Monday, March 7, 2016

Mother's Day

I don't believe in coincidences, at least not as a rule.

Today, while I was in my therapist's waiting room, a woman entered. She carried a small pet carrier. Within it, a small black and white dog whimpered, and the woman tried to shush her. 

"It's okay," I said. "She's not bothering me." And then I looked at the woman and said, "One of those days?" I thought maybe she'd taken the dog to the vet and that appointment went long and she didn't have time to take the dog home before her own appointment. 

The woman said, "She's my mother's dog. My mother just died two weeks ago and the dog can't be left alone. All I could think was to bring her with me."

I met her gaze and said, "I understand. Soon it will be six years since my mother's death." I added, "It sucks, doesn't it?"

And she said softly, "Yes, it really does suck."

Before we could talk any longer, the woman's therapist came out and seemed delighted to see the dog was with her and ushered them both into her office. Meanwhile, I started rooting around in my purse for a tissue.

As I did, I remembered an appointment I had a few months after my mom died. (No, I did not have a dog--or a cat--with me.) My mom and I lived together and her bedroom was by the back door. As I walked past her room, a wave of grief washed over me. My whole life, when I would leave the house, my mom would tell me I looked pretty. When she and I would laugh about her ardent feminism and how maybe she should have told me I looked smart or brave or confident, she would shrug. When she left the house, it was her mom's custom to tell her she looked pretty. Some things just get handed down.  

That day, I realized that I would never, in this life, hear my mom tell me I looked pretty. The thought almost made me double over in pain. Next I realized that if I did something crazy, like got married, she wouldn't be there to zip up my dress, smooth my hair, and tell me, before I walked towards the aisle, that I looked pretty. 

Already running late, I bit my lip, pulled myself together, and headed out to the car. 

When I arrived at the doctor's office, the elevator door opened and a young woman, maybe in her 20s, with Down's Syndrome* and accompanied by her mother, looked me straight in the eye and said, "You look so pretty today." 

I smiled, thanked her, and assured her that she, too, looked so pretty. I stepped into the elevator and, as the doors closed, I half-laughed and half-cried. It was just like my mom to find a way to tell me that and remind me that she wasn't as far away as she seemed.

During a recent trip to San Diego, I kept noticing dandelions. It surprised me that they'd escaped the hotel's gardeners. Something about those dandelions made me smile. I liked their wild determination. Today, I noticed some again, and scribbled a potential line for a poem: my path is strewn with dandelions. 

Tonight, I glanced at the note and remembered. My mom once wrote a poem about my brother, aged two or three, bringing her a bouquet of dandelions. I've looked everywhere for the poem and I can't find it. But I know she wrote something like this "Even though it was early March, not May, it was in fact Mother's Day."

I miss my mom, but my path is strewn with dandelions. 



*I mention the Down's Syndrome because people with Down's Syndrome frequently play the role of messenger in after-death communications. Some think it's that they are closer to the spirit world; some think it's because they are less inhibited. I think it might be both.