Ah So!

It's been something like five years since cancer took my mother, and equally as long since I've had the stomach to visit with my family. It wasn't just mom that died; the whole family institution crumbled, like a downed power line, whipping about and hissing, electrocuting anyone who got too close.

But two weeks ago I made the trip, me and my family, to surprise my Grandma Rose on her 80th birthday, a woman who had to endure the loss of her daughter, a roll of snake eyes in the craps of life, an ordeal worse than any this cruel planet has to offer.

I called her yesterday to wish her happiness on her real birthday, even though we had celebrated it together two weeks early. As usual, she was screening her calls. The mechanical machine monotone greeted:

"Hello... please... leave... a... message... Beep!"

"Hi Grandma, it's Scott, just calling to..." Click.

"Scotty! Hold on! Let me get the other phone! Hold on!" She is hard of hearing, has been all her life, so she has a special phone that is never the one she answers.

"Hello, Grandma."

"Hi sweetie, how are you?"

"Good. I'm just calling to wish you a happy birthday."

"Oh, my real birthday celebration was two weeks ago."

My wife and I mixed into the midst of her adoring friends and family as my aunt escorted her into the restaurant where Grandma expected to meet with my uncle for a quiet dinner. I was holding my twenty month old son in my left arm. Grandma saw my wife first and put both hands over her mouth and her eyes glossed over, and she reached out for her to come. Looking over my wife's shoulder, she finally saw me holding the baby.

"You have such a precious family, Scotty," she told me on the phone. "When I kissed little Emmett it was like Laura was there kissing him too. When I touched his little head it was like it was Laura's hand, and I just know she is here, watching over you."

I tried to keep my voice steady, "I hope so Grandma."

***

"Aunt Sandie, why did mom leave dad."

She looked at me with a stone poker face, but her eyes belied her casual countenance.

"I don't really remember back that far," was all she could muster.

"It's ok. I'm forty years old now; even you have to admit I'm not a baby anymore."

"Well, there might have been some abuse involved, I really don't know. Something happened on their wedding night, but I wasn't involved. But they went though with it anyway."

"Was mom pregnant then?"

"Of course not."

***

My step-mother never remarried since she left my father. She is a devout Catholic of the fire and brimstone variety, whose faith remains strong in a church that refuses to recognize a divorcee as a member. Perhaps she is punishing herself.

By happenstance, after the divorce she moved three thousand miles across the country, within ten miles of my biological mother, and neither had any idea. Whenever George Strait sings All My Exes Live in Texas, my father changes the station. Sometimes I have to believe that there is an angel looking after me, perhaps my great granny Deal, who reminds me that someone up there cares with little gifts like this. When I went to Houston to visit my mom, I got to see my brother and sister too, and for that I am eternally grateful.

"Mom," as I still call her, with a wisp of wryness, "what did you ever see in dad?"

"Have you seen any of his early pictures?" She laughed. "He was quite a macho man."

It's true, I remember seeing an old faded color photo of dad wearing blue jeans and a tucked in tee shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled into his sleeve, and a camel hairy butt hanging carelessly from his lips. He was tall and dark haired, and his face was cool and confident, like an actor from the day when men were men, like a young Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood. His face was forbidding and yet a promise of great things to come.

"When did things go wrong between you?" I asked.

"Right around the time he started fucking my best friend from high school."

"Noooo!"

"Yes! Remember, we used to visit them on weekends when we lived in New York?"

"Yes I do."

"He would drive up there while he said he was away hunting or on business trips."

And it all snapped together for me. The day my father told me that I couldn't go on the fishing trip for lying to my step-mother, how even then I thought he was lying, that he had ulterior motive. I thought it was me.

***

A long time ago, my real mom and I were driving to see the Houston Oilers play the Cincinnati Bengals, on a typical oppressively heat soaked day.

"I wasn't a planned pregnancy, was I mom?"

She looked at me for a moment before answering. "No."

"How did dad take it? I can only imagine that he didn't want it."

