I heard back from the social worker at my mother's nursing home today. I had left messages, wanting to know why they never called to tell me she'd gone into hospice and died. "I guess it was all a miscommunication" was pretty much the answer I got. "Someone (she refused to specify who) tried to call you, but they couldn't get an answer." It seems that a nameless someone had called the cell phone number I've had since 2002 and claimed that they didn't even get a voicemail message. Since this is the first time I have ever heard of this happening with my phone service, I asked the social worker how many times one tries a dying person's Power of Attorney/child before giving up. Her response was "Uh...well when's the last time YOU called the doctors to see how she was?" This is the same woman who told me two years ago that I was doing the right thing by leaving New York, that my mom was vegetative and it was time for me to start my non-caregiving life. "Look," she said towards the end of the call, "I wish it had happened differently but this is what happened and now it's over."What is over: My mom's life is over, the course of her awful disease is over and my trips to Yonkers are almost over. When I get a better and more truthful explanation from St. Joseph's (and I file a complaint with the Department of Health) my dealings with the nursing home will finally be over too. What I'd like to be over the soonest though is this one feeling that comes and goes when I get sad about her being dead. It's kind of like being alone in a dark bar in the middle of the day, with no music on so the only noises are glasses being washed or a stool scooting across the floor. Like this weird and very specific kind of loneliness which probably everyone gets when their parent dies, or some variation of it anyway.
Also: A few of my mom's cousins have offered up memories of what she was like before she had me, which I can't get enough of. But they've also said things like "Your Mom was a survivor and so are you" — the word "survivor" was used by more than one person when talking about her, or saying the two of us had been through a lot. It reminded me of a quote I read from Donatella Versace right after her brother Gianni was murdered. She said something like 'so many people are telling me how all of this made me so strong, well I'm strong enough now and I don't want to be any stronger.' That was the first time I wondered if calling someone a "survivor" isn't just kind of polishing a turd. Isn't it really just saying you're the kind of person that crappy things happen to a lot, and you handle it with the natural human response that is survival? Where is the honor in that? I don't want to be lumped into this Survivors Club they speak of. I'm totally good with running the Getting Good and Bad in Equal Measure and Dealing with it Okay crowd.
I promise this is like my next to last post about my mother dying and the next one will be a playlist! I found this Warpaint cover of one of Mom's favorite Bowie songs while I was compiling it.
Warpaint - Ashes to Ashes
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