And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That's when those blue memories start calling
Blue Christmas, Elvis Presley
If I had any hopes that relatives and acquaintances nearby would continue to keep in touch, they were soon dashed at the beginning of the new year. Perhaps they thought Dad and I would accept Mom’s loss after three months—and that dwelling on it would only make us grieve longer. Perhaps those around us were finally fed up with driving us around; after all, they’d been doing so since last May. Who could blame them?
And yet, I thought, we’d been very appreciative. We frequently offered them lunch or dinner—which they always declined (I suppose that should have been a clear sign?) We gave all of those who helped us Christmas baskets to be shared with their families. I could understand why they may not have been particularly interested in me since I was considerably younger than them and not very fluent in Taiwanese, but why did Dad’s acquaintances—all of whom were retired, just like him—abandon him so suddenly despite having known him for the last seven years?
By early February, after Chinese New Year, the vast majority of the folks from the Taiwanese association had lost touch with us. Any hopes that they would invite Dad to their get-togethers faded as a part of me desperately wished that they would come and take him off my hands so that I could work peacefully and uninterruptedly just like in earlier days when Mom and Dad participated in their outings. But that was not to be. In fact, one widow, Mrs. Chang,* even made it clear that I was expected to accompany him in case of an accident or health issue. No problem, I answered, probably sounding a bit disappointed. Rather than risk any of these issues, I suppose, no one called us to join their get-togethers. I felt genuinely sad for Dad because he loved to go out and eat more than anything else. Not to mention that he would be able to converse in his native language.
What a reversal from the memorial service. For instance, the same Mrs. Chang who lived nearby and had seemed initially eager to help us, began to back away—as did her friend, Mrs. Pang, who also gave us rides. Both lived nearby and both had been friendly with Mom. And soon enough, after stipulating that I accompany my Dad on their outings, Mrs. Chang began to urge me to learn to drive. She had every reason to make this suggestion, of course: after all, I was not Miss Daisy and everyone had their own lives. And as a younger person in my early 50s, I was always more than well aware that I should have been helping these retirees out, not vice-versa. On multiple occasions, she’d tell me to conquer my phobia, as she put it.
But a part of me wondered: since she was well aware of the intensity of my grief for I had mentioned it quite frequently—didn’t it ever occur to her that my grief would make me more nervous and distracted? What if my agitation led to poor decisions, causing an accident? I had noticed how my mind seemed to slow down since September as if my nerves could only take so much at one time. What if I accelerate instead of braking on time? What if an ambulance approaches when I’m already having difficulties? I knew I could ill afford an accident at this point: my book on Paine was already delayed by several months. If I was going to have any career at all, I had to finish it. (Little did I anticipate that my university wouldn’t particularly care, but that’s a subject to be dealt with in another post.) More importantly still, I wanted to dedicate this book to Mom—it would be my homage to her after all these years: it was she who made me and created me in so many ways—and I wanted the world to know it.
And of course, as Dad’s primary caregiver—not to mention the cats—I could ill afford an accident. If Dad wasn’t going to burn down the house, which he had nearly done on more than one occasion when Mom and I were out, or inadvertently kill the cats, I had to be in one piece. I had to prepare the meals and clean up downstairs at the very least. Spending the next several months in a cast was the last thing I needed. Moreover, God forbid I kill or maim someone else while driving. WHY DID NO ONE UNDERSTAND THIS?
In retrospect—and even back then—I realize that this expectation for a continuation of weekly rides was selfish. America is the land of the free and independent, after all. But all I could think about was how desperate I felt and how various grievers continued to be helped for a year. Why couldn’t WE get help? Losing Mom and any assistance felt like a double whammy then.