"Not at first honey, but once he realized there was nothing he had to say about it, he was very happy."

I smiled wanly. My momma, such a sweet liar.

Interior Decorating

My mom was in the car business all her adult life, beginning her career as a salesman then moving to finance. For many years after she left my father and moved to Houston she remained single, as was the tendency of all my father's ex-wives. As a result, many of the men she introduced me to wore polyester pants, ten gallon cowboy hats, alligator skin boots, had voices slick as Texas tea and were always trying to charm my mother's only son as a tactical maneuver towards the bedroom.

I lived with my dad all my life, and would visit mom on summer vacation. When I turned seventeen, my dad got me a beat up, navy blue Chevy Nova, the most welcomed and amazing gift I had ever received. It was quirky, and developed rust holes in the floorboards through which you could put your feet and drive Flintstones style. It had an awful backfire; if you let off the gas too quickly it sounded off like a firing squad, or the finale of a fourth of July celebration. But there weren't too many cars in town that could outrun it; she could do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

Mom came to see my high school graduation, bless her heart. It must have been some shock to come from the land of consumerism, big houses and new cars to no-man's-land Alaska and take up guest accommodations in our shanty trailer. My car must have been the deal breaker, because when I started at college, she told me to get myself down to Houston, because she was sending me home in a new car.

It was a Chevy Cavalier, replete with a strange odor that I had never experienced without a fancy air freshener: new car smell. But that as it turned out would be fleeting.

I gathered a couple of my friends for the road trip back to Washington where I was attending college. We rolled a few joints for the trip and agreed to take shifts and drive straight through. I drove to College Station, home of the Aggies, to pick them up. On the way, a little rock flew into my windshield and created a spider web crack, my first ding, and I cursed the heavens, steaming all the way.

We set out for Washington and I drove for as long as I could take it, and turned the wheel over to Alan, or Tex as everybody called him. I met him in Alaska, and it was by sheerest coincidence that he moved near my mother in Texas. His accent was thick, which earned him his incredibly inventive nickname, and aside from being unemployed, he had every bit of the car salesman personality. He had long blonde hair and fair, feminine features, and was smash hit with the ladies, a great ice breaker at parties.

I decided to get some sleep, so I showed him the map and told him where to go, and he said, "Yeah yeah," in a dismissive tone. When I woke up, we were on a farm road a distance north of where we should have been, and nearly ran into a cow sleeping in the road. I had to get out and shoo him away.

Tex pulled out one of our joints, and after a few pulls, the mood was once again serene as we flew down the highway, once again on track, somewhere in the middle of rural Texas.

"Look," said Tex, pointing ahead to the side of the road, "a deer."

Most people would have slowed down, but he kept on going, happy as you please at eight five. As we approached, the deer decided that it needed to be on the other side of the highway, and shot in front of us in a single bound, and there was nothing we could do. It was in the midst of a jump when we collided, which pushed it's legs forward, spinning the deer a three quarter rotation before it shattered our windshield; it exploded like a water balloon and double layered the interior and everything in it with blood, excrement and liquid the color of wheat grass, and fell into a formless heap onto Tex's lap.

He screamed like a B movie actress and forgot to drive the car, which flew in auto pilot, thankfully straight.

"Tex!" I panicked. "Do not panic! Step on the brake and stop the car."

He looked at me uncomprehendingly and yelled, "What?!"

"Stop the car!"

"Oh my god! I can't hear anything." He put his fingers to his ears and pulled out clumps of green, undigested grass. His face was starting to bleed from a hundred tiny glass cuts, but his eyes registered relief as he realized that he was not deaf after all. He looked at the deer and his panic heightened again.

"Tex just stop the car god dammit," but he picked up the deer instead with two hands and threw it in my lap. I recoiled in disgust and kicked it into the floor boards and jumped up on my seat, every bit as panicked as he was moments before. Tex got control of the car and brought it to a stop.

