It seems rather appropriate that the first of these profiles should be about the person who I feel more connected to than anyone the day after my diagnosis – my mother. I am going to have to dig to find some good pictures to sprinkle in here later, but for now, you will have to paint the pictures yourself.
Like me, my mom was more than her diagnosis. She was a working mother of two, a wife, a writer and photographer, a comedian, a terrible terrible cook (sorry, mom), a progressive, and an idealist. She loved country music and classic television. She could kick your butt at Jeopardy. She was kind to animals. She was ambitious. She wrote letters to the editor. She played the lottery religiously and kept track of winning numbers. She liked fortune telling and astrology.
One of my favorite memories of my mom is from when I was about 18. I was hanging out at home with a close girlfriend who went to my high school. I had never talked to my mom about dating. I was very private and it seemed like a weird thing to talk to my mom about, even if she would have been the perfect sounding board. My friend and I were hanging out in the living room and my mom, fairly out of the blue, decided it was the right time to talk with me about relationships. “You know,” she said to me, “It’s okay if you are a lesbian.” My friend and I looked at each other and just about died. It was then I informed her that I was not, in fact, a lesbian, and that I liked boys, a lot.
I loved that about my mom. Honest. Kind. Did not give a shit if I was dating a woman or someone of another race or religion. I was her daughter and she loved me no matter what. Everyone deserves that kind of love.
My mom only spanked me once in my life. I was about 6 and told her I did not love her. Looking back, I can see what warranted the punishment. I was denying her the only thing she actually wanted from me. It did not matter where I went to college, or if I even went to college, who I married, if I even married, or what I did, as long as I was happy. What mattered to her was love. If I loved her and I accepted her love in return, that was good enough.
My mom passed away in 2011, four months shy of her 61st birthday. For most of my life, my mom’s ability to walk was impaired. And yet, I have never once dreamed of her in a wheelchair. In every single dream I have had of her, and there have been plenty since she passed away, she is walking, vibrant, full of life and energy. This was the woman I remember. The dance mother who filmed my recitals and helped back stage. The cookie mom who organized hundreds of boxes of girl scout cookies for my troop. The woman who created from scratch a living version of Clue for my birthday party.
The day we buried my mom, I came upon a caterpillar at the cemetery. It was the most unusual caterpillar I had ever seen: black and red with spikes all over. It was in the middle of the road and Corby moved it safely into the grass. Several days later, we held my mom’s memorial. After the memorial, we went back to the cemetery to place flowers on her grave and visit the grave of my grandmother, who is buried in another spot approximately one city block away. When we laid the flowers at my grandmother’s grave we noticed something extraordinary: the same very unusual caterpillar was within inches of my grandmother’s tombstone. I looked all over to see if I could find another. Perhaps the cemetery was just the lucky home to an extensive number of these exotic creatures. But no, I could only see this one.
Now, I have to admit my biases here. My mom believed in angels and she surrounded herself with them: angel calendars, angel figurines, teddy bears dressed as angels. She did not go to church often, but she was a true believer. I think it gave her something to cling to, particularly as the road she traveled became more and more bleak. Me, not so much. I have never been very spiritual and I do not believe in God or Heaven, though I cannot quite call myself an atheist. For someone who does not buy into the idea of Heaven, death can be fairly anticlimactic. You lived, hopefully well, and now you do not.
My mom loved butterflies, probably as much as angels, which is why it was it was the theme for her memorial. The woman who could not walk on this earth left us to fly. We had butterfly balloons, butterfly tabletop decor, butterfly everything.
If my mom was ever, in any way, going to send me a message that stood any chance of being heard, it was that. That tiny, crawling, black and red, spiky caterpillar whose name, as it turns out, is the mourning caterpillar. You could not script it any better than that.
Mom, I know you wanted me to know you were okay and that I would be okay, too. I understood it then and I understand it now.
the vanishing magician 