I woke this morning to an unbidden memory of me, a young child, sitting on my mother’s lap. I loved her so much in that moment, I feared losing her and blurted, “I hope I die before you.”
She slapped me. I can’t remember if it was verbal or physical, not that it mattered, I was stunned at the rejection of my expression of love.
It’s been on my mind all morning, why she reacted the way she did. Then I remembered she saw her mother and her mother-in-law each lose a child.
When my mother was in grade school, her 19-year-old brother died of leukemia. She heard about his passing on the school bus. Gossip in a small town.
My mother rarely spoke about the grief of losing him, or the grief her mother endured, but I imagine it was searing.
As a kid, I spent summers with her mother, Ma. We all called her that. She lost two children, an eldest daughter before my mother was born, and her son.
I enjoyed spending time with Ma. She told me you eat a pound of dirt before you die. True words, although I have eaten more than a pound by now thanks to her saving me from drowning when I jumped off Pout Rock into deep water. Always no nonsense, she hiked up her dress and pulled a terrified me out of Lake Whitehall.
When I became a mother, I asked her what it was like to lose a child. She said, it was harder to lose a child you lived with for 19 years, than a baby, but both hurt.
My mother was there when my Nana lost her 17-year-old son in a car accident. After Thanksgiving dinner, my father and great uncle went to the store for cigarettes. They heard police sirens, followed, and discovered the mangled car my father once owned.
My mother, pregnant with me, found my father curled up in a ball in the back seat of his uncle’s car. She opened the door and sternly said, “Joe, get up. Your mother needs you. Go in and take care of her.” He did. And he continued to take care of others until his own illness stopped him.
I was born the following January. Nana took care of me when my mother went back to work. I never saw her grieve. She was in constant motion, spoke softly, if she spoke at all. I do not recall her reprimanding me, but then again, she had a look that stopped anyone from stepping sideways. From her, I learned to keep moving forward no matter what is in the way.
Over the years too many aunts, cousins, friends, have lost children, grandchildren. I never know what to say. I don’t think there is anything that can be said.
I understand my mother’s instinctive reaction to that small child that was me. She loved me as much as I loved her.
Love is always the answer.
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