We realized that the deers head and right front leg had been severed, so out of morbid curiosity I walked back the surprisingly short distance to where the rest was laying alongside the road. It's jaws were lying beside the mouth like a set of dentures.

Eventually an elderly couple stopped to give us a hand. The car had a new interior and a gaping wound through the windshield on the drivers side. They had a large supply of water, as they were coming back from a camping trip, so we each took turns washing the glass and body juices off us. They also gave us three or four old sheets to cover the seats with.

We drove the car to the nearest town and found a Chevy dealership. By now the car smelled like a slaughter house. The head mechanic, with a white patch on his breast that said 'Earl', sporting a lump of Copenhagen between his cheek and gum, took a long appraising look at the damage.

He turned to one of his men and laughed sadistically, "Better call in Billy on this one, he's low man on the totem pole."

The Funeral

Mom's cancer went into remission, and I fooled myself into thinking that she had a year, perhaps more, that I had time to make my peace with her, or perhaps with myself. She was an extravagant spender of the bank's money, and so deep was my denial that I told her to stop and think about the future. I wasn't the son that I would like to have been. I should have cried with her and told her that I loved her, that she would always be in my heart, that my children would regret not knowing her from the stories I would tell. I regret that I did not, but before she died, she was given a gift that eclipsed any she had ever received: a grandson.

My aunt called me and told me to come, that Mom was in the ICU and hooked to an air tube because her lungs were losing their ability to retain oxygen. My family and I flew to Houston but I went to see mother alone. The nurse, a Nigerian woman with a lilting accent, took me to see mom, laying there with that awful tube shoved down her throat so that her mouth was pried open in a permanent yawn.

"Laura," the nurse said loudly enough to address an audience, "your son is here."

Mom's eyes fixed on hers with a look that seemed to ask, "where?"

"Not me Laura," the nurse said in a tone that could be mistaken for mockery, to which I took offense, "he's right here." She pointed at me.

I put my hand in hers, smiled and said, "Hi mom." She looked at me for a moment, concentrating.

"That's your son Laura."

And the last conversation I ever had with my mom ended with a squeeze of her hand, and she knew I was there.

Mom's ex-husband Scotty -- technically he was an ex-husband, but in most all other aspects he was part of mom's life -- was in mom's house when I arrived earlier that evening. He knew I was coming and called my Aunt and demanded to have the keys to the house, or else, he threatened, he would break in.

His daughter Kimberly was a juvenile delinquent, with past drug and alcohol addictions, and had spent some time in jail. Mom hated her, and told me Kimberly had stolen jewelry from her that had to be bought back from the pawn shop. Kimberly and her father were both at mom's house the night I arrived, all hugs and condolences. I was too upset to fully understand what was really going on.

Mom had a safe hidden in her closet, which was now open and empty, but that detail would only be revealed later.

I shared my mothers last moments in the company of these two grave robbers. Kimberly held my mothers' hand. I know what I should have done, what would have made me feel better, but I knew that even though mom had divorced Scotty, that she loved him more than the breath she could no longer take.

The doctor pulled me aside and told me that the end was near, and after getting a second opinion to his diagnosis, I authorized a large dose of morphine so that she could go peacefully. When the time came, her eyes opened wide, and for the first time in my life, I noticed how beautiful they were, like a sunny blue crystal lake.

Scotty leapt on top of her and kissed her all over her face, sobbing and screaming, "my baby, my sweet darling, she's gone, oh my god!" I thought he was serious until his fingers started to probe her earlobes and removed her earrings. He never looked up, just reached back, face down on top of her, with his palm turned upwards, and presented them to me. I looked at his hand in horror, and knew the devil through his disguise. I kept my cool and took them and put them on a dresser. He got up and joined the group of nurses and doctors, who were all waiting for me to break down and give them an even bigger show, but my tears would wait. My grief didn't belong to them. I put my head on her chest and said simply, "Goodbye mom."

After that, the deluge.

The family descended like seagulls. A meeting at the mom's house was thrown together to decide how to divide everything up. According to the will, everything was mine, but for a few items specifically given to Scotty. But the pressure was immense.