Added to these worries was our freak weather that winter. We had never had so many blizzard warnings—and not just ordinary run-of-the-mill blizzards with a foot of snow but the kind we had in 2011 when we lost power for over a week. How would Dad manage without heat? If Mom were here, I thought, these challenges would feel more bearable: but now, the warnings only reminded me of the stark differences between then and now. In 2011, Mom returned home five weeks after the storm—how happy I was to see her again! And, in 2012—how much at relative ease I felt as she was with me! Thankfully, though, the blizzards did not turn out as badly as I feared. But I learned something: a fit of nerves generally exacerbated my grief.
On top of all this were the daily triggers I faced. Perhaps this was already because I had always been a nostalgic person, looking fondly back on past years. And now, the force of these triggers would be tripled. Sometimes seeing a lipstick I bought in March would remind me vividly of the weeks just before Mom’s stroke. Maybe a sweater would remind me of a visit we made to the hospital…when we thought she was recovering. These recollections of hopeful times, of course, would again only serve to highlight the dramatic differences between then and now. Or maybe I’d be vacuuming and pick up a receipt for lunch on the day she died. The day I brought Charlie to the vet during one bitterly cold January day made me recall a similar visit to the same vet with Mom. And so on. My mind was on constant playback, it seemed.
Then there were other types of triggers—the kind that arrived very unexpectedly and I thought, unreasonably. There was the cloudy morning when a receptionist at the office of Mom’s primary physician called to ask why she didn’t show up for her appointment yesterday. (Ummm…you know she passed away four months ago, right? In fact, Dr. Jacobs recorded her death.) This was followed a few days later by a call from her neurologist asking a similar question even though he had discussed her second stroke that knocked her into a coma. (Actually, your office should have files indicating that he was the one who examined Mom after the second stroke that rendered her comatose.) Then later on came a call from her cardiologist for a similar matter. I had to smile wryly when they asked me where Mom was. “She’s here—in her urn. I doubt she can speak to you.” DIDN’T THESE DOCTORS’ OFFICES HAVE ANY RECORD OF MOM’S DEATH? Or was she so unimportant that no one bothered?
But perhaps the worst was an old voicemail from Mom. I was in the process of deleting a long list of voicemails from last year when I suddenly heard her voice. “Frances, it’s me, Mom. I’m scared. I have a biopsy because they think I have cancer. When are you coming? I’m really scared. It must have been from the Friday immediately following her hospitalization in June. And we did see her that very day as we did every day that she was hospitalized. I kept the voicemail as it was the only record I had of her voice even though it was so heartbreaking.
There were also acute recollections which came as I was working on my book. As I went through my notes, I couldn’t help but recall the times I wrote them. Going through Rousseau’s tract on inequality brought back memories of the first two days after the stroke. Seeing my notes on Montesquieu brought back memories of the day that the social worker told us to prepare for her passing while rereading my introduction made me think of our New Year’s dinner of 2014. (How Mom loved the way I tweaked the smoked roast beef—and how I relished her Western-styled duck. Little did we know that was our last New Year together...) Was the rest of my time to be spent on this book going to be complete agony? Trying to concentrate for any more than 20 minutes seemed like a real chore as the memories surged in my mind to the point where I wanted to scream and throw the laptop across the room. It was time for me to get new books on the French Revolution, I thought, just so I wouldn’t be burdened with the constant replay of memories from last year. I needed new memories. Yet, only days later, I received an email from an editor with a request for a draft: which meant returning to my writing and the notes.
Not that I would ever forget these associations invoked by the notes from that year in the hospital; even four years later, when I was going over my book manuscript one last time before submitting it to the editor, they were still resurfacing in my mind. But I was happier then, excited that I was finally close to finished. It was then, and only then, that the memories lost their painful sting.
