Catherine and Mommy in April, 1994 Catherine DeVine / August 2001 On the brink of turning fifty I miss her terribly. Mom went to her grave on the brink of turning eighty insisting that the fifties are the best. She made a strong case for it: “You’ve still got your looks, you’ve got some money, and your work is done.” Words to that effect. It was obvious to us that she still had her looks and had some money. Her work isn’t done as long as we miss her. She called us Darling and Pumpkin in her early attempts to mask her dislike of motherhood. She wanted friends, not kids. We made her wait a long time before we befriended her. We pooped on her, we shouted at her, we slammed our doors on her first. Then one by one we left the nest and started calling Mom. Collect. How do you make chicken and rice? Cream of mushroom soup, some rice, and some chicken. The soup was the secret ingredient. She really was an awful cook. Omelet? Put a bunch of eggs in the oven. Spaghetti? Put a bunch of noodles in the oven. How do you boil water? Put it in the oven. Mom, they wanna promote me. What should I do? Cathy, they never give you a second chance. Oh. Mom, I’m not wild about this guy who wants to get married. Silence on the other end of the line, then this nugget: “You should marry a man who loves you just a little bit more than you love him.” Whoa. Where did that come from??? She was born in 1914 to a very young mother and an artistic father who adored her and photographed her almost daily according to the family archives. He died long before I was born. Our grandmother told jokes. We called her Mother. She lived with us and worked very hard in the house. At the end of a long day climbing up and down stairs, toward the end of her life, she would sit with a glass of sherry and sigh, “I feel like a new bride. A little sore, but satisfied.” She called me into her room one afternoon when I was maybe sixteen. I can still picture the sunlight on her face. “Cathy. Why is the Mona Lisa smiling?” A trick question. I dunno, Mother, tell me. “Because she’s not pregnant.” And she laughed and laughed and laughed. Our grandmother taught us how to love women. Mom let her do that, and then took her place. This is a long story made short. Mom made her own long story shorter by one year: a typographical error on her passport. Proof positive that she was only sixty-five when she was really sixty-six. Only sixty-nine when she was seventy. The ripple in the rug hit the wall just before seventy-nine. We knew it was really eighty. She knew we would blab. She hit the wall. She did it gracefully and in a somewhat leisurely fashion, hosting her death at home with Hospice and hospitality. Another long story made short. It took four weeks. Gina and I spent the month with her counting the days and staying awake every night. The nights were endless. Cooing and soothing. Tons of touching. A Very Good Death is the title of Simone de Beauvoir’s little book about two sisters helping their mother die. We read it and took to calling each other Simone and Poupette, soothing and stroking each other. At an ungodly hour when we desperately needed sleep, Mom said, “I love to hear you girls laugh.” I want to tell her everything. I want to hear her voice on my phonemail the way she used to leave messages composed like letters, Love you, bye-bye. I want to push her wheelchair back to the table and ask her what childbirth is like. I want to find out what really went on between our grandmother and Mr. Esposito. Oh, the questions that go unanswered. Oh, the stories I keep to myself now that Mom is gone. We turned out to be such good friends. She said at the end, “Lie close to me so I can see you. Hold my hand.” Catherine DeVine lives and works in Carrboro. Home | Overview | About Us | Ads | Art | Businesses | Carrboro and Area Stuff | Carrboro Map | Computer Stuff | Downtown Carrboro Map | Events | Prices | Restaurants | UniqueOrn Enterprises