"I gave this to my aunt and it is special to me. If you don't want it, but no pressure."

"Your mom had a deal with her friend, that whoever died first would give each other their dinnerware set."

"If you don't need this couch, my daughter sorely needs one."

"She once told grandma that she wanted me to have this necklace."

It was my aunt that noticed the safe.

"Laura had made brown paper sacks of her jewelry to give to each of the girls, and now they are gone!"

More family was called in. Everybody decided that I had to do something about it, but the only person who wanted to help me get through it, aside from my wife of course, was my cousin's husband Jim. He was a mountain of a man with the gentleness of a teddy bear. "I'll go over and get anything back that he took," he said to me.

"Do you think he really stole mom's things?" I asked him.

"This isn't his first rodeo."

I thought about it for a moment. "Jim, I appreciate that you would do that for me, but I have to handle this myself."

"Well buddy, I'm here if you need me."

The next day I called Scotty and demanded that he return everything he stole.

"Are you calling me a thief? Because if you are, then we are going to punch it out."

He had a little wiggle room, because earlier in the year, he had presented me with mom's will while she was upstairs sleeping, and asked that he be able to keep the jewelry he had bought her. I didn't want to talk about it at the time, and agreed without thinking. I didn't realize at the time he was talking about all her jewelry. And don't get me wrong, jewelry means nothing to me. I want the memory. It meant something to her, and like a song that brings you back to the time you heard it first, I feel my mother when I hold it close. That's all tainted now by the ugliness involved in getting it back.

He continued, "You said I could have it!"

"What were you doing in her house then, why couldn't we go in together. Instead you snuck in, desperate to be there before I got there. There's something wrong with that."

"I wanted to clean it up before you got there! I couldn't let you see the house in the state it was in." Like Jim said, this wasn't his first rodeo.

Houston is a big city, but I had the bad luck to pull right behind Scotty at a stop light. He got out and confronted me in the street. We shoved each other and had some hard words, but in the end, he stormed off and arranged for the jewelries return. I knew there was more, but how could I prove it?

I arranged for Scotty to have a private viewing before everyone else arrived. The family railed against me for letting him even come, but I blew up at the whole group of them.

"Everybody in this room needs to understand one thing: this is about MOM and what MOM would have wanted! Do you think she would be proud of what I have done so far? Mom loved him so he is coming to the funeral, and that is the end of it."

I sat down and wrote a eulogy, but it was weak. It lacked any real substance because I didn't even know her, that our lives had been spent apart.

When we got to the funeral, my family had taken all the front row seats. I stepped up and looked at them, and they all smiled back, but nobody offered me their seat. I sat in front of Scotty and avoided his gaze. His picture was amongst the other family shots on stands in front of mom's open coffin. He whispered in my ear, "Thank you for including my picture."

I turned to him. "She loved you Scotty, more than anything."

"And she loved you Scott, and she never doubted that you loved her."

The reverend finished his eulogy, and looked to me to give mine. I brought my printed speech and placed it on the podium. I turned to see my mother, laying there, adorned with all the jewelry Scotty had given back. A lump formed in my throat. I pursed my lips and looked at the audience, waiting patiently for me to say something.

"When I was sixteen years old," I forced out, then paused. The audience was waving like a desert mirage, my throat constricted and I couldn't talk. I collected myself and managed in a strangled bleat, "my mom made the biggest mistake in her life and gave me the keys to the car."

I looked helplessly at my wife, who pointed towards herself and mouthed, "Me?" I nodded and she took my place. She would later tell me that she was proud to be my wife that day, to be there when I needed her. And I did, so very much. I took my seat and cried like I never had before. Finally I was able to cry for my mom, but partly I did so out of relief, that I really did love her.

Scotty put both of his hands on my shoulders from his seat behind me. I grabbed the hand on my right shoulder and held on tight.