In turn, my difficulty concentrating spurred other memories of loss. I thought of the time my second cat, Sir Fopling Flutter, expired on New Year’s Eve, an hour before the start of 2008. I had spent New Year’s Day trying to complete corrections on my edition of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Rose and Key but couldn’t focus at all as I kept leafing through my photo albums, revisiting our moments together; as such, a task which should only have taken a few hours took three times as long. He had been my favorite cat, probably the sweetest and most affectionate one I had ever had as he followed me around constantly. It took me at least several months for my grief to calm down as I blamed myself for his loss: maybe if we hadn’t moved to Connecticut so soon, he might still be alive. I also recalled thinking to myself then, thank God, Mom is here so I’m not completely lonely and miserable. (Oh God, how will I feel when I lose Charlie and Georgie one day? I will probably be all alone, feeling devastated.)
Not least was I confronted by the problem that there were few resources for people like me—middle-aged “children” who had lost a parent. While there were many for those who had lost a spouse or a child, there were none for me. After all, people my age were expected to accept the loss of their parents, especially since they were no longer dependent and probably had other closer connections such as spouses and children. The few resources for those who had lost a parent were aimed towards children and teens. People like me, in other words, had been written out of the grief equation.
Indeed, I was virtually all alone, worrying about money on top of being depressed, grieving, and finding little support from anyone. It was then I realized how expensive Dad’s meds—no fault of his, of course. The taxi rides to his doctors. And since we were going out anyway, Dad wanted to eat out as well. I thought of all the famous people I knew who had mourned deeply for the loss of their loved ones: Charlotte Brontë for the loss of her siblings, especially Emily; Thomas Carlyle, who lost his wife, Jane; Charles Darwin who lost his daughter, Annie; C.S. Lewis, who lost his wife, Helen; Roland Barthes, who lost his mother. All were settled, enjoying some degree of stability, if not fame. And here I was, worried about falling into bankruptcy. Just one more worry on top of my grief.
But more crucially, I desperately longed to talk to others about Mom, about my feelings, even as I felt that no one wanted to hear me; already feeling rebuffed by the members of the Taiwanese association, I began to feel it was also wrong to encumber my best friends and closest relatives with my woes. Even today, I think it would have been nice had someone reached out—never mind the rides. Self-pity flowed abundantly as I was sad and angry that I had been deserted by everyone when I most needed help. I thought bitterly to myself if those members of the association had sons and daughters who didn’t drive but were writing books, they probably wouldn’t be forced to learn to drive. They would take their darlings everywhere if necessary. They were ambitious parents after all, many of them having sent their children to the Ivies and other prestigious universities. (Why would they care about my ambitions?) They wouldn’t dare risk an accident with their own children. But now, I was nobody’s daughter. No one cared whether I’d get a better job. No one cared if I had to complete a book. No one cared if I went crazy taking care of my father. No one bothered to check how I was doing. No one cared if I was lonely: it was that which stung the most. If no one was willing to give a ride, couldn’t they at least ask how we were doing??
I simply didn’t matter.
*All names have been changed to protect identities.
I really enjoyed the piece. You're a great writer. I could relate to so much of it. You're so right about how there's just not much for middle aged people losing a parent. Everything I come across seems to be about children who have lost a parent, or someone who's lost a spouse. Like you said middle-aged people are expected to be self-sufficient and have families of their own. Unfortunately I'm neither of them oh, I had no one other than my mother and I'm currently unemployed.
I can even relate to you not driving as I'm one of those odd people that also doesn't drive. I got my driver's license 31 years ago at age 20 and have kept it up to date, but knew right away this was not an activity I wanted to engage in. I just found it so incredibly anxiety-inducing I just never really did it.
I also continue to find it difficult to think about anything other than my mom specifically the final six weeks. Almost everything I see triggers a memory of that period of six weeks or triggers a memory of when we were hopeful that things might be well. I can't seem to get out of that Loop. Two weeks after she passed I wish I could say it was getting better but today was probably the worst day ever. Having to cancel her credit cards and repeatedly tell the person on the other end of the phone my mom passed away while looking over her death certificate just bashed me in the head with the finality of it all. Anyway, just a great piece of writing. I thought it was really moving and was truly about to relate to it.