrive imagining all kinds of unlikely scenarios where my family heard about Mom from everyone but me. Then, remembering a horrible story my friend Annie had told me about how some of her family found out a favorite uncle had died by scrolling through their social media feed, I worried that might happen, too. “And we should have a rule that no one posts anything on social media until we’ve had a chance to tell everyone in person. Okay?” 

Poor Sal. I can’t imagine what was going through her head as she listened to my semi-hysterical rant, but to her credit she didn’t interrupt or try to reason with me, murmuring her assurance that yes, she would talk to Kate and Claire, and yes, she’d tell them not to post anything yet. 

“But, Peg, please get here in one piece, okay?” she begged. “Pull over if you have to. You sound pretty upset.”

Promising her again that I’d be careful, I hung up and dutifully put my phone down in my lap, forcing myself to concentrate on the road in front of me, so familiar I could have probably driven blindfolded and still gotten there safely. Not only was the route between Mom’s apartment and the Perrysburg Hospice pretty much a straight shot, it was also the exact same one that, growing up, we’d taken everyday to get to school, it being just across the intersection from the turn off to Swan Creek. I don’t think my younger self could have ever imagined that fifty some odd years later I’d be doing that drive again every day, though this time in reverse, passing by so many of the same things I’d stared at through the carpool window back then.

Over the years things had, of course, changed a lot - gas stations and strip malls had sprouted up where there had once been mile after mile of open space. I remember watching excitedly as the Southwyck Mall was being built in the early seventies, the behemoth structure emerging from the acres of empty cornfields like a magical wonderland, promising trendy new shops, arcade games and seven movie theaters - a pre-teen paradise. It had eventually gone bankrupt, though, and the immense building demolished, leaving a desolate vista of crumbling asphalt pockmarked here and there with tufted weeds and grass. I wasn’t sure which was worse - a giant, empty, ghost town of a mall, or the scarred earth left behind when it was taken down.

But some things hadn’t changed at all, like the three gigantic grain silos that towered over the road, dwarfing in their shadow what had once been a Joseph’s grocery store, part of a chain my friend Therese’s family owned. Seeing their last name lit up in big, bright red letters every day made Therese seem almost famous in my third grade mind. Then just on the other side of the railroad tracks was the McDonalds, one of the originals to open near us, where I’d excitedly tried ‘fast food’ for the first time with my friend Lock and his nanny. There was Dr. Lindsey’s office, our orthodontist, and the red brick, elementary school on the corner, with its gigantic liberty type bell in the middle of the concrete playground. 

Then across the bridge into Perrysburg, past the Smith’s house where we’d go every year to their annual Christmas Eve cocktail party, and then the Harts, where the same families would congregate again on Memorial Day to watch the parade go by. Just beyond that was where the old Houcks drugstore used to be, a real old-time pharmacy with its soda fountain, comic book rack, and family charge account. There was the Commodore Perry statue standing guard at the top of Louisiana Avenue, the hub of ‘uptown’ Perrysburg with its small shops and restaurants, and then Elm Street, where Mom had lived for the past thirty years. Across from her house, on the corner, stood St. Rose’s church, with its austere stone facade and soaring steeple, its many parishioners a constant source of irritation to Mom whenever they used her driveway as a turnaround.  

Then block after block filled with all the houses our family’s friends had lived in, their names running through my mind like a litany as I’d drive past each one - the Giffords, the Williams, the Harris’s, the Fauvers, the Millers, the Jones. And then, finally, the house I grew up in, the white clapboard colonial with its red tiled roof and black shutters so achingly familiar I’d feel a sharp pang of bittersweet nostalgia every time I passed by.

Driving back and forth to Hospice those past few weeks had brought back so many random, poignant memories it was as if my younger self was sitting in the car next to me, pointing out places and things I hadn’t thought about in years. Even now, as I waited at a red light in the middle of Maumee, I looked to my left and saw the Five Guys burger place where Mom and I had stopped for lunch just a few months before. It was a mid-autumn day, the sun still warm, so we’d sat at one of the picnic tables set up outside, sharing a cheeseburger and some french fries, sipping our iced teas. How was it possible Mom was gone but I could still see her sitting there so clearly, her face tipped up toward the warmth of the September sun as she waited for me to bring out our lunch?

Grief gripped my throat and I took a shaky breath. Grabbing up my phone, I tried John again, the silence in the car so loud I couldn’t bear it one more second. This time he answered, tears welling up behind my eyes at the sound of his steady, familiar voice. 

“Hey, Peg,” he said, sounding a little rushed. “Everything okay? I’m about to jump on a conference call.”

“Mom just died.” I told him tearfully, swallowing back the sob lodged tight in my chest. And even though I knew keeping track of missed calls and texts was not one of my husband’s greatest strengths, I couldn’t stop myself from adding, a bit peevishly, “I’ve been trying to call you. Where have you been?”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Peg! I was walking Bo and left my phone. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine...a little numb, honestly. It doesn’t feel real.”

And it didn’t, at least not right then. Talking to John it was as if I was playing the part of a daughter whose mother had just died. I felt a certain detachment from myself, like I was one step removed from the reality of what was happening. I suppose that’s why I was able to assure him, then Bill, Elizabeth and Jack when I called to tell them, and then all the other people I talked to that day, that I was fine. It was a blessing. Mom was finally at peace and that’s all that mattered, right?

Well, I guess maybe, but then again, I pretty much wanted to slap anyone who tried to reassure me in the days to follow that losing my mom was, in any possible way, a blessing. 

To be continued...