Ode to Mom

June 4th was my mother's birthday, and for the first time since her death I forgot to call my maternal grandmother to reminisce. Death does funny things to a family. Suddenly everyone was very close to the deceased, and as such deserves a "little" piece for posterity.

My mom was unhappy for most of her life. If I had to sum up what was most important to her in one word, I would say men. Like most parents, it's hard to see them clearly until you gather the perspective of all that know them. As a child you are told nothing of value, only non-statements such as, "You're mom is a damn good woman," or "She did what she thought was best for you." Uh, yeah, ok. Mom always took care of mom first, and gave me what was left over.

When I was three or four, my dad went to work like any other day, but came home to an empty apartment. Some man helped us load the UHaul truck, someone I knew from around the apartment complex. Mom told me that dad was meeting us where we were going. I don't remember when or how she finally told the truth. Funny, I remember a lot of things, but that one detail escapes me.

We lived with my Grandma for a while. My Grandpa took the training wheels from my bike and watched me ride it alone for the first time. Incidentally, I rode it on the street. Back then it didn't matter where you rode as long as you looked both ways. My how the world has changed since then.

How many times did I cry for my dad? Did I even speak to him on the phone?

Mom told me to go to my room, so I plugged my record player into an extension chord and bit the connection. My eyes saw static, the kind you see when the channel isn't available. When I pulled the chords apart, an tiny egg shaped depression had burnt into my upper lip. I told my mom what I did and she sent me back to my room. Her eyes never left the TV set.

Who was I to her back then? A nuisance, a mistake that could have been prevented by wearing a condom god damnit. Heads up to you parents out there, kids know, and they know early.

She told me one day that she was sending me to live with my father. I screamed for joy and bounced up and down on her bed. I never thought in my childish mind what that did to her, it wasn't intended to hurt.

My father's mother picked me up to drive me. Perhaps dad couldn't rely on his self restraint. Only then did I realize that I was leaving mom forever, and when the tears came I couldn't speak or think. I watched the receding figure of my mom in the rear window. Her face might as well have been a likeness on Mt. Rushmore. My grandma still tells me about that day, and how bad she felt for me. If I let go I can still be moved.

When I was old enough to drive, and visiting during summer breaks, the same old mom didn't have any time to spend with me, but she had cool cars, and a different one every year. She had no compunctions about giving me the keys and enough money to enjoy. Not every kid drove a Z-28, unless of course they were rich. Maybe mom was buying me off, as one of my step mothers felt inclined to suggest, but I was in no mood to question her methods. I was a poor kid living with my dad. I wore the same old corduroy pants that ripped in several lines from the foot to the knee. Every day before school I would go to one of the classrooms and tape it from behind with masking tape. I didn't even know how to bathe until Shawna in ninth grade told me I stunk. Then I took one every day whether I needed it or not. I always wondered why other guys got on so well with the girls, but I couldn't get the time of day. But when I visited with mom, the first stop was the mall to get a whole summer wardrobe. I felt almost human when I came home from fantasyland, back into the real world of poverty, despair and disheveled hair.

Mom killed herself, not in the literal sense, but with cigarettes and vodka. Her ex-husband, a "rehabilitated" ex-con, was there with me to witness her final moment. Her crystal blue eyes opened wide in shock, then the lights went out but the eyes still shone, staring sightless to heaven where I hope she is waiting for me today. I loved her, and yet I was so disappointed in her too, for not loving me, not holding me or making me the priority that an only son should be. The nurses in the ICU stared at me, anticipating a big show of tears. Her ex was straddled on top of her, kissing her and mumbling incoherently, but I stood there looking at her, my face next to hers on that far away Dakotan monument. I lay my head on her chest and said goodbye, but to me, a body, ruined, riddled with cancer throughout most of her internal organs, was all that remained. My mother was somewhere else.

I feel like I need to apologize to her, but if she were here she would tell me that she understands. She was just that way, a realist that didn't have the same secrets that most of us have. Her secrets were much darker, so normal secrets were just insignificant.

Wait for me mom. But first, I have some children to raise, love, respect, and never, ever, let go.